Tommy Stinson (Of The Replacements)

It only took two songs for someone to call for “Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out”. That sort of sums up the whole evening. Tommy Stinson came to Iota Club and Cafe and the aging members of the Greater Washington College Rock Nostalgia Society were out in full force. The fabled pubescent bass player for the ’80s indie legends The Replacements, Stinson got an early start in music. He wasn’t even in high school when the band got together in 1979. And although he’s spent the better part of the last two decades pursuing his own projects, he’s still best known for his work with the ‘Mats. Frankly, it was his Replacements work that brought me to the show. I had no idea what to expect: perhaps a frozen-in-time Tommy, flipping the pinball machines before playing his set; possibly a shambling drunk doing his best Westerberg impression. Iota was packed with fans who wanted him to be all of those things and more. ”Do you think anybody here came here knowing what to expect?” I asked the guy behind me in line for the john. ”I didn’t expect him to look like Duran Duran,” he said. As the recording secretary of the Simon LeBon fan club, I had been secretly hoping that he would. But if people were looking for Replacements-style drunken antics, they would soon go home disappointed. What they got instead was a sometimes-sloppy but largely satisfying set from a man who is now emerging in his own right as a solo artist. The show mostly consisted of songs from Stinson’s recent solo release Village Gorilla Head, presented in an acoustic setting with some minimal accompaniment on electric and steel guitars from Frank Black and the Catholics guitarist Dave Phillips. ”Sometimes it’s nice to strip it down and hear yourself sing — even for a mook like me,” Stinson said, still improbably young-looking, wearing a clear complexion and spiky hair. His singing is what one might expect, a raspy mixture of Westerberg and whiskey; the sort of voice that develops after 25 years of hard living on the ever-lovin’ road. It’s a voice that suits the songs he sings. The set began when an exuberant Stinson attacked the microphone to an up-tempo rocker from his days in the band Perfect. This song set the tone for what was to come: a mellow, loose show. Much of the time I was trouble understanding what he was singing. This could be ascribed to a problem with the sound engineer but still, Stinson’s been playing rooms this size for 25-odd years; you’d think that he would have learned something about dynamics and not deep-throating the microphone. Several songs came through clearly, however. “Not A Moment Too Soon”, a paragon of mid-’90s-style anthemic rock on the album version, was more ragged and plaintive live, with Stinson rasping “There are days I wish I’d never met you” over bouncy, jangling guitar. ”Hey You” was another highlight, darkly rendered in 2/2 time; after which Tommy told the audience that they were much better than the crowd in Brooklyn (take that, Brooklyn!). I love it when artists compliment the crowd, because it’s such a baldly disingenuous and needy maneuver. When I go on a tour (for my forthcoming opus I Can’t Believe I Ate The Whole Thing), I’ll bring crowd members up on stage for some sort of raffle or drawing. Nothing gets the audience on your side like the possibility of winning something. That said, Stinson’s songs are good enough to win an audience over on their own merits — he’s a confident power-pop singer/songwriter and an able musician. Still, the show didn’t hit its stride until Tommy broke out two covers and Phillips moved over to the steel guitar. Turin Brakes’ “Future Boy” was a highlight, with Stinson strumming slow major-7 chords and repeatedly mumbling “I am the future boy” over Phillips’ palliative steel guitar. Tommy’s rendition of the Big Star song “Nighttime” was just as affecting, his voice dropping down to a whisper at the line “I hate it here / Get me out of here.” His choice of covers screams “Misanthropy and disaffection!” — a mindset confirmed by his own exquisite “Someday”. An apparently autobiographical song, “Someday” closes the album; live, he stuck it in the middle of the set, where it was just as affecting, Stinson crooning “Someday, something of use will come of the blood and the booze of this wasted youth.” It was the legend of his wasted youth that brought the audience to the show and while I wish I could say that they left with a greater appreciation for the adult Tommy, I don’t know if that was the case. “He didn’t play ‘Alex Chilton’,” said one paunchy-looking guy in a disappointed tone. I finished my beer and shook my head (mostly at the depressing fact that I was out of beer, but whatever). If you want to hear those songs, build a time machine (and then call me, because I’ve always wanted to go back in time and see the “Enchantment Under The Sea” dance). Stinson’s not just a Replacement anymore; he’s the real deal all on his own.