Happy Holidays: New MP3 Download From Paul!

Ho Ho Ho!

Download 3 songs from Paul Westerberg for $0.74!

You'll get 3 tracks in MP3 format (320kbps), plus very cool,
very plaid, cover art for only $0.74:

1: Always In A Manger (listed as "Always", should be "Away")
2: Streets of Laredo
3: D.G.T.

Misc. Westerberg Links

• Ground Control magazine posted a review of all of the Mats reissues, from "Sorry Ma" to "All Shook Down", "All For Nothing/Nothing For All" and "Don’t You Know Who I Think I Was?". It's a comprehensive look at the Mats catalog and I recommend it even though they don't give PTMM the proper respect, tsk tsk.

• On Wednesday Dec. 10, WNCI's Dead Air Radio Show will devote their entire program to the Mats and PW. You can join host Paul Sweeney at 90.9FM if you're in the New London, CT area or listen online at www.wcniradio.org. The show runs from 6pm-9pm EST. Enjoy.

• Bill Janovitz (Buffalo Tom) posted a lovely acoustic cover of "Little Mascara" on his blog.

Paul Westerberg Interview on "Rock Band"

"Alex Chilton" is in "Rock Band 2" and in conjunction with that, Paul did a phone interview with Brett Milano that is now posted on the Rock Band site. The interview is about 18 minutes long, and Paul talks about the smell of rock and roll, "Rock Band" (he doesn't played it, but his son does and Paul proclaims it "good technological fun"), "Alex Chilton" (the song and the man), the Mats and hostile audiences ("if you can't beat 'em, kill 'em"), the recent sessions with Tommy, Jim Boquist and Michael Bland, the inevitable reunion question (current status: Playing together was a blast but just him and Tommy only didn't feel just right, he feels they need a third element in the mix to make it work), all the money he lost of "49:00" because of the snippets of cover songs, how much fun he had doing it anyway and how much he enjoyed getting the songs out there.

The Guardian - PW Interview

Graeme Thomson's interview with Paul (and Tommy and Peter Jesperson) that I mentioned a few weeks back is up now on The Guardian's web site and it's very interesting. Most unexpected bit of news: Instead, after Glen Campbell covered the Replacements' Sadly Beautiful on his new album, Westerberg is busy writing songs for the next Campbell record - "I called my manager and said, 'Tell Glen I'll be his next Jimmy Webb' and he took the bait". One word: Duet, please! (Ok, two words). Now that is a collaboration I can't wait to hear.

If you have your heart set on another collaboration, namely Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson, well, reply is hazy at the moment: "Certainly Tommy and I could go around as the Replacements and draw 10 times more and make some money," says Westerberg. "But I'm not there yet, I gotta say."

Westerberg Link Round-up

A couple of links of interest to post today:

• Crawdaddy has an excellent interview with Peter Jesperson about the reisssues. Some type of live release is in the works as well, which is very good news:

"There’s talk about a live anthology or series of some kind, but we don’t have that nailed down yet. We’re trying to give ourselves manageable goals here, so we thought, 'Let’s do these eight records and just see how we feel afterwards.' There will be some kind of live thing, but I don’t know what it will be yet, whether a boxed set or going the archives and issuing some kind of Rhino Handmade set."

• Reviews of the both the first and second sets of Mats reissues from iF Magazine.com.

• Juliana Hatfield's new book, "When I Grow Up: A Memoir" includes a chapter on Paul called "My Idol". An excerpt:
"He was tough and street-smart and smart-alecky and rock and roll, but he was also sincere, compassionate, fragile, fractured and tuneful. His sad eyes betrayed an empathy for the suffering of others, and his fans knew that when he sang, he was singing for them as well as himself. He sympathized with all the so-called-losers and outcasts and social misfits - the downtrodden - of the world, but he hung out with movie stars too, because he was so fuckin' cool that movie stars wanted to hang out with him. He was beautifully, perfectly imperfect, and he was our hero.

A Country Rendition of "Alex Chilton"

In addition to the photos from Michael Bland, he kindly posted a message on the board about playing with Paul and Tommy a few weeks back (in Soul Asylum's rehearsal space, which some of you picked up on from the equipment). You can read his post here. Some of the songs they played: Folk song covers including "If I Had A Hammer" (covered on Paul & HOF tour in 2005); Mats songs including "a country rendition of 'Alex Chilton'"; some of Paul's new material and one of Tommy's songs. They played for 2 days and Jim Boquist joined them for the second day.

It's hard not to get too anticipatory about whether this will lead to anything but according to Paul's manager, Darren Hill, as quoted in Billboard's item about the sessions: There are "no plans beyond that right now." I think we need a maverick up in here to get this show on the road (literally).

Photos!

Thanks to Michael Bland for sharing this and other photos he took when he was playing with Paul and Tommy last week. You can see all of the photos on the message board.

The Star-Tribune published Chris Riemenschneider's interview with Tommy this weekend, he talked about the reissues, including his comments on some specific bonus tracks. Here's the answer to why the distinctly apolitical Mats did a song called "Election Day": "That was the first song we did when we got to Memphis to make that record. It was election day, which meant there was no booze being sold anywhere. And we were thirsty."

It all makes sense now!