Paul Westerberg Covered (again)

Thanks to forum poster Schecky for sharing this video of Justin Townes Earle (son of Steve "Walon" Earle) covering "Can't Hardly Wait".

Paul Westerberg Covered

Happy belated New Year. Here's hoping we see even more new Paul music this year...and maybe that we even see Paul. I have a few links to share with you on this snowy Sunday:

• This is a lovely cover of "Meet Me Down The Alley" by Alison Scott, a Minneapolis artist who included it on her recent covers CD, "Hiding Under The Covers" (which was produced by Kevin Bowe of Paul's Westerberg's Only Friends). Enjoy!

• Speaking of covers, I'm posting a link to yet another of Bill Janovitz's Cover of The Week songs. This one isn't a Mats cover (it's Blondie's "Dreaming" mixed with "Till The Next Goodbye", which is enough of a reason to get it right there) but the accompanying post includes a Westerberg story. So it's got that going for it.

• If you have any cash burning a hole in your pocket and you don't have a Paul Westerberg First Act Guitar yet, well, now might be the time to get one. They are marked down to $89.99 on the First Act site, such a bargain!

• The latest issue of MAGNET (Nick Cave on the cover) has a look back at some of their most memorable stories, including their PW cover story from 2002. They also posted a nice item on the "D.G.T." release.

• Profilc video maven Blasty posted another great clip on YouTube, this one is PW solo from...I'm gonna guess on this...2005? It's Paul doing "here Comes A Regular" ("here goes a career").

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.