I'd vowed to buy no more Westerberg albums, as I'd tired of sober and pensive (and boring/repetitive by the pre-Stereo/Mono efforts). But, the last Grandpaboy was good, it had a 'Mats feel to it. If the two new discs are both closer to that, they may be worth a listen.... - Bagster
October 27, 2003
NEW CD'S
Reformed Rocker Lets It Rip
By JON PARELES
When Paul Westerberg led the Replacements in the 1980's, his extended adolescence resulted in some of the most fondly remembered rock albums of that decade: "Hootenanny," "Let It Be," "Tim" and "Pleased to Meet Me." They were the disheveled, melodic, rocking mementos of a character who often got drunk and messed things up, but still showed an endearingly wounded heart.
Eventually Mr. Westerberg decided it was time to grow up, and he left the Replacements for more technically adept musicians. He also set aside his electric guitar for dulcet acoustic arrangements. But the more carefully considered songs on his solo albums lacked the reckless spark of the Replacements.
Lately he has decided to plug in and let it rip again, this time as someone who has been around a few times. In 1997 he gave himself a rocker alter ego, recording under the name Grandpaboy, and he followed up with an album called "Mono" in 2001. Last year he decided that he could rock again under his own name, and he released "Stereo" in a package with "Mono." He has just released two more raw-voiced, homemade, raunchy-sounding albums. The better one is "Come Feel Me Tremble" (Vagrant), as Paul Westerberg, which was released this month alongside Grandpaboy's "Dead Man Shake" (Fat Possum/Epitaph).
`Come Feel Me Tremble'
Paul Westerberg
"Come Feel Me Tremble" is a one-man production, crediting Mr. Westerberg as the sole musician. Some songs are nearly as sparse as tracks by the White Stripes: drums, a guitar or two, perhaps a harmonica or a bass, while others pile on the guitars. They are topped with vocals that sound as hoarse and vulnerable as ever. Mr. Westerberg has once again decided that profundity has nothing to do with decorum. He insists, "I'm wild and lethal/I'm a mile deep though."
Mr. Westerberg set aside the sober, pensive voice of his other solo albums on "Stereo," and some songs on "Come Feel Me Tremble" continue his exploits as a reborn wastrel, "drinking once again to make those pills kick in," and a self-described "Soldier of Misfortune." In "Making Me Go" he shakes out an old Replacements guitar lick to tell someone, "You make me sick, still you make me tick." But he is funny and self-mocking, never mean, and he also shows an unguarded side in "Meet Me Down the Alley" and the brief, desolately lovelorn "Never Felt Like This Before."
Mr. Westerberg is more sympathetic to other people's troubles than to his own. He writes about a woman's suicide in "Crackle and Drag" â?? there are two versions, a loud original and a more reflective remake â?? and he pays tribute after a grandfather's funeral with the bluesy, fuzz-toned roar of "Pine Box": "He always took it slow, now there's fluid in his lungs/The H.M.O. says they know, know, know you're done."
At 43 Mr. Westerberg doesn't pretend to be an impulsive young rocker. But "Come Feel Me Tremble" is the work of a musician who no longer sees any need to pretty things up. Longtime fans will want to seek out a DVD, also called "Come Feel Me Tremble," a documentary of Mr. Westerberg's 2002 tour and the making of this album.
`Dead Man Shake'
Grandpaboy
"Dead Man Shake" is on a blues label for good reason. Most of the songs are 12-bar blues: fast shuffles and slow ones, harking back to Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones. The vocals are scratchy and sometimes crack, the guitar is distorted, the drumming rudimentary, and it all sounds right.
In the ready-made settings, Mr. Westerberg constructs a dissolute persona he cheerfully describes as a "bad, bad, bad boy" that "you want with all your might." He vows to wear an old shirt instead of a fancy one next time he overdoses in "OD Blues," which concludes, "Whatever happened to Paul? He fell in with bad companions and he lived happily ever after."
Most of the tracks are one-idea rockers, although there are flashes of his old verbal flair. "Take Out Some Insurance" is his advice to a woman he is afraid might leave him. And in "Do Right in Your Eyes" he picks some ragtime guitar for a bleak, slow blues about someone's perpetual criticism: "You're always trying to drag me down to your level/I'd love to lay you out with a shovel."
"Dead Man Shake" is an album of low-fi atmosphere and attitude more than songwriting; it is a minor effort compared with "Come Feel Me Tremble" or "Stereo/Mono." But it has more casual blues grit than many higher-minded revivals.
