The Replacements – The Shit Hits The Fans

The Shit Hits The Fans (1985)

C+ 

1. Lawdy Miss Clawdy 2. Ye Sleeping Knights Of Jesus 3. Lovelines 4. I’ll Be There 5. Sixteen Blue 6. Can’t Hardly Wait 7. I Will Dare 8. Hear You Been To College 9. Saturday Night Special 10. Iron Man 11. Misty Mountain Hop 12. Heartbreaker 13. Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love 14. Jailbreak 15. Breakdown 16. No More The Moon Shines On Lorena 17. Merry-Go-Round 18. Left In The Dark 19. Takin’ Care Of Business 20. I Will Follow 21. Jumpin’ Jack Flash 22. Radio Free Europe 23. The New World 24. Let It Be

Recorded proof that those drunken train wreck Replacements shows you always hear about weren’t just myths generated from a time before Twitter was around to verify everything the second it happens, and also serve as a convenient means by which the masses are able to channel all their pent up anger and frustration into telling Lena Dunham what a cunt she is in 140 characters or less. The Shit Hits The Fans (with apologies to Stephen Colbert, great album title? Or greatest album title?) is an absolutely hysterical concept for a live album the same reason it’s functionally unlistenable: it’s a terrible, muffly-sounding audience recording of a December 1984 show in Oklahoma City, the setlist for which was comprised of less than half a dozen of the band’s own songs, and primarily of covers of doofy classic rock hits (“Iron Man,” Bad Company’s “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love,” “Takin’ Care Of Business”) and contemporary alt-rock classics (“Radio Free Europe,” the Vertebrats’ “Left In The Dark,” Robyn Hitchcock’s “Ye Sleeping Nights Of Jesus”), the great majority of which they don’t actually know how to play.  Hilarity and/or hideous, drunken half-assedness ensues, essentially – Paul Westerberg thought it was amusing enough to put it out as a cassette only novelty release, anyway. Every Placemats fan should hear it at least once, especially younger fans like me, who weren’t there and might be a little bit curious to hear what those storied self-sabotage shows sounded like (well, I don’t know if they all sounded like this, because the whole atmosphere, is really quite laid back and amicable, including the audience, which spends most of the tape shouting out requests that the band keeps granting. Except for that one dude at the beginning who’s a little too resolute about getting them to play “Ye Sleeping Knights Of Jesus.” Fuck that nerd). But just that once should be more than enough.

Oh yeah, they play a snippet of “Let It Be” at the end. Hardy har.