Bob Dunlap stepping in for Bob Stinson in the Replacements was after my time in Minneapolis, and for that matter so is this contribution to the Vol. IV edition of Big Hits of Mid-America, which came along in the mid-'80s. I knew Dunlap as sideman for the formidable Minneapolis punk-rock shouter Curtiss A, whose bands, frequently with Dunlap at his right-hand side, enacted precisely the scenario described here (if not its corny country music affectations): mostly empty rooms in odd venues, such as a businessman's lunch place by day trying out live music in the evenings, a band in one corner playing impossibly, deafeningly, outrageously loud, and sometimes a few angry patrons. I have mentioned elsewhere that the loudest show I've ever seen was the Dream Syndicate in the early '80s. Four of the next five would be Curtiss A shows, with a Motorhead and a Metallica, both in a club, possibly in there too, and maybe a few others in the mix after that like Hüsker Dü and Sonic Youth (never saw My Bloody Valentine). The noises appearing here as wee embellishments to make the song's rowdy point were in fact the stock in trade of those shows (along with Curtiss A screaming at the top of his impressively leathery lungs). They stood there and blasted washes and sheets of the racket. The line that has always resonated for me in this song: "Our ears are bleedin' and our amps are smokin' / When people say it hurts / We know they ain't jokin'." All the rest is pretty decent comedy, the punk-rock band on the loose in the wild, with touches worth listening close for, such as the Christmas scene that makes its cameo on the fade.
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