Also a football movie starring Keanu Reeves, Gene Hackman, and that guy that runs around saying Make 7-Up Yours. It's pretty similar to Necessary Roughness, but with some differences in the plot and some new jokes.

When the Washington Sentinels go on strike, Hackman is called in to coach a replacement team of unknowns to the playoffs. Reeves plays a has-been quarterback who quit playing after he screwed up at the Sugar Bowl. He's given a second chance by the strike.

Although this movie lacks Kathy Ireland, it more than makes up for it with a dozen scantily clad cheerleaders, and a whole new bag of jokes which kept me and my friends laughing for almost two hours straight, and I don't even like football.

Original members of The Replacements (formed in 1979):

According to allmusic.com they were originally called the Impediments. They formed in Minneapolis, where its so cold that you have to play fast, witness their Twin Cities cuzzins Husker Du & Babes in Toyland. Their first album was Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, let's call it "precocious thrash" and count it amongst the best albums that are less than 30 minutes long with great tunes like "Customer" in which 'he's in love with the girl who works the counter at' {the rest is too gargbled} so he stands there and asks dumb questions like Um, how much are twinkees?; More Cigarettes": six o'clock, batten the hatches / we got cigarettes, but we ain't got no matches! and "Otto" Everybody {gargble}'Otto-Otto' / Everybody {gargble}'Ot-to-to!' / Everybody wanna-know'Otto-Otto' / Everybody wantsta-know'Ot-to-to!' (no, not that Otto, this is 1981, 8 years before The Simpsons debuted).

Anyway, I could go through all their albums like that, but I'll summarize: started out notorious, known for being alternately drunk and brilliant on stage (aptly titled bootleg: the shit hits the fans), young unprententious troublemakers, MTV haters ("Bastards of Young" video is a single shot of a stereo speaker with someone tapping their foot along to the song). Westerberg's lyrics captured what it was like to be a teenager "Sixteen Blue", "Unsatisfied", and "Kids Don't Follow":

...in my face
out my ear
kids don't follow
what you're saying--
we can't hear!
Great scruffy punk rock.

As the band got older and major-labeled itself, they did MTV videos of a sort they swore they'd never do (there's one from All Shook Down with claymation fer chrisakes!). I still recommend their first two albums for Sire Records: Tim and Pleased to Meet Me, but the last two are hollow pleas for airplay. They kicked Bob Stinson out of the band after Tim, which was a nod toward music over alcohol. Slim Dunlap joined the band for Pleased to Meet Me forward.

Lasting accomplishments include a handful of songs that couldn't have been written by anyone else, which will be remembered forever: "Androgynous", "Waitress in the Sky", and "Alex Chilton" (which inspired thousands of scruffy teenagers to special order Big Star records and pay way too much for cassettes of Feudalist Tarts), punk rock for unglamorous and insecure idlers (way before grunge) free of the attitude of the NYC and Los Angeles flavors, and a legacy of memorable live shows that they don't remember which destroyed their livers.

The Replacements: 1979-1991

Proto-typical drunken thrash-pop gods of the 1980s Amerindie scene. Hailing from Minneapolis, they formed when Bob Stinson's mother wanted him to give his delinquent half-brother Tommy something to dü other than throw rocks at garage windows. Bob played guitar, and he convinced Tommy to learn bass. They then recruited Chris Mars, a neighborhood friend and drummer, and a singer.

Enter Paul Westerberg, a Catholic-school dropout who knew about the band that practiced in the Stinson's basement; he would eavesdrop at the window. 19, a janitor, sometimes songwriter, and (according to Chris Mars in a mid-1990s interview) a glasses-wearing geek, he wormed his way into the band by telling the singer that they hated the way he sang. From there, they began playing half-way houses and small clubs, opening for bands like Hüsker Dü and getting thrown out of places for their drunken antics. Paul eventually gave Peter Jesperson, the head of indie label Twin/Tone Records, a demo tape, consisting of four songs: "Don't Pass Me By," "Shape Up," "Shut Up," and "Raised in the City." Jesperson signed them after one listening of the tape. They released four albums and an ep on the label, including what is arguably their best record, Let It Be.

By 1985, they (and hometown rivals Hüsker Dü) had garnered enough of a following that the Replacements became one of the first underground bands to be signed to a major label since the days of the Ramones and Pattie Smith; this is the year they released Tim. This was also about the time that Bob was dropped from the group for his excessive drug-use. Given the amount of drugs the band was doing, it came as a shock that they would take such a move. (In later years, it would be discovered that Stinson suffered from severe manic depression.) The group continued as a three-peice, releasing the classic Pleased to Meet Me, and then recruiting Slim Dunlap, a local session-player, to play lead guitar. Two albums followed--the relatively lackluster Don't Tell a Soul, and the more mature All Shook Down.

In 1991, the group disbanded due to exhaustion. Chris Mars had left the year before, angry with the direction that Westerberg was taking towards more solo material. The final album--All Shook Down--was intended as Paul's first solo, but the lable demanded that "The Replacements" be slapped on it.

Their last show was on July 4, 1991.

Members:

Discography:

Reportedly, there are plans for a boxed set of the Twin/Tone years, but that has been stalled for years.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.