"Hootenanny, in E"

The Replacements' immortal Hootenany came out 42 years ago today; I will now wow you nice people by ranking the songs from my most favorite to my least favorite YOU'RE WELCOME, EARF!

Color Me Impressed
'Within Your Reach
Hayday
Treatment Bound
Take Me Down to the Hospital
Hootenanny
Lovelines
Willpower
Buck Hill
Mr. Whirly
Run It
You Lose

Back in (I think) the year 2000 I wrote an email to Peter Jesperson, former manager of the Replacements and their discoverer (if that’s a word). I forget what I wrote to him about, I was probably blathering/gushing, something embarrassing I'm sure, and I *think* I somehow sent him mp3s (did we even have those in 2000???) of the EP I'd released a few years earlier.

He wrote back, maybe amused I had named my band Hayday after a Replacements song. So he writes me a very nice email and then at the end includes a story about the song Hayday: after the album had been completed, Westerberg came up with the song and made them reconstruct the mobile studio they’d just dismantled after two months of recording, fighting with everybody who tried to tell him they were finished recording the album. Immediately after they were done recording Hayday Westerberg then officially declared the album finished. Not an amazing story, but an insider’s point of view and insight on the actual making of one of the records I love.

I swear to you this email existed at one time, even if I can’t seem to find it (eff you, Hotmail!!!) although it's kinda weird I've never heard or read this story anywhere else? Anyways, this is all of course an excuse to raise a glass to one of the most original, fun, brilliantly “fuck you for even thinking I even give a fuck” albums of all time.