The Holy Grail of Indie Rock Oral Histories

Last night, after wresting her birthday presents out of me on the pretense that it was her birthday in the state where she was born, Mary turned to me with a gleam in her eye and let drop the single greatest bit of literary/rock and roll news since Levon Helm sat down to call out Robbie Robertson for being such a goon: the forthcoming publication of Jim Walsh's The Replacements: All Over but the Shouting, An Oral History.

Judging from the pictures and the sample pages at the Voyageur Press website, I think that we are all in for some cracking good yarns.

My favorite quotes so far, from the sample pages:

Peter Buck (REM): "More people bring that up to me than anything else. And I mean way more than anything else: You played on 'I Will Dare.' What was that like?"

Bob Stinson, on repaying REM for taking Our Heros on tour: "They did give us like beer and we'd wait until they'd go on stage and. . .their dressing rooms - there was no lock, boys. We ate all their food and drank their booze. They're like doing one of their real pretty hit songs and we're just sitting there drinking their booze. And they're playing in front of a thousand people. You can't stop and come and grab it from us. We really had mean fun with them."