{"id":7594,"date":"2009-12-31T11:01:48","date_gmt":"2009-12-31T16:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=7594"},"modified":"2009-12-31T11:01:48","modified_gmt":"2009-12-31T16:01:48","slug":"dope-smoking-moron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=7594","title":{"rendered":"Dope Smoking Moron"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Bruce Springsteen turned 60 earlier this year, it was a bit of a milestone on the one hand – but still just a tad removed from me.\u00a0 As much as Bruce’s music has always affected me, he was still a singer from an earlier generation; a little closer to me than the Who or the Kinks, but still someone from that great cloud of Those Who Came Before.<\/p>\n

But hearing that today is Paul Westerberg’s 50th birthday?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That’s different.\u00a0 Westerberg was one of the first great post-baby-boom songwriters; his music with and since the Replacements had only the most incidental reference to baby-boom era music.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Was he an original?\u00a0 No – and nobody in rock and roll ever really is, at least musically speaking – everybody borrows and synthesizes and rips off Those Who Came Before – so shaddap already.<\/p>\n

But Westerberg combined punk’s snotty snarl with a nuance and depth that evaded most of his thrashy contemporaries.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"The<\/a><\/dt>\n
The Replacements – Chris Mars, Bob Stinson, Westerberg, Tommy Stinson –\u00a0at an early protest against the Midtown Greenway<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

And so Westerberg – in his Replacements-era career and ever since – has occupied a much larger space in my memory of the era than most other writers of his or any other generation.\u00a0 Westerberg’s music grew up, just like we did – but still kept a foot back in the garage.<\/p>\n

Just like many of us like to think we do, in a little corner in the back of our minds that never quite turned 22.<\/p>\n

Happy birthday, Paul Westerberg!<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Bruce Springsteen turned 60 earlier this year, it was a bit of a milestone on the one hand – but still just a tad removed from me.\u00a0 As much as Bruce’s music has always affected me, he was still a singer from an earlier generation; a little closer to me than the Who or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7594"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7595,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7594\/revisions\/7595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}