2011.11.21-27 - Magnet Magazine - From The Desk Of Tommy Stinson

From The Desk Of Tommy Stinson: I Never Thought I’d Like Sports Until I Discovered Basketball

November 21, 2011

Tommy Stinson will be forever fused to his infamous 12-year stint with Minneapolis garage-rock overachievers the Replacements. These days, the 45-year-old journeyman and doting dad is playing bass for Guns N’ Roses and Soul Asylum and has released his second solo album (and first in seven years), the well-crafted, bluesy and robust One Man Mutiny (Done To Death Music). Stinson will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.

Stinson: Having never really been much of a sports fan, I was turned on to basketball in the early ’90s by my friend Marc Solomon (the guitar player in my old band Perfect). Michael Jordan and Co. ruled the land, and I found it exciting—like I’d never seen sports before in my life. I was hooked. Feeding off of Marc’s excitement for the game is what got me into it.

One of my favorite basketball stories would be going to see the 76ers and Lakers play in Philly with Axl Rose. It was the semifinals: I got the game tickets and he got the plane tickets. It was awesome; the funniest thing about it is that it was so chill. My good buddy Matt Cord (who happens to be the in-house announcer for the Sixers) got us the tickets and got Allen Iverson to sign a shoe for Axl. Sadly the Sixers didn’t win, but it was fun to watch the game all the same.

While living in L.A. for many years, I had become a Lakers fan, as well as a 76ers fan. Now I’ve moved to upstate New York, and I look forward to my first Knicks game. Hopefully, they’ll have a team that’s worth the price of the ticket.

https://magnetmagazine.com/2011/11/21/from-the-desk-of-tommy-stinson-i-never-thought-id-like-sports-until-i-discovered-basketball/

From The Desk Of Tommy Stinson: Why Guns N’ Roses Is A Good Gig For Me

November 22, 2011

For post-punk scholars, Tommy Stinson will be forever fused to his infamous 12-year stint with Minneapolis garage-rock overachievers the Replacements. These days, the 45-year-old journeyman and doting dad is playing bass for Guns N’ Roses and Soul Asylum and has released his second solo album (and first in seven years), the well-crafted, bluesy and robust One Man Mutiny (Done To Death Music). Stinson will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.

Stinson: It started off as the most punk-rock idea I’d heard in years: Axl owned the name Guns N’ Roses and was determined to continue on with all of us other dudes and weather the storm. I thought it was a good idea then, and I still think it is, in that he’s proven that he’s unflappable. What he decides to do, he’s going to do, no matter what.

One of the highlights of the whole experience is having written songs with a bunch of other guys I’d never worked with before to make Chinese Democracy. In the process, I realized two things. One is that Axl is fair to a fault when it comes to writing music. He wants everybody to have a part in every song, so everybody has a vested interest and every song will be the best it’s gonna be. And two, I learned how to write with other people and keep my ego out of the room. When you’re working with eight other people, that’s a necessity.

The touring aspect of it all is a whole other beast. Despite what anyone might think, it’s actually quite a bit of work putting on that large of a show. The travel is grueling and I miss my family. But at the end of the day, it’s a lot of fun to see all of the people out there go nuts for “Welcome To The Jungle.”

https://magnetmagazine.com/2011/11/22/from-the-desk-of-tommy-stinson-why-guns-n-roses-is-a-good-gig-for-me/

From The Desk Of Tommy Stinson: I Love Slot Car Racing

November 23, 2011

For post-punk scholars, Tommy Stinson will be forever fused to his infamous 12-year stint with Minneapolis garage-rock overachievers the Replacements. These days, the 45-year-old journeyman and doting dad is playing bass for Guns N’ Roses and Soul Asylum and has released his second solo album (and first in seven years), the well-crafted, bluesy and robust One Man Mutiny (Done To Death Music). Stinson will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.

Stinson: I must have been 10 years old when my mom bought me my first AFX slot car set. At the time it seemed like the greatest gift ever. I found myself quickly saving my allowance so I could buy more cars to race my buddies and their slot cars.

The story goes a bit amok when I started having to steal the cars from the local Target store (which I think was the first ever Target) because I couldn’t afford to feed the monkey. We were pretty crafty at first—hiding under the womens’ apparel racks and taking the cars out of the packages so they couldn’t see us stealing them. What would the security guards say? We could just say we brought them in with us and they were our cars. What we didn’t know was that there were cameras everywhere.

As a result, by the age of 11, I had already been to jail and eventually they were threatening to take me away from my family and put me in a kids’ prison in Glenlake, Minn. Lucky (or unluckily?), my brother showed me how to play bass and the rest is history.

After narrowly escaping that crap, cut to me selling my race car set to my Aunt Nancy for my Uncle Ronnie’s Christmas present because he’d always wanted one. Then cut to my 30th birthday, when my mother purchased it back from Uncle Ronnie to give it back to me: all the cars, tracks, every last bit. I’m still trying to figure out where to set this up in my new house for my daughter to play with.

https://magnetmagazine.com/2011/11/23/from-the-desk-of-tommy-stinson-i-love-slot-car-racing/

From The Desk Of Tommy Stinson: Cooking In Stereo

November 24, 2011

For post-punk scholars, Tommy Stinson will be forever fused to his infamous 12-year stint with Minneapolis garage-rock overachievers the Replacements. These days, the 45-year-old journeyman and doting dad is playing bass for Guns N’ Roses and Soul Asylum and has released his second solo album (and first in seven years), the well-crafted, bluesy and robust One Man Mutiny (Done To Death Music). Stinson will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.

Stinson: I have always liked good foods and even liked to cook on occasion. But when you are living alone or are cooking for or with your roommate, the inspiration stops at the basics. Like, tuna mac, salads, mixed stir-fry type things and so forth.

However, since meeting my uncle-in-law, Chip Roberts, cooking has taken on a whole new meaning. But before launching into this whole cooking thing, I must first give you a bit of background information on Chip.

Besides being a great chef who has opened a couple of great restaurants over the last 20 years or so, he is one of only a small handful of great guitar players from the Philadelphia area. Therefore he plays all the slide guitar as well as other guitar bits on my new record, One Man Mutiny.

From the moment we started hanging out and playing together, I quickly became his sous chef when making dinner for the family. Cooking soon became a new love of mine and has already turned into a daily desire to one day open a restaurant.

My wife and our three-and-a-half year old daughter are both vegetarian so the task of coming up with interesting combinations of vegetable and other non-meat dishes is a challenge. When looking for something new to prepare, I will often start by calling Chip with loads of questions about how to transform whatever I’ve got in the fridge at the time into a tasty, healthy dish. He is usually ready with a complete rundown of how to make whatever it happens to be. He always answers my calls. I think he just takes pity on my culinary shortcomings.

Despite being Chip’s sous chef, he still won’t divulge what the ingredients are in The Blend. This is a closely guarded family secret seasoning blend that he gives out sparingly to family and friends, but there are plans in the works to bring it to the masses. It has magical flavors that would make even an old shoe edible. Maybe I should alert Werner Herzog about this. Ha ha ha!

I have since managed to come up with a few of my own signature dishes, which include a variety of soups, stuffed green peppers and our new family favorite: the cold pasta vegetable salad with whatever is in the fridge. I prefer to make my own dressings from scratch, as we grow our own herbs. And The Blend is the key component to everything.

https://magnetmagazine.com/2011/11/24/from-the-desk-of-tommy-stinson-cooking-in-stereo/

From The Desk Of Tommy Stinson: The Evolution Of Home Recording

November 25, 2011

For post-punk scholars, Tommy Stinson will be forever fused to his infamous 12-year stint with Minneapolis garage-rock overachievers the Replacements. These days, the 45-year-old journeyman and doting dad is playing bass for Guns N’ Roses and Soul Asylum and has released his second solo album (and first in seven years), the well-crafted, bluesy and robust One Man Mutiny (Done To Death Music). Stinson will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.

Stinson: I thought when I got my first Fostex four-track cassette-recording device that I was on to something. It was a cheap way to put down your ideas for guitar, bass, vocals and even drums if you were so ambitious. It worked great until the recording knob broke and I had to pay three times as much money for the Tascam equivalent that a friend of mine said was a zillion times better sounding, etc., blahblahblahblah.

Back then, the mere idea of making a four-track recording in your bedroom (or, in my case, attic) with something the size of a lunch box while not bugging your neighbors was pretty awesome.

Once my Tascam four-track cassette machine shit the bath, I moved on to the ADAT machine. This was like going from Hot Wheels to radio-controlled fire-breathing amphibians. The manuals were a bit confusing to those of us who barely knew how to use a guitar tuner, and it often took a producer on break or without a gig to come and show you how to use it properly (or improperly, depending on the producer).

I now have what is currently the norm for making records: an Apple laptop computer and tower with loads of fun plug-ins to make sounds I never use. I also have a bunch of killer outboard gear that looks really cool. If you had told me 20 years ago that after all the warped cassettes, broken recording knobs and endless amounts of missed greatness that I would own a home with a studio full of gear in it, I would have said it was a waste of good beer money. Today I’m still not sure if all this is a waste of good beer money or not, but I was just about to look for a used Fostex four-track cassette recorder on eBay.

https://magnetmagazine.com/2011/11/25/from-the-desk-of-tommy-stinson-the-evolution-of-home-recording/

From The Desk Of Tommy Stinson: Airline Travel Sucks

November 26, 2011

For post-punk scholars, Tommy Stinson will be forever fused to his infamous 12-year stint with Minneapolis garage-rock overachievers the Replacements. These days, the 45-year-old journeyman and doting dad is playing bass for Guns N’ Roses and Soul Asylum and has released his second solo album (and first in seven years), the well-crafted, bluesy and robust One Man Mutiny (Done To Death Music). Stinson will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.

Stinson: I remember back in the late 1900s when commercial airlines used to clean the toilets between flights and give coach class customers crappy little sandwiches or even breakfast during most flights. Back in the days when our crew would sit in the back of the plane chain-smoking and getting hammered even on the short flights to Chicago. Ahh, those were the good old days for sure!

You used to be able to get to the airport in Minneapolis a half hour before your flight was due to leave, rush through security with just minutes to spare, and they would hold the plane for you. That was customer service!

When I was a kid it used to be such a thrill to fly that I would pack my suitcase the night before. I’d wake up in the morning, shower and put myself together like it was showtime. It felt pretty decadent actually. Well, at least to my young bumpkin ass. It also seemed like there was a whole lot more leg room back then. I don’t think I’ve grown much since I was about 17, and I swear to you my knees didn’t used to hit the back of the seat in front of me as they do now.

Traveling with guitars and assorted band stuff was also easier to get through. You could just pay the curbside porter a couple bucks to take your gear right through the baggage area without paying extra per piece or weight charges. It seemed pretty cool back then. And for the record, it was going to crap even before 9/11 as far as I’m concerned. I can forgive all the security shit that may or may not be effective these days—I get it. At least you know what to expect and how to prepare. However, it makes me re-think the whole getting-a-fuckin’-driver’s-license issue, which I have never had. But I would rather travel by a Ford Econoline 15-passenger van almost anywhere in the world than fly on another commercial airline. Screw on some pontoons and a life raft or two and I’ll drive through an ocean, a river, a creek, whatever. Flying on an airplane after all these years sucks.

https://magnetmagazine.com/2011/11/26/from-the-desk-of-tommy-stinson-airline-travel-sucks/

From The Desk Of Tommy Stinson: Soul Asylum

November 27, 2011

For post-punk scholars, Tommy Stinson will be forever fused to his infamous 12-year stint with Minneapolis garage-rock overachievers the Replacements. These days, the 45-year-old journeyman and doting dad is playing bass for Guns N’ Roses and Soul Asylum and has released his second solo album (and first in seven years), the well-crafted, bluesy and robust One Man Mutiny (Done To Death Music). Stinson will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.

Stinson: When Soul Asylum’s founding bassist was suffering from cancer and his wife Marybeth told me that I was on the top of his list for his replacement in Soul Asylum should he pass away, it was truly overwhelming. When I was asked to do some shows, there was only one suitable answer. Now after a little more than six years, the answer is still yes. That is of course, when I’m available, as I am and have been committed on and off to Guns N’ Roses for the last 12 years.

Having gone to West High School in Minneapolis with Dave Pirner, played shows, gone to the same parties and basically done and gone through a lot of the same shit as Soul Asylum, it seemed like an easy fit. I have since surmised that the camaraderie we have both onstage and off is a total Minneapolis thing. There was a whole attitude and disposition about the bands from Minneapolis from the ’80s that is totally unique to Minneapolis. I think the ‘Mats, Hüsker Dü, Soul Asylum, as well as a few others, all had it. It was almost like some unspoken protective coating. On the one hand, we could be a bunch of smug outcasts that knew there was something going on but were actually scared about what that might be, while on the other hand trying to figure how we fit into it or not.

With most shows, you get a good amount of fun and games with your music. In contrast, GNR is a whole other beast altogether, as the production (which is quite substantial in size and spectacle) makes it more of a fast-paced balls-to-the-wall sort of event. My own shows are a lot more intimate. You can see, feel, smell and hear the people in front (or in back, in some cases). I prefer to have this open communication with the audience and to include them in the show whenever I can. When I was in the Replacements, we were always trying to include the audience—even getting the audience to play for us if necessary. It just makes it more fun I guess.

https://magnetmagazine.com/2011/11/27/from-the-desk-of-tommy-stinson-soul-asylum/