Book Review: Bob Mehr's Trouble Boys

The Replacements are an odd band. I feel that they're both over and under rated. They created some powerfully melodic rock n' roll that, underpinned by Paul Westerberg’s clever word play, provided a template for many to express sensitivity disguised by loud distortion and bluster. On the other hand, they were sloppy and in desperate need of editing – some of their music and lyrics sound tossed together at the last minute.

Trouble Boys explores this dynamic and much more. Bob Mehr spins a comprehensive (and well documented) look at the band, painting a vivid picture of early 80s Minneapolis, and the often heartbreaking background of the ‘mats – especially Bob Stinton, who had a truly horrific childhood. It’s almost enough to excuse how often the band sabotaged their career by falling (drunk) on the wrong side of the fine line between good ol’ rock n’ roll rebellion and plain old assholery. I knew they behaved badly, but I wasn’t expecting them to be as horrible and offensive as they come off here.

All this lead me to read Trouble Boys as an addiction book. The drinking and drugging stories – and there are a LOT of them – can be amusing, but the more they pile up, the more difficult it is to observe so much self-destruction. They were fucked up drunk addicts and I left the book pondering what their lives would have been like if the band could have coped – even just a little bit! – with their talent and success.

But their myth is all about that they couldn’t: that they felt too much, drowned it in booze, and paid a heavy price. Poor Bob died, Tommy grew up to be a professional musician (and member of Guns n' Roses!), Chris (a strangely vacant presence in the book) faded away into visual art, and Paul never found that illusive balance of improvisation and polish that could endear him to the masses. While Bob’s story is interesting, Paul’s story is riveting, from watching him struggle to come up with his moments of musical genius to the story of him clean and sober (the tale of him coaching little league with a SpongeBob hat is priceless).  I also appreciated Mehr’s insights into the music, which let me hear their albums – especially Tim and their requiem All Shook Down – in a newly revelatory light.

Book Review: China Mieville's Kracken

China Mieville’s Kracken is an odd duck of a book. Quickly summarized, when a giant squid disappears from London’s Natural History museum, curator Billy becomes entrapped into a wild labyrinth of magical forces trying to bring about – or to prevent – the end of the world. Billy takes a classic hero’s journey, but Kracken’s real hero is the world Mieville builds up: a complex web of mythologies, all striving for the mystical powers of the giant squid. It was all very interesting, but I found the novel falling short of excellence. Mieville is too erudite for his own good, with wordplay so obscure that it overshadows the story. And while plotted like a thriller – entertaining and fast-paced – the book felt surprisingly lightweight, with thin characters who never resonated with me. Take Collinsworth – a snappy, punkish cop who I pictured as Amy Winehouse (a perfect comparison I read somewhere). She’s everything that I should like in a character, but she never really fell into place for me.  Likewise Goss and Subby – malevolent agents of mayhem that just seemed silly to me.

So why did I stick with all 529 pages? Because of sections like Chapter 25, where we’re introduced to shabtis - small figures placed inscribed with a task they need to perform for the famous Egyptian mummies with whom they are buried. Mieville’s shabtis decide to strike and demand compensation for their labor, led by "Wati" who changes his inscription to read "I shall NOT do it.” His journey backwards out of the underworld to become a magical organizer in "the new Unionism" is a brilliant and moving mash-up of mythologies. This why you read Mieville, and I longed for more of it. What is the capitalism of this union of magical familiars? What are their politics? Unfortunately, we never get past Wati’s amazing origin story as he becomes just another player in Billy’s journey.

It’s obvious that Mieville had high hopes for this book; he strives to build up a complex London mythology as he combines cultural myths and pulp fiction plotting. But in the end the characters and rapid-fire plotting didn’t speak to me. Regardless, I’m glad I read it - for while this wasn’t Mieville’s best work, I continue to admire how high he aims. Even when he falls short, he still ends up with a high mark.

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