The former Replacements mainman caught in the middle of his promotional blitz for the 2002 albums Stereo and Mono. The latter, which was billed of course as Grandpaboy, is represented here by a couple of tunes, “High Time” and “Between Love And Like,” while Stereo checks in via “Mr. Rabbitt.” Several tunes from earlier Westerberg solo recs are also present, but the Replacements songs, especially “I Will Dare” and “Alex Chilton” are what most folks (me, at least) will always be waiting to hear. Covers of “Long Black Veil” and Neil Young’s “Don’t Cry No Tear” are a nice treat here, too. This is a solo Westerberg show, just him and his acoustic and electric guitars.
The sound is flawless, an FM broadcast aired via Universal Buzz Radio, which means you get to hear (unfortunately) the DJ intruding a couple of times when the commercials were to be inserted. That’s a small quibble, however.
Hot Stuff has been cranking out the product lately, and sometimes it seems like the guy in charge of art is on vacation, given the slapdash nature of certain HS releases. Not this one – the CDR has nice custom art and it comes in a mini-LP sleeve, thick cardboard stock with slick full-color finishing. Great pics of Westerberg, too. (Note that the sleeve makes some small errors in the number of tracks, listing 23 -- 2 as DJ outros-- while there are only 21.) If the label continues making collectible-looking products like this, I’ll call myself a regular customer. -- OSWALD
