(reblogged from my Tumblr)
I read as much as I could of Trouble Boys, Bob Mehr’s Replacements bio from the Google preview, and it’s good. Really good.
Initially, I wasn’t planning on reading it. A lot of what’s in there I know, just from being a fan for a couple decades, but not in great detail. (The stuff about Bob’s history of abuse – his own childhood abuse and that he inflicted on his wife is just sad.) And for someone whose music I’ve listened to for half my life, I actually know little about Paul Westerberg. I like it that, however, Mehr’s is probably the most dimensional portrait of him I’ve read. He makes him human, and not a collection of mythologies: songwriting prodigy, tortured artist, on-stage drunk, etc.
The book comes out March 1st. In the meantime, here is a fun WaPo piece with Mehr on Paul's "collaboration," and an heartbreaking Spin interview with the late Bob Stinson.
