RTP-area local music and culture

[Erich Peace <floydianslip127 AT yahoo.com>]

a moment of silence taken.

Matthew Tomich <matt AT novia.net> wrote:  (I sent this out to people who 
subscribe to the mailing list at 
theskyway.com, but thought everybody in the world should take a second to 
read this.)

Ten whole years have elapsed since the world has been poorer with the loss 
of Bob Stinson.

Here is his eulogy, as delivered by Jim Walsh of the St. Paul Pioneer 
Press at his funeral at the McDivitt-Hauge funeral home on February 22, 
1995:

__________________________________________________________________________

Words fail me, as they have failed most of us over the past few days. 
Yesterday, Carleen asked me if I had known Bob very well. I couldn't 
rightfully say that I did in the traditional sense of the term. For that 
reason, I was a little reticent when Anita asked me to deliver this 
eulogy.  But like everyone here, and another multitude who aren't, I know 
Bob's spirit very well.

And it is a spirit, as I have discovered, that is next to impossible to 
hold in a room, pin down on a piece of paper, or capture with a couple of 
stories.  At first, I didn't have my own words, so I stole someone else's. 
This is from "On The Road" by Jack Kerouac:

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, 
mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the 
ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like 
fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars, and 
in the middle you see the blue center light pop, and everybody goes, 
'Awwwww.'"

That was Bob.  That is Bob.  And you know what I mean, because we all have 
our Bob stories.  They're etched in our faces, planted in our hearts, like 
seeds we never thought would ever bloom into anything much more than 
memory.  Of course, now we know better. This week, all the seeds blossomed 
into vines, and tangled permanently around our hearts.  This week, we 
learned a lot about Bob, a lot about ourselves, and just how much we will 
miss this fabulous yellow roman candle.

Bob stories.  Over the past few days, I've had the privilege of hearing 
quite a few told and retold.  It was like a wonderful game of dominoes 
that elicited as many tears as laughs.  Everybody recounting tales about 
Bob's wit, his loving gentleness, his sense of humor, his appetite for 
life.

And, as a matter of fact, there have been an inordinate amount of stories 
about just his appetite.

Anita remembers when Bob was five years old.  The family had moved from 
Minnesota to San Diego, and Bob and Lonnie made a practice of taking the 
25 cents Anita would give them for the church basket, and buy cherry pies. 
Clearly, it was a pattern that would play itself out in adulthood, or when 
Dog's Breath, and later the Replacements, started up, Anita remembers 
feeding the entire band, and often a slew of their friends, after they'd 
practiced at the houses on 36th and Bryant and 22nd and Dupont.  Bob would 
always eat his fair share. With the Replacements, his penchant for eating 
fast food in the van earned him the nickname of Bob "To Go" Stinson.  As 
the rest of the guys would sit in the restaurant, Bob would go in, get his 
food, come back and sit alone in the van until he was ready to eat.  Two 
hours would pass, sometimes, before he'd dig in.  Peter always figured it 
was because he liked to eat his food at room temperature.

One of my earliest food memories of Bob is 15 years ago, when the 'Mats 
were making "Sorry Ma" over at Blackberry Way.  Steve Fjelstad and Peter 
were in the control room, and had just finished a take, and they were 
getting ready to do another.  Suddenly, Bob was nowhere to be found. Then 
just as suddenly, he was back.  Before anyone could say, "Where's Bob?" he 
had snuck out of the studio, raced to Burger King which was a good two 
blocks away and returned.  He set up his Whopper, fries, and Coke on his 
amp and was ready to go.

One of the last times I saw him, we sat at a bar and I bought Bob and Mike 
Leonard some drinks.  Bob caressed the menu, rolled his eyes with that coy 
look he'd give you, but he never asked, because that wasn't his style. He 
just looked at me out of the corner of those mischievous winking eyes 
until I melted, caved in, and bought him a cheeseburger and fries.

Bob stories.  It seems like we've been telling them for most of our lives, 
and I have a very good feeling that it is a tradition that will not end 
after today.  Carleen remembers his love for skipping stones, fishing, 
walking around the lakes and by the railroad tracks, and as a father who 
loved Joey with the fierce, all-encompassing passion of a papa bear. Tommy 
remembers his as a great brother, the two of them running around the house 
as kids, flicking the sides of each other's heads with their fingers until 
it felt like their ears were going to fall off.

Chris remembers the day Bob physically grabbed then 12-year-old Tommy, who 
was running around with his friends, by the shoulders, and dragged him 
into a Dog's Breath practice.  Like any good big brother, he talked the 
other guys into letting the kid play with the bigger kids. Paul remembers 
Bob's special genius, his ability to rail against the stuffed shirts, the 
status quo with aplomb. Paul calls it, "creative insanity."

My memory is of him walking, always walking down Hennepin, around the 
lakes, down Lyndale, clutching that omnipresent brown bag of his. I swear 
I saw him last night around midnight on 22nd and Hennepin I even did a 
double take and I wouldn't be surprised if it was him. Last night. That's 
when it hit me:  the streets of this town are going to be a lot quieter, 
and a hell of a lot less fun, without our Spanky roaming them. Patrolling 
them.

Bob stories.  The ones that probably stick in most of our heads are the 
ones that have to do with his guitar.  It all started on Christmas in 
1969, when Anita bought Bob his first guitar, an acoustic one.  He took to 
it right away. By then, the family had moved from San Diego to West Palm 
Beach, Florida, where Bob played softball, joined Cub Scouts, and 
continued a love for the water that had started in California.  Anita 
remembers the time he took a summer job mowing lawns, and, after a 
rainfall, tore up a customer's lawn on a riding mower.  Clearly, 
landscaping was not his forte.

Around the same time, he learned how to play guitar, and he made some very 
good friends through it.  When Bob's grandfather died in 1973, Anita moved 
the family back to Minnesota, to the house on 36th and Bryant.  Bob was 15 
at the time, and the move was rough on him.  He found solace, and learned 
to express what he couldn't verbalize, through his music.

For the first couple years after moving to Minneapolis, Bob was unhappy 
until he found friends, again with his music.  First time Christ ever saw 
him, Bob was bumming around the neighborhood on a girl's bike.  He had 
long hair, like his hero, Steve Howe [of Yes], and was sitting on the curb 
smoking a cigarette, sneaking a listen to Christ playing guitar and drums 
up in the bedroom.  They eventually hooked up, formed Dog's Breath, and 
later the Replacements.  The rest, as Anita says, "was destiny."

Throughout his life, the guitar was Bob's main mode of expression. And 
even though he will be remembered most as founder of the Replacements, the 
fact is, he got just as much joy playing in Static Taxi, as the collage 
attests, the Bleeding Hearts, and the numerous other bands he played with 
over the past few years.  He brought the same no-holds-barred approach to 
all o fit.  He did not play for fame or wealth.  He played simply because, 
as he once said, "I have a gas playing the guitar."

That was abundantly clear, just from watching or listening to him.  He 
became an inspiration to hundreds of thousands of guitarists out there, 
but there never has been and never will be another guitar player like this 
one.

I'm sorry to have to bring everybody down ever more, but I have to report 
that I saw the Eagles last night.  Bob was there, too during "Rocky 
Mountain Way." But I'm here today to say that there are countless quote 
musicians out there like the ilk of the Eagles rich, famous, practiced, 
accomplished, clean, stylish who don't, in the entire membership or body 
of work, have the artistry, abandon, instinct, ability, guts, humor, or 
feel that Smokin' Bob Stinson had in his little finger.

There are a million Eagles out there, but there was only one Bob Stinson.

More than any guitar player I have ever seen or heard, Bob had an uncanny 
ability to actually fuse his personality with his guitar, and express 
himself through it.  His leads made you actually crawl inside him they 
were funny, intense, sad, and joyful, all at once.

Chris talks about when the 'Mats would do "Rock Around the Clock" at 100 
miles an hour, and about how much he loves it when the lead came, and Bob 
would, unfailingly, nail t to the floor.  There are countless other such 
moments you could name:  the other worldly magic "Go" and "Johnny's Gonna 
Die," the manic force of "Dose Of Thunder," the goofy insanity of "Tommy 
Gets His Tonsils Out," the barely controlled chaos of "Customer," and on 
and on and on.

Along with his playing, of course, there was Bob's special panache he 
rough to the stage.  I remember that magnificent face, scrunched up like 
he had a secret.  I remember his falsetto on "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, 
Yeah" and "Little G.T.O."  I remember him ripped off a lead he'd be 
particularly proud of, flicking his wrist like "waiter, my check," then 
patting himself on the back, all in one motion.

And, of course, there was the wardrobe.  The gorgeous, and always 
tasteful, dresses.  The Hefty garbage bags.  The overalls.  The Prince 
"1999" t-shirt. The little jean jacket.  The genie get-up that prompted 
Chris to start calling him "Sim Salabim."  One night at Duffy's, my big 
brother and I rolled a garbage can up on stage.  It came to rest 
perfectly, next to Paul.  Bob pulled it back by the drum riser and climbed 
in it as the band spun into "Rattlesnake" or something.

Halfway through, the thing tipped over in slow motion, and Bob and the 
entire contents beer bottles, food wrappers, everything- spilled out all 
over the stage.  I remember being worried about Bob for a second, but he 
kept playing, never missed a beat, and popped up, indestructible as ever. 
And when he did, we all saw that he'd lost his skirt and that he was buck 
naked underneath.

To this day, I have never laughed harder or had a single moment so fill me 
with the pure wonder and liberational power of rock n' roll. That power 
was evident off stage as well.  Paul talks about the last time he saw Bob. 
They were both walking on the same block, at different ends of the street, 
and they met in the middle.  They hadn't seen each other in a while, but 
they talked about guitars, music, and Tommy like no time at all had 
passed.

Others have said the same thing.  Bob was one of those guys you had an 
ongoing conversation with.  It always seemed like you picked up where you 
left off with him, even though you weren't even quite sure if he 
remembered you, or if you had mattered to him.  But then he'd amaze you 
with some remembrance, or a lost nugget that he wanted to tell you that 
he'd filed away in that wonderful spin art mind of his.

Slim remember Bob as a teacher; the most uncompetitive, giving musician 
he's ever met.  Lori Barbero remembers the last time she saw Bob.  He was 
tugging on her shirt at the Uptown, urgently, peskily, until she finally 
turned around and gave him a hug.  He didn't want anything else.  That was 
all.  That's all he wanted to give, and to get.  A hug.  In some of their 
last encounters with Bob, Peter and Jim Boquist had similar experiences: 
After a typically all-over-the-map Bob conversation, he surprised them 
both with a hasty, out-of-the-blue, "Love ya, man."

Yesterday, Anita got a letter from one of Bob's many fans.  "I'm not sure 
guys like Bob know what they mean to people who love their music," he 
wrote.  "For me, Bob's guitar playing always made me feel like I should 
keep moving in life, no matter how much the odds seemed stacked against 
me.  I grew up with Bob as one of my heroes.  He will always be one of my 
heroes, somebody I'll tell my kids about someday."

I think that pretty much sums it up for all of us.  Late Monday night as I 
was gathering my thoughts to write this, my little brother called me up on 
the phone, and he was sobbing.  He articulated some things that I had been 
feeling; that Bob's death was more than the passing of a tremendous 
musician, a wonderful father, son, brother, friend, husband, grandson, or 
uncle.  He said that a little bit of all of us had died with him.

I suppose that's what people say whenever someone dies, but everyone here 
knows exactly how true it is.  The weird thing of it is, my little brother 
had never even seen Bob play.  Still, he felt it.  He felt the connection. 
He felt the spirit.  He felt the loss.

And at the end of the day, that may have been Bob's greatest contribution: 
through his guitar, through his magnanimous good nature, he made people 
feel like they were his closest friend.  Better yet, he made us feel like 
we were in on that secret little joke that hid behind his omnipresent 
grin.

There are people in this room that I haven't seen, or seen together, for a 
very long time.  Leave it to Bob to get us all together for one more 
swingin' party. HE would've thought the suits and ties and pomp and 
circumstance were silly, he would have wondered where the beer was, and he 
would have been embarrassed by all the attention and the tears.  And what 
his passing means I can't begin to explain, but as Robert Frost said: "In 
three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life:  It goes on."

And Bob goes on.  On the phone the other night, through his tears, my 
little brother told me that his band played "Sixteen Blue" at the Cabooze 
last week, and that when he went to Slim's gig Saturday night at the 400 
Bar, Slim played one of his newer songs, "Big Star Big," and sang, "I 
wanna be a big star like Bob Stinson."  At this, my little brother and I 
were both getting pretty choked up, so we started to say goodbye.  As we 
were about to hang up, I heard myself say something that I haven't said to 
him in a very long time:

"Love ya, man."

In the past few days, you've probably said something like that to someone 
you haven't said that to in a very long time.  Rock n' roll doesn't always 
lend itself to such blatant sentimentality, but this week we have all been 
provided with a chance to get a little closer to each other, and a lot of 
unspoken feelings have been spoken. WE have been reminded that people are 
precious, that the bonds that we have made through this slippery thing 
called rock music are not dismissible, or intangible, or imaginary, or 
Other.  They are real. For that, for all of that and so much more, we have 
Bob to thank.

So thank you, Bob.  Thank you for bringing us, all of us, together not 
just for a day, today, but for yesterday, all the yesterdays, and 
tomorrow.  Thank you for touching us, for linking us, for helping us to 
recognize all the phony bullshit, all the stuff that doesn't matter, that 
the world throws our way. Thank you for cutting through the crap, always. 
Thank you for making us feel like we were part of something, like it was 
us against the world, and you were the third base coach, wildly waving us 
all in.  Jumping up and down.  In a dress.

Most of all, thank you for allowing us to glimpse, ever so briefly, your 
irrepressible, childlike spirit.  Thank you for allowing us, forcing us, 
to acknowledge the very natural connection between hopelessness and 
happiness. Thank you for this glorious gift.  Thank you, you fabulous 
yellow roman candle, for lighting our fuse.  May it never burn out.

__________________________________________________________________________

We miss you, Bob.

-- ch-scene: the list that mirrors alt.music.chapel-hill --
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/ch-scene





"If we are nothing at all in the end, let it be that we were true to 
ourselves."  -e. peace