The Greatest Rock And Roll Band. Period.

News that a Replacements best-of and box set are in the offing made us dial up The Replacements on our IPod this morning and listen through the entire catalog in one stretch throughout our workday (alphabetically by album title, if you must know). And goldang it, if there is a single rock song better than "Left Of The Dial" I defy anyone to name it. Considering what gems might make it onto the box set is a pleasant way to spend some time. The wealth of Mats live bootlegs out there is pretty evident from a simple search of the blogosphere, especially recently. As far as the population of Twin/Tone-era non-album tracks kicking around, which would be the really exciting stuff, it's anybody's guess. Actually, I know a guy who could give me the definitive answer, but that's not the point of this post.

Anyway, here is "Lookin' For Ya," a Twin/Tone era non-album track that fans will recognize as a ballsier version of Hootenanny's "Lovelines" with real lyrics. The story as best as we can remember it, is the band wrote the tune to be considered for use in a Miller beer commercial. Of course, The Mats couldn't help but intentionally hamstring their effort, and as such Paul closes out the track by hollering "Keep your riches, get me a BUDWEISER!" We just did a Google and found this recent Record Robot post that gives bit more color on the genesis of the track and its release history, as it is. So maybe this cut isn't as rare as I had thought, not anymore. But what the hell, I took the trouble to write it, you took the trouble to read it, so here it is.

The Replacements -- Lookin' For Ya