Peter Jesperson - the man who discovered and managed The Replacements - will conduct a book signing & discussion at the Lennox location of Barnes & Noble bookstore this Friday, September 13th from 5:30-7:30 pm. Tommy Stinson - bass player of said Replacements - will also take part in the discussion, then perform a solo set at Used Kids Records at 8 pm that night. Moderating the discussion will be Columbus’ own Curt Schieber, the man who had the singular privilege of having The Replacements sleep on the floor of and wreck his apartment on different occasions in the 1980’s.

Euphoric Recall:  A Half Century as a Music Fan, Producer, DJ, Record Executive, and Tastemaker by Peter Jesperson was published in November 2023.  I just finished reading the book and I loved every single page.  The lengthy title covers most of his endeavors, but Peter Jesperson was also a record store manager (Oar Folkjokeopus in Minneapolis) and most notably a band manager (The Replacements).  The book truly is a look into nearly every facet of the music business.  I’ll be honest, if you are not a fan of The Replacements, the book may not be as spectacular to you, but I do think any music fan would enjoy it.

Jesperson begins his story as a regular employee of an independent record store.  He ascended to manager of the store, a job he held from 1974 to 1982.  He was a DJ at Jay’s Longhorn Bar where Minneapolis bands like The Suburbs, Suicide Commandos, Husker Du, Soul Asylum and of course, The Replacements, all played in their infancy.  He co-founded Twin/Tone Records and road-managed R.E.M.  The guy has done it all when it comes to music.

Much of the book is focused on his discovery of The Replacements and the full story of everything that happened from the very early days of the band through the recording of their fifth record Tim (four full-length and the Stink EP), and the tours that followed each release.  Jesperson was let go after that, so the story of the band through the last three records, Pleased to Meet Me, Don’t Tell a Soul and All Shook Down, are not covered in the book.  There are tons of great stories from the road, as the band toured relentlessly, or at least it seemed that way to me. 

(side note - The mechanical breakdowns of the bands’ van was a recurring story, corroborated by this Ricki C. Pencil Storm piece posted in 2015:  Ricki C. Turns Down a Roadie Job With The Replacements — Pencil Storm.  You should click this link and read this.  Ricki’s story presents quite a dilemma, but I think he may have made the right choice.)

The last quarter of the book chronicles Jesperson’s own personal addiction to alcohol and his recovery, post-Replacements.  The title of the book is derived from an experience Jesperson had that I will not recount here, as it would spoil one of my favorite stories in the book, a story which explains where the title came from.

The book is a fairly quick read, it’s extremely well written and very humorous in parts.  There are lyrics shared which were secretly given to Jesperson by Paul Westerberg (and not the rest of the band) as his songwriting talents matured.  Some of them are truly moving.  I had to keep a pad of sticky notes by my side as I read so that I could mark certain pages that I knew I would want to return to.  There’s an excellent chronicling of the time that The Replacements played on Saturday Night Live.  I could go on, but the bottom line is that Euphoric Recall is just a great book, and you should read it.

JCE, or John to his friends, is 61 years old and lives happily in rural VA about an hour and half outside of D.C.  His wife of 33 years says he’ll never grow up, and she’s exactly right.  He attributes that to his lifelong love affair with all things rock n roll.  Starting with 45 rpm records purchased from the dime store at a very early age to his present massive collection of vinyl, CD’s and a digital library of who knows how many songs, he’s a rock n roll lifer.