Steve Birmingham, left, and Bob Stinson in Minneapolis, Easter 1994 | Photo by Kevin Kruger
When Steve Birmingham launched “The Dewey Berger Show” on Minneapolis public-access TV in 1994, he conducted his first sit-down interview with Bob Stinson, the co-founding guitarist of The Replacements who famously was fired from that band in 1986.
Birmingham is in the process of creating a website — birminghamland.org — to archive his arts and entertainment journalism, and he’s posted the 40-minute interview with Stinson, which he says has not been since since it aired on Twin Cities televisions on April 4, 1994.
In an email to Slicing Up Eyeballs, Birmingham says it may be one of the last on-camera interviews Stinson did before his death less than a year later. “It also appears that there are generations of ‘Mats fans who’ve never before heard Bob talk or laugh and my aim for sharing this footage is to help change that dynamic,” he writes.
In the interview, Stinson discusses the Mats’ rivalry with Hüsker Dü (“It was time for them to go by the wayside”), raiding R.E.M.’s booze while opening for the college-rock legends, the Let It Be rooftop photo shoot and the infamous video for “Bastards of Young” off the soon-to-be-reissued album Tim (“It doesn’t say anywhere you have to appear in your video”).
In one moment that’s now surreal in retrospect, Birmingham asks Stinson about his opinion of Guns N’ Roses — a band Stinson’s younger brother Tommy would join four years later. “They should stop, break up and all start new bands and change their name and see what it’s like to be original again,” Stinson says.
The piece closes with a quick cut to Stinson on guitar, strumming the opening to Urge Overkill’s “Sister Havana.”
WATCH: See the full 40-minute interview over at birminghamland.org.
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