CLASH-TEST DUMMIES (profanity alert):

"Just total chaos," marvels Dave Pirner, whose band Loud Fast Rules opened many early dates for the Replacements before changing their name to Soul Asylum. "So incredibly loud. They just didn't give a [***]."

First known as Dogbreath, and then the Impediments, the Replacements were fortunate to arrive just as the Twin Cities was establishing itself as the flourishing epicenter of American music in the '80s. As Jesperson and his partner at Twin/Tone, Paul Stark, nourished an ambitious punk and New Wave scene, the supernova known as Prince had emerged from Minneapolis's northside, a geyser of overflowing talent that brought the music industry out to see what other miracles the Midwest had to offer.

"I loved the Suburbs and the Suicide Commandos," Pirner recalls, name-checking some of the pioneering local acts who paved the way. "I loved Curtiss A. Of course I loved Prince. I guess I thought every city must have all of these cool bands around. I didn't know any better."

Even amid a surfeit of talent, the Replacements cut a memorable figure. Buttressed by Westerberg's warehouse of hook-and-humor-laden anthems, the rest of the band's lineup seemed to have emerged from some shadow history of Middle American vaudeville. There was bassist Tommy Stinson, whose matinee idol looks were already in evidence at the preposterously tender age of 14. Drummer Chris Mars was an affable, shaggy-haired figure who always played faster than the beat, which was never an easy task. Tommy's older brother Bob was an introvert off-stage and a Falstaff on lead guitar on it, his playing as brilliant as his comportment was madcap.

Taken together, they were adorable, needy, and most especially truculent. Even a relatively easy glide path to Minneapolis's hippest label did nothing to dull the raging, anti-authoritarian edge that defined them. Pirner recalls one other crucial advantage the Replacements held over the competition: "I remember many shows where there would be five people in the audience and no matter what, Peter Jesperson would be in the back screaming and hollering and applauding after every song. There were lots of great bands. But they had a manager."

To the surprise of absolutely no one, recording the Replacements' maiden LP proved a diabolical challenge. With the band new to the studio, turned up to the highest volume imaginable, and disinclined to do more than one or two takes, just getting a usable bass and drum track was nothing short of a wing and a prayer. A few different venues were tried before the band and Jesperson settled on scene fixture and Blackberry Way engineer Steve Fjelstad. He had the temperament and pedigree to bring something resembling order to the proceedings.

The finished product is a perfectly hectic guided tour through the taxi rides, strip malls, fleeting crushes, and petty drug deals that characterized the lives of teenage dirtbags all over the margins of Anytown, USA. A majority of the songs are under two minutes and none is longer than three and a half. "Hangin' Downtown" sounds like a book report on "Penny Lane" delivered by the slowest kid in class. "Something to Dü" is a good-natured jab at their scene rivals Hüsker Dü, a charmingly provincial artifact from a time when no one ever would've imagined that both bands would endure through history. And then there's "Johnny's Gonna Die," a slow-burn reckoning with misguided hero worship inspired by an especially tragicomic Twin Cities performance from the desolate rocker Johnny Thunders. "There was that moment in late '80 or early '81, we had all gone to see him play," Jesperson recalls, "and he was in really bad shape. The show was barely watchable, he was so messed up and junk sick and all that." The following day Jesperson checked in with Westerberg, who told him the title of his new song. "I was like, 'Oh my God.' All the songs that had been coming in at first were rockers. That was really the first slow one that entered the picture."

A minor-key wake for a man Westerberg considered a role model, "Johnny's Gonna Die" is as outwardly dispassionate as it is grimly perceptive: "Everybody stares and everybody hoots / Johnny always needs more than he shoots." It's Kafka's A Hunger Artist by way of Max's Kansas City--a portrait of a performer whose public suffering became inextricable from his work, and those who callously egged him on. It was a prophecy of not only Thunders's future but the Replacements', as well.

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