Retro Video of the Week: "Left of the Dial" by The Replacements

Tonight and tomorrow night, The Replacements are going to be playing at The Riviera Theatre here in Chicago.  I'm going to the show tomorrow night, and I'm pretty pumped about it.  

For those not familiar with The Replacements, they started out as a hardcore punk band in the early '80s, then kind of mellowed their sound into more straightforward rock and roll as the decade went on, before breaking up in 1991 (right here in Chicago!).  They (or most of what's left of them) reunited in 2013 to play Riot Fest, and they have played a few festivals over the last few years.  Earlier this year, they announced their first tour in 24 years.

The band didn't make many music videos, so I went with a promo video for "Left of the Dial" off of 1985's Tim album.  I wish there were some videos from 1984's Let It Be, which is my favorite of their albums, but they didn't start making any music videos until 1985, so it is what it is.  Not that this is a bad song. It is an ode to college radio stations, which usually had lower FM call numbers and, thus, were usually to the very left side of the dial. You see kids, back in the day, before digital radio tuners, a radio had a dial and, like most things in the Western world, it went from left to right, increasing as you moved to the right, from 87.7 to 107.9.  When you listen to this song -- and pretty much any of their music -- you can see how they influenced '90s alternative rock and even bands today.  Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem (one of my favorite newer bands) said that this song was a particular influence on the band.  The video itself is pretty bare bones, but it allows you to focus on the music.