Two More Releases from Westerberg

Paul Westerberg, you just can't ever guess what he'll do these days...after a 4-year quiet, he releases a 43:55 mish-mash mashup of long and short song snippets called "49:00" in late July (our review on it here), then a week or so later came 5:05 in early August, which contrary to initial belief was not the remaining time from "49" but something new altogether.

Now, a couple weeks after that come two more MP3s called "Finally Here Once" and "3oclockreep." Info sent to me on it is as follows:

The two MP3s are "Finally Here Once", which is one song, and
"3oclockreep", which is 20 minutes long and includes lots of overlapping stuff and a couple of distinct songs. It also includes an outtake from the sessions with Tom Waits that produced "Date To Church"**. Said outtake includes Tommy, Paul and Tom Waits trying to figure out the words to "if Only You Were Lonely" and Tom Waits doing some of "We Know The Night". That must have been some night!

Downloading both tracks will cost you $3.99. If for some reason you only want to buy one of the tracks, you can get them individually as well ("3oclockreep" for $3.00 and "Finally Here Once" for $0.99).

"3oclockreep" (Approx. song title/length):
01 Tell 'Em All, Go to Hell 2:49
02 Mash of Outtakes 0:44
03 It's Ridiculous, Everybody Wants to Be Famous 2:53
04 Only Excuse Is 2:15
05 You're Still Mine 1:05
06 If Only You Were Lonely [Mats in Studio with Tom Waits] 1:00
07 Studio Ramblings [Mats in Studio with Tom Waits] 1:15
08 We Know the Night [Mats in Studio with Tom Waits] 3:06
09 Lowdown Monkey Blues [Mats in Studio with Tom Waits] 5:08

**If you don't know "Date To Church", it was previously released on a Sire CD sampler called "Just Say Mao" in 1989, part of their "Just Say Yes" series. And it will be included on the upcoming Sire reissue of "Don't Tell A Soul" (out next month!).

(Editor's note: It was also included on a great bootleg of various 'Mats tracks called Beat Girl that while expensive, is worth every. single. penny. Highly recommended.)

You'd do well to get them sooner than later as "49" and "5:05" were only available for a very short time then poof!, they were gone like a cold beer on a hot day. Both tracks can be purchased here.

The Missing 5:05 to Westerberg's "49" Release Appears

So a few weeks back, Paul Westerberg released his first bit of music since roughly 2004, a 43:55 continuous stream of music clips, fade in/outs, and other assorted oddities entitled "49"(see our review here). Apparently, there was much discussion as to why the thing was titled "49" when there was only 43:55 minutes to it, and where was the remaining 5:05; me, I figured it was just Westerberg being Westerberg.

However, Heather over at I Am Fuel, You are Friends reports today that there really was a remaining 5:05 segment to "49" and it was released for purchase here on TuneCore for either $5.05 or $.99. The sound of "5:05" is reminiscent of Stereo/Mono tracks (Mono specifically) and as Heather states, includes Westerberg's curmudgeon self yelling expletives at the end. Once a punk, always a punk....

Heather also reports that the original download links that were everywhere like Itunes and here are no more. But if you happened to download "49," the photo below is the official back cover, which didn't get released in time for the launch of the download.

Earotica: 49-Paul Westerberg Review

WARNING: DO NOT LISTEN WHILE OPERATING A MOTOR VEHICLE

THIS PRODUCT IS NOT FAULTY - ALL SOUNDS ARE INTENTIONAL AND VALID AS A WORK OF ART

As you may have read here Friday, Paul Westerberg was set to offer a group of new songs via a $.49 download here Saturday, "July 49" (or July 19 to you and me). Technical issues pushed it back until today. Now here at work where I downloaded it, I had to use headphones to listen to it but I highly suggest you do the same so as to catch some of the odder/cooler nuances.

Sans the tracks contributed to the movie "Open Season" a little while back, 49 is Westerberg's first release of new stuff since 2004's Folker. I'd heard that 49 is a collection of things Westerberg has worked on over the past year. If you're a casual Westerberg fan, I don't think you'll care for it, but for the more die-hard types, you'll love it. It's one 43:55 track filled with a couple full songs, song smatterings, smash edits of songs going in and out of each other, a couple covers (Paul doing "I Think I Love You" is pretty awesome), and what I think is Paul playing and singing background behind a child (his son Johnny perhaps?). There are no track listings. Musicially, it covers the gambit. I'd texted a friend about half way through and said "It's sorta alt-country," but then as soon as I hit the Send button on that text, it had morphed into more rock and then some real punk-style sounds. Again, you should listen to it with headphones to catch all the cool strangeness that runs through this.

Westerberg could run with any of the half-tracks and make them into great full-length songs. Maybe that's the reason for 49, to test things out, who knows. But like Tom Waits, Paul Westerberg could write a song about the phone book and somehow make the lyrics into something beautiful you'd want to listen to. 49 is a schizophrenic hot mess and something very few artists could put out without catching flack for it, but Westerberg is one of those few. Consider it like a 43:55 minute look into the mind of a great writer/musician without the need of an interviewer.