Village Gorilla Head is the first solo release by ex-Replacements bassist, Tommy Stinson. You are a discerning music listener, so you already know that. Stinson has been semi-active since the breakup of that seminal American rock band fronting Bash & Pop and Perfect. In a “It’s so L.A.” moment, he joined that 21st Century Snopes Family called Guns N Roses as, duh, bassist. The accompanying bio makes one hell of an understatement, “… in the complex world of GN’R, Tommy has a fair amount of downtime.” What else to do but to make a solo record?!

Stinson offers eleven diverse tracks of rock n roll, which sends the proverbial red flag up the rock-write-music-snob-critic pole. Will the diversity threaten the overall vision? Or will the record be hailed as a document stretching his songwriting abilities? From Westerberg-esque singer/songwriter fare to Tommy Keene-drenched power pop to slick Stones/Faces-rockers to generic chart emulating-rock (whether it’s the emo-pop of Switchfoot or the wannabe-garage-rock of Jet); Stinson is all over the board and it simply doesn’t work. While the record is inconsistent, this doesn’t kill it (you can always make your own mix of favorite tracks).

The biggest problem with Village Gorilla Head is the bland alterna-modern-rock sound that Stinson plays. Songs such as "Moment Too Soon," “Someday," “Bite Your Tongue," “Something’s Wrong," and “Couldn’t Wait” are decent tracks, yet are curiously too ordinary, too Westerberg (are royalties being paid?), and too vain, crying out to be liked. The Brillo pad production emasculates the rockers, the ballads are cheesy, and everything else sounds blasé. You know what I’m talking about: that middle-aged WASP-y corporate dude with a moonlighting gig playing the blues at Famous Dave’s. He simply plays it safe, relying on the sounds of today to dictate his songs.

One can listen to the record and think, “This is Tommy Stinson’s solo record, a record recorded years after the Replacements broke up. Take it on its own.” Doing so leaves the conclusion: this record is a slightly above average chunk of Triple A modern rock. Fine. To be fair to Stinson, you cannot expect him to be Westerberg (even though he seems to be emulating him) and he isn’t going to retread the Mats glory days.

Actually, it is perfectly right to compare this record to Paul Westerberg and the Replacements, as the bio admits that his years spent with Westerberg are an influence and contends that Stinson was responsible for “huge slabs of what made [the Replacements] special.” If that is the case, Stinson has lost the plot.  

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© 2004 Bandoppler Publishing