Peter Jesperson, the ultimate music obsessive, didn't play an instrument and wasn't about to learn. He had to figure out a way into the music business.
The Minnetonka native managed a hip south Minneapolis record store (Oar Folkjokeopus), spun records at the area's premier punk club (Jay's Longhorn Bar) and cofounded the essential Twin Cities indie record label (Twin/Tone). Then, Minneapolis' most influential tastemaker in the 1970s and '80s became the Replacements' manager.
"I had an epiphany when I heard that first Replacements tape," said Jesperson, recalling Paul Westerberg handing him a cassette at Oar Folkjokeopus. "I was really ridiculed and criticized at first for my obsession with them. I just knew they were great, and they were important, and they would stand the test of time.
"To have them as revered as they are in 2023 is probably the most gratifying experience in my entire life. I got it right once in my lifetime."
Jesperson, 69, chronicles his lifetime in the music biz in a new memoir, "Euphoric Recall." He tells his personal tale from being a Beatle and Bowie-maniac to experiencing the highs of the Replacements and R.E.M. (he was their road manager) to getting sober and working in L.A. with the likes of Steve Earle and Kris Kristofferson. The book doubles as an insider's history of the burgeoning Twin Cities indie rock scene in the '70s and '80s.
Jesperson will talk about many of those topics in a Q&A with longtime radio DJ Mary Lucia at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Electric Fetus, with performances by Curtiss A and others.
Music lovers will want to hear about the beloved Replacements, who were as brilliant as they were a carefree, intoxicated train wreck.
"They weren't able to fake it. But that was part of what made them so great," Jesperson reflected this month. "Somebody that great has to have a flip side. There was a contempt for the glossiness of people launching a career by how they look rather than how they sound."