Former Replacements Drummer Chris Mars' Dark "Tolerance"

Chris Mars made a name for himself as the spastic timekeeper in the Replacements, the booze-soaked Minneapolis post-punk band he helped co-found. But with rock stardom in his rearview, Mars has made a second splash in the art world. Tolerance, his first book, collects 159 paintings created between 2000 and 2007. Mars' work is surreal and gothic, equal parts Tim Burton film, Tool video and demented children's cartoon, with titles like "Fuck If I'll Hold My Tongue" and "Miserably Obedient." Tolerance also includes essays and notes by Mars, which helps to illustrate the evolution of his work from the deeply personal (his early work was inspired by his brother's schizophrenia) to the intensely political (as the intro to a piece called "The Plea," Mars writes, "Mother (Cindy) Sheehan at top is represented in all-out anger as her voice and her every breath relases the spirit of her fallen son Casey...Bush, yellow dunce, is at the center of the mess.").

Tolerance is available through Billy Shire Fine Arts Press.

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Song Stories

“Push It”

Salt-N-Pepa | 1987

Originating as a B side to their cover of the Stax classic “Tramp,” Cheryl “Salt” James, Sandi “Pepa” Denton and Dee Dee “DJ Spinderella” Roper came up with the goods on this career-making, Grammy-nominated platinum single about working it on the dancefloor. “Push It” has been sampled and spliced to death since it debuted in 1987, yet the original track is as fresh and fly as when SNP — among the few original women of hip-hop — debuted it. “Most men will never believe ‘Push It’ was never about sex,” said James. “And that’s why the record went to Number One,” said Denton. “Everybody thought it was about sex.”

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