Filmmaker Gorman Bechard, director of a documentary about The Replacements to be screened in Kittery with an all-start tribute band, discusses America’s quintessential rock band.

Author and filmmaker Gorman Bechard first saw The Replacements in 1983 opening for R.E.M. at Toad’s Place in New Haven, Conn. At the time, The Replacements were still a relatively obscure band from Minneapolis that had released a couple of albums on the small punk label Twin/Tone Records. Bechard had never heard of them.

“We were right literally up against the stage,” he said. “They came out and (guitarist) Bob (Stinson) was wearing a dress and, seriously, I thought they were the worst band I had ever seen, to the point where I turned my back on them. They were just horrible.”

Six months later, Bechard walked into a local record store and began perusing a stack of new albums. The pile included a 12-inch single of “I Will Dare,” which would become the opening track on The Replacements’ 1984 masterpiece, “Let It Be.”

“I loved the song, but I couldn’t even make the connection that this was that horrible band that I had seen,” Bechard said. “And then, of course, the album comes out, and the album was everything that we had been looking for in music.”

After that, Bechard was hooked. He saw the band in concert around 15 times before they broke up in 1991, and their music served as inspiration for his many novels and films. In 2011, he made a documentary about The Replacements called “Color Me Obsessed.” It will be screened at Buoy in Kittery, Maine, on Saturday, Jan. 14.

The event, presented by Buoy and 3S Artspace, will also include a pre-film musical tribute featuring an all-star cast of local musicians anchored by Geoff Useless (The Guts, The Connection), Tim McCoy (Tim McCoy and the Papercuts) and Rick Orcutt (The Guts). A number of guest vocalists will pitch in, including Wimpy Rutherford (The Queers, The Jabbers), Tom Colletta (Jupiter 2), Nate Doyle (The Guts), Guy Capecelatro III and others.

As his film illustrates, Bechard’s initial disdain for The Replacements was not an uncommon reaction. Part of what made the band so great, he said, is that there was no telling what they might do onstage. Sometimes they were drunk and belligerent, sometimes they were brilliant, sometimes both. Bob Stinson often performed in a tutu and behaved erratically. Bassist Tommy Stinson leapt and Pogo-ed around the stage while Chris Mars smashed the drums. Front man Paul Westerberg sang with a hoarse, tortured voice that pierced to the anguished heart of rock. They covered songs by everyone from The Beatles and Stones to Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

Unlike other megastars of the ’80s (Bechard singled out U2), The Replacements did not glitz up their concerts with elaborate lightshows and gimmicks. Their performances were completely unscripted and unpredictable.

“You never knew what you were going to get,” he said. “It’s what rock and roll is supposed to be. It was chaotic and it was beautiful and it always kept you on your toes.”

Their studio albums weren’t too shabby either. Bechard considers the Mats, as the band was colloquially known, one of a small handful of groups to produce three perfect albums—“Let It Be,” “Tim” and “Pleased to Meet Me.”

The first of that trio, 1984’s “Let It Be,” came out when the Ramones were still kings of the American punk scene. The record helped revolutionize the genre, introducing a more complex and eclectic sound that paved the way for alternative rock in the ’90s and indie rock in the 2000s.

“Let’s face it, a Ramones album is 10 or 11 versions of the same song. This was like 10 different bands on this album,” Bechard said. “There was so much depth there and it just had an amazing sound. Westerberg just had the perfect voice for rock and roll, and the guitar playing was just mind-blowing. It was the best guitar playing we’d heard since The Clash in any band. So it all just clicked.”

The documentary fell into Bechard’s lap after another director gave up on the project. He decided to start over from scratch and take an unusual approach. He did not reach out to the living band members (Bob Stinson died in 1995), nor did he include any concert footage. In fact, the movie has no soundtrack, at all.

Bechard said he did not want the film to feel like an episode of VH1’s “Where Are They Now?” He wanted to do something different that would honor the band’s unorthodox approach to rock. Even his wife thought he was crazy to make a rock documentary with no music, but that only increased his resolve.

“I never wanted to play one note of music,” Bechard said. “Once I got that idea in my head, I shut the doors myself. I never wanted to talk to (the band). It would have made it a different doc.”

Instead, Bechard interviewed dozens of fans, musicians, music critics, label employees and sound engineers. Among the music celebrities featured are Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, Grant Hart of Hüsker Dü, Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem and all three members of the Goo Goo Dolls. An interview with former Twin/Tone employee Blake Gumprecht was filmed here in Portsmouth.

The finished product, over two hours long, has garnered positive reviews. Rolling Stone called it one of the seven best music documentaries of 2011. Bechard hopes fans of The Replacements will hear the songs in their heads as they watch.

Part of what makes the film compelling, despite the lack of music, is the diverse range of perspectives and opinions expressed. Some early fans of The Replacements dismissed them after they left Twin/Tone and signed with Warner’s Sire Records. Others lost interest when the band kicked out Bob Stinson and fired original manager Peter Jesperson. Still others remained loyal all the way through the final album, “All Shook Down,” essentially a solo project by Westerberg.

For his part, Bechard said he remained faithful up until 1989’s “Don’t Tell a Soul,” the band’s second to last record. His favorite Replacements’ album is “Tim” and his single favorite song is its closing track, “Here Comes a Regular.” 

But, despite numerous opportunities, The Replacements never broke through to a large commercial audience. Their most successful album, 1987’s “Pleased to Meet Me,” has sold roughly 300,000 copies (the top-selling album of that year was Bon Jovi’s “Slippery When Wet,” which has sold more than 12 million copies).

According to Bechard, The Replacements repelled some fans because their sound changed with every album. And, they failed to attract a wider audience because they deliberately botched every chance at fame. Their first music video on MTV, for the song “Bastards of Young,” simply showed a speaker for four straight minutes. When the band was invited to perform on “Saturday Night Live,” they trashed their dressing room and were permanently banned from the studio.

Bechard hopes his documentary will help usher in a new generation of Replacements fans. He’s disillusioned with the popular bands of the 2000s.

“I freakin’ hate music right now. Because music right now is that whole Vampire Weekend, Foster the People crap, which is embarrassingly wimpy,” he said. “I can’t put into words how much I detest that type of music. It makes me angry.”

Bechard has authored some eight novels and directed several feature films (including a 2009 rom-com called “Friends (With Benefits),” featuring a conspicuously identical plot to the 2011 Hollywood film of the same title starring Justin Timberlake). “Color Me Obsessed” is his first documentary, but he’s currently at work on a new doc about the reunion of ’90s rock band Archers of Loaf. He had hoped to attend the screening in Kittery but will be in North Carolina filming the Archers.

This is not the first time the creative minds at Buoy have paid tribute to a rock act from the ’80s. About two years ago, they staged a Morrissey tribute show. But, to Bechard, The Replacements remain the one perfect band.

“They epitomized rock and roll. They were the best rock band of all time,” he said.

The event begins at 7 p.m. on Jan. 14 at Buoy, 2 Government St., Kittery, Maine, 207-450-2402. Tickets are $8. Visit www.3sarts.org.