Bob Mould: Classic or Dud?

Have to disagree with you about Black Sheets. As an album, it works because it's Bob acknowledging that he doesn't have to prove his cred to the die-hards anymore. And there's only a couple of unbearables like the sappy ballads off of Workbook or the '95 S/T release. Lots of straight-forward rockers on Black Sheets that sound good at the end of a hot hazy summer for some reason. I do miss the Huskers an awful lot (tho like you, Sugar was technically my intro to Mouldism)..Zen Arcade is still awesome. He could rock harder than any band in 2001, thats for sure.

Bob's first solo period was uneven. Everyone praised Workbook, but I didn't get it--there were some fine numbers, to be sure, especially on the first half ("See a Little Light" rose to the top I figure). Black Sheets of Rain, on the other hand, was bleak bleak bleak--the songs were dull, there was no dynamic range (how can there be when the whole thing is full-on?) and I felt there was precious little emotion in the record, something which later Husker Du-era Bob had.

My expectations for Sugar were extremely low after that. It was a really lovely surprise, then, that I utterly adored Copper Blue, which I think had his best songwriting ever ("If I Can't Change Your Mind" remains my favourite song ever written, bar none), and the backing band gave him a spark that made the album fun and exciting again. Plus that guitar sound...mmmm boy! Beaster was darker but still very sonically interesting. And File Under: Easy Listening, while it wasn't up to previous standards, still had quite a few great tracks.

Solo era two...I think David is probably right that his self-titled album is overall his best, with a lot of great numbers and a couple of blasts of guitar noise guaranteed to annoy parents and neighbors. Dog and Pony has some good numbers, but disappoints.

Ultimately, Mould has thrown off some clunkers, but I think the good stuff far outweighs those. And hell, he'd get classic in my book even if was only for that guitar tone. Mmmm.

All his work with Sugar (& later on, I'd gather) is very professional. Cleanly recorded in a dirty way, like Alan Moulder's production work, or _Loveless_. (One song off _File Under: Easy Listening_ "borrows" the melody from "Make a Wish". Also, he used to say something about his ideal show featuring MBV & Sugar on opposite ends of a football field making as much noise as possible.) Meticulous and modulated. Some inspired moments, sure - "If I Can't Change Your Mind" (as Sean noted), "Explode and Make Up", "Gee Angel". However, this professionalism arrived at the expense of any true passion. Sure, on _Beaster_, he screams his lungs out, but it all sounds pheff - not too different from the bevy of nu-metal poseurs out & about. It could just be a matter of him growing old / up - the intensity on older Husker Du material is apparent even when he's not screaming. Sugar sounds cool 'n' all dat, but it's not half as engaging as the messier stuff that preceeded it.

Sometimes I think that, on "I Hate Alternative Rock" ("I wish you had something new to say"), he's talking about himself. Ach - I feel like I'm talking about an ex-girlfriend that didn't live up to my expectations.

Bob Mould solo - Dud

Sugar - Classic

(I then heard a bit of Husker Du and didn't like that either. But nowhere near as little as Sugar.)

Bobby btw is between C and D. Husker Du: Classic. "Copper Blue", when it came out i played it over & over & over again (esp. side 1). Then out of the blue: nothing. Haven't played it since. By the time the next Sugar album came out (crap name for a band also) didn't care anymore as did most of us.

The only thing they really had in common with an indie band was that they loaded their own gear. All three members had been involved with music for ages and never showed much bitterness about their stature. They made some records, played a ton of shows, were professional and smart about what they did and got the fuck out.

Okay -- so they were on Creation in the UK and Ryko (hardly a Touch & Go or Merge) in the US. Technically they were an indie band. However, Sugar never possessed any of the negative connotations I associate with the word 'indie'. I don't care about how many people have regarded Bob Mould too highly. It's not as if he ever whored himself out for the attention. Besides, he was too busy watching wrestling.

Solo= don't like it. The songwriting isn't on that great level.

Sugar= got copper blue and beaster. I love it! I can't undestand Tom's hatred of them. The NME (for once) got it right!

I like Sugar, and like nobody else I liked File Under more than Copper Blue. "Gee Angel" and "Explode & Make Up" and "Your Favorite Thing" are fucking brilliant. The live disc that came with Besides is also absolutely amazing. I really wish I had seen Sugar live; a bit too young.

His only solo stuff I've heard is the s/t one, and it's great, especially the quieter stuff. The harder/louder stuff sounds a little bizarre without a real band.

After Sugar, I just can't get with what Bob has been doing. It started going wrong with that record where he did all of the instruments and the little I have heard after that one wasn't my thing.

Husker Du, parts of his first two solo records and Sugar are great.

It would be nice if Bob Mound could get over it and come to terms with Grant Hart. Even 15 years down the line, it seems like there is some really bad blood between them. Mould seems to want to write Grant Hart out of the history of the band or something. What a grudge or power trip. Mind you this is all based on reading bunches of interviews with both of them. Considering how Sugar ended up, a pattern seems somewhat evident.

Sugar was really good and much more intense live. It was a pretty brave move on Mould's part to tour a few times with that band before they had a record out. I saw them a couple of times, once at Bogarts in Cinci before anything had come out and once later on in Chicago. They were a blinding wall of sound live.

Never saw Husker Du. They were my favorite band when I was 17-18 years old and broke up my senior year in high school. A friend of mine used to have a tape of Husker Du playing on the Joan Rivers show, they did two songs and the set that looked like the cover of Warehouse: Songs and Stories. Joan also had them over briefly to be interviewed. My friend's Mom taped over it a couple of years later...what a loss. (This is the kind of thing that would be great on some deluxe Husker Du reissue, but Bob and Grant haven't been able to work things out to make something like this happen.)

Sorty...sorry.

It would be nice if Bob and Grant buried the hatchet, it would be great to hear the older albums remastered, particularly as they have never really been done justice on CD. But that seems unlikely, even as recently as Modulate the Grant-bashing persists (I thought the line "Some deadbeat Dad who lives at home" in The Receipt was particularly hurtful, Grant also claims that Bob cryptically reveals Grant's address in the lyrics to that song.)

I only saw Sugar once, in 1994 shortly after FU:EL came out - it was one of the biggest disapointments of my life. You just couldn't hear the guitar or vocals at ALL. Several audience members were trying to alert the band to this fact but to no avail.

Perhaps because Sugar were my favourite band when I was fifteen I still feel a very powerful emotional connection with Bob's songs, particularly those on Copper Blue and Warehouse. But I also believe he does the vulnerable lyrics/loud guitars thing better than anybody else. To this day, I tend to put a Bob record on to listen to loud, through headphones, late at night when I'm drunk!

All time favourites would be Zen Arcade, New Day Rising, Warehouse:Songs and Stories, Beaster.

Weaker moments: Candy Apple Grey (in term's of Bob's songs), Modulate.

Pretty much everything else, classic!

Haven't heard Sugar. Bought 'Modulate' the other day. It's okay, not outstanding, but something I'll listen to again, even though he sounds disturbingly like Dave Grohl, which a friend pointed out to me. Haven't heard anything else of his solo stuff, but apparently it's better. So, I'll have to get it.

Can I just say though, Grant Hart's 'Intolerence' is definitely worth getting.

Husker Du - Classic

Bob Mould solo - Dud

Sugar - Classic

-- alex in nyc (vassife...), July 4th, 2001.

Looking back, that seems a bit harsh. While I still prefer Husker Du and Sugar, there have been moments in Bob's solo work that have been quite good.

Sasha otm re: Intolerance - we need a Grant Hart thread..

don't blame bob for that; he came first. although i always thought grohl was a bit closer to grant hart.

love love love husker du, although they started sliping on the last couple albums. i find sugar a tad bit less interesting than, say, jimmy eat world. not a huge waste of talent, just the usual steady decline.

He just seems so unimaginative, so lacking in spark. Sure, he had a good guitar sound. That doesn't give him license to make bog-standard indie fuzz songs for 20 years.

"Copper Blue" still sounds impeccable. Produced with Lou Giordano, who I believe was HD's longtime sound guy.

Oh, and MBV at its loudest usually hovers around 120dB, and has reportedly reached close to 130 at its absolute noise zenith, so it seems unlikely Mould comes close to that. Mould is loud, but it's not disorientingly loud like MBV (and a few others, like Mogwai, High on Fire, etc.)

this is from the FU:EL tour and sounds pretty good to me

(it was also the bonus disc on certain pressings of the 'besides' comp)

(actually saturday)

Bob Mould got married today. 💕 Congrats Bob and Don. pic.twitter.com/3x8fH1qepR

— Roni (@roni1133) May 7, 2023

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fvk2_QNX0AALK1l?format=jpg&name=large

You will lose your mind
When Bob Moulds are two of a kind

Tour dates, starting in Chicago July 25, most marked Solo Electric, which I find kind of appealing at this point:

track to get concert, live stream and tour updates.
https://bobmould.com/tour/

Wow - Chicago, Skokie and Schaumburg. He must love northern Illinois.

Elkton, Maryland?! (nowhere near me, or at least as far as you can get in Maryland away from me, unless her were to play Deep Creek Lake or something).

Yeah I noticed that the Maryland gig is very far away from the Md suburbs of DC and even Baltimore. No DC or Baltimore gig listed

Saw him perform solo last night -- absolutely lost my shit and had to bend down to scream into my knees to protect my neighbors' ears when I recognized Something I Learned Today (without the bassline, which took a few seconds longer than I expected!) and then he followed it with Chartered Trips. I have never heard either of these songs performed live and I most definitely flipped tf out. How exhilarating.

He only played two songs I didn't know and the rest felt like a sonic trip through my life from 15 to present. I did actively miss Grant several times, especially when he sang Flip Your Wig bc I always loved the "I don't know" Grant part so I sang it myself. It only took about 5 seconds of hearing him play guitar to alleviate my concerns about there not being a band. It almost felt more intimate this way even though it was outdoors and most of the crowd was in a lawn chair (I scooted to the front and did not regret it). Hell yeah Bob Mould 4-ever <3 XOXOXOX

That was one of the solo electric shows?? So want to go.

Yep. Would def recommend!!

glad you had such a good time! what guitar does he play live now?

Workbook is so damn impressive.

Just mentioning it for the record.

He played Sinners and their Repentances in addition to See a Little Light — fun to hear a deep cut!

No idea about the guitar. I’m not a guitar person.

He mostly plays the silver Strat with the Lace Sensors live, I think? I remember him having some kind of custom DOD 250 variant, a TC Electronic Flashback delay, an EHX Freeze (mostly used for transitions between songs, it seemed), and a Wampler Ego at the end of the chain into a Deluxe Reverb the last time I saw him.

thx!

Bob Mould is sitting in with the 8G Band on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Thursday August 22

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwngl8api94

Nice . I think NBC is going ahead with their plans to make Seth Meyer’s show dump the studio band to save NBC money. I think that explains the song choice “Makes No sense at all”. A dc rooted musician Ely Janney is in the band

members of les savy fav as well

When he's 64. (I've got "Makes No Sense at All" cued up for a grade 3 class this morning. May make no sense at all.)

Hope they like it

They didn't walk out of class en masse, but I think they liked the Just Dance "I Gotta Feeling" they picked for DPA better.

New alb:
https://www.stereogum.com/2292316/bob-mould-here-we-go-crazy/music/

Album isn't available till March. Title track "Here We Go Crazy" is consistent with his recent songwriting style

I prefer Cooper Blue over his 84/85 albums.

I prefer Copper Blue over most music made by all humans.

^ this

otm to both of you

Better than Husker Du? Insanity

This is Grant Hart erasure for which I will not stand

I love Sugar and like HD very much. No erasure.

I love HD and like Sugar very much. Good thing we’ve got both!

I’m glad to have both too!

2541111111111111111111

You can sing “for which I will not stand” to the tune of “what promise have I made” lol

I love Husker Du but Copper Blue is like the best songwriting from them with production that's like a million times better.

I concede that I was not weaned on Du; they were never a watershed band for me and I got into them late. In fact, my favorite album of theirs is the swansong live document because I think the songs simply sound better than the studio albums. I mean, "Ice Cold Ice" off The Living End is so much more urgent and powerful than the studio version.

More though, Grant Hart fans seem to find this blasphemy far more than those who gravitated towards Mould. Which makes sense.

Off Copper Blue
Best: The Act We Act
Runner up: Slick

Hard to choose from "Changes," "A Good Idea," and the keyboard break in "Hoover Dam."

"Here We Go Crazy" is very good.

I agree. I went back to the other five he's done with this trio - I wouldn't recommend listening to them all in one sitting, but on their own, each one really holds up. Even though he's much younger than Dylan (and his music isn't similar at all), it brings to mind Dylan's latter day work in that it's one album after another performed, arranged and produced in roughly the same mold. Like Dylan, he's not trying to redefine his sound anymore, instead he's focusing on what his songs are trying to address or say.

Interview in Rolling Stone is good. This part stood out:

At this point in your life, what does it take to physically rev up to that intensity?

Okay, so the dirty little secret in the business is: If you love a band and the singer or the drummer are over 60, take a look at their tour itinerary and see how many back to backs (shows) they’re doing. That tells you. I know I’m not as spry as I was in my 20s, and I know that I don’t have the raw power I did in my 30s, but I can still summon that every night, the closest I can get to it. I do not sit onstage. I run around and I am soaking wet after 10 minutes.

The hard part is the recovery. The voice is the hardest thing. It’s a lot of water, a lot of sleep, trying not to scream bloody murder every single night. Just little shortcuts. When I’m on tour, I do not talk. I go to soundcheck, and I do a half a song, and I shut up, and I do 90 minutes, and then I shut up. I might say “Starbucks” or “bathroom.” At the after-show, I’m not going to talk to everybody for an hour and a half. If I do that, the tour is over. I’m going to get a lanyard that says, “Can’t talk.”

it's one album after another performed, arranged and produced in roughly the same mold

Don't you mean mould?

lol

NY Times interview discusses what he likes to watch and do. Here's some of it

Morning Walks at Ocean Beach, San Francisco
I have really bad tinnitus from work — I mean, I will never have silence again. So one of my favorite things in life is to get up before the sun comes up, and just walk for two hours. It’s one of the few places where I can get my head right, because all I can hear is the sound of the ocean.

Games
This is so pandering, but no matter where I am, before I look at the news or start returning calls, I get on The New York Times Games app. Spelling Bee is addictive — if I don’t get Genius on it every day, I get really upset. And when I’m home with the husband, we play a lot of Catan, which is quite fun.

Coffee
Since I’m a dry alcoholic, much of my daily existence revolves around coffee — one of the few things I have left. When I get to a town, there’s always a couple of hours between soundcheck and show, so I’ll look on Yelp: “Oh, this one has some reclaimed wood — maybe that’s a third-wave coffee shop!”

New Japan Pro-Wrestling
This is a Japanese company that has their own app that contains the history of their company, which goes back more than 50 years. I enjoy their historical stuff, especially from the early ’90s, when Japanese wrestling was state of the art, and setting the stage for what in-ring American wrestling would look like.

Anne Lamott
I was raised Catholic, and I was able to connect with her on that level, because she’s very spiritual. She writes a lot about parenthood and children and addictions — the choices we make, and the places we end up.

‘Only Murders in the Building’
I love New York City so much, and “Only Murders” is probably my favorite TV show. My husband and I went to New York in April. We were going to go to this weird, like, bear-jockstrap party on Christopher Street, but Fred Armisen said, “You should come over to ‘S.N.L.’!” It was so packed on the floor, and my husband’s like, “Who’s this guy that keeps backing into me?” And it was Martin Short!

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/arts/music/bob-mould-favorites.html

a little surprised this is on a 'major label' but i suppose what that means now is very different from what it meant 40 years ago

Yeah, this is great. I like that it's a tight half hour too.

His current run is the best era of his music since Sugar, imo.

it was Martin Short

AKA lead singer of Hüsker Dü's punk progenitors the Queen Haters