Husker Du : Classic or Dud, Search and Destroy.

anyway

search: New Day Rising + Candy Apple Grey Destroy: Nova MOb

I'll agree that Sugar were the better band, though they didn't exactly blaze the trails that Husker Du did. Better rhythm section, more focused attack, etc. Some of David Barbe's songs are really good, but he's no Grant Hart, is he?

search: Metal Circus, "Pink Turns to Blue", "Eight Miles High", "Gir Who Lives On Heaven Hill", "Eiffel Tower High" (their greatest song, I think)

destroy: Sugar (way booooooooringgggggg)

There were so many great bands that husker du inspired- Pixies (who taught a certain K. Cobain about songwriting), afghan whigs, Royal trux, and that's to name a few.

In their time they made intense, emotional, angry guitar rock. They had honesty and integrity. MBV took a lot from them (weren't they the British version of the Du). Of course, Bob Mould would follow with Sugar, whose Copper Blue was in part influenced by Loveless.

Right now, with Fushitsusha in hibernation (they have not found a replacement for theitr drummer) we could really do with something like husker du.

Search "Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely" and "She Floated Away", Destroy "Crystal". I knid of like The Baby Song too.... (I see my tatses obvious run counter to nearly everyone else round here).

Definate Classic though - even with the knitting needle production.

Search: most of New Day Rising and Metal Circus, "Chartered Trips", "Pink Turns to Blue", "Turn On the News" Destroy: roughly two-thirds of the catalogue -- a best-of would be nice here because none of the albums are an unassailable listen

I find it really really difficult to work out why I like some American guitar rock a lot and some so little.

I'm interested at the number of dud votes here, though. My concerns about the forum are slightly allayed ;)

if you people really hate the band's production, pick up the live lp "the living end" - makes the "warehouse" stuff much less tame and actually sounds *good* (gosh...)

Then all through the nineties I never listened to any of their records. A couple of months ago, I decided to put on New Day Rising. And I was left feeling ... well, nothing. If anything, it sounded like the Mother of All Emo Records, which would of course be a bad thing.

Funny how a decade can change one's perceptions so greatly.

Anyway, I heard "Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely" on the radio today for the first time in a long time and it sounded like the Foo Fighters! (Except for the fact that it was much more well written, of course!)

I also really like reading Julio's early posts.

Woah. That is almost exactly the list I'd post, 'cept I'd add in "Books About UFOs" 'cuz it's sweet.

I don't like Zen Arcade that much as an album. I love some of the tracks on it, but I'd be way more likely to listen to New Day Rising all the way through.

Fucking classic, even now. The only album that's not up to scratch is Candy Apple Grey.

"Brick on your head, 'cause you're a fuckhead" to the naysayers.

It occurs to me now Warehouse is the one, that was the name of only album of Husker Du I had. It was about 60% enjoyable as I recall.

The singles were always good, don't get me wrong...Eight Miles High was great too. I heard their version of that before anyone else's, actually. I don't feel cheated by that at all.

That was the Hated's theory, anyway...

Incidentally, listening to DNA and sirone late last year made me realize how the bass could work and what a blind spot that was for me even though those aren't exactly rock. I haven't heard 'zen arcade' in ages so i should revisit this.

(thanks sundar, that must've been one of my v first posts on ilm though for better or worse I could never use a word like 'quality' or 'integrity' again nor 'influence' or 'emotion' without explaining it)

(Did I just say that?)

Also, Greg Norton, being the most underrated member of the band, is such a great bassist. I walk around most days with a loop of "Statues" running on repeat in my brain.

Any coincidence that this thread has been revived just after that special sometime in April when we add another hour?

there's a whole book about SST called Corporate Rock Sucks that likely illuminates some of this

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2022-04-12/greg-ginn-jim-ruland-corporate-rock-sucks-book-review

I think it had to do with Bob and the rest of the band not getting along

This was my understanding, too — that if they'd been able to present a united front, they'd have been able to back Ginn down. But they couldn't, so it didn't happen. It's kinda surprising that Warner Music Group (which owns the last two HD albums, plus a live album) wasn't able to step in and buy the old stuff and then let Rhino remix/remaster it all, but maybe Candy Apple Grey and Warehouse didn't sell well enough to make it worth the trouble.

I talked to Terry Katzman about it before he passed away, basically

1) they used the same lawyers that had gotten some of the other SST acts free of the label, but unfortunately (and he didn't get into detail) there were some things in the Huskers contract that were particularly onerous even compared to the other SST bands.

2) obviously there's some amount of money that would make Ginn part with it, but it sounded like as usual the band wasn't totally united, Bob has done quite well for himself and the others frankly no so much (especially Grant when he was living), and reading between the lines Bob has a successful solo career and constantly tours and makes albums and wasn't willing to shoulder a lot of that financial burden himself. Got the sense Ginn knows Bob has a lot of money and acts accordingly.

3) the usual Husker interpersonal weirdness, Ginn being a piece of shit per usual.

Bad Brains' I Against I was licensed to SST (and to a German label for European release at the same time; I have a European 2CD set from 1988 or so that pairs it with Rock For Light), so maybe they were able to get the masters back from them, not SST, to do the recent reissue.

but a very serious effort was made prior to Savage Young Du (which was all Reflex/unreleased pre SST stuff Ginn has no claim to)

Maybe it's cuz I've been in a real Husker zone recently but Tonite Longhorn is a little better then I remember

Yeah, the uncooperative (personal, professional) nature of Husker Du specifically probably made it particularly easy for everyone to just throw up hands and walk away. I suspect if Bob wanted it to happen it would, but who knows.

They've likely been posted before, but here's a couple of links to some discussion:

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/greg-ginn-sst-and-rescuing-bands-catalogs.298972/

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/nov/03/label-love-sst

It sounds like some of those successfully freed SST bands sued for unpaid royalties, and maybe got the masters back as part of a settlement? But of course that takes money and legal muscle to get going, especially if Ginn is being tight not just with the masters but with any accounting info. I've probably posted it before, but I interviewed Steve Earle once, and he told me his accountants/auditors once determined MCA owed him a million dollars (or whatever) but it would have taken most of that and a couple of years to get paid, which just wasn't worth it.

I think I said it here somewhere before, and this is probably an anecdote from Kim Thayil in the Ruland book, but anyway: Soundgarden having their masters (and getting paid royalties) was mostly down to Susan Silver being a brilliant manager. They had that shit locked down from the start.

Meanwhile, I just pre-ordered the CD of The Miracle Year from my go-to store. They're doing the vinyl box for a bit over €100 but it's just the plain blue vinyl, and I have a new CD player I'm itching to use.

so... do they have the complete shows for the selections from side E/F/G/H as well, maybe to be released separately if this one does well? (I know, I'm never happy but as a completist I have to ask these things :-) )

https://numerogroup.com/products/1985-the-miracle-year#details

Wasn’t Soundgarden’s SST deal a one-off indie-cred building campaign? If so I would assume they’d drive a hard bargain.

I would like to narrative to change from "Spot ruined those SST records" to "Spot saved them from themselves and should have done all their records including the Warners ones"

Warehouse in particular, c'mon dudes

I’ve never really been bothered by the production for any era of the band. Part of the charm.

as i've probably said before in this thread, a light Du remastering would be fine, but i think the "production" or lack thereof is a feature not a bug.

I have always loved how esp Zen Arcade & New Day Rising, everything after that has a real thinness that I associate with Twin/Tone Records ('natch) of the era

always loved Spot's productions tbh. didn't realise until now that he died a couple of years ago, RIP

everyone i know who talked to him said he was the sweetest guy, a real american hero

everything after that has a real thinness that I associate with Twin/Tone Records ('natch) of the era

i don't hate that later production, it's its own thing and makes everything feel like there a cold winter wind blowing through the songs. would be interesting to here those records given some sort of spot-ify treatment though...

xpost-I saw him in the late 90s in a dive bar in Mpls, playing banjo, he seemed to be just himself driving around playing shows, I casually struck up a conversation and ended up hanging out with him the rest of the night, I don't recall what we talked about but he was so relaxed & easy going just an incredibly nice dude.

Dipping into the new live stuff a little on Tidal and thinking, "Wait a minute — that band had a BASSIST? THE WHOLE TIME?"

Thought Spot was a west-coaster

Wasn’t Soundgarden’s SST deal a one-off indie-cred building campaign? If so I would assume they’d drive a hard bargain.

Yeah, I think it's been established that was the indeed the case. They were already signed to A&M before Ultramega OK (there's an advert Sub Pop did in 1988 where they confirmed as much; someone on the SST GB group shared it a while ago) and they felt the SST rub would have more cachet than Sub Pop, which was still a year or so shy of that Melody Maker feature that made them the cool new thing.

*SST FB group, I meant.

"Spot saved them from themselves and should have done all their records including the Warners ones"

can I get an amen

we've been through this sound issue before, the conclusion imho is that you can hear the bass on the OG SST vinyl but not CDs or reissues. lol sorry for playing the collector scum card but I swear the previous debate is prob in this very thread

Mould produced Soul Asylum’s Made To Be Broken and its sonic issues are exactly the same as Flip Your Wig and Candy Apple Grey, the first self-produced albums. All 3 albums sound the same - the same wind tunnel effects and biscuit tin drums. SA’s next few albums sound much better.

Bob was quoted in Our Band Could be Your Life around the time of the Warners deal - “I can engineer our records, since I know exactly what it should sound like”.

The sound issue is 95% Bob, for better or worse. Maybe he really isn’t that bothered about Husker Du from a legacy POV, but it seems incongruous given his relatively savvy business head.

I wouldn't want reissues to sound better or different, I would mostly want better packaging, extra stuff, interviews, live stuff, demos, rehearsals, that kind of thing.

yeah there are tapes of NDR rehearsals and CAG demos, to start with

what I'm taking from all this is that I should seek out vinyl rips of the SST releases. sorry to be crass.

oh for sure!

If it really was Bob making Husker Du sound like the worst recorded music ever, I really don't get why Copper Blue sounds SO much better. And I wouldn't even say that sounds very good but it's 10X better than Warehouse. I do think Workbook sounds really good but that's a total different sonic animal.

yeah i don't buy that it was Bob

I think Copper Blue sounds great, though it was (co) produced with Lou Giordano, HD's late-era sound guy, who at least as much or maybe even more than Bob knew "exactly what it should sound like." Not sure he has any studio credits with the band, though.

Anyway, long story short is that Bob and Grant were in charge of the end product, and whether or not they directly created the sound of the records, they did sign off on it (see also: Metallica; " ... And Justice for All"; no bass).

> it's its own thing and makes everything feel like there a cold winter wind blowing through the songs.

Perfect description - I found Flip Your Wig so underwhelming at the time, and I couldn't articulate why, since the songs were as tight as ever. Everything Falls Apart through New Day Rising has a heft to it, with "Plans I Make" maybe being the heaviest of all, so it was a real come down for teen me.

Bob recently predicated a personality crisis among my high school best friends: though we don't live in Massachusetts anymore, news that his solo electric show is booked for the Bull Run restaurant in Shirley, MA sent us all reeling. Huskers were the first hardcore show we all went to, our baptism in the underground, how we found our footing in the Boston scene. And Bull Run was (and remains) the venue near our hometown (which was a dry town) where our high school history teacher's band played "Mustang Sally" for drunk real estate agents. I dunno if it was perversity on Bob part, like to Dylan playing minor league ballparks, or just what got booked for a casual tour. But it rekindled how much those early Husker albums and gigs meant to us, a total break with our suffocating rural teenhood, an escape to something none of our peers knew about. And here's Bob now, taking the tour bus over the quaint covered bridge to the surf'n'turf joint we'd scoff at.

scoff as in "eat at" ?

You can kinda get that a big wall of sound was Mould's sonic goal.

The missing link production wise is those first two solo records between the end of Husker Du and Sugar. Black Sheets of Rain definitely has that wall of sound that kind of missing link between the two groups.

You're thinking of "scarf," mark.

the vinyl remaster they did of Copper Blue a couple years ago is great btw

to be fair that is the Boston pronunciation of scarf

ordered the new shirt, really liked the color and design

sad to see David Savoy's name there. we were talking about getting an apartment together around then.

got the first shirt in the post today, good quality. now I want the new one lol

If I'd know we'd get so many options I might have waited, but I do like the quality of the first shirt. I already have too many t-shirts though and can't really justify yet another Du one. lol

^^

I went for the second/tie dyed. remember those hanging in Oar Folk, and the one they show with the cut off sleeves looks like one Grant used to wear (though assume it's not his since they don't say that it is).

If it really was Bob making Husker Du sound like the worst recorded music ever, I really don't get why Copper Blue sounds SO much better. And I wouldn't even say that sounds very good but it's 10X better than Warehouse. I do think Workbook sounds really good but that's a total different sonic animal.

I think it's important o mention at this juncture just what a paradigm-rearranging headfuck MBV's Loveless was for Bob, wrt how the album he made immediately after it sounds.

Ironic, considering the massive influence of Husker Du on MBV!

My tshirt arrived today.

I was bemused that the shirt cost more than the 2CD set.

FWIW, Mould was asked about Kevin Shields once during a live interview on I think Sound Opinions back in the 2000s. IIRC, he said they had dinner together and Mould asked Shields a question about something he did (presumably on Loveless) and Shields replied, "Well...." took a deep breath then talked for like 15-20 minutes straight when a flood of details came pouring out. Mould's inner reaction was "what the hell was that?" Mould and his interviewers Kot and DeRogatis then lamented Shields's lack of recording activity and Mould said something where along the lines of "I really want to call him up and say 'look, we'll just get TWO amps, TWO guitars, and let it rip."

Funny, I think I remember Sound Opinions guys asking Billy Corgan once about Bob Mould, about borrowing one of his recording techniques (iirc two-guitars slightly out of phase with each other, with one recorded a little slower than the other one).