Hart or Mould?

I had a girlfriend who listened to a cassette copy of Warehouse with the Hart songs left off. It was about the dumbest fucking thing I'd ever heard, and suffice to say, we are no longer dating.

Hopefully you saw to it that she's no longer living.

"Sorry Somehow" was actually a Mould song (and one of his best), but what about "Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill"? "Celebrated Summer"? "Terms of Psychic Warfare"? "Never Talking to You Again"? I just can't believe anyone would prefer Mould (who is still better than 95% of all songwriters).

dude this is a Mould song!

"from around New Day Rising/Flip Your Wig, Bob's highs were much higher than Grant's"

Exactly. Not aware of any Hart song that comes anywhere near "Makes no Sense at All."

Even though it's songwriting credit is given to Hart and Hart sang it on the record?

"Makes No Sense At All" is probably the best song on Flip Your Wig, but danged if "Green Eyes" and "Flexible Flyer aren't the two runners-up.

both are Mould tracks! arrgh!

I play guitar in a band that just covered "2541" for a split 7-inch Grant Hart tribute style thing. He's coming up to Western Canada to play some shows and the two bands on the 7-inch ("Lorrie Matheson and the Brass Tacks and The Maykings") are going to be opening up for him.

So the Hart fandom runs pretty deep.

Their post-Husker careers I find almost entirely without interest.

I still want to do a movie where a bunch of drunk Englishmen sing a rousing version of "She Floated Away" in a dark tavern in the nineteenth century.

However, Grant's finest moments, and one of my top 5, if not favorite HD songs, is Keep Hangin' On, from Flip Your Wig.

funny, i'd say almost the exact reverse. mould's more consistently good, but hart's highs ("pink turns to blue," "girl who lives on heaven hill," blah blah blah blah) are infinitely higher.
both sucked massively on warehouse.

both also sucked massively in their solo careers, except for hart's "2541" and i admit there are a couple of pleasant mould solo and sugar songs somewhere in that bin, so that one's a draw.

Heaven Hill
Pink Turns To Blue
Flexible Flier
Sorry Somehow
Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely
Never Talkin To You Again
Green Eyes
Keep Hangin On
Books About UFO

The only really good Sugar record is Beaster, and that Hart record on SST has a few good moments, "2541" and "Now That You Know Me" chief among them. Haven't heard all of Mould's solo output, but what I have heard is not impressive.

Oh my GOD I love that song...probably my favorite on that album. It's just the best, all around. That "oh god, oh god, oh god!" kills me.

That said, although I think Mould is on average the better songwriter, I agree that the best individual number on an album is usually a Hart tune. It's way tough to pick though, so I'm not gonna.

also "Good News for Modern Man" by Grant Hart is a straight up psych pop CLASSIC and >>> anything Mould has done since huskers.

it kinda bums me out that people act like grant "hasn't done anything since the first couple solo albums" when it's more like he just didn't have the business shit in line to get any attention

he put out a pretty weird interesting record last year with Hot Wax too. well worth hearing.

oh and if you can track the solo acoustic live album Ecce Homo by grant down it's really great and really the most representative of what his live shows have been like in the last 15 yrs

Yeas, the first half of Modern Man is pretty unfuckiwthable.

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2011/01/28/bob-mould-see-a-little-light-trail-of-rage-and-melody/

I find Hart's songs to be much more tuneful and that he's a much better singer than Mould, whose voice is just kind of ugly. Hart's voice sounds even better today, tory and frayed with a reediness that makes it sound beautifully lived in. Loved Hot Wax too, several great songs: Barbara, California Zephyr, No Regrets . . .

(Harold or Maude)

also "Good News for Modern Man" by Grant Hart is a straight up psych pop CLASSIC and >>> anything Mould has done since huskers.

100% OTM

Yeas, the first half of Modern Man is pretty unfuckiwthable.

closing track -- once it kicks in, after about 2:00 of murmuring -- is killer, too.

Intolerance and Good News ... were his only solo albums, until Hot Wax, no? The last one is nowhere near the same league as the first two, but man, those first two are killer. All of My Senses is a great solo career opener.

yeah, those first two solo discs are near-perfect.

I really went off on Pete Scholtes in this thread for no good damn reason.

I listened to all of Warehouse today for the first time in 15 years and got all mad about that tape with all the Hart songs removed again. Maybe that's where the unnecessary anger upthread was coming from.

I'm sorry somehow, Pete.

Hey! there's a deluxe reissue of Nova Mob's The Last Days of Pompeii!

http://mvdb2b.com/s/NovaMobTheLastDaysOfPompeiiSpecialEdition/MVD5094A

would love a reissue of the second nova mob lp as well. like all grant's post-du stuff, its a mixed bag, but when its great its really really really great.

I've got lots of Mould but only "Ecce Homo" from Grant, What would a Grant best-of contain?

'you don't have to tell me now' and 'think it over now' and 'nobody rides for free' off good news for modern man.
'2541' and 'the main' off intolerance.
'getaway in time', 'admiral of the sea', 'werner von braun', 'where you gonna land' and 'over my head' off pompeii.
'old empire', 'i won't be there anymore', 'if i was afraid' off nova mob.

adds for hart best-of compilation: run run run and little nero from GNFMM (hope those titles are right; working from memory and via cell) and all of my senses and you're the victim from Intolerance (that whole album plays like a best-of disc, AFAIC).

a friend of mine got the reissue of pompeii and says its vastly better soundwise...i think there was some actual remixing done to make it a little less flat sounding in addition to a remaster

Very nice!! I'm going to make that comp RIGHT NOW and report back!

Ok, I put together that Grant Hart/Nova Mob comp based on the 17 tracks cited above.

This quote sums up what I'm feeling, mostly about "Intolerance" and the first Nova Mob album:

Intolerance was a bit shambling and hokey for me -- and I still prefer the original version of "2541" to the band re-recording for the album. ... I just felt like he needed better instrumentalists to put the songs across.

The second Nova Mob album was alright, and frankly the best stuff was from "Good News", with "Nobody Rides For Free" being the highlight. But overall I just didn't find much of it *compelling*.

I'd never heard the band version of "2541" until today and it's just a shell of the single version, which is an all-time classic! I guess that's why "Ecce Homo" just works best for me, the voice-and-guitar presentation means nothing gets in the way of Grant getting the emotional core of his songs across.

Hot Wax growing on me. Was *meh* at first, upgrading to *say...*

ugh, grant's voice on ecce homo, though... i mean, i know it wasn't a great night for him, but really...

Until Mould starts to do something half as interesting as Hot Wax, I hereby declare

HART

Why did it take me so long to listen to this? He's so committed to being as Grant Hart as he can be! It's awesome if you're in the right mood.

Lots of room for adding your own harmonies in this stripped down version of "My Regrets"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFwKJm8lNpo

2nded. hot wax is glorious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTjfl0yhyRk

^^^^ fave du tune

Grant is currently recording a concept album!

As far as HD goes, Mould all the way, no contest.

2nd the R Forster version of 2541....
― DAVE, for #1 Hits of yesterday and today! (dave225.3), Sunday, June 11, 2006 4:26 PM (6 years ago)
thirded.

LOL, I saw Hart and thought:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01551/tim_hart_1551255c.jpg

... that's Tim btw

OK, this is fucking like it:

https://soundcloud.com/dominorecordco/sets/grant-hart-the-argument

I'm sorry somehow, Pete.

Hey, I just wanted to say thanks for this, Pleasant Plains. It was kind of you to think of me, and it meant a lot when I read it--and I meant to respond, but am apparently committed to a minimalist, decade-spanning thread!

Sad to see Norton's close, though their expanded second location was less than their smaller first one (resisting the metaphor here).

http://i.imgur.com/VHy70vR.png

this makes me want to reinvestigate Warehouse, as when i bought it when it came out, I thought it was RILLY RILLY bad. I haven't heard it since giving it to someone…
― veronica moser (veronica moser), Sunday, June 11, 2006 6:09 AM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as long as we're responding to posts from several years past in here, i'm genuinely curious to know if veronica ever went back and did this reinvestigation. warehouse was such a crushing disappointment to me when it came out, and i'd love to know if anyone else who thought the same ever changed their mind.

Speaking of Warehouse, I was just reading this pr copy on a nightclub webpage:

Bob Mould is playing select, intimate dates in celebration of the 25th Anniversary of his seminal first solo album, “Workbook.” Bob, along with long-time bassist Jason Narducy, will be performing selections from “Workbook” as well as other songs in Bob's catalog that sit nicely alongside this album.

Released in 1989 — a year after Hüsker Dü disbanded — “Workbook” is a singular statement of renewal. It has proven an inspiration to a generation of musicians ranging from Dave Grohl to Ben Gibbard. Ryan Adams describes the album as “the sound of the internal and the subconscious, of dream, of regret, and of a silence that was lingering.”

Warehouse reminded me of Workbook somehow...Although very different

http://thequietus.com/articles/14555-bob-mould-workbook-25th-anniversary-interview

He's got ringing in his ears

Last night Bob Mould kicked off his solo tour in Washington DC.

According to setlist.fm he closed the set doing "Never Talking to You Again."

https://www.setlist.fm/widgets/setlist-image-v1?id=4b95734a

Of course this is a Grant song. Did he do Grant songs solo before or is this new, likely because of Grant's passing and the title, if not the lyrics of the track? Also according to the website, Bob has done it before but only a handful of times and only since Grant's passing so I assume that is why he is doing it now. I don't think he ever did Grant songs before, or any other grant songs before or since.

Well, opened his encore. Whatever.

it's only since Grants passing I don't think ever did Grant songs before

"Sinners and Their Repentances"!

lol I love how he refers to his own songs as "covers."

He doesn't refer to them as covers. The setlist.fm site does. It's very particular in these cases.

(At least he probably doesn't refer to them as covers.)

When Hart and Mould played together at the Karl Mueller benefit, they played "Never Talking to You Again" and "Hardly Getting Over It." Mould has been playing the former here and there since then.

ah gotcha xpost

Had he played "Broken Home, Broken Heart" instead of "Chartered Trips," he would've played the first three songs off of Zen Arcade in order!

"...Broken Heart" -- oh the layers.

The show I got wasn't nearly as cool... Oh well.

https://www.setlist.fm/widgets/setlist-image-v1?id=63955a13

Not every day he does "In a Free Land" though!