HÜSKER PÖLL: Warehouse - Songs and Stories

Spin review at the time references cleaner production. We've been over this a lot, but this "bad production Husker Du" crap needs to die for once and for all. https://books.google.com/books?id=dNSW1RIkidsC&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=husker+du+warehouse+spin&source=bl&ots=0sPg_Tnvro&sig=r8uvIoagAzmbLqYl3UFUYc7fq8g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiSs6eWurDOAhUIDxoKHZPKDcQQ6AEIQDAG#v=onepage&q=husker%20du%20warehouse%20spin&f=false

warehouse sounds better on vinyl imo

with plush production husker du might sound like sugar but i think they sound better as husker du, much as I loved sugar. maybe they're not supposed to have beefy drums or non-tinny guitars? maybe that was their actual aesthetic and if you don't like it you don't like husker du? maybe there are other bands out there and you don't have to continue to second guess a band who split up almost thirty years ago?

Who are you talking to? Because I've never heard anyone seriously complain about Husker Du production in the last 30 years.

But if someone wants a contemporaneous account, Christgau (no bigger booster) mentions it a lot in his reviews: http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=husker+du

But though I hate to sound priggish, I do think it could have used a producer. I mean, it was certainly groovy (not to mention manly) to record first takes and then mix down for forty hours straight, but sometimes the imperfections this economical method so proudly incorporates could actually be improved upon. It wouldn't be too much of a compromise to make sure everyone sings into the mike, for instance, and it's downright depressing to hear Bob Mould's axe gather dust on its way from vinyl to speakers. Who knows, put them in the studio with some hands-off technician--Richard Gottehrer, Tony Bongiovi, like that--and side two might even qualify as cathartic music rather than cathartic noise.

They've never sounded so good. Spot's gone, as are most of the cobwebs that obscured their clamor, so without kow-towing to Michael Wagener we really get to hear Bob Mould's guitar.

Etc. I think he's right and wrong for the reason you ('you') mention: that Husker Du sounds like Husker Du, and what might be technical imperfections don't hurt and even enhance this band's power. Especially on the SST albums. The WB albums, eh, I don't think they're badly produced, but I do think they made some bad decisions. Could have been a lot worse, given the times.

Who are you talking to? Because I've never heard anyone seriously complain about Husker Du production in the last 30 years.

I'm not someone who will be completely put off by the production that has been discussed ad nauseam, but it is a frustrating factor that will not go away, especially when dealing with an act who put out so many albums in a short space of time, with 2 double albums in 3 years. I've been dealing with Husker Du for nearly 20 years and it's STILL frustrating to hear a band like that on record.

^^^^ in this very thread revive. And have been hearing people complain about HD production anecdotally for years and years!

I don't really mind the sound of Bob's guitar w/HD at all tbh, though I came to them after hearing Copper Blue so definitely sound 'tinny' by comparison to his Sugar-era (which, iirc, was influenced by MBV's multi-guitar layerings to some degree; certainly, friends who saw them on those first UK shows talked in terms of MBV's disorientatingly loud live show). When I first heard 'em, I had troubles with Grant's drums, which sounded indefensibly wimpy to my teenaged grunge-damaged ears, but I've long since come to appreciate their non-meathead elegance (one early editor of mine defended the HD sound versus Sugar saying Sugar sounded positively pub-rock by comparison; I don't agree, but I see her point).

HD don't really sound like a 'rock' band, certainly post-New Day Rising, in that their din and velocity are stripped of machismo in their needling high-end sound, and in what Ken Stringfellow described in the song Grant Hart as 'paper drums'; wasn't there a Simon Reynolds review circa Warehouse about this very non-rock quality being what he loved about their blissful anti-machismo sound?

[my first HD purchase, post-Copper Blue rapture, was Land Speed Record; jesus christ that was a nasty shock, which I've since grown to love]

I just meant I've never heard a significant number of complains about HD production, not like there was with, say, Raw Power or And Justice For All, or certain other famously botched jobs. I think some folks are maybe put off by the super raw sound of Mould's MXR+ distortion pedal, or, yeah, missing the mic when they're screaming full-tilt. Not that it matters. I think the drums sound great until the WB albums. The tinny reverb on Candy Apple Grey is weird, as are the thin drum sounds on Warehouse, but I'm so used to both as part of the band's sound that I don't care. They're distinctive.

Apparently Mould was also doing proto MBV stuff (slowing guitars down, blending them) pretty early, which maybe in those days accounted for his stun guitar sound. I know Shields has cited a Mould interview for giving him the idea of using reverse reverb. Billy Corgan cites Mould, too.

They're distinctive.

That's exactly it, I totally agree. And I think the complaints I've heard derive from a grunge-era frustration that, hey, if only HD had polished up those distinctive sounds they might have crossed over like Nirvana did (after all, Krist said at the time that Nevermind was nothing new and that Husker Du had coined that sound before them).

Candy Apple Gray is such a weird album. The songs I love on it are the ones that sound nothing like HD, the ballads, while the songs that sound like HD - Lonely aside - leave me really cold.

Also, they did have a live major label album and it doesn't really sound especially better or worse than the studio stuff. They sounded like they sounded, they were meant to be played loud on speakers, and their sound doesn't work well in some contexts (low volume, etc.).

The Foo Fighters have made a career out of ripping off this album

Actually, the drum sound on the live album is fucking horrible - they went way too far in the opposite direction of the studio albums and wound up with this super-processed Big 80s Snare.

more like the dü biters amirite xp

My stab at blasphemy: https://open.spotify.com/user/pplains/playlist/00GOCXGtRmP3FdwLSuKEwO

Nicely done - didn't really miss a thing, and much better momentum. For some reason, made the sound seem less muddy to me.

Need to listen to that

I think the power in the tunes leads people to perhaps think they would perhaps be better served with a huge drum sound, but I just don't think that was Husker Du's thing. Especially on Warehouse maybe more specifically on Grant's tunes you hear the 60s rock in their sound.

In time and the wake of Nevermind, you see that having the big drum sound and harder crunchy guitars hit commercial paydirt - but rolling back to 1986 - I don't think that was not where Husker Du were at. They seem to me to be heading the opposite direction to the raw roar of the SST albums on the two Warner's records more from that's where they wanted their songs to go.

Look at where Hart and Mould went after Husker Du went kaput, they both went even cleaner and less distorted on their next projects (Workbook & Intolerence) - more about the song and not the roar. Mould then went for atmosphere on Black Sheets of Rain THEN re-aligned his next band to the current alt-rock sound with Sugar, which had caught up with what Husker Du's songs had been doing with big budget production.

I think the whole Husker Du's records sound bad would go away if someone would remaster the digital versions of the tunes from the original master tapes and given the current legal situation with the band, another decade might pass until that occurs. Husker Du is definitely one band where going and finding the original LPs is worth doing.

Yeah I think they sound great, someone brought up MBV upthread and I put them almost as proto shoegaze, that thin sheet metal thing, plus I mean it's probably how they wanted it to sound, it's not like Spot didn't do more naturalistic recordings or more conventionally heavy rock sounds with other bands

Last winter I did a bit of messing around with a rip of Big Black's "Songs about Fxxxing" basically leveling up the volume so some tunes would ride in a comp and sound better on a CDR driving. I didn't do that much in Goldwave but run them through a basic compressor at 3:1 and then maximize the volume at 90% after the compression. Basically I turned up the volume on file, but it wasn't totally smashed like some modern CDs and it was kind of striking at the same volume on the stereo how much more you could hear. There was more bass and presence in the drums. I was going to go back and do the same with Zen Arcade but just never got around to doing it, but the experiment with the Big Black tracks did illustrate the difference that could be done with such remastering - especially if done in a real studio with real hardware.

Some modern bands would crap their pants having to go into an 8-16 track studio and trying to knock out a double album recorded and mixed in like 3-5 days like the Huskers and Minutemen did. That was like shooting Apocalypse Now over a weekend.

Let's just say Land Speed Record has a few different meanings.

This album is good, you guys are fucking nuts

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Last time I tried listening to Warehouse, it was a few years back, on vinyl, and there's something about that record that just gets boring for me. Song for song, the material is stronger than Candy Apple Grey, but they settle into a set of textures and tempos that gives everything a sameness. Pplains adding "Everytime", which is both more bubblegum and more hardcore-ish really helps, as does his sequencing. I know why Huskers used "These Important Years" to start the record - it's jaunty but still has a tense solos, but it sets up the pacing problems. Opening with "Floated Away" sets up a different story - let's start far out, then get smaller. Like The Who Sell Out .

Warehouse would be a lot better if they had more jolting arrangements side by side, like "Never Talking to You" next to "Chartered Trips" or "Powerline" next to "Books about UFOs". Really, it's a problem I have with everything after New Day Rising . It's not the production per se, it's that they settled into a generic Husker Du arranging style. Probably because they ceased to enjoy working out arrangemnts together, and became supporting musicians for each others songwriting efforts.

Well said.

I like the erratic sequencing of Warehouse. Candy Apple is possibly the only HD I don't really like a lot, though I do love the Grant songs.

CAG and FYW are my favorite Husker albums.

You're half right.

sides 3 & 4: mostly terrific
sides 1 & 2: mostly boring

Sides 1-4 all awesome

CAG and FYW are my favorite Husker albums.

Same here! I'd probably rank this one third - it's great but there are definitely a few songs I could lose - I've got to admit I've no idea why You Can Live at Home is so well-liked. That bassline is so clunky! Also I just think the vocal fade-out of Up in the Air would be a perfect album/career closer.

Teasing: https://twitter.com/numerogroup/status/777259538776854528

If it's what I heard a few years ago it's a full scale remasters/reissues of the catalog plus all sorts of extras

Remasters you say???

If these albums are actually remastered--as in, you can play them without getting a headache--I will write Numero a blank check

Wow numero group???

This is exciting

I just realized the idea of huskers demos would be really enticing to me. I hope there's demos in the extras.

the idea of non-spot (and non-warners-80s-glossy) huskers albums is both thrilling and terrifying to me.

Extras/demos are very appealing but spending $$$ on music I already know by heart, less so.

Interesting. The post mentions "seven years in the making." The first I'd heard of anything re: Numero and Husker Du was back in 2012, I'd say, but when I asked Mould for confirmation then the best he would give was that all three members of HD were for the first time sharing the same legal representation. Which is not nothing. Why now and not then, though, I dunno.

Wait, is this ... this: New Double CD of previously unreleased Husker Du pre-Landspeed/Everything Falls Apart demos coming out!

It could be! So hard to say. Also, my comment upthread about remasters... That was the plan at some point I think, keep in mind grant hart is involved in all these decisions so things can be.... fluid I would imagine

I always heard Mould was the sticking point, that for the longest time he wanted control of the masters in exchange for his Ok.

yeah that could be, they both seemed to shit on greg a couple years ago in the press, too so who know if that was part of it

I'd always heard that the masters were shitty and that remastering them wouldn't make the sound any better. I think that was Mould's take over the years.

But after hearing the cleanup on the Beatles' Live At the Hollywood Bowl, it seems that technology is going to allow some true turd polishing.

Also:

https://twitter.com/numerogroup/status/778368625849864192

Jeepers. Too bad they waited until no one pays for music anymore.

feel like the target market for that husker set is literally the only people who pay for music anymore

was gonna say

why are we assuming it's a box set?

I actually hope it isn't

Numero has teased demos and New Day Rising so far; I can't imagine they'll release them separately.

it's just that I can probably only afford the paid-download option (bc I can chip away at it album by album), and if it's a box I won't be able to afford that either

My disposable income is 20 dollars a month at most rn

the great thing about numero is it will be in print for some time--i save up for their pricier box sets myself and then splurge

Gonna start a "never remaster HD" campaign

Bleh I'm seeing that numero doesn't even have a pay to download option by itself. You have to buy the physical (presumably LP only?) to be able to download.

yeah good point i think they just did that