HUSKER DU V. Replacements

i suppose husker du and mould had a huge influence on emo and hardcore

also a massive influence on nirvana's nevermind; i remember krist saying around the time of release that their blend of melody and noise wasn't anything revolutionary, that husker du did it before.

i love both bands. they're both very, very different from each other, despite being nominally from the same genre and geographically the same area. husker du are intense, but the mats are maudlin. different flavours for different moods.

husker du for me w/o hesitation.

husker du>grant hart solo>replacements>bob mould solo>chris mars solo>nova mob>paul westerberg solo>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>sugar which is a nightmare that i am glad got left back in the early 90s forever

i know i am forgetting something obvious in there but whatever

i love sugar's first two, but i do understand the hate.

The Replacements just seem like so much more interesting a band. So much more interested in exploring, even if much of the time they were only going to new musical places to take the piss. I like them both, and in the 80s probably liked Huskers more, but I listen to the Replacements much more often these days - they have a timelessness about them that Husker Du just don't. I'd take the Let It Be-Tim-Pleased to Meet Me run over anything in the Husker Du catalogue,

And Bob Mould's pissy, sancimonious book made me sick of his self-pitying ass.

"sanctimonious", even.

The Replacements just seem like so much more interesting a band. So much more interested in exploring

If Zen Arcade wasn't more exploratory than any one album the Replacements ever did then I'll eat my Gibson Flying V sideways.

I'll rep for Sugar, but yeah like Stevie I can understand people not liking them.

Let's not forget that the Du weren't the only ones with production issues; if their records were under-produced, then Replacements records post-Let it Be were horribly over-produced.

when i interviewed sst's joe carducci for my black flag book, he argued vociferously that du's albums didn't need remastering, and that they weren't badly produced: what you hear is what they sounded like, and what they wanted to sound like, that sheet of white noise guitar sound, grant's weird, jazzy drums, the pin-prick bass sound. i sort of feel you have to embrace what they are; when i first started checking the du out, after copper blue, i was alienated at first by grant's drums, by that thin, hissy guitar sound, but that's what i grew to love about them - the anti-rock gestures, the pull back from bombast.

at heart, i relate to both bands very much emotionally: the appeal to me of the replacements, beyond their booze-sodden downward spirals and sozzled bonhomie, are songs like 'here comes a regular', 'sixteen blue', 'androgynous' - the real gut-punch balladic moments. 'the ones who love us best are the ones we'll lay to rest and visit us on holidays at best / the ones who love us least are the ones we'd die to please and if its any consolation i can't begin to understand' is just an astonishing lyric, one of the best in pop.

whereas husker du just totally soundtracked whatever angsts, etc i had as a kid, and i have a real visceral attachment to pretty much all of zen arcade - 'broken home broken heart' especially - 'too far down', 'hardly getting over it', 'don't want to know'... it just taps into a seam of post-adolescent confusion/bleakness that's probably not too healthy, but to which i can relate (or related, i guess) very powerfully.

when i interviewed sst's joe carducci for my black flag book, he argued vociferously that du's albums didn't need remastering, and that they weren't badly produced: what you hear is what they sounded like, and what they wanted to sound like, that sheet of white noise guitar sound, grant's weird, jazzy drums, the pin-prick bass sound. i sort of feel you have to embrace what they are; when i first started checking the du out, after copper blue, i was alienated at first by grant's drums, by that thin, hissy guitar sound, but that's what i grew to love about them - the anti-rock gestures, the pull back from bombast.

Does it have to be quite so murky though? The problems really started when they tried to "produce" the records, Flip Your Wig is so dry it sounded like they were playing in a padded cell. As for Warehouse, my initial reaction at the time was "what the fuck is this production even supposed to be?", and my opinion hasn't changed.

oh, i totally think they need remastering/remixing, no argument here. but if that remastering/remixing made grant's drums sound more like Malcolm Travis's drums, that would suck, as much as i would have wished them to sound like that when i first heard du.

would Carducci be one of those guys who thinks shitty production = real life/

anyway it's often Sugar >>>>> Husker these days.

i think carducci's thing is that spot did a fine job capturing the group at the time, and that a lot of modern remastering ruins the original music. but i'm also guessing carducci mainly listens to original vinyls, as when i protested about how much better the merge cd of dinosaur's 'you're living all over me' was compared to sst's release (notably it didn't have a two second gap between kracked and sludgefeast), he argued again that there was nothing wrong with the originals.

he's a pretty fascinating guy, even if i don't agree with everything he says.

If Zen Arcade wasn't more exploratory than any one album the Replacements ever did then I'll eat my Gibson Flying V sideways

Hootenanny. And anyway after ZA Husker Du only got less diverse. They needed more wacko Hart sea shanties and acoustic ballads, not less.

Let's not forget that the Du weren't the only ones with production issues; if their records were under-produced, then Replacements records post-Let it Be were horribly over-produced

Tim sounds awful. Please To Meet Me is better, clearer. Near enough right for the band at that point. Don't Tell A Soul is the one that's over produced.

Hart's drumming became more more boring as the band became more formulaic - never used a hi hat, those same drum intros in a million songs, the same drum fills. I like him, but 20 songs of that on Warehouse is too much. And that snare sound on Flip Your Wig is one of the worst I've ever heard.

Around 1984, when I first distinguished Husker Du from the flow of underground bands on my local college station, I thought their sound was fantastic, and exactly what I wanted: more noise, more chiming overtones, more roar. Chorus modulation and digital delay were still on the upswing then, peaking in the next few years with Cocteau Twins and The Cult and Joshua Tree and such. Now it sounds anchored to the mid-80s. In their original context, Husker Du really attacked in a way that is kinda lost now, though it's preserved best by the Eight Miles High single, probably 'cause there's more dynamics- the sparser opening and break in the middle.

In retrospect, each SST band was poorly produced in their own special way, but it's surely the way they intended to sound. And it sounded shittier on those first gen SST compact discs, for sure. The bands on Touch & Go, and then Sub Pop, where the Sabbath obsession came to the fore, ended up defining expectations for how loud underground rock "should" sound. By 87/88 there was something regressive and almost jokey about how the Butthole Surfers or Green River low end stood out among the tinsely haze of Squirrel Bait and Naked Raygun and other Huskerish bands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhbrMgSfR0w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2R115GgoBw

Damn, have not heard this 7" in like 18 years.

http://www.myspace.com/moldbeforeyou/music/songs/bob-mould-hates-me-37003185

Sonic Youth parody is pretty good too.

Grant Hart is the most fascinating person in either of these bands his somewhat erratic but fascinating and often brilliant post huskers career makes westerbergs solo career look like such embarrassment

Grants the best most natural pop songwriter of these guys by a mile

agreed, grant is awesome. bob is more consistent, but grant's peaks are higher.

that's HD in a nutshell
only one of them had the audacity to write a song about green eyes with a shimmery cymbal intro
only one of them wrote an entire album that sounds like plodding up a mountain

chris mars solo

^^^underrated

I will always be interested in a new grant album, I couldn't care less about anything mould has done in years....westerberg started declining while the replacements were still going

also I think being from Mpls makes a difference in my view in the sense that grant has always played gigs regularly around here and he's great but sometimes really angry and uncomfortable but he's never really disappeared like ppl think

I thought this Chris Mars song was pretty good--the chorus, anyway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRd3wai3Y-Y

Problem with comparison is that the Replacements lost the man who gave them their spark just at the point he was most needed … Genuinely never the same band after Westerberg kicked out Bob Stinson.

also I think being from Mpls makes a difference in my view in the sense that grant has always played gigs regularly around here and he's great but sometimes really angry and uncomfortable but he's never really disappeared like ppl think

― Mississippi Butt Hurt (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, April 19, 2012 10:37 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Grant Hart playing a show:
Rest of the world: Whoa! Insane, he's been out of sight for years!!
Minneapolis: It is a Tuesday

omg does that mean that runaway wind is about bob stinson? that would be hilarious/poignant.

Also, I should mention I've seen Grant play some of the most captivating live shows I have ever seen, he can be spot on perfect and he can be confrontational/abrasive, it is best when he's a bit of both

Were you at that show where he kept playing the end to ”barbara” for an uncomfortable amount of time at the turf club?

Basically theres always some sense that anything could happen at a grant show

Good Day, the Westerberg solo song, is about Bob.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B4CN7TM1iQ

no no no runaway wind is about bob

you don't blooooooow like the breeeeeze you were born to be...bob

I try to comprehend you, but I've got a dyslexic heart, Bob.

I hate your answering machine, Bob.

You ain't nothin' but a waitress in the sky, Bob.

It works for the other band, too.

I don't want to know if you are less than lonely, Bob.

it ain't nuthin new, just something to du

Turn on the news, Bob.

^^ quiet domestic scene

It's you, girl, and you should know it, with each glance and every little movement, Bob.

when i interviewed sst's joe carducci for my black flag book, he argued vociferously that du's albums didn't need remastering, and that they weren't badly produced: what you hear is what they sounded like, and what they wanted to sound like, that sheet of white noise guitar sound, grant's weird, jazzy drums, the pin-prick bass sound. i sort of feel you have to embrace what they are...

― I accidentally sonned your dome (stevie), Thursday, April 19, 2012 2:14 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have argued exactly this in regard to New Day Rising somewhere around here, against complaints that it sounds terrible. It doesn't sound terrible. It's a genuinely great record, and so is Zen Arcade, but Husker Du never really got the production they deserved. IMO, everything they did could be productively remastered, perhaps even remixed to advantage. "The band" might have wanted Grant's bass to disappear in the mix, but I seriously doubt that Grant did. And the wall of screaming cymbal/guitar hiss, however bracing it might be, could definitely use a bit more differentiation.

I can honestly say I've never heard Grant's bass on a Husker Du record.

Greg.

The bands on Touch & Go, and then Sub Pop, where the Sabbath obsession came to the fore, ended up defining expectations for how loud underground rock "should" sound. By 87/88 there was something regressive and almost jokey about how the Butthole Surfers or Green River low end stood out among the tinsely haze of Squirrel Bait and Naked Raygun and other Huskerish bands.

― bendy, Thursday, April 19, 2012 6:04 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's and interesting analysis. There was perhaps something regressive (or at least winkingly retro) about the heavier, sludgier, 70s metal-influenced bands in the 80s "underground", but the reinterpretation sounded fresh to me at the time. I liked Squirrel Bait, Naked Raygun and the Lemonheads, but I wouldn't say that Hate Your Friends sounded more forward-thinking in 1987 than, say, Scratch Acid's Berserker.

xxp According to Bob, from Flip Your Wig on he was replacing Greg's bass parts anyway.

Weird, didn't know that.

Yeah, I didn't know Bob Stinson was on that album either.

Duh, me. Yes, Greg.

brain ain't what it used to be, if it ever was