Sugar - Classic Or Dud

IIRC he pretty much set up a licensing agreement as soon as Sugar started which allowed him to (reasonably) dictate some terms when the band signed. Smart move.

He seems to live an ideal life: happily settled in a very nice apartment in San Francisco, does the deejay club circuit a few months a year, records an album when he feels like it.

Copper Blue is one of my favorite records.

The live take on "The Slim" on Besides is absolutely devastating. I've been hoping for years that footage of one of those takes will show up on youtube, to no avail thus far.

Bob Mould is also a well known furry and is active on the scene.[4]

he gets the catskins for nothing

mould used to get tons of cash for acoustic tours, get flown in, bring an acoustic on the plane, plug into the PA, play and go, no crew, etc.

he should get back into pro wrestling imo

I'm not at all saying Husker Du doesn't deserve the belated accolades, let alone cash, but there's absolutely no comparing their popularity to that of the Pixies, even at the time. Plus the Pixies broke up only ten or so years before they got back together, and it couldn't have hurt that they also broke up right when the mainstream starting adopting the stuff they pioneered. Sure, there'd be no Pixies without Husker Du, but there was no similar groundswell of enthusiasm (unless you could Sugar's brief success). Further, Pixies sales currently stand around 300,000 to 500,000 an album. What was the max HD ever sold? Do you think it's at all in line with the band's influence? Even in terms of namechecking, the number of times I see a band cite HD is close to nil, compared to Pixies or Pavement or whatever.

either way a husker du reunion will NEVER happen

I'm not so much saying Husker Du is more popular than the Pixies than saying that Sugar is to the Huskers what The Breeders are to the Pixies. I'm disagreeing with that Mould is better known for being in Sugar than in Husker Du

i think a huskers reunion would do pretty big business, like for example when i saw Mission of Burma on their reunion tour it was probably 1000 ppl, they commented from stage that there were only like 20 ppl the one time they played mpls in the old days.

also: old punkers are hella loyal.

Dunno if I'd call the Burma reunion big business. Either way, that band broke up originally well before it found out how far it could go (or not. The Huskers gave it a real shot, though. But I wouldn't imagine a HD reunion (which will never happen) would come close to, say, a Replacements reunion. Huskers have stayed relatively underground.

i think huskers would be way bigger than burma. i guess i consider 1000 ppl big business relatively, i dunno.

either way a husker du reunion will NEVER happen

― gr8080 sings the blues (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 4 March 2011 22:49 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^^^^^^THIS, and matt otm throughout this thread.

I interviewed Bob Mould for his "Body Of Song" album and I asked him at the end of ithe chat what the prospects were of a reunion. He said that it was not likely.

First of all, he claimed that contrary to my assumptions, there are not promoters waving bags of cash at them to do so.

Even without that tempation, he said too many hurtful things have been said by the other two (or maybe just one... I didn't use it in the interview and I don't have the transcript and might not be able to dig up the audio; all I have is the story I turned in) that he deemed it an impossibility.

That said, I cannot believe that nobody with a check book at least took their temperatures. I don't believe it would have been on par with The Pixies in terms of interest but I know a lot of people who never got to see Husker Du live who would pay for the chance now.

I include myself in that, actually.

Mould is too comfortable financially and psychologically to need a HD reunion, I was told.

Husker Du live : you're not missing THAT much.

i have many, many bootlegs that argue otherwise, us steel

IIRC, Mould did an interview, I guess when his last lp came out, where he said not only wasn't there going to be an HD reunion, but also that their SST albums weren't going to be expanded/reissued/remastered because all three guys had to over see/sign off on the project. He then advised fans to hold onto their vinyl.

I've also seen interviews with Hart where he claimed Mould tried to low-ball/strong-arm all the rights away from him and Greg, pissing him off and pissing away what little good feeling came of the hell-freezes-over one-time-only demi-reunion (where, incidentally, Mould chose a Hart song and Hart chose a Mould song - perhaps not coincidentally, "Never Talking to You Again" and "Hardly Getting Over It").

yo stevie -- which husker bootlegs are the best? i don't have any!

It's a pity that the end of Husker was so unnecessarily ugly and messy...that whole thing with Mould telling Hart he'll never have more than 45% of the song on any record and then Hart inevitably firing back after the split, just shake hands and either get a reunion gig going or completely call time on it in the right way. I'm anxious to see how he will depict that last year or so in the autobiography.

It was more complicated than that, too, involving everything from AIDS scares and suicide to drugs (Mould cleaned up first and got the upper hand; Norton, as far as I can tell, has stayed out of it).

x-post Tyler, I have a great Trenton bootleg I've enjoyed. Most famous may be "Lyndale's Burning," Minneapolis '95: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0DF8LFZM

i have about 20gb of husker boots :)

well,maybe 10. on a load of data cdrs

It's impossible to side with either Mould or Hart: one has been sober for years and doing well, the other wasn't.

awesome, thx stevie. i'll check it out -- i take it it's 85 not 95?

tyler - there's a boot from 86 i think, in minneapolis, where they debut a lot of candy apple gray, and also cover 'you're so square', that's pretty amazing. also track down the children's crusade boot, which contain three or four more sets of land speed record-era awesomeness. youtube had some great live du, too.

trenton bootleg josh mentions above is great especially because, iirc, bob has a real tantrum about spitting in the audience at one point.

oh oops, i thanked stevie instead of josh. thanks to both of you!

Lyndale's is awesome, although I think Celebrated Summer is listed and the actual track is...something else. Don't remember.

Yeah, they didn't really talk a lot onstage.

and also cover 'you're so square', that's pretty amazing.

Stevie, is that the version that morphs into "the wit and the wisdom"?

i think ppl might exagerate grant's drug use a bit, i've heard he's fairly sober now.

but grant isn't like other people.

my old band was playing a big benefit show for a mutual friend's divorce, you had to do some anti-love songs...we were going to play "never talking to you again" and didn't know grant was on the bill, anyway i screwed up my confidence and walked up to him and told him we were going to play it, he said right away he's come up and play it with us. he even had us cut out the bridge, which he said was boring...but yeah i was in heaven i couldn't believe it. could you imagine bob doing that? (my band was a nowhere band, not a big deal even locally)

he's around a lot, his house just burned down but he was living with a friend of mine, i think grant is more of a true artist than bob in a lot of ways, i don't think he was made for this world. bob seems smart and together but honestly his new solo stuff is so boring and dead to me. even a weird uncomfortable grant solo show when he's like playing the same song three times in the set, or repeating the last chord from a song like 15 times and being weird to the audience, it's always something.

royalties, most of which come from his post-Husker years

pretty sure every SST artist gets more royalties from their post-SST years until the non-SST reissues come out

Not sure what a "true artist" means in 2011, tbh. No snark intended.

? Why would it mean anything different than say 1989? or 1992? Or least to the extent that whatever year it was got in the way of the 'artistry'?

pp, yes its that boot - its sometimes known as boston 1986 but when i bought it on vinyl in the 90s it was credited as a minneapolis show. i'm pretty sure i got it before living end came out, and what i liked most about it was that bob and grant sang harmonies on each others songs, whereas on the studio versions, for the most part, grant's double-tracking harmonies on his songs, and bob on his songs. the version of green eyes on this boot is my favourite: the final chord always leaves me real choked.

? Why would it mean anything different than say 1989? or 1992? Or least to the extent that whatever year it was got in the way of the 'artistry'?

Well, I wouldn't define living in poverty as part of the requirements of true artistry.

grant hasn't been living on the streets, he was living with his elderly mom taking care of her. She moved into a home. Then the house burned down. You reallyseem to want to view him in a negative light. I think he's a true artist because of his art. He always had such a gift for songs, for melodies, that were so distinctively grant. Bob is more successful, but after sugar he is a bore.

I loved both of them.

I'm very sorry about how badly Hart's life has turned out, especially so since in HD I considered him as good as Mould. It's quite likely that had Hart the opportunities he might have churned out as many terrific post-HD songs as Mould. Because I admire domestic bliss more than poverty, and I took from your earlier remarks that Hart's problems the last twenty years made him a Truer Artist, which I can't accept (although we agree that I have no use for Mould after Sugar). Maybe I incorrectly interpreted your posts.

Because I admire domestic bliss more than poverty, and

"Your Favorite Thing" sounds like "Friday I'm in Love", but sucks much more.

thanks!

i feel like building a time machine just to go back to 2001 and slap myself seconds after the opening post in this thread. copper blue may be the best end-to-end album he was ever involved with.

also, reissues in july! and i guess he's touring again as sugar?

He played at Shepherds Bush Empire last night - the whole album of Copper Blue (I couldn't go).

interview

i think j. wurster is his drummer now; not sure about bass

Been saying it for years: Sugar >>>>>>>>>>> Husker

Nice try

Alfred … OTM?

That rules

I was at tonight’s show too! Malcolm actually looked fine when I ran into him and his wife after the show. I think he just needed a couple of days to recuperate from the fall (which I relate to - I needed a few days after injuring my back when I slid and landed back first into a stairway). I’ve only seen Craig Finn one other time and it was with the Hold Steady, opening for the Replacements in 2014 in St. Paul. Lucky guy!

Glad he's doing better!

that's awesome!

Feeling Better, I should say

Didn't Mould tour the entirety of "Copper Blue" with Jason and Jon?

Yes, and it looks like he seriously considered reuniting Sugar for that tour!

In 2011, Mould, Barbe, and Travis met up and played some songs, but “it didn’t feel like the right time,” Mould says.

Ironically, I will not be able to use my tickets for Sugar's SF show because ... I will be at my cousin's wedding in Minneapolis.

Hm. I likely could take one of them off you.

Great!

Just drop me a line -- won't be able to pick it up off you for a couple of weeks or so but since the show's a way off I gather there's no rush!

Ironically, I will not be able to use my tickets for Sugar's SF show because ... I will be at my cousin's wedding in Minneapolis.

― disco stabbing horror (lukas), Wednesday, May 6, 2026 10:20 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Hm. I likely could take one of them off you.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, May 6, 2026

for a moment I thought you meant the couple

Stash ‘em under the floorboards.

My Beaster journey:

me at 19: Judas Cradle is the greatest song ever

me at 52: Feeling Better is the greatest song ever

Synth horns and all?

yesssssssssssds!

it was so unlike Bob at that point!

i still struggle with the synth horns

it's a great song and it feels like it strapped a pair of plastic boobs from Blackadder on for comedic effect

i have no problem if this is a minority opinion

JC Auto is the best song off Beaster, hard for me to fathom anyone thinking anything else.

it's a great song and it feels like it strapped a pair of plastic boobs from Blackadder on for comedic effect

― an uncharacteristically irritated Mr. Rogers (stevie)

Bob Mould as Toni Erdmann.

JC Auto obv one of the greatest songs ever recorded

JC Auto is the best song off Beaster, hard for me to fathom anyone thinking anything else.

have probably listened to Tilted 3x as much as any other song on this, it's my ideal scorcher. plus the outro

Reminds me: my college station played "Walking Away" first, and what an intro. I was all for Mould serenaded by synth organs.

The whole EP is boss, listened to it again for the first time in a while yesterday. I like Tilted but I like the big thumping of JC Auto and Judas Cradle a bit more