Bob Mould: Classic or Dud?

hey Tarfumes, I saw the Lilacs play at Coney Island once, were you in the band then?

Ha, actually, I couldn't do those east coast shows because I couldn't get time off work. I did do a few shows with them that summer, but they were all in Chicago.

Good interview at The AV Club today: http://www.avclub.com/articles/bob-mould,58231/

Interesting interview.

I'm enjoying the book so far.

Also, Grant's still kind of a jerk when you talk to him

Read the first 100 pages of this today in one sitting. It's good (and I'm way more Mats than Husker)

I read the book and enjoyed it overall but left it liking Mould less; I can see why the band was an untenable situation, he and Hart seem like just entirely different people. Mould comes off as a bit of an egomaniac, hugely self-involved and often foul-tempered and humorless. Still, couldn't put the book down. I know Hart pretty well and the portrait of him Mould paints, while not pretty, is quite accurate, even if it ignores the better parts of his personality. It's a wonder they made as many albums as they did.

Given that the Huskers are all over this site at the moment , I'll resurrect a Bob thread.

Just stumbled across some reviews for his new one"Silver Age'. Seem very positive. Believe me, twenty years ago, I would've bought it by now, but these days I'm out the loop

Apologies if this has been done. I did search.

Any reaction out there. It rocks apparently. Anti Blowout

I'm not even really a big Huskers/Sugar/Mould fan and I think it's amazing, top to bottom. Can't even believe how much I dig it.

It's like he drank whatever miracle elixir brought Superchunk back two years ago. Or maybe it's all about Jon Wurster.

Anyway, the Mould album is streaming at Rolling Stone. You can listen for yourself.

http://www1.rollingstone.com/hearitnow/player/bobmould.html

The album is really, really good. Nothing you haven't heard before, but a remarkable summation/conflation of his various bands, Husker Du/Sugar in particular.

Nothing you haven't heard before,

Gonna see him and band tonight do Sugar's Copper Blue and the new "Silver Age"

http://m.stereogum.com/pl/1142922/watch-bob-mould-kick-ass-on-letterman/video/

This is better than the album by a country mile, mind you.

I interviewed him last week, and I asked him if he was worried that playing "Copper Blue," his most popular album, would overshadow the new album, and he immediately answers "not after you hear us play the new stuff."

i haven't listened much to either of his bands but a friend recorded & mixed this, so i'm gonna check it out

aw bob was so good and cuet on letterman

i read his autobio in one sitting last night and it made me like him a lot less. comes off as a totally humorless, bland, self-serious and helplessly self-obsessed big baby. there's something really plain about his songwriting and lyrics, even in husker, that just doesn't do it for me. even tho i love husker. and some of his solo stuff. and some sugar songs. but i never really get super into them...there's something so plain about his songs, i can't quite pin it down

Something about BM even daring to try and write an autobiography, to get it out there, seems so strange to me. At least before his twilight years.

For years you couldn't even get a photo of him on his albums. Maybe the suspicions I had of him were best kept wrapped up in that Back Sheets of Rain/Beaster-type tortured persona. But he's happier now, so whatevr.

Saturday night at the 930 Club in W. DC saw he and his band (Superchunk's drummer) do Sugar's Copper Blue and the new "Silver Age" plus Husker Du cuts "Celebrated Summer", "I Apologize," and "Makes No sense at all." At times the vocals were too muffled. Maybe he likes it that way--with the treble up and the guitar buzzing very loudly. Not much variety, just cathartic, adrenalin releasing speedy tunes.

i thought the mix was a little off! i was way up stage left in front of the FOH board - though honestly from that vantage pt pretty much anything i've seen at 930 sounds trebly as hell

really liked how the copper blue stuff came off live - very powerful slowed-down arrangement of "the slim" for example. haven't spent a ton of time with silver age but i like it a lot so far

"The Slim" did sound great. He sped up "Fortune Teller" though. I did not head over to Black Cat for Mission of Burma afterwards though. That was probably noisy and great too

Was looking at some set lists last night. Mould has been varying the Husker Du songs he's been doing on the tour

Part of the Williamsburg bill:

Copper Blue plus
The Descent
Round the City Square
Hardly Getting Over It
Could You Be The One
I Apologize
Chartered Trips
Keep Believing
--
Something I Learned Today (feat. Craig Finn)
In A Free Land
--
Makes No Sense At All

Haven't heard this yet, but I'm on the list to get ahold of it from my local library. I just noticed a couple of things:

Song title "The Descent"
Silver Age = Silverage?

Nods to former SST label-mates The Descendents? You tell me.

just saw him on the letterman show and it was super weird

Why so (Don't have access to the video of it right now)?

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2014/03/06/photos-bob-mould-plays-workbook-at-the-930-club/

Mould wrapped up the night with favorites like "Helpless," "Hoover Dam," and "Descending," and ended with a new one, "From the War," from his forthcoming record, Beauty & Ruin, out in June. He said with a chuckle, "The new record feels like the culmination of a lot of things over the past couple of years. Who I am, what I feel, what I want...without being a dick." It may have taken 25 years, but Mould seems to be at peace

i guess i was a little surprised because he was playing "see a little light" and i thought wow, weird but pleasant (possibly pandering) song choice. but then letterman was like bob mould ladies and gentleman, 25th anniversary workbook and i saw bob make this little 2-5 hand gesture and i could totally see the dork portrayed in his autobio, which i have been reading in bits to drag it out. i didn't realize it had been that long and he was clearly excited about it.

i guess it was like a little window into this person whose music i have been listening to for most of my life. it was just an unusual experience for me personally, i guess. there was nothing weird about the performance itself except that i thought the band lacked the proper enthusiasm.

also disc 2 makes it seem like CD is the way to go here -- the workbook songs are from a show at the metro in chicago in '89, so it's the album lineup, i'm assuming, with anton fier?! can anyone confirm that? i'm sure it's still a pretty great show if it's not the album lineup but i was just wondering.

i really feel gross at the idea of buying a reissued cd of a cd i bought the first time and still have

sometimes i wonder, what's trenton like as a place?

if i had to guess, kinda bleak and grim but there's a lovely way the sun comes through the kitchen window at a certain time of day

i really feel gross at the idea of buying a reissued cd of a cd i bought the first time and still have

― we slowly invented brains (La Lechera), Friday, 7 March 2014 15:49

Very conflicted about this, live tracks notwithstanding.

Yeah, I've tried to skip buying reissues of stuff I have just to get a live gig which I listen to a couple of times and file away.

i read his autobio recently and it was a great combo of terribly written and ceaselessly un-selfaware

He tries really hard to make himself not seem like a dick, but not 100% successfully. It's entertaining.

I saw Bob play the Entry Sunday night, lots of Husker tunes, it was brilliant

Star Trib piece with set list

Yeah, I saw him last summer and the old Husker songs with Jon Wurster on drums were unrelenting.

in a free land!

Wow, that song would have been great to hear. Heard him do some old Husker songs with Wurster but not that one

Might as well leave this here...

http://thequietus.com/articles/16153-husker-du-zen-arcade-review

Sunday night he did something from every Huskers record ("Real World"! first time 30 yrs!) except Land Speed Record...not that stopped me from screaming out "Data Control".

And w/r/t Zen Arcade...when he launched in "Something I Learned Today" 15 yr old me and 38 yr old me were equally happy.

New album, "Patch The Sky" out today. I loved "Silver Age" from a wow-I-thought-he-had-lost-it perspective and then "Beauty and Ruin" is just a total stunner. It takes a few spins to absorb the sounds and get into the lyrics but sonically this sounds a part of the previous two.

I listened to it once, and while a few cuts immediately seemed memorable, others sounded like formulaic Mould. I feel like he can write some songs in this style in his sleep.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/arts/music/bob-moulds-advice-keep-it-simple-and-avoid-streaming-music-services.html

Mr. Mould credits a 2011 tribute show to his past work led by Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters with refocusing his songwriting after a period of experimenting with electronica and with D.J.-ing. (He also released a memoir that year.) “In a funny way, it gave me the O.K. to sort of steal from myself a little bit and not feel that need to reinvent again or to go down a different path for the sake of going down it,” he said. “Everything led back to the core guitar-bass-drums, simpler pop songs, more direct.”

"Fugue State" has hung in there on my students' college station Megaseg after three years, and every time it plays I admire its verse-chorus-verse. None of his new albums are essential, but it's good to check on an old friend and know he's doing fine.

New album did indeed sound a little generic Mould. Not bad at all, just more of the same.

Of course it's on the nose, but these are not times of nuance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD7TxGTPsV4

I'm happy to listen to an angry, familiar voice. First time he's released rock albums in back-to-back years since Sugar!

It's sharper -- melodically, structurally -- than any of DBT's protest songs in the last four years.

That's fair.

I've gotten to where I don't bother, maybe as much as I should, to check out political rock songs--which, in my listening usually come down to and from being pissed off by the news---if occasionally they get hassled by the cops, it's no more than that (could be coz they're white etc). The previous Truckers album was so tedious (incl. obvious, to anyone else who halfway keeps up w the news) that I haven't gotten to their latest, even though it's all on bandcamp, generously enough. I will, though. And prob this Bob.