Bob Mould: Classic or Dud?

"Not campy or effeminate"...is this some people's ideas of what all gays are? I had no idea he was a "bear"!

One of my closest chums is a good friend of Mould and his boyfriend. They go to bear clubs together.

"Campy or effeminate" is what Mould's idea of gay men was - he didn't realise there were other gay men like him, and because he was so tied up in the rock underground, he didn't discover them until he was pretty much middle aged. That's when he becomes happy, when he realises he can be an out gay man without being campy and effeminate. He writes at some length about getting himself in trouble in one interview, when he's discussing his sexuality but tells the interviewer he's "not a freak", by which he means campy and effeminate. Naturally, he blames it on the interviewer.

The indie rock scene at the time was pretty difficult for gays. Campy or not, it wasn't very supportive. Then again the entire eighties culture wasn't very supportive. People like Bob Mould coming out created a more tolerant atmosphere.

Oh, I wouldn't dream of criticising him over any choices over his sexuality. My only complaints are about his prose.

At least he looks great on the cover!

He writes at some length about getting himself in trouble in one interview, when he's discussing his sexuality but tells the interviewer he's "not a freak",

I seem to recall that the interviewer was A-V gay novelist Dennis Cooper. (in SPIN)

Will probably get this outta the library at some point for the military-porn/soldier-fucking content, and since I saw Husjer and Sugar play multiple times. I lost most of interest in BM when he stopped drinking, started working out and doing crap DJ work.

that Cooper interview was bizarre: lots of throat-clearing before Mould issued the most guarded of admissions.

I was semi-aware of his sexuality years before that when some indie zine (likely C0sl0y's) had some indie troll saying in an interview, "Well, you gotta feel sorry for Husker Du, they're fat AND gay."

what's his beef with greg norton?

"beef"

envious of mustache

I had no idea Mould was gay until after Sugar disbanded. had simply never occurred to teenage Husker Du fan me.

not that it matters, really. but you'd think (hope?) the punk/indie world of the 80s would have been a little more welcoming of out gay performers.

these days I don't really enjoy his stuff, the lyrical obsessions are all so accusatory and unhappy

His sexuality was the http://images.ientrymail.com/famousdeaddb/paulharvey_small.gif REST OF THE STORY of my pals and mine's high school obsession with Hüsker.

"You like that song? Do you? Did you know that it's about A GUY? SEE? Look how tolerant we all are…"

Mould's Hüsker songs preferred on the second person pronoun over gender specificity.

Grant, too.

Well, I wouldn't take indie alone to task for it, most rock scenes of the day had issues. It's just that you expect people who posture about their dissent with the mainstream to be more supportive.

that's presumptive. Jerks listen to the same music as non-jerks.

long interview with the guy on the (local) NPR yesterday with some call-ins. there was a good qn from chris osgood of suicide commandos about his writing process in the crazy in-the-van years, and he basically said "notebooks".

then there was a very guarded qn from the interviewer along the lines of, "so many people love HD so much, they look back on those days fondly, they'd like to know why you all hate each other". and he was basically like "eh, i'm older now but i still don't like those guys"

i'll try to find it

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/06/14/bobmould/

xpost He thinks Norton was lazy. Didn't do enough on the business side, didn't write songs, had to have his bass parts redone by Mould or Hart on later albums. AND HE STILL EXPECTED TO GET PAID!

Him getting mad at Norton for not writing songs… I always assumed that Norton just gave up trying to compete. When he did write a good one, it got relegated to a B-side!

Yeah, it's not so much that Norton didn't write songs, but that he didn't write songs and wanted decent money.

One WTF moment is when he reveals he vetoed 2541 from one of the early Hüsker albums cos it sounded to similar to something by the Dream Syndicate (Tell Me When It's Over, maybe - he doesn't say). He thinks that's when Hart started to feel bitter. He accepts now it was one of Hart's best ever songs but clearly doesn't feel that bad about vetoing it.

i dunno, you tour america as the third member of a band with ppl like mould and hart, you deserve some $

It's not like he's getting any composer royalties.

playing w/ The Roots on Fallon tomw night

I really need to listen to those first two Bob Mould solo albums again. I liked them quite a bit back in the day, but it has been years since I put them into the player.

Christgau reviews the Mould memoir and Earle's Husker bio. He's not pleased: "For an amateur, Mould’s an efficient stylist. But he either leaves his gifts as a raconteur at the dinner table or hasn’t matured into empathy quite as ripely as he thinks."

the band’s drummer and co-leader, Grant Hart, still scuffling in the Twin Cities, however valiantly Earles praises his negligible solo music

i could be misreading Christgau's gnomic sentence, but i think that's rather unfair to grant's music, which is hit'n'miss, but hits so well when it hits (thinking 'you don't have to tell me now' or '2541' or 'if i was afraid' here).

The Christgau review is worth it for one phrase alone, describing Hüsker Dü as a "transmutation of wrath into flight".

i also liked the passage where he quotes (and expands upon the quote) Azzerad on how grant's drumming was such an intrinsic part of husker du's sound. i remember the first editor i ever worked for describing sugar as 'pub rock', even though she loved husker du, and while i preferred sugar's steadier, sturdier rock drums as an alt_rock teen, there's something about grant's drumming that evades that four-square stomp in favour of something almost jazzier, certainly weirder and more inventive, that swaps the obvious fills and flourishes for something more unexpected.

Hart's drumming is more like rhythm guitar than it is like "proper drumming", although that would be at his most restrained (ie. most content to restrict himself *to* rhythm) - much of the time the drums are all blur and treble, like Mould's guitar

Christgau is unnecessarily rough on Grant Hart's output. I'll still take Intolerance over any Bob Mould solo record.

I do wish Husker Du would get back together, though. They broke up a couple years before I was old enough to see bands.

I'll take Intolerance and Good News ... over Candy Apple Grey, on most days. Certainly over any Mould solo, save perhaps Copper Blue and Beaster.

In an interview I did with Hart years ago, he noted how Mould's coming out of the closet was so not surprising by the time he formally did it that the only surprise was that Mould struggled so much with it for so long. I gathered them being gay was not exactly an open secret, just something they never really talked about. Or at least that was Grant's perspective.

And how lame of Mould to claim that Norton didn't contribute enough. I gather one of the major points of contention between Mould and Hart was that the former thought the latter was contributing too much, and that he all but promised the next Husker disc was not going to be split 50/50, songwise. And of course, Mould was in a position of power at this point, having cleaned up first, while Hart, strung out, could be easily, opportunistically scapegoated.

Whenever I listen to old Husker Du music, I'm struck by two things:

1. Bob is a master guitarist. The fact that he's playing DJ music instead of guitar is a waste of his talent. It would be like DJ Shadow playing acoustic folk music.

2. Grant's songs are just as good as any of Bob's. On New Day Rising, they're better.

kornrulez6969, point 2 OTM. Point 1, I do agree, but I think Bob probably felt burned out on electric guitar, and probably on the expectations on him in that arena. It's like why Pete Townshend always says he rather go sailing than do a Who tour (but does them anyway).

And I actually think a Du reunion would be a disaster; they haven't played together in decades, and the constant gigging in the 80s is what made them such a powerful unit. But maybe I'm just saying that because I was lucky enough to have seen them, on the first Warehouse tour. I don't remember where I put my keys, but I remember that show like it was yesterday. But then, despite the fact that a full-on Jam reunion would likely suck, I'd still go see them, so I definitely get where you're coming from.

you know, as much as i love bob mould's music, i can never forget something everett true wrote about him in melody maker: that bob mould was cursed to always sound like bob mould. and as much as i like that sound, it's seemed a bit of a creative dead end since Beaster - not that one or two tracks from his solo albums since haven't been amazing - and all the DJ stuff has yet to convince me there's a fresh direction within him.

i also wouldn't want to see a Du reunion, and I never saw them, and still wear the repro Warehouse tee I bought 17 years ago as a 16 year old.

I saw Bob countless times when I was in college, solo or with Sugar. Sold beer to Greg once. Never met Grant.

I've been listening to their albums since I was a high school senior. They're still one of the few bands from then that I listen to now as a married man in his late thirties with two kids.

And all that said, I hope they never get back together. It wouldn't even be close to being the same. Bob and Grant playing together at Karl Mueller's benefit was way more of a final epilogue than any of just have expected.

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2011/06/23/bob-mould-roots-jimmy-fallon-change-your-mind/

Whenever I listen to old Husker Du music, I'm struck by two things:

1. Bob is a master guitarist...

^so true. The guy could really play.

scrolling back to xgau's review it would have been nice if he spent more time on the book and less on husker du's music (as illuminating and evocative as his description of that early 83 show is). idk, haven't read it yet, but there must be more to mould's experience as a gay man in the hetero-world of indie rock.
maybe the book fails to deliver the goods on this rich and unexplored territory but xgau's review barely glances at that. and his dismissal of mould's prose is unsupported by any quotes.

the Times review was better at pointing to examples.

this, to my mind, is a more thoughtful and better-written review of the actual book.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/books/see-a-little-light-by-bob-mould-of-husker-du-review.html?_r=1&ref=dwightgarner

He writes prose like he wrote lyrics: dourly, and with almost no trace of humour. He warns at the beginning that readers should not expect anecdotes, and boy does he deliver on that warning. He comes across as self-justificatory, misanthropic and really rather boring. --"Ithappens" quote from upthread

I get the impression that most reviewers of the book think about it like this ilx poster's view expressed upthread. It makes me less interested in reading it.

Uh, I guess some reviewers.

well Mould and 99% of all memoirists. "self justificatory misanthropic and really rather boring" also describes about 99% of HC punk IMHO

Christgau did remind me of a show I saw later in 83: Husker Du/Minutemen @ Danceteria. Cowabunga!

so serious question: did the Hüsker boys attract male groupies or something?

hetero me didn't even know Mould was gay at the time I saw Husker Du perform