HUSKER DU V. Replacements

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

Yeah, in Bob's book, all the Grant issues are there and he makes no secret of them, but he does not have a single nice word to say about Greg. Like at all.

greg's more recent math rock/jazz band sort of dispells the myth he can't play

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv7q6W24bKQ

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

― i love the large auns pictures! (Phil D.), Thursday, April 19, 2012 1:25 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Is this claim... credible? I'm kind of shocked.

yeah cause xpost...

Yeah, in Bob's book, all the Grant issues are there and he makes no secret of them, but he does not have a single nice word to say about Greg. Like at all.

Neither does Grant, from what I've read. iirc, he said that Greg was the main reason a reunion would never, ever happen.

That might be simply cuz Greg doesn't wanna do one though.

He seems p happy with his cookin' life.

never went but yeah apparently norton's was an amazing restaurant

I thought it had more to do with Greg's insistence in the Du days that he too could write songs (I think this was Bob's complaint, too), and he very much could not. But he still wanted 1/3rd of the money.

xp

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

― i love the large auns pictures! (Phil D.), Thursday, April 19, 2012 10:25 AM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol, according to wikipedia, "Bob Mould himself has stated that Flip Your Wig is what he views as "the best album [Hüsker Dü] ever did."

btw

grant's new single "so far from heaven/morning star" is on spotify and it's great

though it sounds all distorted like the mp3 didn't upload or scrobble right or whatever they do on spotify

liked this little oddball pop song off the last grant:

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

I love "My Regrets" -- it's kinda formulaic, but it's huge!

I thought it had more to do with Greg's insistence in the Du days that he too could write songs (I think this was Bob's complaint, too), and he very much could not. But he still wanted 1/3rd of the money.

― Waterloo? Oh, we've sunsetted that. (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, April 19, 2012 12:43 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Norton: When Bob said we were going to do the individual songwriter credits, I thought it was just Bob being pissed off at Grant, not realizing I was the only one who thought the songs the three of us worked on were collaborations. I mean, it said, “All songs by Hüsker Dü.” Bob went back and changed it, so he got all the money.

If you've never seen this piece on Huskers/Replacements, it's great:

http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2005/06/12/a-tale-of-twin-cities-husker-du-the-replacements-and-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-80s-minneapolis-scene/

Norton: When Bob said we were going to do the individual songwriter credits, I thought it was just Bob being pissed off at Grant, not realizing I was the only one who thought the songs the three of us worked on were collaborations. I mean, it said, “All songs by Hüsker Dü.” Bob went back and changed it, so he got all the money.

D'oh cut/paste...

Just re-listened to New Day Rising on the real stereo at loud volume, and while I'd be interested to hear a remaster, it's really just fine. Starting to wonder if the whole Husker Du/Remaster-Imperative thing (which I've been suckered by myself at times) is partly due to half the world listening on little computer speakers that are like 2" high.

That Magnet piece is great. Greg comes off as the sanest Du, but I kinda took everything all of them said with a salt lick.

When Bob said we were going to do the individual songwriter credits, I thought it was just Bob being pissed off at Grant, not realizing I was the only one who thought the songs the three of us worked on were collaborations.

if you want songwriting credit, make sure you at least occasionally bring something that you independently created to the band, even if it's just a few bars or whatever. if it's embraced, then your bandmates are probably taking you at least somewhat seriously as a songwriter. if it isn't, then they may well figure that you're "just playing your part" on stuff that they wrote.