HUSKER DU V. Replacements

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.

for rock bands i hate and reject the whole "i wrote this song thing"...why is a bassline or a drum part not part of the songwriting? that's bullshit, no band i've ever been in ever split songwriting credits even if someone brought in a majority of the main changes, etc

R.E.M. had the right idea, splitting all songwriting/publishing 4 ways, regardless of who contributed what.

There's an awesome bit in the Dixie Chicks doc where they're recording with Rick Rubin and his hacks, including RHCP drummer Chad Smith. At some point Smith notes that the band splits songwriting royalties four ways and the Dixie Chicks look at him like he's a martian.

Didn't the semisonic dude write that dixie chicks song anyway?

Semisonic dude has written everything.

loved this one off grant's last https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTH4Zu8gleA

That was the first album they'd written most of the material for, though. The issue hadn't come up before; only 2-3 songs total on their previous records were written by them.

And yep, Dan Wilson is credited as co-writer.

xxp

xp - oh yeah i love that one too!! that whole album is top notch imo. would listen to 100x over anything mould or westerberg has done in the last 5 years.

(sorry guys)

for rock bands i hate and reject the whole "i wrote this song thing"...why is a bassline or a drum part not part of the songwriting? that's bullshit, no band i've ever been in ever split songwriting credits even if someone brought in a majority of the main changes, etc
Yup. Levon Helm complained about Robbie Robertson taking claim for songs that all members of The Band had a hand in creating. Robertson gets full writing credit for "Chest Fever," even though it's Garth Hudson that everyone hears.

If Bob was indeed replacing Greg's bass parts (I've never seen mention of this -- who is playing bass then?) I guess I can sorta see his reluctance to share writing credit. Although, man, the dude's still 1/3 of your band. The conflicting stories/bad blood are the main reason I don't see them EVER reuniting for anything.

Procol Harum organist Matthew Fisher is now co-credited with "A Whiter Shade of Pale" from his lawsuit a few years ago. I thought/hoped that would open the door for many more such suits, but apparently not (or not yet).

xp

for rock bands i hate and reject the whole "i wrote this song thing"...why is a bassline or a drum part not part of the songwriting? that's bullshit, no band i've ever been in ever split songwriting credits even if someone brought in a majority of the main changes, etc

― Mississippi Butt Hurt (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, April 19, 2012 11:36 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

R.E.M. had the right idea, splitting all songwriting/publishing 4 ways, regardless of who contributed what.

― Waterloo? Oh, we've sunsetted that. (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, April 19, 2012 11:41 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, if you generate your songs by jamming (as i assume RHCP did, esp when starting out), that's probably the coolest and most honorable way to go about it. i'm just saying that if you expect a chunk of the songwriting credit/money, it's sort of on you to make sure that the people you're playing with see eye-to-eye about it.

i mean the whole argument is kind of -god stop me - rockist because it's privileging things like chord changes and vocal melodies over rhythm. creating a drum beat is *writing music* every bit as much as throwing together some major chords and strumming them is.

U2 has always been a four way split, too, right?

Wow, from that Magnet piece:

Buck: As far as I could tell, Bob went his entire career with the Replacements without knowing the names of any of the songs. He didn’t know what key they were playing in when the song started and didn’t know what key they were in when the song ended, but he sure could play some great stuff in the middle.

That's hilarious.

upper mississippi OTM

what if you tell the drummer exactly what to play

xp

Buck: As far as I could tell, Bob went his entire career with the Replacements without knowing the names of any of the songs. He didn’t know what key they were playing in when the song started and didn’t know what key they were in when the song ended, but he sure could play some great stuff in the middle.

that's junkies for ya

what if you tell the drummer exactly what to play

xp

― Jilly Boel and the Eltones (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, April 19, 2012 2:12 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

drum hitler gets full publishing!

i mean the whole argument is kind of -god stop me - rockist because it's privileging things like chord changes and vocal melodies over rhythm. creating a drum beat is *writing music* every bit as much as throwing together some major chords and strumming them is.

Totally agree. Also, there's tons of songs where the most famous part wasn't even written by the "main" songwriter ("Light My Fire" comes to mind).

Al Kooper would have found it absurd for Dylan to give him credit for the organ hook in "Like a Rolling Stone." He said once in an interview -- well, that's my job! That's what I was hired for!

i see a difference between being a sideman and being in a band, dylan's played with jeez 100s of ppl? a band is a band IMO.

If you open it up to other areas of music, you'd have to wonder why the hour-long version of "My Favorite Things" on Coltrane Live In Japan is only credited to Rodgers and Hammerstein. Pretty sure they didn't have any input into much of what went on there.

haha yeah or David S. Ware's "cover" of "The Way We Were"

well, covers/interpretations without the original author's involvement are a whole other kettle of fish. i kind of discourage any band i'm in from playing covers, partly because i know i'd get so into doing an original arrangement that i'd be like fuck it, i'm going to take my ideas and write a whole new song with them.

my band is opening for a Replacements documentary next month. excited, but I just found out we're supposed to play an entire set of Mats tunes and we know zero at this point.

the guy who did the mat documentary is doing one on grant hart now bringing things around to this thread

we're supposed to play an entire set of Mats tunes and we know zero at this point.

― Darin, Thursday, April 19, 2012 8:58 PM (41 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha actually sounds like you're perfectly prepared to do a Mats set

That seems appropriate in a way
(xp)

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

― Waterloo? Oh, we've sunsetted that. (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, April 19, 2012 1:11 PM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is like the weirdest thing i've ever heard

....because Grant played drums.

no, no, aside from the typo

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.

― yuppie bullshit chocolate blogbait (contenderizer), Thursday, April 19, 2012 12:10 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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

― Waterloo? Oh, we've sunsetted that. (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, April 19, 2012 12:11 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Drawing attention to the typo?

Maybe he thinks by bass somebody means bass drum

well in any event *greg's* bass playing is maybe my favorite thing abt husker du

i loved grant's handlebar mustache