Gotta Lotta POLLING To Do - ILM Artist Poll #29 - Your HÜSKER DÜ Nominations Thread

fwiw here's a blog post I wrote last year in the middle of a Zen Arcade reimmersion

http://blogs.metropulse.com/10-minute_obsession/2011/04/listening-to-zen-arcade-at-mid.html

(tho I see I attributed "What's Going On" to Mould instead of Hart. What you get for writing late-night exegeses.)

Is 'Flip Your Wig' the only song where Bob and Grant both sing on it? (Apart from stuff stuff like 'New Day Rising' title track etc.)

Ice Cold Ice? Not the trading verses like you're talking about though.

I've got it whittled down to 35 songs. Sorry, Baby Song, maybe next time.

Isn't "Somewhere" the only time Bob sang a Grant song? I totally agree with the above blog post about "Zen arcade", it's a record I admire more than love. Playing it again for this poll reminded me that I think it's impact and construction (a hardcore double concept album) was more important than the song content. There are some great songs on it, but better elsewhere in their catalogue.

Xp on "Could you be the one?" - I've always had a soft spot for this song, as it was the only cover I did at my debut solo gig twenty one years ago.

Think I'm down to thirty songs on my list so far, evenly split between Bob and Grant (with one entry for McGuinn / Clark etc)

oh man i've been waiting for this poll, first in a while where i felt more "ok i have a ton of their work i know well and want to make a ballot" than "i want to see results so i know what to investigate"

"Somewhere":

I've been confused about that song ever since I first read the liner notes on the gatefold. "Whoever wrote the song sang it, except for 'Somewhere'…" It's credited to Mould/Hart, but that's clearly Grant singing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qCSAWnl8EI

"Masochism World" and "One Step At a Time" are the only other M/H songs on the record. Grant's singing on Masochism, so how come it didn't get the same attention in the liner notes as "Somewhere"? And One Step is a 45-second piano piece. It took both guys to write that?

"Somewhere" is an awesome song, whatever the story is on it.

Wait, is the Byrds cover valid in this poll?

It was officially released by the band Husker Du.

You can even throw some love to Donovan and Sonny Curtis, if you so wish.

(heck, it doesn't have to be official. Put Ticket to Ride in there if you really think that's one of the 20 best Husker Du songs.)

8 Miles High has a strong shot at being #1 on my ballot

xp: Ha, I'd always heard the lyric as "It's a game, some game, that anyone can play."

Predictably my ballot skewed 11.5 Bob, 8.5 Grant (counting "New Day Rising" as half), but with Grant taking the top 2 slots. Hint: One of them is "What's Going On," the punk classic largely unrecognized as such because it's on an album since reclaimed as something other than or transcending a punk classic. Phooey to that. I still remember playing "Pink Turns to Blue" for Al and Mim Sparhawk during an interview and their young daughter exclaiming, "This is CRAZY!"

I just keep telling myself that if Husker Du weren't such stubborn, contentious assholes, they wouldn't have been the band they were.

"It's a game, some game, that anyone can play."
wait, it's not this?

Okay, lyric sheet confirms Alfred misheard, not I. What, I'm working at home.

That's how I always heard it, too.

xp

Games is an immense song

Predictably my ballot skewed 11.5 Bob, 8.5 Grant (counting "New Day Rising" as half), but with Grant taking the top 2 slots

Pretty sure this is a common view held by a lot of fans, esp. in terms of GH songs being absolute highlights

Can only wonder what would have happened if GH had pushed for half and half on the earlier albums

i've had most of their full-lengths since high school but only heard "Diane" and "Eight Miles High" pretty recently, since I've never been much for buying album-price EPs and stand-alone singles. i almost wonder if i overrate them because they're the probably the Last Great Husker Du songs I'll hear for the first time

i don't think there's going to be a single grant song

srsly, what the hell?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KA8on-1V33w/TXLsUmxrAQI/AAAAAAAAA3g/e-IDIGAVIRg/s1600/R-1610376-1232011163.jpeg

^ I bought this cassette so I could hear Eight Miles High, some of the rest of it was alright too though

I think the Eight Miles High 7" was the first record of theirs I bought, soon followed by Zen Arcade (at the end of '84, after SST had been sold out of it for some months I think).

i heard it on this and i already loved the byrds version from oldies radio and hearing the HD version was like
whoa
i knew zen arcade (got it from the library) and had solo bob m (workbook, black sheets of rain) because i won it off the radio (and liked him) but i had never heard them do 8 miles high
i remember totally flipping out and making everyone i knew listen to it (they did not care)

http://www.sweatsoaked.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/sst-duck.jpg

There are worse things to overrate than "Eight Miles High."

I don't think GH was as good a songwriter on the earlier albums, so I'm glad he had to compete.

some of the rest of it was alright too though

Ha, I'd count Paranoid Time and the Black Flags among the greatest rock and roll ever, but that's me.

I once played Zen Arcade for coworkers (we were allowed to listen to music at work, and took turns with cassettes). They were all familiar with Bob's solo stuff, but had never heard of, much less heard, Husker Du. They refused to believe that the singer of "Something I Learned Today" and "Broken Home, Broken Heart" was Bob Mould. It wasn't until "Chartered Trips" that they grudgingly accepted that it might be him.

wow, whenever mould does his "actually fans don't ask about husker they only want to know about sugar" thing i usually figure he's doing his PR stonewalling thing, but i guess it's not that much harder to believe than Cracker fans who have no idea about camper van beethoven

this is why we value the friends who got/get it
or i do at least. i definitely made a couple of friends by foisting bob mould on them. ah youth.

i haven't even started to make my list yet. i have to be in just the right mood and right now is not it. this is due next wednesday? i think i can handle that but man this is the kind of time warp i'm not sure i'm prepared for! i don't feel unemotional about any HD songs. like, none.

i never made a friend by making them listen to bob mould (one guy i made tape of sugar/husker stuff for said they loved the music but hated his voice - double-tracked on Copper Blue it is sort of like alt-Phil Collins) but I can think of two where the first thing that came up was Husker Du. I walked into my first day of a high school filmmaking class wearing a husker du warehouse shirt and a kid who i'd seen around the local comic and cd stores was there and called it out. Later, when I got my first apartment after college, my downstairs neighbor had a Husker Du bumper sticker and I finally introduced myself when I heard him and his wife playing "new day rising" one night. Turned out he had more albums than I did. Still friends with both guys today - one was a groomsman at my wedding. FRIENDSHIP.

has there ever been a Zen Arcade poll? Would be interesting

Ha, I'd count Paranoid Time and the Black Flags among the greatest rock and roll ever, but that's me.

Oh, I was just being silly really. Buying that tape for Eight Miles High and then hearing Paranoid Time and In A Car for the first time too, fuck yes.

Squinting to try and read the tracklist on La Lechera's tape... Trotsky Icepick covering Magazine eh, is that as terrible as it sounds? Minutemen version of Ain't Talking 'Bout Love is absolutely A++ though.

Ballot sent. Damn, that wasn't easy.

it's pretty good! i still have it.

this is awesome and pretty much just like the original
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qed8vLVT7Q

I have no idea who Revolution 409 are, but they sound a bit like SWA with a different singer.

I'd be interested to know what people think of "Don't know yet". Do you think it's a waste of space like "The wit and the wisdom"? Or is it a beautiful piece of psychedelia? The second view is my opinion. I'm sure I've said this years ago on here, but when I heard "Don't know yet" it was like finding something I'd be looking for - I'd always thought the idea of psychedelia was better than 90% of the actual music, and was looking for backwards guitars, weird dissonances, that sort of thing, and I found it in the last track of "Flip your wig", of all places.

Not perfect, but has its moments. Ode to Bob Mould. Better than TMBG's Replacements song...

Love this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhbrMgSfR0w

I love love Don't Know Yet. Random huskermentals all almost all great to me. I sort of include the weird toytown interlude on Candy Apple Gray in that.

Yeah, I love the two endsongs on FYW, and "Reoccurring Dreams" placed high in my ballot. It's a shame they never did anything like that again.

http://www.thirdav.com/hd_images/im1980xxxx_longhorn.jpg

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lq7k8ge1rz1qffv5do1_500.png

^ have never seen this photo before!

guy in the middle is john giorno iinm, who i guess introduced the two parties

Playing it again for this poll reminded me that I think it's impact and construction (a hardcore double concept album) was more important than the song content.

Not sure how this works - they pull the concept off bcz most of the songs are written and executed to work within it.

Feel the blog post feigns a mystery...but sure there is a kind of junkyard aura to it. The craft may have been sharper but they sounded much more over the place over other records that lessen the impact of the songs. These days I would only play a side or two off Zen Arcade and Games.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dNhk7UbV7RA/T2n3qGshoPI/AAAAAAAAAXE/d8Jg7s9bcjI/s1600/HuskerDu-lr.jpg

^ how's this for junkyard aura?

Perfect.

looks like they're just about to hop on a railway car into the zone

Looks like home.

Pulled this up from eight years ago fully expecting to be mortified, but it's not bad (though I now suspect what I long thought was 1983 was just early 1984):

http://blogs.citypages.com/pscholtes/2004/05/i_hate_1984_bob_you.php

Any of you Septics seen Hüsker Düdes? Any good?

Two videos, both of "New Day Rising," on their Facebook page. Surprisingly close vocals!

Great piece, Pete, and otm re: the Pixies.

I've meant to see them a zillion times but don't want to see HD cover band by myself. WOULD GO though!

Two videos, both of "New Day Rising," on their Facebook page. Surprisingly close vocals!

Speaking of which: http://youtu.be/FvnEcz6PJKQ?t=3m48s

!!!