Gotta Make Polls for the Polls I Make - ILM HUSKER DU POLL RESULTS

I think a side Kramden-Norton poll would have been fun.

hooray!

superb graphics btw, very professional

omg that graphic!

How did I miss this deadline?:(

Yes! Chart is a smashing idea!

"Greg Norton Doesn't GIve A Fuck How Many Votes He Receives"

I could have helped defend traditional values against the Grant Hart-loving deviants.

All right, I hate to pull the "I've got a meeting" card, but I've got a meeting to go to in an hour. Let's get the albums out of the way before then, and we'll get to the first songs after lunch/dinner.

Not everyone voted for a favorite album either. I won't embarrass this poll by publishing exactly how many votes each record got. Let's just say there was plenty of room to swing this part of the poll from one side to the other.

So I'll list each album that received votes, including this one .

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/Husker%20Du%20Poll/robot-circus-L-brleFs.jpg

4. Metal Circus
SST Records, 1983

Okay, I'll reveal how many votes that one got: 1.

Steve Albini voted?

fwiw my answer to the Hart/Mould question was, Hart with Mould's guitar. Really hard to separate my love for Grant's songs from the way Bob made them sound.

I gave Hart a bit of an edge, yet when I looked at my list afterwards, there were more Mould songs. Maybe my very favourite Hart songs (top two or three?) on balance beat my favourite Mould songs, or maybe Grant just seems more likeable. I don't know.

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/Husker%20Du%20Poll/1964BeatlesFlipYourWigGame2.jpg

3. Flip Your Wig
SST Records, 1985

I should have mentioned there's a tie at No. 3.

Flip Your Wig was the last Husker Du record I listened to, outside of Everything Falls Apart & More and Living End which were released later.

This is likely the happiest record they ever made. I love the bon voyage feeling to it, where they're letting loose one more time before heading off to the majors. They sound downright giddy. Even Bob.

Flip Your Wig was the last Du record you listened to, or last one you got around to listening to? Because I'd give you the stinkeye if you said you never heard the Warners albums.

For me FYW is where they tipped the scale from sound to songs. Could argue that NDR perfectly balances the two and is therefore their high point, and I wouldn't disagree. But FYW is still the one I've listened to most.

There are some serious stinkers on here that are a harbinger of things to come; there are also some of my favorite Bob AND Grant songs.
I've always felt it was a pretty mixed bag.

The album vote for Metal Circus was from me.

ast one you got around to listening to?

Yes. Probably went something like CAG, NDR, ZA, MC, WSAS, LSR, FYW.

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/Husker%20Du%20Poll/music_warehouse.jpg

3. (tie) Warehouse: Songs and Stories
Warner Brothers, 1987

I voted for this one.

So did I. It wasn't the first or last Husker Du album I bought, but it was the one that spoke most to me - in particular the songs on disc two seemed to be in a dialogue with each other about what was going on in my life at the time. Can I also state it has an utterly brilliant sleeve note, too.

I love on the Joan Rivers clip, they're playing on a set designed to look like the album cover.

(which of course looks like this:)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/64/Husker_Du_Warehouse_Songs_and_Stories.jpg/220px-Husker_Du_Warehouse_Songs_and_Stories.jpg

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/Husker%20Du%20Poll/WFR352.jpg

2. New Day Rising
SST Records, 1985

This was my vote for best record. Not every song is their best, but boy do they all work together as a whole.

Finally,

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/Husker%20Du%20Poll/96315225_bd87c10696_o.jpg

1. Zen Arcade
SST Records, 1984

clearly!

good job huskers

destroy only one song off each of those albums...

Great picture for "Zen arcade"!

I love on the Joan Rivers clip, they're playing on a set designed to look like the album cover.

That was their stage set on the first '87 tour.

Great images/graphics, pp!

That was their stage set on the first '87 tour.

It's never occurred to me until now that I've never seen much live Husker Du clips from the Warner years. There's Joan, there's some outdoor festivals, but not much else.

I guess they never made it to any auditorium or arena seating like that band from Twin/Tone did?

(and thanks for the kind words on the graphics! Johnny Fever's Pavement poll gave me some inspiration.)

It was a weird feeling: the lights went down, you saw the day-glo 3D rendering of the Warehouse cover, and for a second you thought, "Oh shit. A stage set? For Husker Du?" Then they proceeded to nearly blow up the building. So yeah, they made up for it.

It's a pretty album cover, but damn near my least-favorite (Candy Apple I guess edges it out.)

It's the stage decision from a homecoming royalty court – at Spencer's Gifts.

A New Day Rising stage set would've been awesome

hey pp did you get my ballot last week? i never got a response but you may not have been handin' em out

I recall seeing yours. I tried to answer each ballot to confirm. PM me your email or real name, and I can check later.

As for the poll, I'm going to microwave some lunch and come back in a few minutes.

Stations, stand by for DU! </paul_harvey>

Before we get started, just one more thing - I'll be providing a few links here and there with each song, but if you want to stream the actual releases themselves, subscribe to this Spotify playlist.

And if you go over there right now, you will see:

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/Husker%20Du%20Poll/hardly_getting_over_it700.jpg

30. “Hardly Getting Over It” - 126 points
• Live at First Ave
• Bob Mould with Dave Grohl

When at last, Husker Du "broke the mould," heh heh heh.

Good track. Voted for it. Glad it just squeaked in.

Nice graphic...All 30 will be ballads, right?

Every single one of 'em, clem. Just like No. 29

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt203/pplains/Husker%20Du%20Poll/turn_on_the_news700.jpg

29. “Turn On the News” - 140 points
• ''Private Remaster''
• Big Trouble House from Dü Hüskers tribute

Still not sure how this is supposed to sound like "Freebird", but my ears are tin anyway.

i see what you've done with the numbers on yr graphics pp

I hope this isn't a pain-in-the-butt request, but could you share how many votes each track received?

I can possibly share that after we're through here.

I didn't originally because, 25 ballots, most would only see 5-10 votes anyway.

What I want from HD records: to hear Hüsker Dü

I put Out on a Limb on my practice playlist. I don’t think I’m nearly good enough to play a lot of Grant’s parts but its fun to try.

I don’t think those records, save probably Metal Circus, are an honest representation of the sound of the band - IMO The Living End sounds a lot better than any of their main albums.

I do think it was a mistake not to hand the reins over to someone else for the albums from Flip Your Wig on. They obviously made some mistakes in terms of letting go of some of the decisions surrounding the band to outsiders once they move from SST to Warners and this was one of them.

Listening to Soul Asylum’s Made To Be Broken (produced by Mould) and it sounds a good bit thinner - with the same biscuit tin drum sound as found on Flip Your Wig/CAG/Warehouse - than While You Were Out and Hang Time

the twin cities PBS outlet has a 7-episode series out on Minnesota hardcore. the second episode is all about Husker Du! Lots of cool footage and interviews (including quite a bit with norton, and also a really cool clip with grant hart at the end):

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

That Grant Hart documentary is awesome and sad. It really stuck with me and has come back in my mind quite a bit.

On the old indie rawk recording quality angle, I gave the Jesus Urge Superstar / Americruiser CD a listen. I guarantee no one is handing that first one to Page and Plant and saying "this is the dude that will cut your record." That total first gen CD is also mastered unbelievably quiet. I could flat out crank my stereo.

Really liking Warehouse but I find the cool dad giving wise advice tone of some of it kind of funny.

Thanks for clarifying why this record’s outlook felt so off to me when it came out. Such a different POV compared to “I will never forget you”

Love Bob's sleevenote about getting lost in the snow, or something. 'These Important Years' is definitely the sort of song you write when you've lived 50 years in your first 28 or so.

In 1986 there wasn't really a clear path for this band to follow, as a hardcore punk band making its way towards maturity and accessibility. The "life lessons" lyrics on Warehouse seem as much self-directed as trying to lecture younger fans, or attempts to come off as a guiding light.

Bob got sober round about now iirc?

That would have to be part of it too, right?

I read this blog fairly regularly, and noticed this tribute from September:

https://askthepilot.com/grant-hart/

I'm finally reading Mould's memoir, and I'm getting the feeling he's at least a little full of shit.

How so? About what? I enjoyed reading his book although he did seem like a v uptight person BITD. The older I get the more I love this band. Which is p incredible bc I loved them a lot before!!

I think he's selectively egotistical and (falsely) modest. There are lots of times he writes like he was the leader of the band without claiming to be the leader of the band. Other times, he calls out other people for *their* respective "power trips," but never acknowledges his own moves. He seems to go out of his way, barely, to cite Grant's great songs, but two of Grant's best - "2541" and "Turn On the News" - only get sort of belated respect or relative dismissal, respectively. He'll kind of talk shit about the Replacements on one page, but then a few pages later talk about them as friendly peers. He alludes to his own bad behavior on speed/drugs/alcohol, but never indicates whether his own behavior had any impact on the fate of the band. Whenever he can he throws Grant under the bus, for various reasons, but Mould never calls his own motives and motivations into question. It's always someone else fucking up or forgetting something or not seeing the big picture. That sort of thing.

JoC on the money about his bio book. It’s kinda the tough thing about being a Hüsker Dü fan - for every new, admittedly 3/4ths good Bob release, we no longer have sublime Grant records that provided a look into his creative process/scene which was so obviously was different, (but enjoyable/rewarding) from Bob’s. I’ll bet he is tormented by the one on stage reunion (the Karl mueller get together I believe).

I miss Grant so much

Yah me too. I had several Hart shows (where mind you, I was happy to see him) in Chicago where he played sub par venues (prodigal son, darkroom, red line tap), & it always seemed shortly after I saw either sugar/mould band in some celebrated good sounding venue or fest shortly afterwards, & feeling a bit sad the equally if not more talented HD member got the short straw.

Josh's description encapsulates why I so much prefer reading biographies over autobiographies/memoirs (aware that there are exceptions). I would gladly read a well written biography of Husker Du--there's probably one out there besides Michael Azerrad's chapter on them, which was quite good as I remember it, I've just never looked into it. I knew about Mould's book but it just doesn't interest me that much.

There is indeed a Husker Du book, by Andrew Earles. https://books.google.com/books/about/Husker_Du.html?id=6K6l38haOK4C&source=kp_book_description

Very pricey on Amazon right now, but I'll keep an eye out for that, thanks.

fwiw the Mould book was written with Azerrad.

Interesting and surprising. Mould strikes me as a writerly guy who wouldn't take on a co-author.

I'd love Bob Mehr to turn his gaze on HD.

Woo -- yeah THAT would be something.

Been a while since I read it and I know there’s comments on another thread, but that Earles book is not very good. At least Greg Norton gets his say in it, though.

I'd love Bob Mehr to turn his gaze on HD.

Yes, that would be amazing.

Mould's a complicated guy with a lot of damage he's trying to figure out, and I think that explains his book, which I didn't really enjoy. He's seemed more sanguine lately - when I interviewed him in 2020 he was talking about the peace he struck with Grant while they were working on the Numero box set, and his sadness over Grant's death. But you just have to listen to his songs to know this is a guy who holds a grudge and is on very visceral terms with his own emotions.

In its defense, the book doesn't scan like bitter score settling or anything like that, but it has this smug history is written by with the winner tone to it that rubs me the wrong way. The weirdest thing about it is how for all the focus on Husker Du (at least at the start of the book, sensibly), it often feels like Mould barely knew Grant and Greg. Which is oddly possible; Mould mentions how they never socialized outside of the band, and later, when their manager David Savoy commits suicide, Mould mentions how he knew next to nothing about his personal life or family, too.

Still, this is a group that was together from '79-'89. That's longer than the Police, or the Smiths, or the Beatles. You'd think those hundreds and hundreds of hours spent in motels or the van together would amount to more, but maybe not. (Mould claims Greg would diligently drive in silence, while he and Hart would sleep in the back, because they were the hard workers that needed their rest, of course, writing these songs that make all the money, something Mould pretty much literally states). Maybe the band was just interpersonally dysfunctional from the start and it really was strictly professional, like office mates. Or as I was saying with my complaints about the way this story is being told, maybe (essentially) last man standing Mould and his own damaged personalty were the problem and he's ultimately unable to fully see or admit it.

I was browsing this book in the library, mostly to see what he had to say about Workbook, and his writing about the other members of Hüsker Dü was really externalized: "they were doing this or that", but not a lot of curiosity or even acknowledgement that there might be reasons why. Same with Chris Stamey playing on the first solo tour, wanting to avoid hearing damage and annoying Mould by keeping the volume too low.

Exactly.

A (male) musician being self-centered??!!!! Whaaaaaaat?? Idk what y’all expected — what I want from a memoir type book is for someone to show me who they are, whether I like it or not. His book succeeded for me on that level.

All memoirs are self-centered, but some are more gracious than others. As I've been reading this I have kept in mind how Robert Forster wrote about a different Grant.

And you hope the passage of time would "grant" a memoirist a certain amount of insight, too.

The Forster memoir is to me a model of its kind: wry, often rueful, impeccable in its accounts about recording + songwriting, and humble enough to acknowledge that there are shadows in his best friend he never understood.

I just got to the part in the book where the band has broken up, and Mould is working on solo stuff. He plays some songs for someone, and they get this look on their face and ask him if he's ever heard of Richard Thompson. "No," says Bob. The guy hands him "Bright Lights" and "Shoot Out the Lights" and Bob listens and, would you believe it, Bob agrees he sounds just like Richard Thompson! Who he's literally only heard of for the first time! Bob is just that good.

Sigh. It reminds me of this interview with Billy Joel I saw once, where he was talking about taking some late in life piano lessons, just to brush up, and as he was noodling around the teacher goes "you know that's Mozart, don't you?" Amazingly, Billy Joel, who is also just that good, was simply messing around on the piano and came up with the same thing as Mozart! Just amazing!

Mould does cover "Shoot Out the Lights" a few years later iirc

On the tribute album? That was X. Mould did "Turning Of The Tide" there.

Mould too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS1qLAfXSoE

He told me about neve having heard Thompson before Workbook too, when we spoke in 2020. I don't know, it checks out! He never said it like "I had that sound before him", more that he was initially totally ignorant of this complex music he was growing to love, being some scuzzy punk rat raised on the Beatles and the Beach Boys.

Like I said, I really didn't like the book. But I do really like Bob as an interviewee - he's very engaging, very engaged, self-deprecating at times but also passionate.

"I had that sound before I heard of him", I mean - he wasn't trying to obscure a debt of influence he owed, more reeling at the fact that he'd never consciously heard of this guy whose style he'd natively worked his own way towards.

I've interviewed him a couple of times, and yeah, he can be a good interview.

I do believe that he had never heard Richard Thompson before, I was reacting more to the gratuitous humblebrag of him picking up an acoustic guitar and then, what do you know, sounding at all close to one of the greatest and most distinctive guitarists of all time.

A subsequent humblebrag comes when someone tells him "A Good Idea" sounds like the Pixies, and gosh, he'd never noticed that before! "There was an unconscious homage too: I didn’t realize the similarities between “A Good Idea” and the Pixies’ “Debaser” until Sugar was riding around America during the summer 1992 dates. I simultaneously laughed and gasped at the horror of having accidentally pilfered Kim Deal’s bass line." Earlier in the book he opens for the Pixies as a solo act, and mentions "I had a few conversations with Charles (aka Black Francis) from the Pixies. We treated each other as equals, a very cordial interaction." Well, yeah, duh. Pixies owed tons to Husker Du, it's part of the lore, and Mould later even mentions the famous Pixies musicians wanted ad. So Mould really didn't need to namedrop in that manner. It reeks of insecurity, as does his claim that Metallica were supposedly fans (so?), or the backhanded namedrop of meeting the Clash in the early HD years, "they were nice chaps, but very intense, as if they were very aware of their importance."

It's hard to know what's up with some of this, maybe it's Azerrad's doing. Like when he writes that the fourth single from "Copper Blue" "would be the upbeat and catchy “If I Can’t Change Your Mind.”" Who writes about their own songs that way?

Ha, I can kinda picture him saying "upbeat and catchy" through clenched teeth and a rictus smile.

Could be a lot more obnoxious. I stopped watching Quentin Tarantino's interviews because I got sick of listening to him talk about his own work like he was his own biggest fan.

The problem is that the most interesting personality in the band - and the one most likely to write the most illuminating account, bias and all - is no longer with us.

I say illuminating - Greg is in a unique position in that he’s neither Grant but Bob but he’s said a fair amount from his perspective since the Azerrad 80s book and I don’t know if he ever had the interest in anything further

Neither Grant *nor Bob

Re “history as written by the victors” point upthread, I think it’s sometimes unfortunate that the last word from an insiders POV is often from the person who in many ways I’d read last, but OTOH we could easily have nothing.

There's a great oral history on the '80 Minneapolis scene by Magnet, but the Hüsker Dü parts do get uncomfortable in how contentious they are:

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

For example:

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.

Hart: Bob can stink up a room without saying a word. The guy has an intimidation factor that’s exponentially greater than anyone I’ve ever met in my life. He can loathe you through a wall. Bob had all of this contempt. It was like, “Why are you in a band with me if you fucking hate me so much?”

-

Mould: When David committed suicide, that was the beginning of the end. Everyone sort of retreated into their own corners and dealt with that in their own particular ways.

Hart: That makes a great fucking story. Bob, I’m sorry your friend died and everything, but you’re still a prick.

-

Hart: Bob said, “It’s up to you, Grant. Should we go on and play, or do you just want to head home?” And I’m like, “Hell, man, let’s go play.” “Well, Grant, we already canceled it.” “OK, so you wanted to give me the fucking opportunity to think you gave a fuck.”

-

Norton: I was pissed off at Grant. I was pissed off at Bob, too. It got to the point with Bob that I realized I had nothing in common with him. It was obvious he didn’t give a shit about me anymore, so whatever. It was fine.

-

Norton: Grant would say he quit the band in December when we were on the last tour. Then Bob got himself a lawyer and had himself removed from the contract. So according to Grant, he broke the band up. According to Bob, he quit the band. Bob would probably say he fired me. Leading up to when Bob withdrew from the contract, I had had conversations with him about me and him keeping the band together with a new drummer. At the same time, Bob told Grant, “Let’s you and me keep the band going and kick Greg out and get a new bass player.” Basically, it comes down to this: Who do you believe? I don’t doubt Bob had plans for a solo career and this was a great time for him to get it started.

(I should add, this was published in 2005, when relations between all three were probably at an all-time low.)

I'm essentially hate reading this thing at this point, but gah, when he hits his pro wrestling writing stint, or dalliance with electronic music, or the death of his fucking dog, he just becomes even more insufferable. He's always right, only he knows what's going, all he's doing is the right thing, why do other people keep messing it up? He alludes to the lawsuit Hart and Norton tried to file to get the SST rights:

I offered to pay for the lawsuit, but in return Grant and Greg would have to stay uninvolved so that I could sue SST myself without encumbrances, changes, or midstream indecision. I had Josh Grier draw up an offer for a one-time payment of $15,000 each to Grant and Greg. As ever, they would retain co-ownership of the Hüsker Dü name, but would be silent partners in this lawsuit.

I didn’t care about the name Hüsker Dü, nor holding sole ownership of the SST catalog. I had, and still have, no interest in the name Hüsker Dü or in recreating or revisiting that part of my life. But while conducting research for this book, I found and reviewed the document, and it most certainly appeared as if I was trying to buy them out. And yet it meant so little to me that I’d forgotten about it until seeing the document.

Yeah, no shit, Bob.

Always wondered what Gibby Haynes meant when he said "he went all Bob Mould on me"