RIP Grant Hart

UMS what's your twitter handle?

listening today, Good News for Modern Man still feels like a classic, his best attempt at being Brian Wilson

but Hot Wax really stuck out today, what a great record, feels the most "Grant" to me

Hot Wax and Argument never really did it for me, I have to admit, perhaps because Intolerance and Good News are near and dear to my heart.

Speaking of KEXP, Kevin Cole's show about half an hour from now is likely to be very worth tuning into.

Kevin will do Grant proud.

Haven't kept up with this thread today, so I don't know what's been linked. I think this gets it exactly right: best Grant song with Husker Du = "Books About UFOs" (my favourite, period), best Grant solo song = "2541."

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/rob-sheffield-how-husker-dus-grant-hart-changed-punk-rock-w503063

I interviewed him in late 1986. I wasn't even sure if I had--had to find the issue downstairs and check. It was just before Warehouse, which "sounds, after a dozen listens, like it may be Husker Du's best"...rock critics. Anyway, it's weird: the piece is an album-by-album rundown, with a really pretentious introduction, and quotes from Mould and Hart mixed in. I used eight Mould quotes and finished with one from Hart. I don't know if it was that he didn't talk much ("the conversation was brief") or if Mould just said more interesting stuff.

Gotta echo the "Grant was always there" sentiment. Last time I saw him was in the crowd at a Meat Puppets show a few months ago. I'll always wonder if he was in the room a little earlier when Greg Norton's new band played.

Remembering now that Grant was briefly attached to play Asa Hawks in a local production of "Wise Blood," a few years ago. That would have been something.

Wow yeah it would

Funny, the one time one of the bands I was in played Minneapolis, Grant Hart was indeed there (incidentally).

My modest little obit.

The remembrances itt have been so moving to read. Just beautiful. I have only had a glancing knowledge of HD - but now in a lame/bittersweet way I think Grant's passing might be what inspires me to finally dig in, thanks to all yall <3

My modest little obit.

nicely done. as for I assume he plays the boogie piano on “Books About UFO”:

an amazing/sad story from this 2000 interview:

GRANT: I recorded a piano part for "Books," and on "Heaven Hill" there was a slide-guitar part. And maybe it was because I had picked up the wrong instrument, touching on the guitar territory, but the next time all three of us are in the studio, Bob is telling me, "You have to choose between the piano on 'Books About UFOs' or the guitar on 'Heaven Hill.'" Well, what's the basis of this selection? "The album's not going to have both of those." Well, okay, I understand.

ONION: He wouldn't let you do it on your own song?

GRANT: Right. It's totally ridiculous.

It's driven me crazy trying to figure out during what part of Heaven Hill he had a slide-guitar in mind for.

xpost ^That's my interview, from another life.

Back in my early days (which are still recent) of taking guitar lessons I brought a couple of Grant songs to my teacher. No surprise, they were pretty simple to play, but it became immediately apparent to me that no matter how well I could play them, or how easy they were to play, there would always be something missing. Grant just put so much of himself into his songs. I've played drums for much longer, but even when I was active and at my best and most capable I could never pull off the intensity of his drumming. I could only imagine someone trying to match the intensity of the vocals on "Heaven Hill."

I can see a slide going on the chorus of Heaven Hill

also fuck Bob

That's my interview, from another life.

that's the best grant interview i read today. by far.

Thanks. I think there was more in there that was maybe cut out? It's been a while.

i was just cutting-and-pasting a piece that seemed immediately relevant; there's lots more.

(or, wait, do you mean there's more that didn't make it into the story in the first place?)

Yeah, that. More mean Bob stuff, iirc.

Given what I posted upthread this should shock no one, but I am firmly team Grant. No details I'm willing to share but, yeah.

Warehouse Songs and Stories and Zen Arcade were a big part of my last two years of high school. Those years were so amazing for how many records and bands, it was like someone new and amazing every week. Grant Harts death is just a bummer in a similar way to Chris Cornell's was a few months back, as they were people that made music that was part of the soundtrack of my life.

It is really sad that the Husker guys went to the end in this spiraling anger never to be resolved, but the music is still out there and for the people that heard it when it mattered and the people who will find it now at some point in happenstance - they are going to find some honest music.

this is a sick find - soundboard of a 1983 show, vocals panned hard left... they sound INCREDIBLE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnc_k8dLO44

New piece from Stephen Thomas Erlewine

http://www.citypages.com/music/grant-hart-never-left-the-underground-or-minnesota/444557673

Well shit.

Just read the Voice interview linked in there, and found this:

"I read you lost a guitar in the fire that was pretty important to you.

Oh, man. The guitar I thought I was going to play for the rest of my life. I came home from tour and it was the first tour I left this guitar home. I’d gone out with a different guitar. It was really prophetic; it’s almost like I betrayed the guitar by disappearing and leaving home with a different guitar. It was a single-pickup ES-25 by Gibson."

That's the guitar I was talking about. He never told me it got lost in the fire, and the different guitar is the one I sold him when we couldn't make the ES-125 (errata) work anymore. This makes me so goddamn sad. Fuck. Just breaks my heart.

Ah man, so sorry to hear that. You did your damnedest, though.

And I'm certain the reason he never told me is that he knew how sad it would make me, given how much I knew he loved it and how much time we spent with it. Feel free to throw that story in the face of the next person that tells you how Grant was an asshole or a con man or a narcissist, but lovable despite that because blah blah blah. He was above all else a really sweet man who never aimed for injury. Fuck heroin and hep c and cancer, and fuck the husker du narrative in general.

I feel like a heel just posting my own shit on here but whatever, more thoughts, more repetitive crossposted Facebook. Fuck it.

"As I read interviews and remembrances today, I stumbled across this, from the village voice:

"I read you lost a guitar in the fire that was pretty important to you.

Oh, man. The guitar I thought I was going to play for the rest of my life. I came home from tour and it was the first tour I left this guitar home. I’d gone out with a different guitar. It was really prophetic; it’s almost like I betrayed the guitar by disappearing and leaving home with a different guitar. It was a single-pickup ES-25 by Gibson."

That's the guitar I was talking about, and the "different guitar" was the guitar I sold him when we couldn't make it work. After the fire, I asked him about the ES-125, and he changed the subject. I'm sure he did that because he didn't want me to feel bad. The next time someone tries to sell you on crazy/insensitive/wild man/out of control Grant, feel free to throw that story back in their face. As the eventual and unavoidable media elegies that focus on what a troubled/tortured artist/tragic figure he was, and the (accurate) stories of drug abuse appear, remember that Grant honestly owned his addictions. He never considered himself tragic, and he never was. And in a moment of crisis that few of us will ever understand, after the death of his mother and the loss of his home, he chose to spare me from the sadness of knowing he lost that guitar, and that in some very honest metaphysical Grant way, the new guitar I sold him was to blame.

That, to me, is the other Grant that I was lucky enough to know. Kindness that balanced justified bitterness, exuberance that many confused with mania, lies told to shape the world into a better place than it was, but closer to where he knew it should be."

I interviewed Grant by email about five years ago, before The Argument came out, and it was mostly about what that entailed. He gave me some amazing answers; you can almost see the twinkle in his eye as he typed them out.

I mean, this on his negotiations with Domino: "As an artist I am constantly erecting dolmens and obelisks and hot-dog stands to ensure my immortality and thus my godliness."

Josh, I noticed the byline for the first time. You're responsible for the most comprehensive recent interview.

I've been wracking my brain about this but found it finally....was an amazing moment (also seemed to indicate that Greg and Grant's relationship wasn't as bad as sometimes portrayed)...but yeah Grant opened for Mike Watt and at the end, Grant got behind the drum kit in the first (at least that I'd seen) in YEARS and Greg Norton got up there on bass and they did a 15 minute version of "Little Johnny Jewel" by Television....

Setlist: Grant Hart — 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis MN, 15 May 2009

Remains To Be Seen
2541
[new song] ("I don't say sorry")
Come, Come
Books About UFOs
It's Not Funny Any More
Admiral Of The Sea
Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely (w/fake "Never Talking To You Again" intro)
Barbara
St. James Infirmary (w/fake "Never Talking to You Again" intro)
[new song] ("I knew since then")
Back From Somewhere
Evergreen Memorial Drive
Never Talking To You Again
* You're The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water

** Little Johnny Jewel

Grant solo show opening for Mike Watt. For the last song (*) of Grant's set, he was joined onstage by Watt
and his band. For Watt's final encore (**), Grant returned to play drums, and Greg Norton came up to play
bass. Thanks to James Lindbloom for the information and to John Mulhouse for filling in the front end of
Grant's setlist (which he cautions my be slightly out of order).

btw this is very Grant and hilarious I think chris mentioned it upthread but if someone was being annoying and yelling for a particular song, he would start to play it, then stop and do another song to troll them, then eventually give them what they wanted (which was inevitably probably something he was gonna play all along)

Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely (w/fake "Never Talking To You Again" intro)
Barbara
St. James Infirmary (w/fake "Never Talking to You Again" intro)
[new song] ("I knew since then")
Back From Somewhere
Evergreen Memorial Drive
Never Talking To You Again

Was that a saxophone solo during "What's Going On?" in flappy's video?

WGO indeed!

ok... this was posted by a friend of a friend on Facebook...he's from Serbia and said Grant played Serbia in 1994 when no Western artists would come there due to international sanctions

given what I heard was his fairly haphazard to say the least approach to management, booking, etc. my mind is boggling how that happened

I remember that Watt opening set very, didn't he call out some woman aggressively and caustically at that one or maybe that was the "Hot Wax" release show?...He could freeze out a room like no one's business.

His vers of "St James Infirmary" was so good.

have any of your interviews been excerpted in NYT obits before, Josh?

bad editing in said obit… "Mr Hart's contributions as drummer were not as visible as those of Mr Mould, the more obvious bandleader."

I remember that Watt opening set very, didn't he call out some woman aggressively and caustically at that one or maybe that was the "Hot Wax" release show?...He could freeze out a room like no one's business.

His vers of "St James Infirmary" was so good.

― chr1sb3singer, Friday, September 15, 2017 9:15 AM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha yeah i don't know, i get the shows all mixed up but yeah when the banter turned cold it was really something

Amazing story, UMS! Great interview, Josh!

Wonderful piece, Al. And this is otm: Call “2541” the “Maybe I’m Amazed” of genteel poverty

Would totally buy Having Fun with Grant Hart Onstage

btw - Josh that's the best interview I've read w/Grant

yeah, thanks for the link

Thanks. For obvious reasons I wish there were a lot more of them out there.

do you have an archive transcripts?

I've been bitching about this forever but can we briefly discuss how fucking insane "New Day Rising" would have been if you swapped out "How to Skin a Cat" & "Whatcha Drinkin" for "2541"?

Was 2541 written at that point? That's nuts!

I like Robert Forster's version too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_uiLSk6lLE

yeah josh that interview is great

Was 2541 written at that point? That's nuts!

― Cyndi Larper (stevie), Friday, 15 September 2017 15:28 (one minute ago) Permalink

It was written for the record, they practiced it, Bob didn't like it.