RIP Grant Hart

grant did old empire quite frequently in his solo sets, also last days of pompeii & admiral of the sea

Wow, that's a lot more older songs than he usually plays. and I don't remember him playing "Flip Your Wig" recently.

oh man "Never Talking to You Again," I don't know how to take that

That's a cool version of it.

I was wondering the same thing though. When they picked songs of each other for Karl Mueller's benefit, that's the one Bob went for then as well.

It's like

"Hey, Bob. Just wondering. What would be your favorite Grant –"
"NEVER TALKING TO YOU AGAIN."

And didn't Grant choose an all too apropos Bob song that night? Hardly Getting Over It?

Since his concerted effort sort of comeback Bob has been playing a lot more Husker Du the last few years. I saw him solo earlier this year and was actually sort of bummed how little the setlist changed from night to night, given all the stuff he could play. He did play a handful of really early HD songs, iirc.

Yeah, this is what Bob did in April:

Hoover Dam
Your Favorite Thing
Losing Time
See a Little Light
The War
I Apologize
The Descent
You Say You
Lonely Afternoon
Sinners and Their Repentances
Stand Guard
Chartered Trips
Hardly Getting Over It
Flip Your Wig
Voices in my Head
Hold On
If I Can't Change Your Mind
Daddy's Favorite
Black Confetti

Encore:
Love Is All Around
In a Free Land

ahhhhh great closer

that second nova mob lp is great. my copy is scratched to absolute fuck from playing it to death back in the day, but I dug it out again when Grant died, and a sturdy new needle ensured I could make it through If I Was Afraid/Coda, still one of my favourite Grant songs

The Story of Hüsker Dü’s Grant Hart, in His Own Words: In one of his final interviews, the late drummer recounts his family’s troubled history and his most formative early life experiences, including the death of a beloved brother.

This was great. A Grant Hart memoir would have been wonderful. I look forward to spending some quality time with those sleevenotes.

really nice Grant story from a new interview with Dean Spunt (No Age):

STEREOGUM: I guess my last question is: I know you go deep into the history of punk rock, and you and Randy are big fans of Hüsker Dü. As a singing drummer, did you feel any spiritual kinship with the late Grant Hart?

SPUNT: Yes definitely, if you haven’t noticed (Laughs)... I became friendly with Grant. And not so much that he was a singing drummer. I started playing drums and singing not because of Grant Hart, but because of a necessity and I didn’t really know how to drum, I didn’t really know how to sing, I didn’t really know how to put those things together, so for me it was important to try it as an exercise and that’s how I’ve always done things. I tried it out, I didn’t really know what I was doing. But we did become friends, and it’s heartbreaking.

STEREOGUM: I know No Age has played with Bob Mould, but I didn’t know you knew Hart. Are there any memories you would like to share?

SPUNT: Yeah, we played a festival with him in Rotterdam and he played this brilliant solo set, so moving. And we went back to the hotel we were staying at, and me and my friends and Grant, we were all in front of this hotel, and this kid walked by us. He was probably 18 or 19, and he was from there, and he looked at us and was like, “Hey, you fuckin’ Americans!” And he was super aggressive. I wouldn’t say I was frightened he was gonna fight us, but he was drunk and really angry and looked like he wanted to punch us. And Grant put his cigarette down and walked up to him and said, “Hey man, what’s your story?” The kid spoke English, he was like, “What?!” And Grant’s like, “What’s your story, man?” You know, “What’s making you like this, tell me about your father.” And we ended up talking to him for like 20 minutes. He almost brought the kid to tears, he became putty in Grant’s hand, the way he totally shaped this kid’s environment. Just his whole world had turned around. The kid left, I think we all gave hugs, me and my buddy were like, “Damn, man that was intense,” and it was really beautiful.

https://www.stereogum.com/1979361/no-ages-dean-spunt-on-their-new-album-navigating-the-industry-the-late-grant-hart/franchises/interview/

wow

eternal <3 for the generous spirit of grant hart

I love that story !!!

<3

Awesome story, very cool

With Grant's mercurial nature if the story had gone :"And then Grant said he was black belt in tae-kwan-doh and put the kid in a head lock" I would have found that equally believable and charming.

haha

i miss grant hart :(
i was talking about singing drummers recently and his name came up and i remembered that i had the opportunity to give him a hug once. that was nice of him.

Same. I don't tear up quickly. But seeing him in pics. Yeah most def do

fb memories reminded me that it was 7 years ago yesterday that I hugged and talked with Grant Hart
RIP <3

i still miss him so much

Always gotta have a goal...

https://i.imgur.com/mBGs0z6.jpg

Big windows on that pump

To let in the Sunoco

HA! Legitimate LOL

Just stumbled on this soundboard recording of a December 2009 show in NYC. I think I was working late hours around that time (I was working all the way up to Christmas morning before catching a flight back that afternoon), but I really regret not seeing Grant when he was healthy - I only caught his final NY show, one of his very last public performances.

Just stumbled on this soundboard recording of a December 2009 show in NYC.🕸 I think I was working late hours around that time (I was working all the way up to Christmas morning before catching a flight back that afternoon), but I really regret not seeing Grant when he was healthy - I only caught his final NY show, one of his very last public performances.

Man, that's awesome! For a guy who could be cantankerous on stage, he seems like someone who was always appreciative of his fans.

I had an email back-and-forth with Grant around a year or two before The Argument came out. I mean, I assume it was him; did he always write emails in all caps?

I would guess so. In his old Facebook group, he responded to everything in all caps.

From John Giorno's autobiography Great Demon Kings, right after William Burroughs dies:

Just before the funeral service, Grant Hart, one of the founders of the rock band Hüsker Dü, slipped a small white paper packet of junk into William's pocket and said, "Nobody's going to bust him."

Out of all the musicians who were associated with Burroughs (Cobain, Patti Smith, Jimmy Page, etc.), Hart was undoubtedly the closest.

I’d love to finally see the second Nova Mob album get a reissue

Grant’s solo career >>>>>> Bib’s solo career

Bob, lol

Oh, Grant’s post-Husker career was absolutely amazing. Bob’s is an inconsistent mess

I’d love to finally see the second Nova Mob album get a reissue

That record was fabulous. 'If I Was Afraid' ruins me every time.

Oh, Grant’s post-Husker career was absolutely amazing. Bob’s is an inconsistent mess

I think this is half-right. Hart was great straight out of the gate, but given he was nowhere near as prolific in his post-Husker career, kinda working on a smaller scale, especially once his output slowed. Bob was pretty hit or miss until Sugar, which of course was a huge hit (in every sense), then went hit or miss again, but has been pretty solid in his late career (and as a performer, better than I've seen him in years). But then, he's also released 15 or so records since Husker Du, all while touring virtually non-stop.

Mould has been a professional snice 1989; he clocks in and out, doesn't leave fans wanting. Hart wasn't interested in any American notion of a career. No comparison.

<i>Hart wasn’t interested in any American notion of a career.</i>

This clicks with my (brief) email correspondence with him some months prior to the release of The Argument; he simply didn’t see the point of leaving a legacy as such, in terms of his prior material. Art over commerce.

Having not known him, I hesitate to say that Hart wasn't interested in a traditional career, though he definitely settled into that mode at least by default.

Hart’s solo output was the sound of someone who wasn’t weighed down by the legacy of his former band, sonically - the band was one thing and the solo music was something different.

Mould was kind of reverse in terms of carrying the torch for those who missed the sound of Husker Du, with intermittent leftfield moves here and there; but he has always returned to ‘that’ sound in a way that was clearly of little interest to Hart

I guess I knew Grant a bit, he lived his later years with a friend of mine. he lived a chaotic life, I think he was a real artist and he lived that way. but he self sabotaged too, blew opportunities (his failure to really promote The Argument when Domino was really behind that record was a shame), but he could be mean onstage, too. I don't know anyone who could make a room as uncomfortable as Grant. and there were substance issues.

he played regularly around town so often I guess I probably took him for granted, he was always around.

but he really scraped by a lot of the time, and often on the good will of others. One of a kind person, some of the most gripping shows I've ever seen.

but I don't blame Bob for wanting a manageable, healthy life. I saw he got married, he looks happy and healthy. I get a little uneasy about casting it as the great 19th century poet vs. careerist hack. Grant's kind of life probably seems more romantic from a safe distance.

i got nothing useful to add but thanks for writing that ums

Yeah, that's sort of what I was implying, that it's one thing to kind of live a bohemian lifestyle by choice, and another because your choices have maybe left you with few options.

There is definitely some pain in that Grant Hart documentary talking about the house fire etc. that kind of echoed to me like when I saw that Charles Mingus 1968 movie when he got evicted. It is definitely real but does not look like fun.

Re: Bob, I often forget how inconsistent his post-Hüsker Dü career really became because I probably skip or ignore most of it. I love Sugar, but that amounts to a few records - take those out of the equation and there's almost nothing I'd listen to prior to his current work with Jon Wurster and Jason Narducy. (I have Workbook - the promo is pretty cute, designed to look like a grade school composition notebook - but even though I've grown to appreciate the songs, I vastly prefer the new arrangements he continues to do on tour.) Sunshine Rock is great though - I saw the Brooklyn Steel show in support of that album, and it was one of the best shows I've ever seen by anyone. Loads of Hüsker Dü but the rest of the material virtually matched those numbers on-stage. He was especially intense that night - right before the encore, he never left the stage, choosing to sit in from the drums and seemingly brooding with his folded hands in front of his mouth. Eventually he stood up and did one of Grant's numbers. I checked the setlist later and found out he did more songs and more Hüsker Dü at that show than any other on the tour.

I saw Grant only one time and wish I had said something to him. I got there early so I could be in the very front, and there was virtually no one around. (This was at Brooklyn Bowl, with Grant playing first, followed by Mike Watt's band and then the Meat Puppets.) Grant actually seemed to be in good spirits, improvising a hilarious song about Williamsburg for soundcheck. I laughed my ass off, and he seemed genuinely pleased even to have an audience of one. A bit later when there was maybe a dozen more on the floor, he came down and talked to people he knew and I'm guessing some other fans, but I was too shy to strike up a conversation. Then later when he did his set, he mentioned that one of those other fans he talked to mistook "Celebrated Summer" as one of his songs - he then refused to play ANY Hüsker Dü songs (save one he already performed).

Is it just me or do we have this conversation regularly/on an ongoing basis? The chaos/order discussion about Bob and Grant? Lately I’ve been thinking what a miracle it is that Hüsker Dü existed at all. We are lucky to have both of these amazing creative people working together creatively to such spectacular results. Also Greg is good too.

Lucky to * have had*