RIP Grant Hart

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*

otm

Greg Norton sort of a punk rock Michael Collins

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.

OTM, and it reminds me a little of how Joe Strummer talked about the disintegration of the Clash in the Westway To The World film: if you have this incredible, but incredibly volatile, chemistry, you have to do whatever you can to nurture that chemistry. Joe has a pained expression when he says, “We learned that lesson bitterly.” You wish Hüsker Dü had taken a break or something, but then how can you deal with Mould insisting that Hart would never have as many songs on an album as Mould?

I think I posted a link on another thread, but this is a great oral history of the Minneapolis scene that was published in 2005, and given the animosity thrown back and forth, I was surprised Hüsker Dü lasted long enough to both tour and squeeze out one more double LP of original material - La Lechera is definitely right about being lucky, I can't even imagine lasting 20 minutes in a trio with that kind of dynamic going on.

The one Grant Hart solo show I saw was one of the greatest shows ever: on the middle of a snowstorm in New York, with an understandably thin crowd. Before the show, he stopped me and my brother who was with me to just chat with us. (He was a lot shorter than I imagined!). He quizzed the audience about old car makes and distributed a promo record of American Hot Wax by throwing it to into the small crowd, accidentally hitting a fan.

All of my favorite HD songs, barring "Makes No Sense At All", were written by Grant Hart. I greatly enjoy every part of his solo discography (including Nova Mob), while most of Mould's bounces off me. Mould was obviously more prolific and successful, and I don't begrudge him that, but I think Hart was the greater talent. Just a really superlative songwriter.

I'm glad they were apparently able to reconcile before Hart passed.

Morningstar is one of his best songs.

Also, he sounds uncannily like Bowie on «Awake, Arise!»

Saw Hüsker Dü just once in 1987, at the Fillmore in San Francisco (then known as 'The Old Fillmore').. a few years back (maybe 2011?) my band opened for him at the Hemlock in SF, and he borrowed my amp. I told him about the show I'd seen, his reply "No way man, we did NOT play the Fillmore... we never played the Fillmore, you're out of your mind." And I'm like, but I have the poster man, Christmas opened, I bought a shirt, of you course you did.

Then it occurred to me that maybe he was out of his mind in 1987 and has no memory of it...

BTW his solo set was brilliant but he did appear sort of semi-homeless

Starting a website: bearorhomeless?.com

Grant's house caught fire in January 2011, and partially burned down. Who knows, he may have been literally homeless!

Is the house shown in the documentary EVERY EVERYTHING what burned down?

Curious about his daughter, too, who I think is in her 30’s now.

At some point between '99 and '01 Grant came to the town I lived in to hang out and play a couple of shows with some mutual friends over a few days. And then I guess he just didn't want to leave? He was on the couch of one of the guys in that band for at least a week, apparently never really leaving the living room until night, and that guy's roommates were sick of it. So my friend had to ask one of his favorite musicians to please leave his house and find somewhere else to go. Pretty sure he just left town at that point.

I was too timid to say anything to Grant other than "hey, good show" but I did have to go to my friend's house for some reason that week and Grant was just laying on his couch in the other room the whole time I was there.

Picked up a copy of the remix of Nova Mob's Last Days of Pompeii, one, they did an incredible job with the remix, a very tasteful improvement over the original

Also, it's such a great record, definitely should be considered one of the major post Husker Du works

;_;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4xKJm292DQ