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

Being on the road with open long stretches from Phoenix to Austin or something, I would look out a window and see these big buses coming by. And instead of a city bus with a destination on top, it would say "Chartered Trip." I said, "Oh, that's a bus full of I don't know who, but they're going somewhere together on this journey and it has nothing to do with the journey I'm on.

Never made that connection before, duh.

hubcap is a great album, prime bummer bob

everything falls apart is deceptively complicated, really hard song to play

I find "Louie, Louie" deceptively complicated and and a really hard song to play, so maybe I'll leave "Everything Falls Apart" alone.

Dammit, Photobucket!

All the images are gone, but I do have this Dropbox folder for posterity.

The kicker is that I don't know if every song has a card in there, but I did see a few that weren't even ranked.

Let's rank their albums.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-muEm7ORLyf4/WhpnnijEL9I/AAAAAAAC5p8/v-CCaj1sRWAVlFH1ClBSQbDbgSNCsJ_YACLcBGAs/s640/untypical-girls-6.jpg

http://www.vintag.es/2017/11/untypical-girls-early-photographs-of.html

Meant to take a screenshot: I played "umlauted" across a triple-triple against a Pogo computer yesterday. (Played "umlaut," took a guess on the extension, and it actually worked.)

You could also post that to Motley Crue: god I love these fuckers!

God, I hate those fuckers.

Motley Crue sucks. I can't decide on the highlight (lowlight) of the last time I saw them, either Tommy Lee springing up on a Thunderdome harness to some suspended percussion and repeatedly missing his goal (in Tommy Lee surfer voice: "Aw, maaaaaaan....") or Vince Neil sounding like shit and repeatedly, angrily motioning to his microphone and scrunching up his face in frustration. Do you know the only people who ever really do that? People that can't sing.

About five seconds of "Book About UFOs" in the new Carrie Coon/Jude Law/Sean Durkin film, The Nest (the daughter is listening to it in her bedroom). Comes and goes without much effect, but it's great just to have it in there.

1) the NO WAR image at the top of the thread -- the colors -- whoa to see that in spring 2022
2) i went to a show last week and the first band that played totally blew me away -- they were a three piece with a really strong (female!) drummer and two songwriters/singers, and i realized they reminded me of HD. in all of the shows i have seen and bands i have enjoyed, this Du-quality is so rare that it took me by surprise
3) on a whim I listened to "In a Free Land" and all the feelings I have about this band came flooding back -- I have been on my semi-regular Dü kick ever since
4) i cried in the car while listening to "Diane"
5) i think they is probably my favorite rock band of all time, which is inconsequential in the big picture but makes me realize how head and shoulders better than so many of their peers these three people are

6) NEW DAY RISING <3

'2' - who was the band?

they are called D33p F@k3 -- googleproofed to protect me, but next time they play I will tell you because they are SO GOOD, you would enjoy I'm positive
they only have one song up on their bandcamp, more into playing than recording it seems :)

I really wanna check out that band. I can’t think of anyone who has/had that Dü energy.

Just came across this, from a new book called Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records, which explains the lack of any Hüsker reissues:

"There's a large gap between what most labels would do and SST's current business practices. One possible explanation for SST's curious disregard for its own history is that it no longer has access to those original recordings. Consider the story of how Black Flag's Live '84 had to be painstakingly remixed. Those tapes fell into disrepair in less than 15 years. What do the original masters look like now? What about recordings made even earlier?

SST's location in LA's South Bay may have played a role in this mystery. When the sun goes down in the Beach Cities, the marine layer creeps in and hangs around until morning. The mass of air is created when cool offshore temperatures collide with warmer inland temperatures. These damp conditions can have a catastrophic effect on analog tapes, which are sensitive to both heat and humidity and should be kept in a cool, dry temperature-controlled atmosphere. To put it another way, the South Bay may have been the worst possible place for SST's tapes.

SST didn't really have a stable environment in which to store them until 1987. Over the years stories have emerged about the reckless handling of masters, such as when Emil Johnson retaliated against Black Flag by stealing them. SST was able to get them back, but the temporary solution was to hide them in Mugger's girlfriend's closet. When (former SST employee Daniel) Spector was general manager at SST, he didn't have access to the masters, which meant responsibility for their safety and storage fell to (Greg) Ginn. According to the Meat Puppets, when the band requested that SST turn over the masters, the band was told they were lost. That sounds like evasion, but what if it were true? How many other recordings are missing?

'That's the million dollar question,' Spector said. 'Probably a ten million dollar question.'

SST can't reproduce what it doesn't have. Given the lack of safe storage, perhaps this is one reason SST hasn't issued lavish editions of milestone albums like Damaged, Double Nickels on the Dime, and Zen Arcade. For whatever reason, whether they were lost in all the moves, misplaced out of carelessness, stolen due to insecure storage, or unintentionally damaged, SST's inability to produce quality tapes would explain a lot."

Numero shared some new photos of master tape boxes for the later Dü SST albums during the build-up to The Hungry Young... set, falsely getting hopes up that they had the rights to that stuff as well.

Wow I was so excited about my post that I wrote “they is my favorite”

O well that is the degree of my enthusiasm I guess

"When the sun goes down in Beach Cities
And the marine layer hangs on the Bay"

= first draft Journey lyrics

Sure, blame the weather, guys.

There are Du outtakes around, but I guess maybe the source material for them is no more. Bummer. I'd love a big blowout expanded Zen Arcade.

As far as the recordings go, I'm ready to accept them as-is like Robert Johnson and move on.

i'm not sure flip your wig would sound any better remastered anyway

was listening to black flag in my head the other day and thinking is there a more influential label in history with worse in-house production than sst? survey says no. part of the charm though

I truly don’t care about the fidelity of the recordings — the songs speak for themselves.

I don't know what people want from HD records, I love that band and those records sound like the band. There is no filter or remastering that will make Grant sound like Malcolm Travis, and not should there be.

Anyone listened to the Ultrabomb record? Greg's new group, fronted by a Pogue Mahone, and sound like pleasing C-list Husker copyists.

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.