RIP Grant Hart

Keeblerian in its grandeur imo

lol

Even "makes no sense at all" is a bit cookie cutter imo

― harbinger of failure (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, September 19, 2017 4:48 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

omg...

fwiw that was the song that got me into Hüsker Dü. i was 19 and found that music video and was hooked instantly. so much fun to play on guitar

that was the song that got me into Hüsker Dü

Same. It was the first I heard and I still really love it. The second I heard was "Eight Miles High", which really knocked me out.

I do like it but the lyrics are unusually dopey for a Huskers song

HI DERE

the hokeyness of the lyrics feel of a piece with their cover of Love is All Around. Makes No Sense At All totally sounds like a tv theme song.

that's part of what i didn't love about it
eight miles high on the other hand - looooooooooooooooooooove

enjoyable funny interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzAhcyZDKo8

he gripes about the death of classic thrift store shopping

Not really tangential I mean relevant to this thread but, the little pentatonic- no four note- guitar melody in "Eight Miles High," I think it goes D,B, G, A, every once in a while I hear something like it in a jazz tune during the soloing and I wonder, did Roger McGuinn hear it on a Coltrane record as did others, or is it just popping up due to the law of averages, about which The Beastie Boys may have had something to say.

It is reputed to be a direct Coltrane homage

"India" iirc?

We were on a tour of America, and someone played us the Coltrane albums Africa/Brass and Impressions. I had just picked up a cassette recorder – it was such a new thing, you couldn’t buy any tapes to play in it. But I had some blank tapes so recorded the Coltrane albums, along with some Ravi Shankar, and took them on tour. It was the only music we had, for the whole time on the bus. By the end of the tour, Coltrane and Shankar were ingrained.

There was one Coltrane track called India, where he was trying to emulate sitar music with his saxophone. It had a recurring phrase, dee da da da, which I picked up on my Rickenbacker guitar and played some jazzy stuff around it. I was in love with his saxophone playing: all those funny little notes and fast stuff at the bottom of the range.

Yeah. Just looked it up and listened to it. Pretty obvious. Feel like I must have noted it before and forgotten.

Pits at those late Husker Du shows were confused phenomena. Like pretending to throw the ball for the golden retriever, and it still runs furiously to find it.

Haha otm. I was in the balcony, afraid as I was of possibly getting hurt in the pit, but it was kind of hilarious: one, maybe two kids slam-dancing (I didn't hear the term "mosh" until the '90s), everyone else just digging the show, maybe unobtrusively pogoing.

was kinda disappointed to read in Bob's book that "Could You Be the One" was a total toss-off, I forget the exact phrase he used but he essentially called it totally meaningless & an assembly line sort of song. he said the same thing about "Don't Know for Sure," which I can see more sort of, even though I love that song too...

"I Don't Know For Sure" always struck me as a blatant rewrite of "Makes No Sense At All," but in the classic "I Can't Help Myself"/"It's The Same Old Song" sense.

Ha, that is indeed one of the canonical examples.

haha yes otm. probably why I like "I Don't Know for Sure," which really does have lyrics that read like a homework assignment done in the hallway on the way to class

It doesn't surprise me at all, it doesn't mean its not great.

re: solo Bob, I like Workbook a lot, and the two solo albums he did post-Sugar. I find Bob's at his best as the petulant, betrayed one - he does self-pity and self-righteous anger really well, cf Poison Years, Whichever Way The Wind Blows, New No 1 and Anymore Time Between. Bob-as-craftsman, I agree, is kind of dull, though I must also say that I find pretty much all of Grant's albums to also be patchy. Grant always struck me as more mercurial than Bob, who was more consistent and more dependable, but rarely hit such peaks as Grant, who seemed looser, less self-conscious, more open and more up for taking chances.

I found Bob's memoir sour and unreadable.

Actually I just revisited the hubcap album and it is strong throughout.

it's so nuts that in 1984, Purple Rain, Zen Arcade and Let it Be all came out of Minneapolis

yeah, otm - is there a decent book or article or something about the minneapolis music scene around that time?

There needs to be one, kind of like that will hermes nyc one

how closely connected was the world of husker du, replacements etc with what prince was doing? was there much crossover at any level at all or did they just happen to be uin the same city(ies)?

Tigger is my friend and really proud of him for this, the Grant Hart story that needed to be written, this is Grant's life outside of those free years he was in Husker Du. glad Keith published it but mad he cut my quotes haha, anyway another ilxor gets in a great cutting remark about Mpls haha

http://www.citypages.com/music/remembering-grant-hart-1961-2017/445840373

Re: Prince, best I can make out is someone in the Mats or HD occasionally bumping into him at a show or in the bathroom. This was really good:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/paul-westerberg-remembers-prince-i-cant-think-of-anyone-better-20160422

Matt I just read that piece during my subway ride to work. I wonder what all the determined young product managers thought about the old gross guy looking at his phone and crying.

anyway another ilxor gets in a great cutting remark about Mpls haha

I was discussing this with my wife last night and I casually mentioned this line to her and she said "you know that's going be the pull quote"

A great piece. He really captured it, he talked to all the right people. Great piece.

W/r/t Prince, I doubt there was "crossover" exactly, though I am sure, esp Prince, was aware of what was going on. I mean he read the local critics, he usually knew what as going with the scene, he knew about my band which, ha, is a story for another time.

iirc Prince, his bodyguards, and two very beautiful women ended up seeing Wives, the LA band that became No Age

I think he got there right after the show finished (limo parking downtown is a bitch), he was just seconds away from an incredibly sloppy & impromptu Jesus Lizard cover, natch

it's so nuts that in 1984, Purple Rain, Zen Arcade and Let it Be all came out of Minneapolis

yeah, otm - is there a decent book or article or something about the minneapolis music scene around that time?

I am hesitant to mention this ITT, because it's frivolous and goofy and involves Semisonic, but. The first chapter of Jacob Slichter's book "So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star" addresses exactly this. His theory is... because it's cold. Because fans will only wait outside in the cold to hear good bands, the bands need to be very good indeed.

I once interviewed Westerberg and I asked him if the Replacements could have happened in Hawaii. He didn't think so, iirc.

Matt Cameron once told me he thought there were so many bands in Seattle because houses there typically had basements to rehearse in, and the terrible weather meant kids had to stay indoors a lot

xpost Reasoning being everyone was stuck inside and needed stuff to do!

see also: vibrant music scene in Iceland. Australia and New Zealand, can't explain that.

By this logic, the best bands should theoretically come from the Arctic Circle. Jewel to thread

Terrible weather is def a factor, I will say an important and I think underrated reason is MSP had (and has) for whatever reason, the infrastructure, meaning clubs, bars, colleges, instrument stores, record stores, PA rental places, American Legion/Knights of Columbus halls, etc and that a density of those places as well, not just one or two.

Even in 1990 or 91 when I was getting involved there were...5 great record stores (Let It Be, Northern Lights, Roadrunner, Garage D'or, Oarfolk) in addition to "bigger" places like Cheapo, Electric Fetus, etc, etc.

And, hugely important: Every single Tuesday night was "New Band Night" at the Entry for...twenty yrs? All you had to do get a gig was call and maybe send in a demo, maybe not even that, I can't remember if my band sent our tape. So not just a place to play like a real gig but you met other bands and other people. I've been friends with people whose bands played the same night as us in 1995 ever since.

yeah there's always been at least one venue in town where you feel like literally any kind of crazy show could happen, the First Ave/Entry and now the Turf Club now are very corporate but there was the heyday of Big V's Saloon, then the Hexagon, now it feels like the Eagles Club is that place

we always seem to pull one dive that now one cares about just ahead of waves of gentrification

And, hugely important: Every single Tuesday night was "New Band Night" at the Entry for...twenty yrs? All you had to do get a gig was call and maybe send in a demo, maybe not even that, I can't remember if my band sent our tape. So not just a place to play like a real gig but you met other bands and other people. I've been friends with people whose bands played the same night as us in 1995 ever since.

― chr1sb3singer, Wednesday, September 20, 2017 10:20 AM (eleven seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah this was huge, sort of a bummer how much First Ave has abandoned local music

infrastructure otm
akron in the 70s produced some good shit
akron in the 90s produced ...? there were some kids in bands but 1) they were all boys and 2) the venues they played were mysterious and consequently out of reach for the teenaged outsider without a personal escort (cool friend/relative) to provide an introduction. there were record store chains and the mall. that's about it.

i guess akron in the 90s did produce that guy who replaced rob halford but cover bands were about the only bands i remember seeing on marquees, and i was looking. nothing compared to what i've heard about the twin cities.

cleveland and even shithole dayton was more happening
it's cold and weather is shitty in all of these places

Twin/Tone was here, Am Rep, Rykodisc, there was a huge distribution center here for every kind of record label from Warners & Columbia all the way down the line.

A huge theater, arts, and comedy scene here as well, especially in the 80s, all of which I think is important.

OK, I'm going to stop I'm starting to sound like one of those "Minnesota is great" ding-dongs

beats Ohio
i wanted to run away to the Twin Cities in high school

i knew it would be better, and turns out i was right!

whoa I never knew Rykodisc was from MP/SP

xxp
ha, I was hugely obsessed with Ohio bands in the 90s, so it cuts both ways.

I don't think they started here but they were based here for ahwile...there is a reason Sugar was on the label.