Sugar - Classic Or Dud

http://onlineathens.com/stories/080310/uga_689844920.shtml

Barbe to lead UGA's music business program

By Ryan Blackburn - r✧✧✧.blackb✧✧✧@onlineath✧✧✧.c✧✧

Musician David Barbe has been chosen as interim director of the Music Business Program at the University of Georgia. He will start work immediately.

Barbe will replace Bruce Burch, the program’s founding co-director who last month took his top assistant and a fundraiser to start a similar program at Kennesaw State University.

Barbe will teach the two basic courses of the certificate program, called Music Business I and II, and he will administer the program, including hiring an assistant director, UGA administrators said Monday.

The responsibility for overseeing fundraising for the program will be absorbed through the college’s existing staff.

Barbe came to Athens in 1981 to attend UGA as a journalism student and on the side joined several bands, including Mercyland and Buzz Hungry. In the early 1990s, he co-founded the band Sugar, which recorded four albums.

In 1997, he teamed up with Andy LeMaster and Andy Baker to open Chase Park Transduction and currently serves as co-owner, president and chief engineer of the full-service recording studio.

Since opening Chase Park, Barbe has worked as a producer, engineer, writer and musician on hundreds of recording projects with artists like Drive-By Truckers, The Glands, Amy Ray, k.d. lang and R.E.M.

Jointly sponsored by the Terry College of Business and the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, the program prepares students for jobs in the music business — sometimes by giving music students a background in business, and other times by providing business students some basic music knowledge.

Nearly 90 students are enrolled in the 21-credit certificate program.

Barbe came highly recommended from past UGA faculty members and alumni and already had some knowledge of the program as a guest lecturer, said business school Dean Robert T. Sumichrast.

“Pretty quickly, we were able to determine that David Barbe was the best choice because of his existing association with our program,” Sumichrast said. “He had been a guest lecturer for us in the past, so we already knew some of the reaction from the students about his teaching style, and we already knew about his connection to the Athens music scene.”

The business college will conduct a national search for a permanent director, and Barbe will be among the candidates, Sumichrast said.

“I expect we will have a search in the spring semester, and we will name someone permanent director, and I think that David is certainly a very strong candidate for that,” he said.

Leaving for Kennesaw State with Burch are Keith Perissi, program director; and Heather Malcom, a development officer at UGA.

Burch’s resignation with UGA takes effect Aug. 9, but Barbe will begin work immediately, Sumichrast said.

Who wants to enroll for a semester or two?

Good for him. As long as it keeps him from singing shit like "Company Book", it's a great hire.

this band still rules! jamming copper blue for the first time in years. epic shit.

great record. I have a signed copy, my retirement nest egg!

Copper Blue is one of my favorite albums ever.

Beaster!!!!

hey bill magill, 'company book' was a clunker but i loved 'where diamonds are halos'

Copper Blue is one of my favorite albums ever.

― NYCNative, Friday, March 4, 2011 2:39 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark

Seconded.

"Copper Blue" and "Beaster" remain in many ways the apotheosis of what Mould was always after, even if his Husker stuff remains my sentimental favorite. But boy did Sugar burn bright and fast. Admittedly, I haven't listened to "File Under: Easy Listening" in eons but the time I saw them touring behind that album was less than inspiring.

Last time I interviewed him he noted that not only was "FU:EL" his commercial peak, that overwhelmingly he's now known as the guy that used to be in Sugar, with the legacy of HD fading away. Tragically, AFAIC, but Mould I believe has long made peace with his past and moved on, for better or for worse.

Besides might be the "b-sides, live and outtakes" album of the 90s (at least nothing comes to mind immediately) and I'll take it over FU:EL. Also having a hard time thinking of a better band started by a guy from a great band who had already become a full-time solo artist. Certainly beats Tin Machine.

Is FU:EL really his commercial peak? I know it charted highest, but there were a TON of copies in clearance bins back in the day - I'd have to assume Copper Blue sold better on the whole.

I think FU:EL did better overseas. Like, really well.

Both albums were top ten over there, which is crazy.

also I dunno if I trust Mould's "actually people care more about the band that was my baby a lot more than the band with grant hart writing half the songs" analysis. Guessing a Husker Du reunion would pull a little more money than a Sugar one.

I would guess otherwise. Husker Du broke up a generation ago, 25 years, with only a fraction of mainstream support at the time. Unlike the Replacements, though, I've always sensed HD remains more a well kept secret sort of thing, at least in today's market.

Husker Du had more albums than Sugar, has been namechecked by more bands as an influence, has been memorialized in books and likely has so many "new" fans (since 1988) who missed them the first go-round. Sugar was pretty cool, but likely ranks on par with The Breeders. You could argue that more people know the words to "Cannonball", but it's only the Pixies that could carry out a worldwide reunion tour.

One of my best friends is very close to Mould and his partner; he says Mould's income these days derives from deejay gigs and royalties, most of which come from his post-Husker years (he managed himself very well apparently).

IIRC he pretty much set up a licensing agreement as soon as Sugar started which allowed him to (reasonably) dictate some terms when the band signed. Smart move.

He seems to live an ideal life: happily settled in a very nice apartment in San Francisco, does the deejay club circuit a few months a year, records an album when he feels like it.

Copper Blue is one of my favorite records.

The live take on "The Slim" on Besides is absolutely devastating. I've been hoping for years that footage of one of those takes will show up on youtube, to no avail thus far.

Bob Mould is also a well known furry and is active on the scene.[4]

he gets the catskins for nothing

mould used to get tons of cash for acoustic tours, get flown in, bring an acoustic on the plane, plug into the PA, play and go, no crew, etc.

he should get back into pro wrestling imo

I'm not at all saying Husker Du doesn't deserve the belated accolades, let alone cash, but there's absolutely no comparing their popularity to that of the Pixies, even at the time. Plus the Pixies broke up only ten or so years before they got back together, and it couldn't have hurt that they also broke up right when the mainstream starting adopting the stuff they pioneered. Sure, there'd be no Pixies without Husker Du, but there was no similar groundswell of enthusiasm (unless you could Sugar's brief success). Further, Pixies sales currently stand around 300,000 to 500,000 an album. What was the max HD ever sold? Do you think it's at all in line with the band's influence? Even in terms of namechecking, the number of times I see a band cite HD is close to nil, compared to Pixies or Pavement or whatever.

either way a husker du reunion will NEVER happen

I'm not so much saying Husker Du is more popular than the Pixies than saying that Sugar is to the Huskers what The Breeders are to the Pixies. I'm disagreeing with that Mould is better known for being in Sugar than in Husker Du

i think a huskers reunion would do pretty big business, like for example when i saw Mission of Burma on their reunion tour it was probably 1000 ppl, they commented from stage that there were only like 20 ppl the one time they played mpls in the old days.

also: old punkers are hella loyal.

Dunno if I'd call the Burma reunion big business. Either way, that band broke up originally well before it found out how far it could go (or not. The Huskers gave it a real shot, though. But I wouldn't imagine a HD reunion (which will never happen) would come close to, say, a Replacements reunion. Huskers have stayed relatively underground.

i think huskers would be way bigger than burma. i guess i consider 1000 ppl big business relatively, i dunno.

either way a husker du reunion will NEVER happen

― gr8080 sings the blues (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 4 March 2011 22:49 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^^^^^^THIS, and matt otm throughout this thread.

I interviewed Bob Mould for his "Body Of Song" album and I asked him at the end of ithe chat what the prospects were of a reunion. He said that it was not likely.

First of all, he claimed that contrary to my assumptions, there are not promoters waving bags of cash at them to do so.

Even without that tempation, he said too many hurtful things have been said by the other two (or maybe just one... I didn't use it in the interview and I don't have the transcript and might not be able to dig up the audio; all I have is the story I turned in) that he deemed it an impossibility.

That said, I cannot believe that nobody with a check book at least took their temperatures. I don't believe it would have been on par with The Pixies in terms of interest but I know a lot of people who never got to see Husker Du live who would pay for the chance now.

I include myself in that, actually.

Mould is too comfortable financially and psychologically to need a HD reunion, I was told.

Husker Du live : you're not missing THAT much.

i have many, many bootlegs that argue otherwise, us steel

IIRC, Mould did an interview, I guess when his last lp came out, where he said not only wasn't there going to be an HD reunion, but also that their SST albums weren't going to be expanded/reissued/remastered because all three guys had to over see/sign off on the project. He then advised fans to hold onto their vinyl.

I've also seen interviews with Hart where he claimed Mould tried to low-ball/strong-arm all the rights away from him and Greg, pissing him off and pissing away what little good feeling came of the hell-freezes-over one-time-only demi-reunion (where, incidentally, Mould chose a Hart song and Hart chose a Mould song - perhaps not coincidentally, "Never Talking to You Again" and "Hardly Getting Over It").

yo stevie -- which husker bootlegs are the best? i don't have any!

It's a pity that the end of Husker was so unnecessarily ugly and messy...that whole thing with Mould telling Hart he'll never have more than 45% of the song on any record and then Hart inevitably firing back after the split, just shake hands and either get a reunion gig going or completely call time on it in the right way. I'm anxious to see how he will depict that last year or so in the autobiography.

It was more complicated than that, too, involving everything from AIDS scares and suicide to drugs (Mould cleaned up first and got the upper hand; Norton, as far as I can tell, has stayed out of it).

x-post Tyler, I have a great Trenton bootleg I've enjoyed. Most famous may be "Lyndale's Burning," Minneapolis '95: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0DF8LFZM

i have about 20gb of husker boots :)

well,maybe 10. on a load of data cdrs

playing in Philly very close to my birthday this year. hell yeah.

Stevie overview piece as Sugar gets ready for reunion tour

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/apr/16/sugar-reunion-bob-mould-interview

I would probably pay £60 for a ticket if I didn't also have to pay the same again for the train fare and the same again for overnight accommodation. Why do no bands play here, the fucking second biggest city in the country?

Where are you, Ledge - Birmingham? I interviewed local hero Tony Bontana a few months ago and he was talking about how hard it is to book artists in Birmingham. He said the received wisdom is people just don't come out to shows there. But I know when I was younger it was a regular stop on touring bands' itineraries. (Also, I fucking love Birmingham, though I've not been there in some years).

Yep, Birmingham, been here eight years. Often you'll see acts playing London, Manchester, and Bristol, and we're a black hole in the middle - Sugar are playing Nottingham though, which has less than a third of the population of brum.

Is Birmingham NEC still a thing? Saw quite a few bands there years ago

Yes, the prodigy playing there tomorrow night! maybe I should bump another thread for birmingham chat.

Is the Custard Factory still going, too?

And isn't there an Academy? I think I saw the Strokes there in 02

Birmingham chat continued here: Say something nice about Birmingham (UK)

Ah, tidy. Going to see them in Cardiff on Sunday (and possibly more excited that Carl Cox is playing a two hour set as warm up) xps

Today’s revive reminded me to buy a ticket to the DC show

saw the second of their three nyc shows tonight and they were great. flat out rocking start to finish, and surprisingly tight for a band that had billed the previous night's show as their first in 31 years. they seemed giddy to be onstage together. they played everything you could possibly want to hear, which i guess isn't all that hard with a catalog as small as theirs, but still, it was nice, i left fulfilled. random highlights: "panama city hotel," "jc auto," "gee angel." david barbe sang lead on 5 or 6 songs, which i wasn't expecting, but i was thankful for 'em. his higher, reedier voice is a strangely effective counterpart to mould's. (barbe also did most of the between-song banter.) as for mould, i remember seeing him blow his voice out in the first song of the set in his early solo days and basically rasp and gasp his way through the rest of the show. thirty-plus years later, he's in really good voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQykL6ifPiY

Thumbnail looks like one of those fake concert links, but it's legit.

Travis looks to be struggling a bit here and there, kinda uncertain on the first few songs.

Oh damn, (I've been watching more of the footage) poor Malcom falls off his stool and nearly passes out at 43' into the show :(

huh! that was night 1, i guess. he seemed to have recovered for night 2.

I was at night two/Sunday too - and Patterson Hood was there! David produces the Drive-by Truckers' albums, so it's only a surprise in the sense that Hood was in Oregon the previous night to catch Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman's show there (he posted about it), so props to his dedication! I said hello, told him I was a fan who just saw him and DBT in July, and he was very friendly and gracious - he was only in town to see Sugar, that was it.

Re: Malcolm's fall, another fan told me about that too after I saw that he needed help getting down from the drum riser. I hope his health is okay, but I get the impression he's not in good shape right now.

And yes GREAT show. Bob played a lot of Sugar at his recent tours with Narducy and Wurster, and I even saw them at Webster Hall a few years ago, but it was still mind-blowing to see the original trio. Never thought I'd ever see them. Having David handle some vocals definitely helped differentiate these performances too.

Didn't Mould tour the entirety of "Copper Blue" with Jason and Jon?

Never noticed how unabashedly “A Good Idea” rips off the mid-late Pixies sound

Wow, really? That was the first thing I thought of when I heard it! Bob always said it was!

it's a good idea, he said!

To be fair by “never noticed” I mean I had the CD in high school 22 years ago and after determining they were never going to hold a candle to my at-the-time favorite band Husker Du never played it again after a few listens…never struck me at the time though but after seeing they’re back together and revisiting Copper it only took about 15 seconds to be like holy moly, that’s a direct style rip — at least Bob was aware sounds like, in which case we can call it an homage.

my super-belated sugar realization is how much "gee angel" sounds like grant hart. would've made a great huskers song.

Meantime from tonight's show (with a bit of video):

I was at the show tonight and they brought out Patterson Hood for JC Auto! Also, they brought out Craig Finn for Helpless and Jason Naducy for If I Can’t Change Your Mind.

That rules

I was at tonight’s show too! Malcolm actually looked fine when I ran into him and his wife after the show. I think he just needed a couple of days to recuperate from the fall (which I relate to - I needed a few days after injuring my back when I slid and landed back first into a stairway). I’ve only seen Craig Finn one other time and it was with the Hold Steady, opening for the Replacements in 2014 in St. Paul. Lucky guy!

Glad he's doing better!

that's awesome!

Feeling Better, I should say

Didn't Mould tour the entirety of "Copper Blue" with Jason and Jon?

Yes, and it looks like he seriously considered reuniting Sugar for that tour!

In 2011, Mould, Barbe, and Travis met up and played some songs, but “it didn’t feel like the right time,” Mould says.

Ironically, I will not be able to use my tickets for Sugar's SF show because ... I will be at my cousin's wedding in Minneapolis.

Hm. I likely could take one of them off you.

Great!

Just drop me a line -- won't be able to pick it up off you for a couple of weeks or so but since the show's a way off I gather there's no rush!

Ironically, I will not be able to use my tickets for Sugar's SF show because ... I will be at my cousin's wedding in Minneapolis.

― disco stabbing horror (lukas), Wednesday, May 6, 2026 10:20 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Hm. I likely could take one of them off you.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, May 6, 2026

for a moment I thought you meant the couple

Stash ‘em under the floorboards.

My Beaster journey:

me at 19: Judas Cradle is the greatest song ever

me at 52: Feeling Better is the greatest song ever

Synth horns and all?

yesssssssssssds!

it was so unlike Bob at that point!

i still struggle with the synth horns

it's a great song and it feels like it strapped a pair of plastic boobs from Blackadder on for comedic effect

i have no problem if this is a minority opinion

JC Auto is the best song off Beaster, hard for me to fathom anyone thinking anything else.

it's a great song and it feels like it strapped a pair of plastic boobs from Blackadder on for comedic effect

― an uncharacteristically irritated Mr. Rogers (stevie)

Bob Mould as Toni Erdmann.

JC Auto obv one of the greatest songs ever recorded

JC Auto is the best song off Beaster, hard for me to fathom anyone thinking anything else.

have probably listened to Tilted 3x as much as any other song on this, it's my ideal scorcher. plus the outro

Reminds me: my college station played "Walking Away" first, and what an intro. I was all for Mould serenaded by synth organs.

The whole EP is boss, listened to it again for the first time in a while yesterday. I like Tilted but I like the big thumping of JC Auto and Judas Cradle a bit more