Icon: Husker Du
The three monumental bands who put Minneapolis on the indie rock map in the 1980s – the Replacements, Soul Asylum and Husker Du – all found greatness along the same path, climbing out of hardcore’s narrow trench with ambitions far beyond the basics of simply railing against Reagan or bitching about school and cops. Of the three, Husker Du clung most tightly to punk’s visceral force, but added sensitivity, melody or depth to the roar.
Bob Mould (lead vocals/guitar), Grant Hart (drums/lead vocals) and Greg Norton (bass) put up a solid sonic onslaught – Spector’s wall, redefined – that helped smooth the contrast between the band’s two songwriters, generally (but not always) keeping the albums from sounding like interleaved solo projects. Bellowing over slabs of rhythm guitar, Mould wrote claustrophobically personal songs that were blunt and angry (often at himself). Hart preferred the pop-pretty side, taking in wider vistas of style and subject matter. With a brusque proletarian determination rare for such thoughtful music, Husker Du brought considerable might to rough musical beauty. Even as their lyrics grew more and more considerate, the trio remained serious, never sentimental.
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Although signing to a major-label did the group no serious damage, Husker Du's indie swan song, Flip Your Wig, is by far the best album of its career. Hart and Mould are in perfect balance, pitching out one terrific song after another, peaking near the beginning with the glorious "Makes No Sense at All," an off-kilter diss that soars like a joyful singalong. They collaborated on the production, crafting an unusual but highly effective missile of sound (compressed guitars, loads of reverb on the vocals, dry drums pushed to the front of the mix, barely any bass) that cuts through the air with a melodic whoosh. Mould's lyrical concerns are uncharacteristically grand ("Divide and Conquer" is socio-political, "Flip Your Wig" addresses the personal significance of fame), while Hart is in love ("Green Eyes," "Every Everything" and the disconcerted "Keep Hanging On"). The album rushes by, but every track burns in your memory.
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If it wasn't the promise of an Orwellian dystopia, God only knows what possessed two of SST's standard-bearers for no-bullshit rock integrity to release four-sided concept albums in 1984. Regardless, the Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime and the Huskers' Zen Arcade put the young trios to the test and heroically reclaimed the format from arena bands' evil clutches. Recorded in the time it usually takes to get a decent drum sound, Zen Arcade a consideration of finding a place in the world is one-take raw; much of the writing seems equally bashed out. (Side four is largely given over to "Reoccurring Dream," a 14-minute instrumental that gives Norton some play and is well-structured but feels suspiciously like the sort of time-filling improvisation that gave prog wankery a bad name.) Still, Zen Arcade is a paean to honesty and truth, with indomitable spirit and stirring songs. Written by Hart and Mould separately and together, side three ("Somewhere" to "The Tooth Fairy and the Princess") brings the album to its peak of diversity and impact.
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A transition between simple youthful exuberance and conscientious maturity, the Metal Circus mini-album has longer songs and a sound that ups the ante on rote punk with clearly rendered industrial-strength guitar clang. The perceptive intelligence of "It's Not Funny Anymore" ("Find out who you really are / And don't pay attention to me") and the rape-murder fiction of "Diane" made it obvious that Husker Du had more on its mind than just going faster and louder.
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New Day Rising reveals a band in control of its facilities, a tight and efficient machine capable of depth, variety and texture. The title track states the album's theme in just that many words. Mould spreads his wings on the sweeping, genre-defying "I Apologize," while Hart channels a little Big Country in the bouncy "Terms of Psychic Warfare." A few melodies are undeveloped and clunky, but there's enough good stuff here ("Celebrated Summer," "Books About UFO's," the bizarre "How to Skin a Cat") to make it the perfect place-setter for Flip Your Wig.
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It's easy to hear why Husker Du opted to make its 1981 debut with the live Land Speed Record; the band's frantic energy release could scarcely have been contained in a studio. The playing is strong, and Mould's voice is well-suited for shouting, but the seventeen songs (including the prescient "Guns at My School" and the aptly self-descriptive "All Tensed Up") fly by in a blur of breathless exhilaration. Only the closing "Data Control" has the (relative) restraint through which the band's creative strengths would emerge.
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Given the general lack of lightheartedness in Husker Du's work, the occasional covers they chose to record are enigmatic. Following a raucous (and non-album) 7-inch blitz on the Byrds' "8 Miles High" the year before, the trio released "Makes No Sense at All" as a pre-album single in 1985, backed with a whimsical take on "Love Is All Around," the theme for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which was set in all together now Minneapolis.
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One of the most powerful and uplifting live shows I ever witnessed was Hüsker Dü at the Ritz in New York in 1987, celebrating the release of the sprawling double-album that is Warehouse. The very definition of loud and proud, the band seemed at the apex of its powers, able to weather the transition from indie-underground to dreaded major label (Warner Brothers), and on the verge of a grand career.
more »I was not quite your objective spectator, since I had been asked to come to the show by a Warner A&R person with thoughts that I might be of service to the Huskers as a sympathetic producer. The band was apparently not averse to this, and after the show, I sat with guitarist Bob Mould as he outlined his hopes for the next album, which he described ambitiously as Beatles-esque, expanding the group's sonic palette and investigating arrangement ideas beyond their hitherto basic rock format. Then I spoke separately with the other songwriting wing of the band, drummer Grant Hart, who told me he was looking to record the album raw and basically live, with no frills and an emphasis on spontaneity. Hmmm...and thus I was hardly surprised when the group broke apart before the end of the Warehouse tour, leaving an influential lineage and some of the best alt-rock of the eighties in their wake. A closer look at Warehouse reveals this schism in the making, a Mould song followed by a Hart song followed by a Mould song followed by a Hart song, with bassist Greg Norton valiantly holding the two poles together. What is remarkable is how unified the album seems throughout its score of cuts. A hindsight reading of the lyrics, no matter who's writing, points to the onrushing breakup — "We gotta Turn It Around before it goes into the ground," sings Bob, while Grant alludes that "The Actual Condition of my heart / Feels like two hands that are ripping it apart," and even the titles — "Bed of Nails," "Friend, You Got To Fall" — have their share of portent.
But sometimes great music can be made of conflict, and Hüsker Dü's sense of creative duality rose to new heights in this, their swan song. Hart's "She Floated Away" and the Byrds-ian "You're A Soldier," Mould's "Standing In The Rain" and "It's Not Peculiar," and the album's anthemic sense of promise remain, a touchstone of their era and a harbinger of the future that would, sadly, unfold without their collective clarion call.
