I've always maintained that the "next big thing" always comes and goes, but the real music stays with you a long time. Unfortunately, most people have only heard the big things. Right now it's The Strokes and The White Stripes (notice how many bands are jumping on the so-called garage rock revival nowadays?), it was Nirvana and Pearl Jam in the early 90s (ditto
with the whole grunge trend...you think Alice In Chains stopped being a glam band for no reason?), and in the 80s it was R.E.M. and U2...sort of. Those two didn't engrain themselves into the mainstream fully until 1987's "The Joshua Tree" and "Document" respectively, but throughout the 80s there certainly was a sense that those two were the bands moving on up. One must only look at Minor Threat's demise for an example: that band broke up because all the members that weren't Ian MacKaye wanted to adopt a U2 kind of sound and sign to a major label. Now I'm not calling them sell-outs...just trend jumpers. There's probably a difference between those two words somewhere, but I'm too lazy to think it through.
What I'm not lazy enough to say is that there were bands in the 80s, the 90s, and even today that intended to be successful on their own terms with their own style of music. Husker Du, which existed from 1979-1988, were one of those bands. Their first record was pure, lightspeed thrash and their last record was almost pure full pop music, but throughout those nine years of existence, they went into whatever musical direction they wanted to on their own terms, regardless of what the mainstream was doing. They weren't fiercely underground and they did want mainstream recognition, but...and I'm going to sound like a broken record here...they wanted to introduce Husker Du to the masses, not jangle-pop band #49 or hair band #4002 or "the latest cutting edge grunge band!" or whatever. Here's my attempt to tell their story through their records (key emphasis there is on the "records" part. I wasn't even three years old when the band called it quits, so it's not like I was there or I knew the band personally) and hopefully someone who reads this will feel inspired to pick up a copy of "Zen Arcade" or "Candy Apple Grey" or even one of those godawful tribute albums.
Husker Du formed in 1979 and quickly began playing the Minneapolis club/punk scene. Guitarist/singer/song-writer Bob Mould had felt inspired to start playing punk rock music for mainly two reasons. Firstly, he was a lifelong fan of 60s pop music (The Beatles, Yardbirds, and probably The Monkees too. Everybody likes the Monkees), felt sort of alienated throughout the 70s when prog rock and Led Zeppllin were the big thing, and then was blown away by a little band from New York called The Ramones. They played extremely fast and wrote pop songs just like The Beatles (and just as good if you ask me if anything, the first few Ramones records own the first few Beatles records). Secondly, Bob was attending college in those days and felt pretty disgusted by the atmosphere around him. As he puts it, "a bunch of middle class white kids learning how to take advantage of the poor" (and I'm paraphrasing, I don't have the exact quote on me). While not many of Mould's lyrics would be overtly political, they did hold about the same rage. He hooked up with Grant Hart (drummer) and Greg Norton (bass), who both knew each other beforehand from applying to same record store job, and some other guy who played keyboards (whose name escapes me because I completely forgot about him until I started writing that sentenece.
Funny little story about the keyboard player actually. He never used to rehearse much with the band, so Mould, Hart, and Norton began practicing and writing a few songs on their own. When showtime came, they absolutely teared it and the keyboard player struggled to keep up the whole time until someone (I forget his name, but he was pretty well-respected throughout the whole Minneapolis underground scene) came up to the stage, unplugged the guy's keyboard, gave him the finger, turned to the rest of the band, and gave them the thumbs up. That was the first sign that Husker Du were destined for greatness. Also, it's gives you aspiring musicans out there a good method of kicking out your keyboard player if need be: just play too fast and awesome for him/her to keep up and they'll be shamed out of the band.
Alright, I'm somewhat unethical. Sue me.
They named their band Husker Du after a Swedish boardgame. Roughly translated, it means "Do You Remember?" and the band even recorded a demo of a song titled "Do You Remember?". They started out heavily relying on Ramones covers and Johnny Thunders covers before they started writing originals. While performing, they weren't too talkative. They'd bash out one song in less than two minutes, stop long enough to thank the audience, and then go straight into another. They say that sometimes they'd jump into a new song before the guitars stopped ringing with distortion from the last song they played. The band also incorporated slower songs in their set and decided to use two of them for their first single: the infamous Statues/Amusement single. Believe it or not, they actually managed to kill their critical buzz a bit with that because reviewers said they sounded too much like Public Image Ltd. (a fair and somewhat valid criticism).
In 1981, however, they'd release an album that would prove their worth. 1981's "Land Speed Record" was recorded live in the basement of some bar somewhere and features the band plowing through about 17 songs in 24 minutes. The sound quality leaves much to be desired, but the general agreement is that "Land Speed Record" is one of the thrash albums of the early 80s and, though out of print, much worth seeking out. From there, the band recorded the "In A Free Land" single, arguably their best song up to that point. That song pretty much defines how Husker Du sounded circa 1979-1982. It was fast, had great guitar work (just take a listen to Mould's solo in the bridge), and benefited greatly from the interplay between Mould's and Hart's voices.
Up until this point, Husker Du had been sort of a "whoever wants to sing it, can sing it" hardcore band. Though they'd already written originals, by 1982's "Everthing Falls Apart", it became more of a "whoever writes it, sings it" sort of thing. Mould wrote the lions share of the material, Hart was just starting to get into the song-writing thing, and bassit Greg Norton hardly ever contributed anything. As such, Mould wrote (or co-write with Norton) ten songs on "Everything Falls Apart", while Hart contributed one song and sang one cover. Mainly it was a more produced version of the pure thrash on "Land Speed Record", but with tighter playing and a few slower songs to break things up. One particular thing worth mentioning though is that the song Hart covered was by Donovan of all people. "Sunshine Superman" to be exact. Though they played deathly fast riffs and screamed alot, they were still pop fans at heart (unintentional pun, sorry) and that would be a major factor in what musically direction they entered into next.
When hardcore punk first started up, it was a partially a reaction toward the New Wavers and the bands they liked that were called New Wave (check out The Descendents "Milo Goes To College" CD for some fun anti-New Wave rants). Unfortunately, as time wore on, the underground hardcore punk scene had become just as conformist and suffocating as the music they were rebeling against (check out the Minor Threat "Complete Discography" CD for something that covers punk's fall from grace as it happened). Husker Du had previously written angry songs about pretentious hipsters and just people who pissed them off in general, as well as few borderline political and philosophical songs. Now they were turning their attention to the punk scene in their criticism.
In 1983, they signed with SST Records (and if you don't know who they are, I suggest you examine the covers of your Black Flag records closely) and decided to go into a different direction musically. Melody and song-writing would be the top priority now rather that uncontained aggression and breathless rants. The 1983 "Metal Circus" EP finds the band in transition. There were still a few speedy numbers, but they upped the noisy distortion, the number of slower (and somewhat grungey) songs present on the record, ended the damn thing with a mid-tempo instrumental pychedelic jam, and had the balls to put a pop-punk song in the middle of the whole thing. Lyrically, this is where both Mould and Hart began to come into their own. Mould's "Real World" and "Deadly Skies" are two of the best mockings of Anarchist punks (read that: poseurs) I've ever heard and Hart contributes the song that got them their first bit of substantial college radio airplay. Hell, a few very alternative stations still play it during their occasional retro hour. The song's name is "Diane" and it's a narrative about the rape and murder of a young girl from the point of view of the tormenter. Sound familiar? It should. Seven years later, Kurt Cobain used the same idea when he wrote "Polly".
Now that they were signed to SST and had become fully willing to experiment with new musical styles other than thrash and punk, Husker Du seemed poised for a breakthrough record of some sort and that breakthrough record would come very soon after the release of "Metal Circus" and it's relative success. I've realized I just wrote a shitload of words though and I guess I'll have to finish this column in another part. The really good records are covered in the second part. Til then, cheers.
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