by Bob Mould
Starvation was happening on all levels. I was concerned about being “found out” by my dorm mates, and I was finding no healthy outlet for my sexual urges. I didn’t hate myself for being gay, but I hated myself for not dealing with what I now know to be natural and beautiful: the act of opening up to another person, and finding comfort in physical contact. Instead I found comfort in the ugliness of life. I found relief in destruction.
One afternoon back at school, in a fit of blind rage, I pitched an old Royal manual typewriter out the fourth-floor window of a dormitory, almost hitting a passerby. It crashed on the sidewalk, keys exploding in all directions. On another night, I was hanging out with some friends. I said something about suicide and someone questioned me, so I pulled a knife from my desk drawer and dragged it across the top of my left wrist. I clenched my fist, lifted my bleeding arm in the air, and proclaimed, “You know, it’s really easy to do it on the other side too.” My friends freaked out. I ripped some fabric off my white button-down shirt and wrapped it around my wrist. I got on the bus and went to see a band, blood running down my hand.
In those moments I didn’t think I was behaving strangely. It was just another act in my existential play. The thought that I could so casually end my own life? I chalk that up to a blend of youthful immortality and indifference. I was living in a place where nothing would ever be right, nothing would ever do, and nothing held pure value. I only listened to my dark side. I had learned to identify with suffering. It held an attraction, a fascination. It was what I was born into, and I was finding solace in darkness and detachment.
* * *
Returning to campus in September 1979, I was no longer the pudgy farm kid, but a lean, angular, intense young man. I had my band, my nihilism, and endless amounts of energy.
I became the late-night Saturday DJ at WMCN-FM, the low-wattage campus radio station. Since the program directors wanted to keep getting free records, they required all DJs to play new major label releases, which cut down my options. But I’d bring lots of my own music, whether British Oi, American punk, or ’60s Motown singles, and mix it in with the major label “new-wave” stuff. On occasion, I experimented with sound collage by mixing and overlaying disparate records together at different speeds. Imagine Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich with an overlay of the Sun Ra Arkestra. Eventually I gave up trying to follow the rules, played what I wanted, and falsified my playlist logs.
During the day, my work-study job was at the library. I would move quietly through the aisles, restocking the returned books and observing people studying quietly—or discreetly pleasuring themselves in an obscure alcove. It happened all the time. I also lifted the library’s lone copy of Naked Lunch for my personal collection.
Macalester was the perennial liberal haven, but even there things were changing. Around this time, the Republican Party began building a platform for Ronald Reagan, who was then well on his way to winning the 1980 presidential election. There were other students, “Young Republicans,” who were completely getting under my skin, pseudoaristocratic sheep talking about this guy who’s going to lift us from the Carter “malaise.” I had an innate dislike for them: they didn’t like the same kind of music I liked, they didn’t drink the beer I drank, they didn’t dress the way I dressed. They had this sense of entitlement. No one knew exactly what it portended at the time, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
I befriended a fellow student named Duncan Stewart. He was a short, wiry kid from Ireland with cropped blond hair, a Popeye chin, and wire-rimmed glasses. We shared a love of punk music, especially Irish bands like the Undertones and Stiff Little Fingers. I also had a romantic interest in him, and I suspect he knew it, though we never directly addressed it. We acted like little terrorists. The high point of our naive activism was directed at, of all unlikely people, Ted Kennedy, who was running for the Democratic presidential nomination.
In my head, all politicians were suspect. Kennedy was scheduled to make a speech on campus, and we decided to make a collage of all the embarrassing moments of his life, add some questionable taglines in hostage-note-style punk rock lettering, and post hundreds of copies of the finished manifesto around campus on the morning of his visit. Hours before his arrival, we went out in the freezing, snowing dawn and covered the area with our creation. Turns out the Secret Service took everything down well before Kennedy was anywhere near the campus. So much for our art/activism project. (Little did I know how influential Kennedy would become in shaping the social progress of America in the thirty years to follow. Chalk this one up to the folly of youth.)
* * *
Early in my sophomore year, two concerts had a major impact on me. The first was at the Longhorn, where Gang of Four opened for the Buzzcocks. I was a huge fan of the Buzzcocks’ approach to pop songwriting, and also appreciated the slashing guitar of Gang of Four. I was front and center for the entire Buzzcocks set, studying singer-guitarist Pete Shelley, watching his every motion. Legend has it that the entire band was tripping on LSD that evening—I don’t know, but many times during the set, Pete did lean down, off-mic, and shout the chord changes at me. It left a deep impression, and I became an even more intent student of their work.
Minneapolis scenester Jody Kurilla’s house was where all these out-of-town bands went after their shows. Since I was not yet a fully accepted member of “the club,” I would get turned away from the more exclusive parties. After suffering this indignity a handful of times, this night, I decided to stay out in the driveway in hopes of intercepting the big bands. I managed to corner Gang of Four drummer Hugo Burnham for a brief moment, but he soon opted to join the party.
That same week, Hüsker Dü met the Clash. Joe Strummer and Mick Jones were milling about the Longhorn and we introduced ourselves. They were nice chaps, but very intense, as if they were very aware of their importance. They humored our “we’re in a band too” routine, and even went so far as to suggest we organize an impromptu gig for the following day at an African-American laundromat of our choosing. We mentioned one, but suggested it might not be the best idea—St. Paul was not quite as progressive as London. After that, they moved on to the next conversation. They played two nights later, and all I remember from the evening is how abrasive and political they sounded, that and my rushing toward the front of the theater and bowling over my boss from the library.
Bands were everything. My buddy Geoff came back to Malone with me for the holidays, and on New Year’s Eve we went to Manhattan to see a show by a late-era version of the Heartbreakers. It was a great day and night—running around downtown, drinking and smoking pot, slumming in the club, being as punk as I had envisioned from reading Rock Scene. We went back to the Port Authority bus terminal at 4 AM and waited for the 6 AM bus to Plattsburgh, where my father would meet us. In the terminal, we ended up sitting next to a fellow who was wearing filthy ripped clothes; he was passed out and bleeding from a cut on his temple. In later years, I found out this was simply the way things were at the Port Authority terminal at 4 AM. But at the time: This, I thought, was punk rock.
Minneapolis had a bit of an infatuation with New York. Some folks even liked to refer to the city as the “Mini-Apple.” Maybe it just wanted to be like New York—sophisticated, arty, cosmopolitan. There was a clothing store in Minneapolis called March 4th, a direct clone of New York’s infamous Trash and Vaudeville stores. Twin Cities bands such as NNB were very informed by Television, and the Suburbs adroitly straddled the line between punk rock and art rock in a very New York way. Some elements of the Suburbs might have brought David Bowie to mind, but at their core, they were a hard-drinking rock band that wrote clever Midwestern story songs played at medium to high speed. Once the Commandos ceased to exist, I found myself in the front row of almost every Suburbs show in the area. I became an acquaintance of the band, and the Suburbs and Hüsker Dü eventually played shows together.
Johnny Thunders’s new band Gang War came to Minneapolis on July 29–30, 1980, and Hüsker Dü was slated a
s the opening act. Johnny was one of my guitar heroes, and I wanted to get close to him. I ended up becoming his de facto babysitter while he was in town. I’m nineteen, and he’s a grown man with years of experiences. Do you think I learned a lot in those two days?
Johnny was incorrigible. “Get me some fuckin’ Dilaudid or something, I’m sick,” he said to me in that drawling Brooklyn sandpaper voice. He claimed his bandmate Wayne Kramer stole his junk. John was jonesing, and I’m like, Where do I get heroin? I don’t know this shit. I knew there was a methadone clinic, but he wasn’t about to go down there and register. Someone brought him painkiller pills, but he just scoffed. “Look at ’em. They’re fuckin’ synthetic, they’re not gonna boil down.” So we finally bargained it down to “Get me a fuckin’ eight ball and I’ll be OK.” One-eighth of an ounce of cocaine seemed to stabilize him enough to play a classic (or at the least typical) Thunders performance, complete with him berating our sound man between every song.
Later that night, he tried to talk my guitar and amp off me. I got him back to his horrible shit-hole hotel room a few blocks away. He had been going into the bathroom to do his drug business, but by now I guess he liked me enough to let down his guard. So I’m in the room with John, and he’s tying off, burning more coke down, the works, the water, flick-flick-flick, getting it ready. I’d been around other people in Minneapolis who were shooting coke at the time, so I’d seen all this before. But this is Johnny Thunders, one of my guitar heroes. Flick-flick-flick, gets the air out, slap-slap-slap, on the bottom of the bicep, and shoot. Pulls the works out of his arm, looks at me, says, “much better,” and throws the syringe ten feet across the room. It lands point-down perfect in a stubby drinking glass.
I wanted to be around these people. I knew there was something to learn. I always showed deference to my elders, but it wasn’t strictly an ambition thing—I was a fan. I worshipped the Heartbreakers, the Dolls. How could I turn down the opportunity to take care of Johnny Thunders? Or when Nico performed at local rock club Duffy’s and the promoter asked me if I could help take care of her, how could I say no? Once a celebrated model and Warhol superstar, she was now broken down and jonesing, and saddled with an inappropriate side player, but she was still Nico. It was an honor, even if it was a touch depressing. It was part of my education, observing how people of status carry themselves. Maybe it wasn’t their shining moments, but there was still something to be learned, even if it was what not to do.
* * *
Through persistence, stubbornness, and a better-than-average knowledge of the touring acts of the moment, Hüsker Dü became the willing and able opening band for many of the punk rock/new wave acts that toured through Minnesota, from DNA to Discharge to the Ramones. It probably helped that we were more than happy to play for little or no money. Hüsker Dü was scheduled to open for Joy Division at Duffy’s on May 29, 1980—a great thing, and we were ready. But the band’s singer, Ian Curtis, hanged himself the night before the band was to fly to the United States. It was upsetting news, but not a complete shock, given the dark tone of their words and music.
We kept opening for bands, once playing two nights at downtown music club 7th Street Entry in November 1980 with an up-and-coming Boston band called Mission of Burma. At sound check, bassist Clint Conley plugged his electric razor into the back of his bass amp and gave himself a fresh shave on the spot. I thought that was one of the most un–punk rock, and simultaneously coolest, things I had ever seen. After the first night of performing together, I felt an immediate kinship with them: another three-piece playing loud, fast, angular music.
One of my own trademarks was to touch the tuning pegs of my guitar to my vocal microphone before we started playing. That all began at an early 7th Street Entry show. I was sweating profusely, as usual, and when my sweat-covered face touched the microphone, I got shocked and blown backward into my amp. From then on, I would always touch my guitar to the microphone and see if there were any clicks or sparks, which would mean the polarity was wrong and I’d get shocked again. Once that was out of the way, we’d typically launch into our set, barely breaking between songs for extraneous banter.
The band always played with purpose—there wasn’t a lot of goofing around in the live shows. On the faster material, Greg would start jumping in the air or do scissor kicks. I typically wore a grave, glowering expression, digging deep into my guitar when not singing. Grant was behind the kit, looking much like Animal from the Muppet Show band, except with longer hair and bare feet. When the tempos were high, we generated white heat in two places: my right hand strumming furiously across the guitar strings, and Grant’s right hand alternately pounding and gliding across the ride cymbal. We were young and inexperienced, but we had tons of energy and were able to create a solid wall of sound without relying on effects and gimmickry.
As 1980 went on, we started building our own following, commonly referred to as “the Veggies.” There was a core group of guys who came to every show: Kelly Linehan, Tippy Roth, Pat Woods, Tony Pucci, Dick and Mike Madden. Most of the guys wore leather jackets, and once the music fired up, the good-natured pogo dancing/mock wrestling would begin. It was a bonding experience for all of us. The Veggies eventually morphed into a fine band themselves, called Man Sized Action.
One afternoon in November 1980, we brought ourselves to Blackberry Way Studios and recorded three songs, with assistance from Colin Mansfield and Steve Fjelstad, two early supporters of the band. “Statues” was a midtempo droning guitar piece, clearly influenced by PiL. “Writer’s Cramp” was a brisker, simplistic punk-pop song, with a rudimentary sexual pun as the hook. “Let’s Go Die” was a faster-paced song, politically naive in tone, set to a Ramones-influenced musical bed.
I was fascinated with all the studio technology: the large Trident mixing board, the multitrack recorder, all the outboard gear and microphones. I watched everything as closely as possible, trying to figure out how it was done. I was making mental notes, hoping that I would be able to produce records someday.
Our songs were recorded as demos in an attempt to get signed by Twin/Tone Records. At the time, Twin/Tone was the obvious choice for Hüsker Dü. They released the music of prominent local bands like the Suburbs, Fingerprintz, and Curtiss A. The label was run by three partners: recording engineer Paul Stark, Oar Folk employee and tastemaker Peter Jesperson, and local sportswriter Charley Hallman. Unfortunately, each of those guys claimed to like a different song and therefore could not reach consensus about releasing a single.
So we decided to release the single by ourselves. We shelved the two faster songs and replaced them with a live version of another slower, chiming song titled “Amusement.” We named our label Reflex Records, as a reaction to our being passed over by Twin/Tone, and bankrolled it with a loan from Grant’s mother’s credit union. We printed the black-and-white covers—“Amusement” artwork by me, “Statues” artwork by Grant—at a local copy shop, bought 2,500 clear plastic sleeves, and when the vinyl arrived from the pressing plant in Arizona, we folded the sleeves and stuffed each one by hand. The single was officially released in January 1981 to a smattering of familial applause and a two-line mention in the national magazine Trouser Press.
Pretty cool stuff, but it was also my third year at Macalester and time for me to pick a major. I found a strong supporter in one of my sociology teachers, Professor McCall, and was thrilled when she offered to be my academic advisor, working with me to design a major in urban studies. Her mentor was an oft-published sociologist from Chicago named Howard Becker who studied subculture and language, and I was to write my honors thesis on punk rock as a subculture, based on Becker’s writings on jazz musicians. His work influenced how I viewed the punk movement. I was to keep a journal on the road and base my thesis on the experience. (Sadly, I later loaned my marked-up first draft to Kelly Linehan and haven’t seen it since.)
My project would have been a natural fit with the band’s touring, but the only place of note Hüsker Dü had played out
side of Minnesota was Chicago. It was home of the pivotal Wax Trax industrial scene, as well as great bands like Naked Raygun and Strike Under. Punk rock, fashion, and queer culture commingled and informed the vibrant music scene. Chicago was where we caught our first big break. With only our single as a calling card, we convinced a club called Oz to hire us for a two-night stand, March 22–23, 1981.
Grant persuaded a car dealer in South St. Paul to let him “test drive” a vehicle that weekend. I don’t think he told the dealer that it would be one thousand miles of test drive. We got to Chicago and stayed in one of the trashiest motels I can remember, in a derelict area of downtown. There were bullet holes in the sliding doors. We didn’t feel particularly safe. Greg befriended a woman our first night there, and she helped move us into a nicer hotel nearby.
Black Flag, the ruling and notorious kings of Southern California hardcore, had played earlier that evening at COD’s. Our gig at Oz was booked as the after-show party. During the set, I was out of my skull on cheap speed and beer, swinging at the air with a hammer, breaking bottles, and throwing myself into walls. I was trying to upstage anything Black Flag might have done at their show, but turns out I wasn’t the only one contributing. There was a little utility closet behind the drum kit that we used as a dressing room, and after the set, someone threw a bucket of blue paint from behind the stage. The paint bucket exploded on the floor in front of the stage area, and then a woman in a head-to-toe leather suit started scooping up paint with one of Grant’s downed cymbals, intending to pour it over his drum kit—the kit he’d inherited from his beloved late brother Tom. Grant ran out, tackled her into the paint, picked her up off the floor, and started bouncing her off the walls, leaving a series of blue butt prints around the club.