by Bob Mould
For the remainder of the year, the band stayed in the Midwest, and in the fall of 1982, we signed a recording contract with SST Records, becoming their first non–West Coast artist. Due partially to our naiveté about recording contracts, our friendship with Greg Ginn, and our general awe of the SST scene, we signed without fully understanding the ramifications of certain passages. We were excited to work with SST and had no reason to doubt they were dealing with us in anything but an upstanding manner—and anyway, we were soon out on the road again, both in preparation to support Everything Falls Apart in December and to record twelve songs with Spot at Total Access for what would become the seven-song Metal Circus EP.
We headed through Texas for more shows, including a fine Christmas dinner at an all-you-can-eat Mexican restaurant called Poncho’s. We had an affinity for buffets—if you lined the pockets of your coat with wax paper or plastic bags ahead of time, you could take extra food for later in the day. Also, if you walked to the exit, where the cashier was stationed, there was always the chance that a simple request like “Where’s the bathroom?” or “Where’s the cigarette machine?” might get you to the other side of the turnstile, thereby avoiding paying for the meal.
I had a romantic interlude in the last six months of 1982. It was a big deal for me, being one of the first times I’d had strong feelings for another guy and openly pursued him. After the show in Dallas, the band had gone back to Fort Worth to stay at Brad Stiles’s parents’ house. That evening I had a sexual encounter with Brad, the singer of the Hugh Beaumont Experience. We tore into each other like animals.
After we got back to the Twin Cities in August, I took a Greyhound bus back down to Fort Worth to see Brad and King and spent several days with King in his father’s unfinished two-room house on the outskirts of town. Various friends would come by and drive us into Fort Worth so that I could get drunk and crazy with Brad. This went on for many days. I took the bus back to Minnesota, hoping that something might come of this budding relationship. But when it came to parsing the intersection of heart and flesh, Brad was a wise seventeen and I was a stupid and naive twenty-two. He was very young, I was very busy, and there were a thousand miles between us. By the time I returned to Texas months later, Brad had moved on to another warm body, and I was politely rebuffed. I was confused for days, but I moved on. The band was always moving, leaning forward, and as hard as it was, there wasn’t time to stop.
The Crystal Pistol in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was always an interesting club to play. We were friends with a local punk band called NOTA (None of the Above), and we played three times with them at the Pistol. The first time, I saw an Oklahoma cowboy ride his horse onto the dance floor. The third time we played there, a young mohawk punk was getting roughed up by a redneck. I intervened, he thanked me after the show with a curiously long handshake, and we ended up spending a drunken night together in a semiprivate bedroom of the NOTA house. That’s one way to get over the confusion.
Running parallel to this tomfoolery was the January 1983 release of Everything Falls Apart. The album cover featured band-generated Rorschach test inkblots, one for each of the twelve songs. My title track showcased a nifty series of chord progressions that foreshadowed the songwriting depth to come—I say that looking back now. “Punch Drunk” was a commentary on the sometimes mindless violence I saw from the stage, complete with this curious line: “Take a look right in the mirror /What are you, a fucking queer?” Who, me? “Target” and “Obnoxious” were aimed squarely at the artsy crowd who were beginning to thumb their noses at the punk bands. “Signals from Above” was a quick diatribe about the bygone expiration date of the hippie movement. Looking back, those words I wrote are filled with irony—not just “fucking queer,” but I would also eventually embark on a hippie-esque musical journey.
Album or not, I led a minimalist existence: I had a sleeping bag, a duffel bag of clothes, a guitar, an amp, and not much else. I put my stuff in the van and I went on the road. All my other belongings were in a wooden crate in someone’s basement. It was a very spartan life, and it’s not for everyone, but there were a lot of people who chose to live this way.
Across North America, hardcore kids, old-school punks, some metalheads, skateboarders, and surfers were going to hardcore shows. The skateboarding magazine Thrasher was a big part of building the scene; they wrote about various cities, not just places to skate, but also places to see bands that had an affinity with the skate community.
Indie rock culture wasn’t invented on the internet, or in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I went to the record stores and I watched other people browsing through records. Nothing is more telling than when someone pulls that one-square-foot piece of cardboard out of a bin filled with hundreds of similar pieces of cardboard. You’re definitely going to look at what he’s chosen. You see him pull out the Pat Benatar record, so you blow right by that person. But if he pulls 20 Jazz Funk Greats by Throbbing Gristle, you perk up and take interest in what he might pull next. We’d do this dance around the record store with each other, and that was one way to find like-minded people. We don’t do that dance now. Now you read someone’s blog or use a search engine or do social networking.
Most people are passive consumers, the ones who hear something all over the radio and then buy the record or see the band at Madison Square Garden. Then there’s the questioning, investigative type of person, the type who seeks out the new music—and that was us. There was a subculture that was making up its own rules, codes, and signifiers, regionally. We developed an eye for it when we visited other towns. You learn how to spot it, just like in the gay community where a business might put a rainbow flag on the door. You learn the different signifiers. You could ask somebody where the record store is, and if they told you Sam Goody, they didn’t know. But if they said, “Oh, Skull and Bones is out in the abandoned strip mall,” you knew it was the right kind of store. On tour, even visiting places you’ve never been before, you could figure out where to go within an hour. It was the people in those towns.
Those people were nonconformists, freethinkers—the kids who were probably ostracized in high school for reading poetry, for listening to different kinds of music, for being artistic. A lot of them came from broken homes, looking for a surrogate family. This was our fan base, the people who launched us; they were dissatisfied on virtually all fronts and they were looking beyond the normal forms of entertainment. That stuff was exclusive in that it was invisible unless you knew how to find it. Finding the music meant finding like-minded people. Then networks got built, bands got put up, notebooks got shared. Infrastructure and community. Hüsker Dü benefited from all that, and we also contributed to it. We gathered information and knowledge and gladly shared it with people who would take good care of it. It’s not the kind of information we would share with the cover bands at the local bowling alley, the bands that weren’t doing anything new, copying other people’s work. But the bands that came through with original ideas, it was for them. Sure, there was filtering and exclusivity in it. But it wasn’t meant to be for everybody.
The Replacements didn’t seem to be too concerned with that network. At the time, they were also coming to prominence in the Twin Cities. They had Peter Jesperson watching over them, the manager who signed them to Twin/Tone after one show and took care of them (until he could no longer do so). Hüsker Dü, we were out scrapping and keeping it real, as the kids say these days. The Replacements were modeled on the traditional rock and roll motif, and the two bands were quite different in that sense.
Regardless, we were all cordial with each other. Singer-guitarist Paul Westerberg spent a lot of time at Peter Jesperson’s apartment, and on occasion I joined in for long nights of drinking and drugging while Peter played what he considered to be seminal rock and roll records for the two of us and any other folks who might be around.
There was a healthy rivalry between Hüsker Dü and the Replacements. There was friendship too, like when Paul and I did some utterly forgettable demos on a four-track reel-to-reel
recorder up in the attic of the Target house. They were stolen out of my van, along with a guitar amp. Don’t worry, the stuff wasn’t very good.
One day, Paul, Replacements drummer Chris Mars, and I were hanging out, killing a case of cheap local brew—most likely Grain Belt. We were fucking around with Dick Madden’s IBM computer, which would make blips when you hit a key. That got old so we started listening to some of my jukebox singles. I can’t remember which song it was, but I played one and Paul just lit up and said, “I love this song!” and asked if he could borrow the single. I said, “Sure, take it. Just be careful with it, and don’t lose it.” So he and Chris got on Chris’s motorcycle, having had more than enough to drink, and headed back over to South Minneapolis. Chris was driving, and Paul was on the back holding the single. Something happened and a police car flagged them down. Paul must have egged on Chris to run the light, and they both ended up getting cuffed and taken downtown for processing. (The Replacements’ song “Run It” tells the story better than I can.) But Paul was still clutching the single. He said he never let it go.
It was always nice to hang out with our fellow Twin Cities bands, great folks like Man Sized Action, Rifle Sport, Loud Fast Rules (later to find greater fame and fortune as Soul Asylum), and so many others. We had a lot of pride in our hometown scene and we bonded strongly. But in April of 1983, it was time to get in the van once again and make our first pilgrimage to the East Coast. All our connections were in the West Coast, Southwest, and Midwest; we didn’t have much of an East Coast notebook. But we were finally getting our chance, our moment. We’d be playing for new audiences, especially in New York City, home of all the bands I grew up listening to and admiring, from Johnny Thunders to the Ramones.
CHAPTER 6
We started the spring tour in the Midwest, with our four-year anniversary gig at First Avenue in Minneapolis. First Avenue was originally a bus depot in downtown Minneapolis. It became a nightclub in 1970, and 7th Street Entry was the coat check before becoming its own 300-capacity music room. First Avenue had been a cornerstone of the Midwest rock scene for years, and to play the 1,200-capacity main room was the goal of many a Midwest musician.
In Chicago we played the Cubby Bear Lounge, right by Wrigley Field; we stayed at a punk house nearby known as Big Blue—you would see it during Cubs games, a blue four-story house out past left field. That was the show where I noticed a skinny, geeky kid staring at me the whole time, watching everything I was doing. Turned out his name was Steve Albini. He was usually at those early Chicago shows, asking lots of questions after the set. He was a pleasant guy back then.
Our Chicago posse expanded to include the band Articles of Faith; lead singer Vic Bondi was a very astute individual, intense and learned, and he brought that same relentless focus that Rollins and Dukowski had. Vic was a force, always ready to make a statement, defend his position, yet he was able to listen to the opposition and parse their words for some shared belief. In the coming years I produced a couple of Articles of Faith albums.
Technically moving east, we then played at the Jockey Club in Newport, Kentucky. Squirrel Bait opened, an unbelievable band, tight, melodic, and energetic. It was an encouraging sign to see that bands like this could develop in places like Kentucky. And onward to Philadelphia, where we played the first of many shows to come at the West Side Club, which was an old row house. The show was a glorified keg party, but we made good money. It was a regular stop for many of the punk and hardcore bands, and every time we played there, we drew a bigger crowd—eventually to the point where we had to start beaming closed-circuit TV to the rest of the house. Jon Wurster, who went on to play drums in Superchunk, as well as my own band, was at those shows. After Philadelphia, it was time for our New York City debut.
It was April 17, 1983, a matinee show at a small hardcore dive called Great Gildersleeves—just around the corner from CBGB. A New York band called the Young and the Useless opened, then the Replacements, and Hüsker Dü headlined. Young and the Useless demanded, and got, one hundred bucks; the promoter said the Replacements were lucky to be on the bill and didn’t pay them anything.
I’d been thinking and dreaming about New York City since I was a kid in Malone, poring through Rock Scene. Now, here I was, surrounded by the concrete and brick walls and leather jackets, the dirt and the grime and the violence. New York’s music scene had left an impression on me, and now I wanted to leave an impression on it. Some people carve their initials in a tree or draw a name and date in fresh cement. All I had was my voice, my guitar, and a late afternoon audience in a quasi–biker bar on the Bowery.
All in all, it was a fine show. But all the pent-up tension came to a head at the end of the set. That’s when I went off. Pulling my hands away from the guitar, letting the feedback build into a shrill wail, I pressed my head between my hands like in Edvard Munch’s The Scream and let out an ungodly howl.
We played another show later that evening at City Gardens in Trenton, New Jersey, and I realized that my catharsis didn’t debilitate me, or get me sent home for counseling—we’d carried on to the next place and turned in another solid show.
One of the bartenders at City Gardens was a funny guy named Jon Leibowitz. With that job, he must have seen a lot of cool shows. He eventually changed his name to Jon Stewart and got himself a TV show. And now he has a good theme song and I have a nice house. But more about that later. In fact, a lot of interesting people came out of that whole scene. Back in Minneapolis there was Lizz Winstead, who went on to become one of the creators of The Daily Show and was just starting her career; Tom Arnold, who was eating goldfish onstage between sets at 7th Street Entry; and Jesse Ventura, ranting and raving on TV during Sunday morning wrestling well before he became the governor of Minnesota.
We were quickly discovering that the East Coast had a unique mentality that might be summed up best in two words: college rock. A lot of it came down to the clustering of high-quality schools in the Northeast, particularly in the Boston area, where the tour took us next. There were many more college radio stations in the Northeast than in the Midwest, and they gave rise to the likes of the Bongos, Violent Femmes, and the dB’s, bands who had a more accessible, more melodic sound than hardcore.
REM was another of those bands, and they were really starting to conquer the Northeast. They made pilgrimages from their home base of Athens, Georgia, all the way up the Eastern Seaboard to Boston. They came to Minneapolis as well. So many people that we knew were cutting their teeth in the underground music scene, particularly in the Boston area. Julie Panebianco was writing for the fanzine Matter. “The Mystery Girls”—Sheena and Spencer Gates—had an awesome radio show on WMBR in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lou Giordano was an engineer at Radiobeat, a small recording studio. Gerard Cosloy was doing his fanzine Conflict.
After playing Boston we continued down to Washington, DC, where we debuted at the venerable 9:30 Club. The club was famous for many things: it was in the shadow of Ford’s Theatre, it was surrounded by the largest rats I had ever seen in my life, and the music room, when packed to its 300 capacity, would turn into a gigantic sauna. I remember one show when it became so hot onstage I thought I would pass out. In a feeble attempt to cool myself, I reached up to run my hand across a large pipe that ran above the stage. I had seen the condensation on the pipe and mistakenly thought it might have been cold water. Instead it was condensed human sweat—not quite as tasty as the pizza that the club was famous for serving to bands after their sets. Seth Hurwitz booked the club, and he and I have good personal and business relationships to this day.
The underground music scene was small enough then that a band like Hüsker Dü could become friends with a guy like Rick Rubin. At the time, Rick was living in an NYU dormitory, playing in his band Hose, and running a new label called Def Jam. Rick was very kind to Hüsker Dü, even bringing us out to stay for a few nights at his mom’s house in Lido Beach, Long Island. A few months later, Hose supported Hüsker Dü on a couple shows in Wisconsi
n. Later in 1984, Rick played me some demos of a rap act he was keen on; I remember him saying that this guy was going to be big, but I had my doubts. “I dunno, Rick,” I said, “I’m not really hearing it.” The track he played me was “I Need a Beat” by LL Cool J. So much for me recognizing one of the other main directions of the future of music.
* * *
April 25, 1983, was a big night in my personal life. That’s when I met my first boyfriend. Hüsker Dü played Benny’s, a typical college/punk rock joint a few blocks from the Virginia Commonwealth University campus in Richmond. After the show these guys came up to us and said, “We’re going to have a party at our recording studio, come on down and record a few songs.” We were pretty drunk by this point and had no place to stay, so we went and recorded a few instrumental tracks. It wasn’t exclusively a punk rock party, but a mix of punks and new wavers, more of an art/college kind of crowd, which may have been an indication of things to come.
After recording, I was having a beer when I made eye contact with this really cute guy. He was five foot nine, 155 pounds, and had shocking red hair and a boyish smile. We sized each other up and smiled. But I had no gay social skills, and I was trying to figure a way to break the ice. He left the room to take a piss, and when he returned, I noticed his zipper was down. I took my umbrella, pointed to his crotch, and said, “Your pants are unzipped.” He looked up and smiled, feigning embarrassment. That’s how I met my first partner, Mike Covington. Mike was a real sweetheart, and studied art at VCU. He also played drums in a local art-rock band. He had a boyfriend at the time, an older guy, but was unhappy in that relationship. We spent the night at his place and stayed up until sunrise.
The next morning Grant and Greg picked me up. Greg made some wiseacre comment that I shrugged off with a “Whatever, I’m tired.” Then I slept all the way to New York City.