by Bob Mould
In the summer of 2004, Brendan Canty and I started playing music together. Brendan is a gifted musician, a great drummer, and a good people person. We got together with veteran engineer Don Zientara at Inner Ear Studio in Arlington, Virginia, and recorded some improvisational pieces, mainly to see if there was any chemistry. It went well, and we made plans to reconvene a few months later to record drum tracks for Body of Song.
In October I participated in a number of events that highlighted the changes I was going through. Back in April, I was asked by NYC gay impresario Josh Wood to play a few songs at a same-sex marriage benefit concert called WedRock, so I hastily wrote a gay wedding song specifically for that show. We reprised the event in DC on October 5, using a mix of local and national talent, including our illustrious and magnanimous MC, Henry Rollins (who was the subject of a cover story by local gay pub Metro Weekly), Sandra Bernhard, and DC councilperson David Catania, who was spearheading the movement to legalize same-sex marriage in DC. For this show I was accompanied onstage by Brendan Canty and bassist Brandon Butler; we closed the show with electric trio versions of “See a Little Light” and “Makes No Sense at All.” I was on pins and needles the entire day and night, but it wasn’t because this was my first time onstage with a power trio since my “retirement” gig in Brussels in 1998; rather, it was because I had invited my gym buddy Will to be my date. He wasn’t sure he could make it, and even when he did, I was still pinching myself.
Then I got a call from Soul Asylum’s management, requesting my presence at an event titled Rock for Karl, a fund-raiser for bassist Karl Mueller, who was fighting cancer. The show was to be held on October 21 at Quest, a large downtown Minneapolis music venue. Given my long history with Soul Asylum, I quickly said yes, and was confirmed to play a forty-five-minute solo set on a bill with Soul Asylum, Paul Westerberg, Golden Smog, and the Gear Daddies.
The day of the show, my cell phone rang. It was Grant Hart. He had called Josh Grier, who gave him my number. He asked if he could come down to the show, and if it might be OK if we played a song together. I thought for a second…
Here’s the core of why I didn’t deal with Grant or Greg anymore, here’s the core of why I let it go and moved on: After I quit the band, I’d always avoided saying anything derogatory about Hüsker Dü. I was content to “let the music do the talking.” I focused on my work and my life. I tried to avoid talking about the past—the good and the bad parts. I hoped the other two would extend that same professional courtesy, but it wasn’t to be. I was already on the outs with Grant and Greg when they hired their lawyer Doug Myren in 1993. And once the three of them redid the books, because of the money Grant and I took for producing the last three Hüsker Dü albums, it made sense they would line up against me publicly as well.
According to the other guys, I wasn’t in charge of Hüsker Dü, and yet somehow I was solely to blame for the failings of the band. How can it be both ways? And I’d tried to forgive Grant for his continual bitching about me in the press, but I couldn’t. It was easier to forget all that nonsense and just move forward with my work and my life. Perhaps Grant’s bitterness toward me stemmed from the fact that people felt—wrongly—that his heroin problem was the only reason for the end of Hüsker Dü. Perhaps that led him to paint me with the ugly brush. I simply kept on.
In 1996 Grant had visited me at a First Avenue show, and I had confronted him about the unflattering and often misleading comments he had made about me since 1988. His response was, “Well… you know the press, they always exaggerate the things I say. There’s a lot of misquoting going on out there.”
… I didn’t buy that for one second. But given the reason for the Rock for Karl event, I was able to overlook this bullshit one time, and one time only. I decided to say yes. I put all the nonsense of the past sixteen years behind me and “took one for the team.”
I suggested if we were going to play a song, we might as well do two, one from each of our catalogs. We decided on “Hardly Getting Over It” and “Never Talking to You Again,” agreed not to tell anyone that we were doing this, and planned to meet at the venue.
During my sound check, I asked the stage manager to prepare another setup onstage: a direct box for plugging an acoustic guitar into the sound board, a vocal mic, and a pair of floor monitors. Grant did not come for sound check, as that would have tipped off the production crew and word would have spread quickly. I didn’t want this moment to upstage the reason I came, which was to support the cause, play my set, and see old friends, including Karl. But there was no way it wouldn’t cause a total commotion.
When Grant arrived at the venue, we were cool yet cordial with each other. I welcomed him into my modest dressing room, and as a way of breaking the ice, asked him about his experiences playing in Patti Smith’s band. Grant immediately started burying people in their camp, claiming he was made a scapegoat of interband politics. Then he started in on Paul Westerberg. Next was a negative rant about Greg Ginn and SST (who at this point deserved it for not fully paying mechanical royalties). Not fifteen minutes had passed, and he was already in fine form. Despite this jabbering, we had two songs to play. We spent less than five minutes touching on each of the songs, which were both quite simple, then I excused myself and went into catering to say hello to my old Minnesota musician friends.
Most everyone was happy to see me, but also looking at me, as if to say, Why is Grant in your dressing room? In fact, why is he here at all? It did make me wonder for a moment: Why wasn’t he invited on his own? I let go of that thought, but even still, I could sense people were a little disconcerted by his presence. Maybe it was simply the fact that people knew we were not the best of friends.
A few minutes before my set started, I told Grant when to come out onstage and that his setup would be ready—all he would have to do is walk out with his guitar and plug in. He told me what he wanted in his monitor mix, and I relayed the last-minute details to the stage manager.
I went out and played a very passionate forty minutes, and then it was time. I let people know there was a special guest coming out to join me for a few songs. At that point I turned and looked to the back, and Grant appeared with his acoustic guitar. A hush fell over the crowd, then murmurs of disbelief, then a huge round of applause. We had managed to surprise the audience.
Then it struck me: Did I just give this guy an open mic on my stage? Sure enough, Grant ambled over to his mic and blurted out something, but no one understood what he said. Then, thankfully, we went straight into “Never Talking to You Again,” then an abbreviated version of “Hardly Getting Over It.” There was no magic, there wasn’t even any nostalgia. But there wasn’t any hatred either. I felt nothing special as the songs went by. After the second song, Grant left the stage and I turned to watch him leave, similar to how I turned to watch him arrive.
After my set I packed up my gear, planning to stay the entire evening and socialize. I wandered around the backstage talking with folks, including having my last (brief) conversation with Karl, who appeared to be having a wonderful time, health battle notwithstanding. After a few minutes, I went back to my dressing room to find one wall covered with chunky, reddish puke. I was repulsed and decided I would simply leave for the evening. Grant came running up, offering to carry my bags to my rental car parked a half block away. I politely declined his offer, but he still tagged along, asking if I wanted to go get something to eat with him. I again politely declined. I had had enough for one night, my work was done, and I was planning to stop into a downtown gay bar for a nightcap. I didn’t want his company any longer.
When I turned down Grant’s dinner invite, I walked away knowing that if there was ever a question as to the remote possibility of Hüsker Dü reuniting, those few hours reminded me that I couldn’t go back. It hadn’t been a bad experience, but compared to all the new and exciting things happening in my life, socializing and playing music with Grant Hart wasn’t on my “to do again” list.
My feelings about Grant were b
orne out the following year when we both participated in a Magnet magazine cover story, an oral history of the Minneapolis music scene—specifically, of Hüsker Dü and the Replacements. My favorite quote in the piece came from Grant: “Sorry about your dead friend David Savoy, Bob, but you’re still a fucking prick.” I doubt this was a misquote. And people still wonder why there will never be a Hüsker Dü reunion.
Beyond my personal reasons for not looking back, a Hüsker Dü reunion would surely tarnish the history of the band. It’s the rare occasion when a reunion tour is close or equal to what a band looked, sounded, and felt like “back in the day.” Mission of Burma comes to mind as a rare exception—there was no public acrimony when they first dissolved, and their current enthusiasm is clearly genuine. I’ve left Hüsker Dü in the past. I’m not interested in diminishing whatever legacy exists just so people can say, “I saw Hüsker Dü.” If you have an original ticket stub dated 1979–87, you saw Hüsker Dü. If not, you missed out.
* * *
Plenty of more pleasant experiences were happening all the time, like Andrew Sullivan and up-and-coming NYC blogger Joe Jervis accepting my invitation to read at an event called Blogjam in DC. Another notable blogger buddy of mine, Stephen Cox, closed the show with some outrageous tales from his popular blog GeekSlut. Stephen is a gay man who has been through the wringer and back, and I learned quite a bit about gay life from him.
A month later, while on tour in Pittsburgh, I spent time with the fellow I’d hooked up with in Palm Springs during that horrific 2003 holiday trip with Kevin. The next night, I went for coffee with my Midwest former blog buddy (and his ex), as well as a friend from my Factory Café days, Micheal Brodbeck. After the show that evening, I was sitting on the edge of the stage, selling and signing merch as I normally do. Two younger guys got their CDs signed, and as I was on to the next person, one of them turned to his buddy and made a “I want to give Bob a blow job” motion. As usual, when something like that happens in front of my face, I’m the last one to notice. Then I was off to Ann Arbor, where I spent quality time with a strapping Irish guy. Things were good.
By the end of 2004, I was enjoying being single so much I had no intention of ever going back to a relationship. I was making up for lost time, and having the time of my life.
CHAPTER 26
The previous year sure had been fun on a personal level, but I had a career to attend to. I was excited about the album I had in the works, but the question was, how would I share it with people? I had no label deal, and three years after Modulate, my audience (and the industry) were skittish about my recorded work.
Josh Grier knew some folks at Yep Roc, a well-known independent label in North Carolina, and I met with label chief Glenn Dicker in DC in early 2005. I played him the tracks in progress and he was very excited at the prospect of having me at Yep Roc. I didn’t have management at the time, but Yep Roc was willing to pay good money for a record and really get behind it and support it.
I soon signed a deal and promised Yep Roc I would tour and do as much press as they could bring to me. With that in mind, I hired Sharon Agnello, who represented Jay Farrar, to run the office. Sharon and I worked well together, and Yep Roc was also pleased with the arrangement.
I finished off Body of Song over the next few months. Brendan Canty played along to my home recordings, and the results were great. I took the highlights of the 2002 Athens sessions with David Barbe and Matt Hammon, merged them with the songs I’d recorded with Brendan, and finished up the tracking with engineer Frank Marchand. I mixed the record at home in April 2005 for a July release.
I was productive and having a great time in life. I was single, more sexually active than I’d ever been. I had my work back on track, and there were a lot of things going on. There were a lot of good times, but I still felt a little aimless. One of my go-to friends was music journalist and author Steve Gdula. One day in March, Steve said to me, “Bob, have you ever thought about going to church?”
I said, “No, but why do you ask?”
He said, and I paraphrase, “I go to Catholic Mass at St. Matthew’s every week. I really enjoy the quiet time away from everything gay and everything to do with my family and work. It’s a nice place. I just go and reflect on things, and it works for me.”
I thought a lot of Steve and our friendship, and he’d had some good advice for me in the past. I thought for a moment, then said, “Sure, Steve, I’ll go with you this weekend.”
It was a late-afternoon Mass on Saturday, and St. Matthew’s is one of the biggest Catholic churches in DC—it’s where the religious dignitaries come to speak, and also where JFK lay in state. I walked in, went up the stairs, dipped my hand into the water, and motioned the sign of the cross. We went in, found Steve’s usual pew, knelt in the aisle before entering, and I again crossed myself. We lowered the altar bench, and for the first time in thirty years, I knelt in front of God. I hadn’t been to church since confirmation.
There were maybe 150 people in a cathedral that holds at least 1,200. The cantor, an angelic blonde woman with a very beautiful, soft-spoken voice, makes the opening announcements. “Welcome to St. Matthew’s, Father Caulfield will be presiding today, and the opening hymn can be found on page five sixty-three.” We all rise and start singing. Down the aisle comes Father Caulfield, thirty-something, handsome, tall, inspirational—the kind of person who believes so hard that, when he looked up to the top of the cathedral, I feared he would shoot right through the roof. He’s that close to God, speaking in measured words, and we people begin singing again.
The routine comes back to me, the whole drill; it didn’t change one bit. It’s not like they start with the sermon and then put a Sun Ra song in the middle—everything stays exactly the same. The set list doesn’t change. I’m up, I’m down, I’m kneeling, I’m standing, I’m singing, I’m praying. The service lasted an hour.
Mass was a leveling and humbling experience that gave me a different perspective on life. There was music, there was reading, there was community. There was the moment in the service when you greet your neighbor, someone you’ve probably never seen before in your life and may never see again outside of the church. Everyone is united around one thing—the religious experience. It brings many different kinds of people together into one room, which is the opposite of living in the gay ghetto.
On the way out, I spotted this frail, white-haired woman in her seventies, dressed in black, very well kempt. She was wandering around the periphery of the service, then stood outside afterward. Turned out she was homeless and slept on the steps of the church. Steve and I continued down the steps to the sidewalk, where we encountered a handful of homeless African-American men begging for money. Steve knew them by first name, gave them money, and asked how they were doing. The whole experience resonated within me.
I didn’t walk out of Mass thinking, hallelujah, Jesus, I’ve seen the light. Over the next few weeks, I mentioned my experience to friends, some of whom were dismissive. But I knew this required a deeper look. I opened myself up and tried to find—through Scripture, song, and community—a different perspective for myself, even if just for that one hour.
The Catholic Church forbids homosexuality, which was a major conflict for me. I was a sexually active single gay man, and returning to services wasn’t going to make me a chaste heterosexual. I realized I was going to be a “cafeteria Catholic,” picking and choosing the parts that worked for me. Instead of rebelling against or wholesale dismissing the Church, I tried to find the goodness in what the Church had to offer. And I tried to find a point of compassion in the experience that I could build from. I was always a driven person, but I’d not been the most compassionate person on earth.
For the next few years, even while on the road, I went to church every week. One Saturday afternoon in DC, I walked down Seventeenth Street to Mass and found Rhode Island Avenue blocked by a cavalcade of Secret Service vehicles. Several well-dressed men were on the steps of the church, whispering discreetly i
nto the wireless microphones in the lapels of their crisp, dark suits. The reason for the heavy security became clear when the minister’s greeting included a formal introduction of our special attendee—George W. Bush. He stayed through Communion, then he and his security detail hustled it out the side door.
I didn’t anticipate going back to church, but the rest of it—being comfortable as a single gay man, having a new career with Blowoff, and finding the bears—makes sense when you look at my life. Now I find myself on a new road thanks to all the social, spiritual, and musical changes. It is a new beginning.
This ties around to my notion that the Church and rock music are very similar. There’s a ritual in going to Mass and there’s the ritual of going to see music or to dance at Blowoff. In reality, the stage was always the pulpit. That’s what we do as musicians. We reach out and try to find or build community, and to foster a sense of belonging. When people come together and create a shared experience from a place of goodness, it can be really uplifting. Everyone can elevate together and build something that means a lot to them.
Hüsker Dü, that was preaching—going door to door selling the good word (or seven-inch singles). I was going from stage to stage, telling people, “This is who I am, these are the stories I tell, and this is what I believe in.” People can dismiss it and say those stories aren’t for them; some people only partly endorse it. Some people believe and spread the word to others. And then there’s the people who live and die for all the stories; they believe every word you say, they apply those stories to their lives and build their values and the way they live from them.
We all live and die for the stories and the sounds. Sometimes we find them, other times they just happen upon us. We don’t always get a choice.