by Bob Mould
One of the by-products of becoming even busier as a DJ was once again becoming a voracious fan of new music. Blowoff kept getting bigger, and I had to listen to so much music to stay current and fresh. And not just dance music—my opening sets at Blowoff included lots of indie rock. I was on the front end of a lot of happening music. So I knew about No Age. I knew about the Engineers, I knew about Justice. When I met these younger musicians, I was able to speak in a current musical language.
At many music festivals, there’s usually a legacy act that shows up and plays the hits but doesn’t know anything about current music. Had it not been for Blowoff, I might have become that guy. Again, this is the irony of people being so dismissive in 2002 around Modulate, saying things like, “Why is he into dance music?” Well, if it wasn’t for that transgression, none of this might have happened: Blowoff, discovering new bands well into my forties, collaborating with great new musicians like No Age.
I couldn’t have planned that. In fact, I couldn’t have planned any of the great things that happened in the last few years: a wonderful new partner, a killer new band, three albums, a DVD, a book deal. The thing is, I stayed curious and active, something a lot of people don’t do later in life, or don’t have the luxury of doing because of life obligations—family, health, work. It’s led me to some brilliant people, unexpected places, and unbelievable situations. It’s been an amazing journey so far.
CHAPTER 28
Micheal and I were now a couple living under one roof, but he was having a tough time with DC. Micheal is a peaceful, spiritual, unconditionally kind, and giving person. But in a type A town like DC, that’s not always the best way to be. He had occasional but dramatic bursts of frustration with living in the nation’s capital.
In some ways I was right there with him. For one thing, I was starting to get tired of the roasting, unbearably humid Washington summers. Also, I’d recorded three albums in three different parts of the house, and the magic was wearing off. The last straw was when a local developer bought one of the adjacent row houses and turned it into condominiums, throwing my once-sunny back deck into shade. I had cooked 90 percent of our meals and entertained many friends on that back deck. The meals stopped shortly after the building was complete. So even though I’d renovated the entire house, I felt like I needed another big change of scenery. It was time to move on. But where to go?
In September 2008 Rich Morel and I held our first Blowoff at Slim’s in San Francisco. During that week-long trip, I was calling Micheal and raving about how great a town it was, all the things to do and see, and all these guys I was meeting from back in the punk rock days. I could tell Micheal was a little upset that he wasn’t with me on that trip, but he was happy for me. When I got home, we started talking about a possible move to San Francisco. Both Jordan Kurland and Frank Riley were based in the Bay Area, so my professional network was there. And now, through Blowoff, I was building a personal network. In my mind I gave myself eighteen months to make the move. This was also five weeks before the 2008 presidential election. Part of me was afraid that the Republicans were going to win again, and of how unbearable the town would be if they did.
Election night, I was sitting in my den with Micheal and a couple of friends. We were watching CNN, and at 10 PM Eastern time, the California polls closed. The projection came in that Obama was going to win California and would therefore win the entire election. We heard this dull roar outside. We looked out and people were coming out of their houses, gathering in the streets, and carrying on. I hit the record button on the DVR and joined the massive celebration. U Street is the middle of everything in DC—the African-American community, the gay community, the liberal community. The street shut down for the whole night as people just went nuts. It seemed like change was upon us.
When the new people arrived by January, all of a sudden there were fewer SUVs and more fixed-gear bikes, younger people wearing fashionable clothes, and professional guys with beards. The race and class tensions that were always bubbling under DC began to recede. But it wasn’t something I’d be sticking around to witness. I’d already made up my mind to leave.
* * *
In August 2008 I finished writing and recording my most recent album, which I titled Life and Times, just before I announced I’d be writing this book. I’d written the title track in July 2007, months before I decided to write my autobiography—yet another case of “write it and it shall be so.” Besides, it was one of my strongest, most emotional album openers ever, right up there with “Circles” and “New #1.”
The title track came about when I was sorting through boxes, mostly of work-related memorabilia, that had sat unopened in the corner of my Tribeca studio space since 1998. After I opened the first box, a haunting and familiar smell rose from the press clippings. I called Micheal into the room and had him take a whiff. We looked at each other in sadness—he had been witness to the collapse of the towers on 9/11.
What the fuck, what kicked up all this dust?
You’re taking me back to the places I left behind
The old—the old life and times.
Sad and delicate, “The Breach” chronicles the end of a relationship. The early voice in the song speaks very quietly and simply about the reason: there was a leak, it got worse, and nobody fixed it. That was a familiar refrain in my life. The song builds, and when it gets to the bridge—when the electric guitar comes in and the second voice comes in—that’s the other person yelling. That person is angry and upset, and then it tempers back down to the very end where there are two voices side by side, both very quiet, as if they’ve come together in peace to say good-bye. It came from a familiar place, where the details are cloudy during the event but the hindsight is 20/20.
“City Lights” and “MM 17” are transitory songs—songs about journeys and moving somewhere new, songs of moving forward, songs of motion and farewell. “Argos” is named after the oldest leather bar in Amsterdam, and the song is about anonymous dark-room sex. “Bad Blood Better” is a lyrical reprise of “Lost Zoloft” from Modulate, another look at same-sex spousal abuse. “Wasted World” is about spending way too much time on the computer obsessing over the darker parts of life. “Spiraling Down” takes it even lower, and then the last two songs try to find some sort of beauty and redemption, try to lift the listener out of the emotional hole.
“I’m Sorry, Baby, But You Can’t Stand in My Light Any More” was all-out ’70s AM gold. The song begins with the signature chorus—sparse acoustic guitar and voice. The verses sound more like bridges: leaning forward with a couple of minor chord elevations as I’m telling and advancing the story. Then, forty-four seconds into the song, the last line of the second verse has this very subtle chord substitution where it barely glances across a major chord, so you’re reminded of where it started. It’s a magical little touch that makes the hair on my backside go up—every time. To me, that song is up there with “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” and “See a Little Light.”
“Lifetime” is built upon warbled synthesizers that evoke Beaster and Copper Blue. The reference to the smell of overheated vacuum tubes (“the scent of burning dust”) and the outright mention of religion are very personal references, going back to my earliest childhood memories. It’s the last song, and it wraps around to the top of the album—dust to dust. Life and Times is very poetic, a complete story, a long journey. I think it’s the strongest record I’ve written in many years.
* * *
That March I played a couple of momentous shows. The first was during Noise Pop in San Francisco, when I sat in for two songs with No Age at the Bottom of the Hill club, joining them for an encore of “New Day Rising” and their song “Miner.” The crowd response was great, and the three of us left the door open for future collaborations. On one level, I was just sitting in on a punk rock gig. But on another, something really important had happened: it was clear that my music was going to last. Dean and Randy from No Age were still in diapers when Zen Arcade came out.
They were two musical generations removed, but they loved my work. To me, that’s a big deal.
Ten days later I was standing center stage at Carnegie Hall for the first time, as part of another benefit for Music for Youth. All those years of practice paid off, I guess. This time the songbook was REM, and I played “Sitting Still” with the crackerjack house band. Much like Karin Berg’s memorial service, this was an emotional gathering of peers and friends from the past three decades of my life. When Kevin and I split, I conceded my friendships with esteemed singer-songwriters Kristin Hersh and Vic Chesnutt, but backstage before the show, the three of us talked for fifteen minutes and caught up a little bit. My performance was quite good; somehow, in my mind, I made up for my spotty performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 1994. The night belonged to Vic though; his version of “Everybody Hurts” was stunningly raw and beautiful, and it is the memory I keep of Vic.
Life and Times, my second album for Anti-, came out on April 7, 2009, which roughly coincided with my thirtieth anniversary of performing onstage—the first Hüsker Dü show was at Ron’s Randolph Inn in St. Paul on March 30, 1979. It was a significant moment, but also mundane in the sense that I was just on the road: As a way to get the album up and running, I was doing a series of acoustic dates. The next three days were filled with collisions, intersections, and reminders.
I had a bit of a health scare, and it fortunately didn’t amount to much. And yet everything around it said so much about my life thus far, the way things and people keep recurring, giving shape, substance, and serendipity to my life. Monday, March 30, I’m in Chicago, which is where I’ve done my best business ever since I started performing. Having played a sold-out show the night before at Old Town School of Folk Music, I showered, ate breakfast, and took a taxi to WXRT, a radio station that has supported me for twenty years. I spoke with station head Norm Winer, then interviewed and played two songs on air. I headed to O’Hare, flew to Minneapolis, my city of musical birth, and picked up my rental car; the radio was tuned to a station playing a progressive house remix of “Tainted Love”—something I never would have listened to in the old days. I had a bad case of cellulitis on my chest, so I called my DC doctor to make an appointment for April 1. I checked into my hotel, then headed to sound check with bassist Jason Narducy, who’d been playing with me since 2005; I’d known Jason since 1990.
It was my thirtieth anniversary show, and the crowd at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis was very appreciative. The stage manager said he was at the very first Hüsker Dü show at Randolph Inn. There were moments, especially during “Brasilia Crossed with Trenton,” when I could almost feel myself back on the farm in Pine City. At one point I was staring at the large disco ball on the ceiling, thinking, This would be a great room for Blowoff. Everything was coming together. During the encore, I said something to the effect of “If I made it this far, they can’t get rid of me now.” After the show, I signed lots of CDs, posed for pictures with fans, and went to dinner with friends.
Here’s the glamorous part: at 3 AM, I went to Hennepin County Medical ER and spent three hours getting pus drained from the infection in my chest. It was funny; after all these years, they still had my old Minneapolis address on file. A brutish yet sexy male assistant was rubbing a sonogram wand over my nipples, which aroused me. The residing doctor had tickets for my show, but wasn’t able to attend. Had I waited any longer, the infection would have made it to my lymphatic system, and I could have died. Then they stuffed a wick in the wound, drew a purple circle fifteen centimeters in diameter around the infection site, and gave me Vicodin and antibiotics.
On three hours’ rest, I made that familiar drive across the bridge to St. Paul to perform on the radio for my friend Mary Lucia at KCMP the Current, then teach a master’s class at McNally Smith College of Music, which is my former mentor Chris Osgood’s music academy. Then an acquaintance invited me to dinner at a sushi restaurant that happened to be right across the street from the former Hüsker Dü office/recording studio at Twenty-Sixth and Nicollet.
I flew home to DC the next morning and went to see my regular doctor. He thought there might still be some gauze stuck in my chest, so he sent me to Sibley Hospital to get cut open once again. They found nothing.
These events back in the Midwest—some were intentional, some accidental, and many were ironic—I realized were all part of a vast constellation of connections I’d built over the course of thirty years. As life goes on, I’m much more aware of how all my experiences have contributed to who I am and what I do, and how those connections lead me from one place to the next.
* * *
Emotionally, I had begun to leave DC, but I hadn’t yet moved to San Francisco so I was floating in a netherworld. I was winding down my DC life, dealing with the sadness that comes with moving on, and yet trying not to put off my DC friends with my enthusiasm about San Francisco. On top of these feelings of dislocation and transition, I was traveling all over the country for Blowoff gigs.
Much like the old connections I’d made in all the cities I’d lived in and toured through for so many years, Blowoff events helped me continue to build a network of new friends around the country. The difference was, instead of sleeping on floors and stealing food, we were the toast of many towns. The Blowoff shows were a total blast. We were the main event of several major gatherings: International Mr. Leather/Bear Pride weekend in Chicago, Capital Pride in DC, Heritage of Pride in New York, and a phenomenal July evening in Provincetown as part of Bear Week. These are the gay community’s equivalent of the biggest rock festivals—and even more fun.
Then it was time. I put the DC house on the market in July and soon began renting a bedroom in Noe Valley, a quiet neighborhood just south of the Castro in San Francisco. And in September I once again hit the road with Blowoff, with a rock tour just around the corner.
* * *
In September 2009 I played a full set with No Age at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Monticello, New York. We alternated between Hüsker Dü songs and their punkier material; Bradford Cox from Deerhunter came up and sang the Heartbreakers’ “Chinese Rocks” with us for the encore. Revisiting my old songs with these guys was a great time, and the set was very well received. Later that evening I found myself DJing a crazy five-hour house party for music website Pitchfork, complete with drunk gals on chairs behind me waving their bras in the air as indie rock musicians wandered into the spectacle with looks of disbelief at seeing me DJ this throw-down. Not only was it great fun, but when Pitchfork kingpin Ryan Schreiber gave my playlist an enthusiastic two thumbs-up, it once again validated the point that, way back in 2001, I’d been on to something with the melding of electronica and indie rock.
A few days after ATP, an anxious buyer for the DC house appeared, wanting to close in three weeks, which was way sooner than I anticipated. So in the last three weeks of September, I did four Blowoff parties across the states, a press tour, and Micheal and I packed a four-story house into storage. The sale was final on October 2, but the madness wasn’t over. Two days later I flew to Toronto, and after one day of rehearsal, the band and I started a North American tour.
Rich Morel wasn’t available, so Jason Narducy, Jon Wurster, and I toured as a three-piece. The shows went great. Attendance was a bit down, but I think that was indicative of all touring business in the fall of 2009. I’d turned in a great record and had a great band, so I’d done my part of the job.
The tour was a whirlwind, covering most of North America in fifteen days. Because of the quick sale of the house, I barely had time to say good-bye to all my friends in DC, the town where I’d learned so much about myself, and also where I’d found my new gang.
The 9:30 Club show on October 10 was my impromptu farewell. During the set I conjured up a few minutes’ worth of words to the audience. Later that night, while hosting a packed edition of Blowoff in the same room, I was able to personalize those words to my closest friends while on the dance floor.
After a few more da
ys of good-byes, Micheal and I flew to Seattle to meet up with Jason and Jon. Now that we were on the West Coast—the home stretch—I thought I could relax and let my hair down a little, but real life caused yet another wrinkle in my best-laid plans. October 16, my forty-ninth birthday, we were driving southbound on I-5 just outside Olympia, Washington, when Jason’s cell phone rang. It was his wife, Emily: her water had broken and she was about to give birth two weeks early. That night, in Portland, Oregon, we opened for our support act Spiral Stairs so Jason could go right from the stage to an overnight nonstop flight to Chicago. He made it home one hour before his wife gave birth to a beautiful bouncing girl named Eva. One crisis averted.
Next crisis: I still had three more shows in California. Former Posies guitarist Jon Auer was playing bass for Spiral Stairs. Jon was very familiar with my songbook, and he rehearsed for two days with his laptop and bass, then stepped in for the final two shows in Los Angeles and San Diego. Given the circumstances, he did a great job.
But before those two gigs, there was my first “hometown show” as a San Franciscan. I reached out to Sugar bassist David Barbe, and he flew into town the morning of the show. I picked David and Jon up at their hotel, and the second David put his bass in the car before we drove across the bridge to Treasure Island, it was like old times. I always knew David was accountable. He’s always on it. David is a worker like me.
We ran through the set on unplugged electric guitars in our windy outdoor dressing room tent, then hit the stage and tore through half a set of Sugar songs followed by half a set of Hüsker Dü songs. It was nice to look over and see David having a good time, and it was also great to look back at Jon with that big grin on his face. It seemed natural. It sounded great. It felt right.