HARDCORE WEDNESDAY; HUSKER DU's METAL CIRCUS

SST Records turned out some of the most enduring and meaningful, not mention influential albums of the 1980s and early 90s. One of those bands, who started life as a hardcore band, but would go on to probably be a much bigger influence on 90s college/alternative rock, was Husker Du from Minneapolis. Husker Du was a power trio featuring a guitarist/singer and a drummer/singer who both had very distinct song writing styles that gave later albums a perfect balance between pop melodicism and musical hardcore. Bob Mould, the guitarist, would go on to form the college rock band Sugar, not to mention a distinguished solo career and drummer Grant Hart would work as a solo artist first, before forming the group Nova Mob, and later return to recording under his own name. Bassist/vocalist Greg Norton had far fewer writing credits with the band, but his contributions as a bass player are irreplaceable. The man was a great player whether we're talking the frantic early hardcore albums or the later melodic albums. He's often overshadowed by Mould and Hart, but Husker Du worked because of what the three men individually brought to the table.

In 1983, the band released an EP that would be an important turning point in their style. In a way, Metal Circus is abit like the Husker's Damaged, in that the A side is rooted in that propulsive hardcore of Everything Falls Apart, but points the melodic future of albums like New Day Rising and Flip Your Wig on the B side. It was certainly a strong warm up for the next album, the double LP Zen Arcade, which is certainly an all time top ten album, at least for me.

I was already obsessed with Black Flag and on the look out for any album with the SST logo. Metal Circus wound up being my first Huskers album. I found a copy on vinyl and, having already been familiar with Sugar, was very surprised that this sounded nothing like that. Mould is raging on the opening tracks, "Real World" and "Deadly Skies," before Hart injects a bit of pop in there with "It's Not Funny Anymore." I don't know how this played with fans in '83, but when I heard it around '94 it sounded like what everyone was ripping off at the time. Nirvana was a revelation for my generation, then we all went out and discovered the Huskers, Pixies, Meat Puppets, and the Minutemen and said "ah ha!" At any rate, Robert Christgau, at the Village Voice, gave the album a well deserved A, but he loses credibility with me for calling side B of My War a waste of time.

Side B of Metal Circus opens with Mould's "Lifeline," which gives no quarter in pace or aggression, then comes the biggest song on the album, "Diane," which has been covered by a few other bands, including Coffin Break, Therapy?, and Superdrag. It's a pulsing, mid-tempo Hart song about the tragic and horrific, real life rape and murder of St Paul waitress, Diane Edwards. The song has a bit of a SST era Sonic Youth feel to it, at least that's what I think of when I hear, but those albums were a couple years away at this point. That year, Sonic Youth released their debut album, Confusion is Sex and then would go on to release much better albums from then on. The album closer, "Out on a Limb," is probably the most SST sounding track on the album, less straight forward, slower, but with a frenetic jazz/metal guitar that sounds like Mould trying to dual with Greg Ginn. The song doesn't really go anywhere, but it's a good enough closer for an album that clocks in at less than 19 minutes.

Husker Du broke up after their second major label album, Warehouse; Songs and Stories, which I've never really been into. I thought their previous album, Candy Apple Gray was much stronger as was the post-humous live album, The Living End, even if it did include a regrettable cover of "Sheen is a Punk Rocker." I never really cared enough to find out what went wrong with Huskers, but I remember back when many other SST bands were suing to get their albums off the label, the Huskers never did, because Mould and Hart couldn't be in the same room long enough to get it done, although they did appear on stage together once before Hart died in 2017.

    

GUEST POST from JEFFERY X MARTIN for ESSENTIAL ALBUMS; HUSKER DU'S FLIP YOUR WIG

Do you remember community radio? Of course you don’t, you shitheels with your digital playlists and corporations telling what is cool, and you swallow it like bucketfuls of money jizz. Well, before you get off my lawn, let me tell you something. 

If you live in the right kind of town, you have a radio station where people can claim a timeslot and play whatever the fuck they want. Those towns are golden, and need to be given medals for awesomeness. When I was a kid, the station was WAIF, rumbling out of Cincinnati. One night a week, there was a hardcore punk show that I can’t remember the name of, because I drink a lot, and fuck you if you don’t know that kind of pain. 

The main DJ called himself Clem Kadiddlehopper, and his sidekick’s name had something to do with hockey. Fuck. I don’t remember. I was maybe sixteen when all this went down. I’m pushing fifty now. I hope I can be forgiven if I forget a few details after all this time. I didn’t think I would live past the age of thirteen, so suck it. 

One night, Clem played a song by a band I had never heard of called Hüsker Dü. Now, I knew the name because I had the game. The band took their name from a memory/recognition game that I had gotten for Christmas a few years in the past. 

It struck my first because I couldn’t figure out what the chords were. Now, I’m a good guitar player, and I play be ear. But I was befuddled by the crazy shit Bob Mould was throwing down. And it was a slow song! I should have been able to parse those chords out. Nope. Total mystery. 

But more important than that, to an angst-driven white Anglo suburban punk, were the words. Damned if Mould hadn’t read my mind and made a catchy tune out of it. 

I could be sad, I could be lonely
I could still have some friends if I only
Didn't play the games I had to play
I was important when I was cool
Now it gets lonely playing the fool
It's a game that anyone can play

Fuck, it was like he had ripped those feelings right from my heart and my balls and said them more plainly than I ever could. I went out the next day and bought the album. 

So let’s talk about Hüsker Dü’s FLIP YOUR WIG. 

The band was a three piece. Bob Mould on guitar and lyrics. Grant Hart on drums and lyrics. Greg Norton on bass. He rarely contributed vocals, and not at all on this album. 

This was the last album they put out before getting signed to Warner Bros. which is pretty much the death knell for any band. Even R.E.M. finally submitted to the Warner curse. They should have stayed on IRS, just like the Hüskers should have stayed on SST. 

The opening title song, tight with Bob and Grant taking turns on vocals is a joyous little pop gem. There are a lot of those on this record, from Bob’s “Hate Paper Doll’ to Grant’s ballad, “Green Eyes.” But then, when you least expect it, the record slaps you in the reproductives with a song like “Divide and Conquer,” Bob’s treatise on revisionist history and the “Youth of Today.” It goes into your head like a drill, stirs your brain around, then leaves as brutally as it came in. One chord progression in the whole song. ONE. Fuck Led Zeppelin; this was the sledgehammer of the gods, crashing down upon everything the Establishment held dear, leaving nothing but the jagged seams of the music staff in its wake. 

And what could prepare the casual listener for the complete mental breakdown of the last half of the album? Fuck all NOTHING. From “The Baby Song,” played on a slide penny whistle, to the instrumental closing double shot of hellfire that is “The Wit and the Wisdom” and “Don’t Know Yet,” FLIP YOUR WIG shows Hüsker Dü at the height of their power, still in touch with their audience enough to be relevant, not yet appearing on the Joan Fucking Rivers Show. 

It was the final show of solidarity, before drugs, sex and the confines of the closet destroyed the band from within. It’s their greatest balance between pure anger and post-punk pop, and on one susceptible night in 1985, it changed my life forever. 

A bit about Jeffery with two Fs; he's the author of Black Friday and Stories About You and contributes over at the mighty Popshifter.com. Check out his Amazon author profile HERE. Oh and he's a mighty fine sumbitch to boot! 

ESSENTIAL ALBUMS; BLACK FLAG'S IN MY HEAD

I don't even know where to begin when it comes to Black Flag! The whole reason I started publishing my own books, making the covers myself, and dedicated myself to hustling my words on my own, was because Black Flag did it with their music. My early book-zines were all an attempt to be literary Black Flag, to some extent.
Thanks, probably almost entirely, to the iconic artwork of Raymond Pettibon's (brother of guitarist/founder Greg Ginn) artwork, Flag's albums look like they need to be owned. There are plenty of great album covers, but Pettibon's work held some magic and it perfectly represented the music found within. I still find it exciting to come across Flag albums at the record store, even though I already own them.
My first two Flag albums were My War and Slip It In. I loved War, but I think Slip should've been an EP with the title track, Rat's Eyes, and Obliteration left off. I'm far less critical of the rest of the discography and can put on almost any of those albums any time. The one album though, that I find to be Flag's most consistent, well written, with the highest replay value is In My Head.
In My Head was the last studio album until the ill received What The? from a couple years ago. As a front man, Henry Rollins had really come into his own and Ginn, bassist Kira Roessler, and drummer Bill Stevenson (Descendents/ALL) had really gelled after a few years of constant touring. The previous album, Loose Nut, made a big promise that In My Head fulfilled. So it's too bad that the '86 tour to promote that album was the end.
Flag had long outgrown the narrow confines of hardcore punk and had been experimenting with slower, more metallic music since Dez Cadena (who Rollins replaced) was the band's singer, which accounts for the majority of their recorded output. By the time they were recording In My Head, Ginn had figured out the formula for mixing the Stooges, Black Sabbath, and jazz influences while still being able to sound like the same band that recorded Nervous Breakdown, which is quite an accomplishment when you consider that from beginning to end Ginn burned through like fourteen members, including four singers!
In My Head continues to influence and inspire me. It's a damn fine album for the band to end on and we're lucky to have it.  

Out Of This World

title track

Drinking and Driving

Retired At 21