Latest news with #HüskerDü
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Bob Mould to receive honorary degree from school he left for Hüsker Dü
Bob Mould, the Minnesota music pioneer who was part of Hüsker Dü and other projects, will give the keynote speech for Macalester College's 2025 commencement, the school announced this week. Mould will also receive an honorary degree from the school, which he attended. "Bob Mould is a rock and punk music legend who not only paved the way for other bands and sounds, but also used his esteemed platform to fiercely advocate for a more just society," says Macalester College President Suzanne M. Rivera. Mould formed Hüsker Dü with Grant Hart and Greg Norton in 1978 during his first year attending the St. Paul college. The group quickly gained momentum in the burgeoning punk scene, and Mould left school to go on tour during his senior year. He never graduated. Now, he'll get the degree that was almost completed while his group was cementing its legacy. "At the time, he was in the process of writing an honors thesis on punk rock as a subculture under the guidance of sociology professor Michal McCall," the school says in its announcement. While Hüsker Dü was gaining popularity at that time, enough that Mould set his studies aside, it was years later when the group's most pivotal albums arrived, including 1984's Zen Arcade, which has long been considered one of the great recordings in punk rock history. "The Minnesota power trio broke all the rules of three-chord hardcore with this double-vinyl concept opus," Rolling Stone writers said, ranking it as the 13th best punk album of all time. "Bob Mould and Grant Hart traded off spit-and-growl vocals in savagely emotional hardcore blasts, but the music expanded into psychedelia, acoustic-folk rage, and the closing 14-minute feedback instrumental, 'Recurring Dreams.'" Mould will give the keynote address at the school's Leonard Center Fieldhouse on May 17.
CBC
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Hüsker Dü's Bob Mould explains the role Montreal had in shaping him as an artist
You might know Bob Mould as one of the co-founders of the influential punk band Hüsker Dü. Back in the late '70s and early '80s, Hüsker Dü cut a path for countless bands to follow, like Nirvana, Pixies and Green Day. But before all that, Mould was just a precocious kid growing up in Malone, N.Y. — a small farming town near the Canadian border. "Malone is five miles south of the Quebec border, about 50 miles south of Montreal," Mould says in an interview with Q guest host Garvia Bailey. "So I grew up with Québécois, with French television and all that stuff." The lyrics of Mould's song Neanderthal off his new solo album, Here We Go Crazy, give a glimpse into the kind of kid he was. "I was the golden child with all the brains," he sings in the track's first verse. "I was so wild and too hard to contain." When you're curious about the world and living in a small town, like Mould was, visits to the big city have a funny way of shaping who you become. For Mould, the big city was Montreal. "In high school, I was taking a lot of French and my French teacher became my de facto counselor," he says. "He would organize road trips where a number of us could get on a school bus and go up to Montreal and ride the subway and go to museums and take in culture." Many times, those trips to Montreal were based around a rock concert at the Forum, which was something Mould really looked forward to. "The culture was so different than northern New York State, but it was so familiar because [I was] watching the Canadiens, you know, Hockey Night in Canada, three nights a week," he tells Bailey. "My dad used to take me up to go see pro wrestling at the Montreal Forum." WATCH | Official video for Here We Go Crazy: But there was one concert in particular that changed Mould's life, ultimately shaping him as an artist. "The concert that changed my entire direction for certain with music was at the University of Montreal at the small theatre, watching the Ramones open for Iggy Pop," he says. "I think Iggy would have been The Idiot, Ramones would have just been releasing Leave Home." After that show, Mould knew that he was meant to make punk music. "I said, 'OK, this is it. This is the kind of music,'" he says. "'Aerosmith, Kiss, Foghat, Fleetwood Mac, whatever — all of that is really good, but I'm going to go in this direction.'"
The Guardian
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Tubs: Cotton Crown review – a blistering, joy-to-heartbreak masterpiece
An album as joyous as it is troubled, Cotton Crown makes good on the promise of the Tubs' assured debut, 2023's Dead Meat. At heart, these Welsh Londoners are a rousing DIY punk band, albeit as skilful at channelling Johnny Marr filigree (courtesy of guitarist George Nicholls) and anthemic indie rock as they are vintage songcraft. The LP's title is a Sonic Youth reference, but there's more than a little Hüsker Dü running through it. Deliciously, frontman Owen 'O' Williams's sonorous voice also recalls that of folk rock hero Richard Thompson, adding to the pile-up of guitar history supercharged on this swift, superb record. The snarling, cooing Williams wants us to know that he is 'a scammer in the world of love' (the caustic Chain Reaction) and 'an arsehole, baby' (Fair Enough). But he knows he'll 'get away with it' (The Thing Is). A blistering eight-song run of relationship angst and romantic self-revelation is followed by a sucker punch: Strange, a rug-pulling track about how awkwardly people behaved after Williams's mother's suicide ('I found out the method from an article in WalesOnline'). That's the late folk singer Charlotte Greig on the cover, breastfeeding the infant Williams in a graveyard. An exceptional record.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Bob Mould Thrashes Toward Enlightenment on ‘Here We Go Crazy'
The 15th album from Bob Mould opens with the 64-year-old indie-rock icon searching for serenity in a world on fire. Over slow, spaciously grinding guitar-pop, he finds himself alone on a mountain, surveying an expanse of natural beauty despoiled by strife and terror — warplanes in the sky, cities in collapse. But he's above it all: 'I'm so far away from here/Did you see me disappear,' he wonders as the song lifts off into a crescendo of beautiful chaos. For longtime Mould-watchers the inward-odyssey he maps out here will be familiar — after all, this is an artist who changed the face of American underground rock with Hüsker Dü's 1984 double-album Zen Arcade, a psychedelic thrash epic about a kid who flees a broken home to find love and freedom. Fans could also go back to 'Hoover Dam,' a similarly majestic moment from Copper Blue, his wonderful 1992 album fronting Sugar, in which he stood high on a national monument 'on the centerline/Right between two states of mind.' More from Rolling Stone Bob Mould Returns With New Album 'Here We Go Crazy' Bob Mould and Fred Armisen Help the 8G Band Sign Off 'Seth Meyers' With Hüsker Dü Cover Bob Mould Celebrates Tim Walz VP Pick: 'History Is Rhyming Right Now. Listen to the Chorus' Here Wer Go Crazy wanders the same landscape of tumultuous noise and roiling emotions he's been navigating since he co-founded Hüsker Dü in 1979. Mould, drummer Grant Hart, and bassist Greg Norton brought a new language of unguarded personal honesty to an early-Eighties post-hardcore scene where the default emotions were still angst and alienation. As a solo artist, he's always worked to reach for moments of light in a world that eternally seems to be coming unglued. Recently, 2019's Sunshine Rock was a sonically and lyrically cheerful balm against tough times (he'd recently lost both his parents), while 2000's Blue Hearts lit a punk-rock torch against the Trump regime. Since then, he's taken time to reflect, noting in a press release accompanying his first album in five years that he's been exploring the California desert. He's returned with one of his most immediately thrilling records, in the power-trio lineup he loves backed by his longtime rhythm section of drummer Jon Wurster and bassist Jason Nardoucy. On gems like 'Hard to Get' and 'Neanderthal' they nail a quintessential Mould-ian mix of pounding aggression, oceanic guitar buzz, and teaming melody. The mountainous 'Breathing Room' slows down the pace but not the drive, as the band hammers away and Mould sings about finding space to think. 'When Your Heart is Broken' rockets to the top of his canon, right up there with the Dü's 'Makes No Sense At All' and Sugar's 'Helpless' in its ability to mix effortless anthemic tunefulness with a harried feelings-first urgency. Mould's amiably snarled vocals can sometimes get swallowed in the headlong din, but the force of his meaning always comes through. There are moments that seem to intentionally call back to expand on highlights from his past. On 'You Need To Shine,' lines like 'Celebrate the moments we shared across the years/ Celebrate the laughter and the tears' can't help but evoke his 1985 Hüsker Dü classic 'Celebrated Summer.' The album's production has a bright, bracing sound that brings to mind the way Sugar balanced indie-rock tumult and alt-rock polish just as well as Nirvana or the Pixies. But he never sounds like he's going backward. It's the sense of constant growth and accrued wisdom in these songs — the honest ambivalence mixed with desire mixed with dread mixed with hope — that makes them sink in. On the tempestuously rumbling 'Sharp Little Pieces' metaphorical allusions to intrusion, erosion, and decay seem to compound the song's theme of interpersonal drama by also intimating the wear and tear of physical aging. On 'Thread So Thin,' he tells us, 'I can see forever in my rear view mirror,' against waves of miasmic distortion that might be pushing him onward and pulling him down. He closes the album with another solo guitar moment, the poetic 'Your Side,' a simple tender song about finding solace in the everyday story of getting older with someone you love. 'I'm turning gray by your side,' he sings softly. Of course, the song doesn't stay quiet for long. Pretty soon the band locks in and they're blasting away beautifully. Serene contentment? He'll take it. Slowing down? Eh, not so much. Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
New York Times
22-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Cover Bob Mould in a Weighted Blanket, and Turn on Vintage Wrestling
Last fall, after an especially blistering concert overseas, the veteran rocker Bob Mould walked offstage and realized he couldn't breathe. 'I'd thrown myself so hard into the physicality of the show that I hyperventilated for about 15 minutes,' the musician, 64, said. 'It was just one of those shows where I was like, 'Did I leave a quart of blood up there tonight?'' Such energy-expending performances are typical for Mould, who's been a regular on the road since venues reopened after pandemic shutdowns ('I was making up for lost time,' he said). His live gigs informed many of the songs on 'Here We Go Crazy,' Mould's 15th studio album. Due March 7, it finds the onetime Hüsker Dü and Sugar frontman piling on the sort of speedy riffs, dead-center hooks and scream-of-consciousness lyrics that have defined much of Mould's nearly 50-year career. Many of the tracks were fine-tuned from the stage, with Mould keeping a close eye on the crowd whenever he was test-driving a new tune. 'Sometimes you see people's head bobbing, and they're poking each other, like, 'This is a good one,'' Mould said in a phone interview.' And sometimes there's just a little golf clap, and I'm like, 'OK. Got it.'' In a phone call from Palm Springs, Calif., where Mould lives part-time — he also resides in San Francisco — the musician discussed the rituals and getaways that get his blood pumping, both at home and on tour. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. I have really bad tinnitus from work — I mean, I will never have silence again. So one of my favorite things in life is to get up before the sun comes up, and just walk for two hours. It's one of the few places where I can get my head right, because all I can hear is the sound of the ocean. This is so pandering, but no matter where I am, before I look at the news or start returning calls, I get on The New York Times Games app. Spelling Bee is addictive — if I don't get Genius on it every day, I get really upset. And when I'm home with the husband, we play a lot of Catan, which is quite fun. Since I'm a dry alcoholic, much of my daily existence revolves around coffee — one of the few things I have left. When I get to a town, there's always a couple of hours between soundcheck and show, so I'll look on Yelp: 'Oh, this one has some reclaimed wood — maybe that's a third-wave coffee shop!' This is a Japanese company that has their own app that contains the history of their company, which goes back more than 50 years. I enjoy their historical stuff, especially from the early '90s, when Japanese wrestling was state of the art, and setting the stage for what in-ring American wrestling would look like. I was raised Catholic, and I was able to connect with her on that level, because she's very spiritual. She writes a lot about parenthood and children and addictions — the choices we make, and the places we end up. It's the best techno club in the world, with hourslong lines to get in. It's a real spectacle watching people get turned away. There will be tourists wearing tons of cologne and, like, Mickey Mouse shorts. They try to plead their case, and the door people are like, 'You must leave the property now. Goodbye.' I love New York City so much, and 'Only Murders' is probably my favorite TV show. My husband and I went to New York in April. We were going to go to this weird, like, bear-jockstrap party on Christopher Street, but Fred Armisen said, 'You should come over to 'S.N.L.'!' It was so packed on the floor, and my husband's like, 'Who's this guy that keeps backing into me?' And it was Martin Short! I'm not a wake-and-bake kind of guy. I tend to have a little fun at the end of the night, to get the edge off and get ready for bed. I'll do it all — you know, leaf, vape, edibles. I remember seeing [the 2008 film] 'Milk' at the Castro Theater, and it had a pretty profound effect on me. I'd had a pretty full gay life already, but seeing it there, I realized that the Castro — and the neighborhood around it — was such a big part of American history. My husband is a sleep-kicker, so I ordered two of these 15-pound weighted blankets — I think they're filled with glass beads. And after one night of those blankets, there was no more kicking. But now, when I travel, I get into bed, and I'm like, 'Oh no — it's just a regular hotel sheet and blanket! What happened?'
