mycherieamour: April 2007

Thursday, April 26, 2007

BRIGHT EYES

[this ran in MOJO in March 2007]

An arctic January afternoon in New York’s East Village. MOJO is sitting in a handsome, wood-floored apartment staring at the thousands of alphabetised vinyl records and music and interior design books that occupy every available wallspace, awaiting the arrival of Bright Eyes’ frontman, poster-boy and sole permanent member, Conor Oberst. The flat belongs to Nate Krenkel, Bright Eyes’ former A&R man who, since 2003, has acted as Oberst’s manager, confidente and surrogate big brother. After a fifteen minute wait, the front door creaks open to reveal the slim figure of Oberst, struggling with an armful of brown paper sacks, his cellphone ringing off idly in his pocket to the customised trill of Willie Nelson’s Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys.

“I knew we had a photo shoot today, so I went shopping,” he grins, emptying the contents of the bags – navy cardigans and sweaters, an off-white knit jersey, in keeping with his generally dressed-down style – onto a nearby table in Krenkel’s front room. In person, traces of stubble and the odd laughter-line temper the fresh-faced boyishness Oberst radiates in his most recent press shots. Dyed black hair, parted in the centre, hangs down to just above his shoulders, framing his arresting, and oft-commented-upon, lime-green eyes. He talks gently, moves slowly, a little awkwardly, his head and hands seemingly too large for his slight body, like he’s still in the middle of a growth spurt, in that awkward space between adolescence and adulthood. Fittingly, that’s also the position Oberst occupies in American music right now, the one-time teen pin-up of sensitive music fans besotted with his Salinger-esque tales of misadventure and regret, who, in recent years, has set about establishing himself as a perceptive and impassioned political song-writer.

He has toured alongside Springsteen and REM in support of the Democrat party, while 2005’s anti-Bush salvo, When The President Talks To God, saw him canonised by the press as “the next Dylan” (a status he bashfully acknowledges today as “flattering, but ridiculous”). However, despite being hailed as the saviour of American political songwriting, Conor Oberst says he is still able to a life of quiet anonymity in New York, roaming without fear of being recognised around his local neighbourhood, which also happens to be home to thousands of students from nearby New York University.

Or maybe Oberst has just adjusted to living his life in the public eye. After all, having performed onstage since he was twelve, and recording searing, disarmingly intimate albums since he was thirteen, twenty-seven year old Oberst has done much of his growing up in public. Since his breakthrough, with 2002’s *Lifted, the media have documented every step and mis-step, from a brief dalliance with Winona Ryder in 2003 to his occasional, infamous chemically-enhanced onstage performances.

While Oberst excuses himself and pops into Krenkel’s bedroom to pose for MOJO’s photoshoot, Krenkel slips a freshly-mastered CD of *Cassadaga, Bright Eyes’ new album, onto his stereo system, volume turned as loud as his no-doubt-wealthy neighbours will allow.

Oberst’s earlier recordings – and there are many – could often be messily emotional, wilful things, his voice breaking across songs that read like (and sometimes were) cathartic diary entries. *Cassadaga is a different beast. The album takes its name from a Floridian Spiritualist community Oberst visited last year where he received readings from the local Wiccans. The singer admits to an enduring curiosity with spirituality, born out of his regular thoughts upon mortality (which first surfaced in his songwriting with ‘Padraic My Prince’, describing the death-by-drowning of a fictional brother).

Pedal steel, violins and warm, buzzing guitars dominate, opener Four Winds recalling the bucolic bonhomie of The Band, and suggesting a new-found maturity in his sound. The lyrics essay love, religion, death in a most distinctive, contemplative voice, painting an America where ‘Genocide sleeps”. The bleak No One Would Riot For Less blackly posits that “War has no heart” while If The Brakeman Turns My Way articulates a disenchantment with drugs, a tale of “Cocaine souls” who “tried to listen to the river, but you wouldn’t shut your mouth”. On the closing Lime Tree, Oberst reaches for a lovelorn poetry akin to The Replacements’ Paul Westerberg at his drunken, remorseful best. The saturated emotions that made earlier records sound shrill to all but the faithful are restrained, resonant here; Cassadaga leaves the impression of Oberst assuredly leaving his awkward adolescence behind him.

“I’d like to think that I’ve gotten a little more nuanced,” Oberst agrees later, reclining on a vintage chaise-longue in Krenkel’s similarly book-lined bedroom. “When I first started, there was no audience, there were no expectations. When you’re 17 years old, it feels pretty good to scream into a tape recorder. That’s how it went, for a long time, until this gradual realisation that I don’t necessarily like how that sounds, just letting it all out. Maybe it would be better if it was a little more subtle, more refined.

“Cassadaga’s much more of a ‘complete idea’,” insists Oberst. He spent a year working on the album, recording in New York, Portland, Lincoln, Chicago and Los Angeles with Bright Eyes mainstays Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott, and a slew of guest musicians. “And in-between those sessions, we got the chance to think about what we’d recorded, to try things a different way. We’d never had that luxury before.”

While he treasures the musician’s peripatetic lifestyle, New York has been his base of operations since 2003. “It’s a romantic place,” he smiles. “Your whole life, you’re reading about it in books, seeing it in movies, hearing it in the records made here. But I was more attracted by all the friends I had here, and how comfortable I felt in the neighbourhood. That first year, I couldn’t get enough of it, going out every night, seeing shows and partying, walking the streets and just feeling the pure energy of New York. It was refreshing to be in random contact with other humans all the time, where no one really cares what you’re about. It’s the total opposite of Omaha, where everywhere I turn there’s someone I grew up with, someone’s brother, or cousin, or whatever…”

Conor first visited New York when he was sixteen, on tour. “And I hated it,” he laughs. “It was too much, too full-on; I wasn’t ready for it. But then I spent some more time here, I hung out with Nate at his old apartment for a few months and thought, wow, this is where I wanna be.”

Though he’d travelled the world with Bright Eyes, until 2003 Oberst had only ever lived in Omaha, the urbane Nebraskan city whose vibrant music scene supported Conor’s many early endeavours. “I was at that point where I just felt, man, I have to leave my hometown. Enough was enough; I have to go do something for myself.”

Having formerly handled Oberst’s publishing, Krenkel assumed managerial responsibilities for Bright Eyes. Together, he and Oberst formed their Team Love record label, now home to Willy Mason, Tilly & The Wall, Minnesotan singer-songwriter David Dondero and former Shudder To Think frontman Craig Wedren. Soon, Oberst found an apartment of his own, nearby. He’s reluctant, however, to describe himself as a New Yorker – a certain restlessness persists. “I still really like it here, but I’ve realised in the last year or so, I’m not one of those people who wants to be a ‘New Yorker’ for life. Sometimes, I really need space.

“I have a sort of ‘grass is always greener’ mentality,” he smiles. “The most peaceful place for me is in-between cities: you’ve got your friends, you’ve got your band, and you’re out there, suspended from the world. It’s an escape. Being a musician, being able to spend a year isolated, recording music, and then spend the next year travelling the world, playing it for people, is really good for my well-being.”

Conor Oberst’s political awakening came with the American Presidential Election of 2000, which saw George W. Bush awarded a keenly-contested presidency over his Democrat opponent, outgoing Vice President Al Gore.

“When I was a teenager, politics weren’t even within my realm of reality,” Oberst remembers, “But in 2000, I remember reading some of his statements and thinking ‘Wow, I hope this young Bush doesn’t get in!’ We were touring in Europe when the election happened; I was just in absolute shock when he ‘won’. And then 9/11 accelerated everything.”

In early 2001, Oberst formed Desaparecidos, with local Omaha musicians. A punk-rock group who took their name from the political dissidents who were murdered by the government during Argentina’s Dirty War, they recorded a venomous and angry album, *Read Music/Speak Spanish, with lyrics that were, Oberst says, “Anti-consumerism, anti-commercialism, and – if you want to define it as that – anti-American.”

The group had just finished recording their album when the attacks of September 11^th happened. “I had this sick feeling in my stomach,” remembers Oberst. “I felt, Can we release this record now? It was a fragile time, everybody was freaked out. I was too. But the most American thing you can do is to speak your mind. Freedom of speech, freedom of expression, these are the things I love about democracy, about America. What better time to put that out? It got a mixed reaction. Some people said, ‘Stupid middle class white kid, what do you have to complain about?’” he sniffs. “But I’ve gotten that ‘critique’ forever, it’s not such a big deal.”

As the build-up to war progressed, Oberst became a self-confessed ‘news-junkie’, poring over the daily papers and watching hours of cable news broadcasts. Politics bled into the lyrics of 2002’s Lifted, and the two albums he released simultaneously in early 2005, the yearning, acoustic-based I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning (featuring Emmylou Harris’s unmistakeable harmonies on three tracks), and its dark, electronic twin, Digital Ash In A Digital Urn, an album Conor described as “dealing with the fear of death, and trying to move past that.” A vegan, he voiced his support for PETA, and boycotted the Clear Channel network of music venues in protest of their corporate policies. And in October 2004, at Michael Stipe’s personal request, he toured America alongside REM and Bruce Springsteen for the Vote For Change Tour, a decidedly-partisan, anti-Bush voter registration drive.

“That whole experience was real empowering; participating in the political system, representing my beliefs in the public forum,” he remembers. “I’ve been so lucky to get to meet and play with REM, and Springsteen, and Neil Young. They’re all musical idols, but the way they conduct their business, the way they are as human beings, is inspiring. It gives me hope – I could last that long, and maybe never be that great musically, but be that intelligent, that compassionate.

“And then, the election.” He sighs darkly. “I was convinced Bush couldn’t win. I was sure of it. And when it happened… Total devastation. It was probably the worst I’ve ever felt. We straight away went to Europe for a press trip, and I was so down about it, so frightened. I couldn’t see how we could even survive another four years under that maniac.”

On a stormy ferry trip from Ireland to the UK, Oberst channelled these emotions into a new song. The sulphurously rancorous ‘When The President Talks To God’ was debuted that night, November 17^th 2004, at London’s ULU, where lyrics like “When the president talks to God / Does he ask to rape our women’s rights / And send poor farm kids off to die?” tapped into a growing antagonism toward the ‘War On Terror’. The song was rush-recorded and released as a free mp3 download on iTunes, and Oberst performed the song on national US television in May 2005, on the Tonight with Jay Leno show.

“When I played it that night in London,” he remembers, “I didn’t even really know the lyrics, I was reading them off a sheet of paper. That night marked a change: I’m not gonna just sit here and get depressed. I’m gonna get louder.”

Oberst’s political awakening doesn’t mean he’s above making a drunken fool of himself and getting into trouble. No, if a man ever truly learns from his mistakes, Conor has gleaned plenty of painful wisdom from the last few years. He shifts uncomfortably in the chaise-longue as he recalls his misadventures at the Glastonbury festival in 2005, when, while headlining Sunday night on the inaugural John Peel stage, he drunkenly muttered in front of thousands of woozy festival-goers that “John Peel was a cokehead; I suppose that's why I like him, we have a lot in common.”

“I regret it,” he sighs, sincerely. “It’s the exact opposite of how I really feel. There’s a record store in Omaha called the Antiquarium, and the guy who runs it, Dave Sink, had a buddy in England tape the John Peel radio shows for him, and send them over. He’d play them in the store, and we’d all hang out there and listen to them.

“I was just out-of-my-mind,” he frowns, fidgeting like a naughty little boy in the headmaster’s office. “We were winding down towards the end of a year on the road, partying. We’d just flown in from Europe, and it had been raining for days, and everyone at the festival had just given up. We didn’t have any English money, we literally had to beg to buy some beer. We got real drunk, and I’d taken a lot of mushrooms. I basically didn’t have an idea what I was saying, I was just randomly spewing words. I’ve always had a bad habit of defaming whatever people find sacred, when I’m in a certain mood. I don’t really mean it, it’s just this terrible little demon side of me.”

He says that when Bright Eyes take to the road again, later this year, they will be “A little smarter, not kill ourselves. Getting ‘fucked up’ is such a part of rock’n’roll, because it becomes all you can do. When people say, ‘I’m gonna party like a rock’n’roll star!’, they don’t understand that rock’n’roll stars get fucked up because they’re far away from home, dealing with peoples’ expectations of them, and sick half the time. It might look romantic from the outside, but it really isn’t. It’s an occupational hazard, a negative side-effect of what we do. You just have to grow up and deal with it better, watch out for yourself and your friends, try and keep everyone healthy in both body and mind. We’re learning along the way.”

With maturity often comes a bitter exchange, of innocence for wisdom. You’ll find that wisdom scattered across Oberst’s lyrics, sharing lessons learned, detailing his failings and foul-ups, trying to make a sense of it all – even the things you can’t make sense of. It’s his way of surviving.

“There’s a certain clarity I get from songwriting,” he explains. “If I’m depressed about something I try express that in a form that’s positive and soothing, like a song. It actually does make me feel at peace with whatever I’ve been struggling with.

“Is it still fun?” he asks, rhetorically, of his career. “Not all of it, but it’s more fun than not. I think I have less fun in general, now. Sadly, I think that’s just part of growing up. When you’re young, your world’s not yet formed – everything’s possible, nothing’s been decided. Then, reality sets in. A lot of the things I found exciting at first have worn off, a little. The obvious things: girls, drugs. Even performing, a little. It just has to be that way, I guess.”

In the intervening hour or so since the interview began, the moon has risen, the New York skyline turning with wintery speed from pale aquamarine, to deep blue, and finally black. Oberst sits silhouetted against the window, his green eyes glinting in the gloom. Save for light from the front room leaking in from under the door, the room is entirely dark. By way of a closing question, I ask Oberst if the “fear of death” which inspired *Digital Ash For A Digital Urn has eased at all.

“Um… I guess, no. It’s been a shitty week,” he sighs, sadly. “A girl who played in the band with us passed away this last weekend.”

Clearing his throat, he begins to talk, about the girl, and the pain of her death, his words trying to make some sense of it all. Open and unguarded, he speaks with the same sensitivity, the same fearless honesty that makes Bright Eyes’ music so compelling, so deeply affecting, and sometimes so hard to take.

“She was the most amazingly brilliant, beautiful girl, and she was just 24 years old,” he continues. “So perfect, so irreplaceable… It’s so tragic. When you lose someone... That’s the most unfair thing about life. That it changes. I want to understand this, and accept this, but I can’t. I can’t really process it all properly right now.”

Boyish in the half-light, he’s visibly struggling with the loss, peace eluding him for now. As we gather our things and make our way for the elevator, Conor is quiet, still lost somewhere in his thoughts, searching towards something.

Where To Start With... Nirvana

[from Kerrang!, 2007]

DAVE GROHL recently said, “People think Nirvana travelled with a black cloud following us, and it’s absolutely not true.” Kurt Cobain’s tragic suicide threatens to overshadow his group’s brief blaze of glory, but they remain a crucial flashpoint in rock history. Fusing metal, punk, and pop with a deft underground sensibility and multi-platinum success, Nirvana became uneasy celebrities with 1991’s ‘Nevermind’ – the album that ‘broke’ grunge to America. Wilting in the limelight, Cobain was an awkward anti-rockstar, railing against rock’s sexism and homophobia, at his new ‘jock’ fanbase (the sort of kids who bullied him at school) and, ultimately, himself – a man just too-sensitive to handle the pressure. But it was that very sensitivity that connected so profoundly with Nirvana’s fans. Today, Kurt’s haunted blue eyes stare out from countless tee-shirts, worn by kids too young to remember Cobain as anything other than a Pretty Rockstar Corpse. But the fierce intelligence and passion of Nirvana’s music hasn’t dimmed in the years since, and none of their multitudinous followers ever spliced acrid emotion and brutal melody so brilliantly.

ESSENTIAL PURCHASE 60

‘NEVERMIND’

(GEFFEN, 1991)

POLISHING COBAIN’S fertile melodicism to a gleaming napalm shine, this was a subversive treat. A blast of high-impact pop played with punk fury and metallic precision, Novoselic’s colossal bass, Grohl’s pulverising drums and Cobain’s howl offsetting the strychnine-sweet harmonies. Almost every track could have been released as a single; those that were, are among rock’s very greatest tunes.

FOLLOW-UP PURCHASE

‘IN UTERO’

(GEFFEN, 1994)

WITH STEVE Albini at the controls, Cobain drew upon the raw angst wrought by their newfound fame. Moments of blood-stained beauty (‘All Apologies’) nestle alongside acrid sludge (‘Milk It’) and self-lacerating pop (‘Heart Shaped Box’), angst, art and autobiography blurring into an uncompromising, uncomfortable mess. The sound of a breakdown, captured in unflinching verite style.

ALSO RECOMMENDED

‘BLEACH’

(SUB POP, 1989)

RECORDED FOR $606, Nirvana’s debut portrayed a band in thrall to friends The Melvins’ stunning sludge-core sound, tempering the uncut grunge with Kurt’s budding knack for pop songwriting. Scuzzier and heavier than what came after, ‘Bleach’ thrums with downtuned menace and ennui and Cobain’s acidic lyrics, but ‘About A Girl’ points to a more palatable future.

WILD CARD

‘INCESTICIDE’

(GEFFEN, 1992)

WITH ‘NEVERMIND’ still selling and no follow-up on the horizon, Geffen released this stopgap compilation of out-takes and rarities. A mixed bag of ugly grunge and brash pop, it acquainted new fans to Nirvana’s more self-indulgent side, but also featured bona-fide classics ‘Sliver’ and ‘Aneurysm’. Also includes covers of songs by Kurt’s beloved Vaselines, Glaswegian indie-tykes who probably still live off royalty payments from this album.

AVOID

‘MTV UNPLUGGED IN NEW YORK’

(GEFFEN, 1994)

WORTH BUYING for Bowie cover ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ alone, and the Meat Puppets covers (featuring the Puppets themselves) are great, as is the blood-curdling take on Leadbelly’s ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’. Otherwise, Unplugged presents lesser versions of Nirvana classics for Coldplay-loving yuppies who couldn’t see past ‘Nevermind’’s metallic noise and truly appreciate Cobain’s genius. Their loss.

BURN THESE: THE ULTIMATE NIRVANA MIX CD 30

‘LOVE BUZZ’

THEIR DEBUT 7”, a limited pressing of 1000 on Seattle label Sub Pop: a metallic cover of Shocking Blue’s bubblegum curio that’s heavy, and heavily ‘pop’.

FIND IT: ‘Bleach’, 1990

‘ABOUT A GIRL’

MORE BEATLES than Black Sabbath, Kurt’s gathers the courage to record an acoustic ditty, discovering a hitherto-hidden gift for bittersweet melody.

FIND IT: ‘Bleach’, 1990

‘SCHOOL’

HEAVY SLUDGE riffage in extremis, over which Kurt snarls, “You’re in high school again,” like that were the worst fate imaginable. “And no recess!”

FIND IT: ‘Bleach’, 1990

‘SCOFF’

KURT’S WHITE-TRASH roots show on this Melvins-esque stomp, the lyric dissecting grim, alcoholic realities of life in a trailer park. The sense of alienation is palpable.

FIND IT: ‘Bleach’, 1990

‘SLIVER’

KURT’S SINGALONG howl of “Gramma take me home!” touches on childhood terror of abandonment. The fusion of melody and distortion coined the Nevermind blueprint.

FIND IT: ‘Incesticide’, 1992

‘BEEN A SON’

MORE ALIENATION, as Kurt – a most feminised rocker – sings of a girl smothered by her parents’ unrealistic expectations, to a nagging, harmony-drenched crunch.

FIND IT: ‘Incesticide’, 1992

‘SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT’

THE SONG that sold a million plaid shirts – a razor-sharp riff, intriguing lyrics and a chord change stolen from Boston swiftly make Nirvana the biggest band in the world.

FIND IT: ‘Nevermind’, 1991

‘ANEURYSM’

‘TEEN SPIRIT’’S B-Side is a squalling, nightmarish anthem, a spidery riff drawing tighter as Kurt screams “She keeps it pumping straight to my heart,” dark drug references abounding.

FIND IT: ‘With The Lights Out’, 2004

‘COME AS YOU ARE’

WITH A loping bassline half-inched from Killing Joke, ‘CAYA’ was hypnotic, heavy on ‘radio friendly sheen’ – the sound of Nirvana stealthily seducing the mainstream.

FIND IT: ‘Nevermind’, 1991

‘LITHIUM’

NAMED FOR an anti-depressant, ‘Lithium’’s tale of loneliness and disaffection chimed along to their sweetest tune yet, riding hard on that crucial quiet/loud dynamic.

FIND IT: ‘Nevermind’, 1991

‘TERRITORIAL PISSINGS’

PROVING THEY could still bare their fangs, this was one of ‘Nevermind’’s three balls-out hardcore thrashes, a chaotic, revving, vaguely pro-feminist anthem.

FIND IT: ‘Nevermind’, 1991

‘D7’

COVERING PORTLAND punks The Wipers’ gloomy alienation anthem for BBC’s John Peel, Kurt nods in respect to hero Greg Sage and unleashes a killer barb-wire guitar solo.

FIND IT: ‘With The Lights Out’, 2004

‘VERSE CHORUS VERSE’

HIDDEN AT the end of AIDS charity compilation No Alternative, this keening blast of melancholic pop mused subtly on patriarchal society via a doomed-love song.

FIND IT: ‘With The Lights Out’, 2004

‘SERVE THE SERVANTS’

BITING THE hand that feeds, a snarling, cynical Kurt counts the profits and costs of stardom and notes, “Teenage angst has paid off well”. He doesn’t sound happy about it.

FIND IT: ‘In Utero’, 1993

‘HEART SHAPED BOX’

FREUD WOULD have had a field day with this lyric and its references to wombs, and suffocation, and love (the emotion), and Love (Courtney).

FIND IT: ‘In Utero’, 1993

‘MILK IT’

MORE FREUDIAN angst, as Kurt howls of parasites, shit and suicide, over a chilling chainsaw-massacre riff. ‘In Utero’ at its brilliantly-bleak best.

FIND IT: ‘In Utero’, 1993

‘ALL APOLOGIES’

DEBUTED AT Reading ’92 and dedicated to Kurt’s newborn daughter, this achingly beautiful statement of confusion and resignation closed ‘In Utero’ on an uneasy calm.

FIND IT: ‘In Utero’, 1993

‘THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD’

KURT SINGS Bowie’s haunting song of winning the world but losing your soul like it was his own, closing out with a glorious, sad, eloquent guitar solo.

FIND IT: ‘Unplugged In New York’, 1995

‘WHERE DID YOU SLEEP LAST NIGHT?’

CLOSING THEIR landmark unplugged session, Kurt’s take on bluesman Leadbelly’s murder ballad is so wracked and from-the-heart it’ll leave you with an unshakeable chill.

FIND IT: ‘Unplugged In New York’, 1995

‘DO RE MI’

FRAGILE AND wracked, Kurt’s ‘last song’ is a happy-sad acoustic strum clouded by child-like confusion and yearning, an odd, affecting, unforgettable and magic thing.

FIND IT: ‘With The Lights Out’, 2004

I HEART NIRVANA

MARK HAMILTON, ASH

“THEY’RE THE first band I truly loved and felt connected to on a personal level; they were anything but the pretentious cliched rock-stars of the time. The music wasn't complicated, it was raw, loud, honest and heavy as fuck. Kurt's voice was both vulnerable, melodic and chaotic but with none of the macho bullshit that's way too prevalent in a lot of metal. We'd just played a show in Southampton when we found out he’d died; it didn't seem real, like a bad joke no-one wanted to believe. I had a hard time dealing with it when we got off that tour and got home to Downpatrick. It honestly felt like losing a relative – it was surreal mourning someone I didn't personally know. As much as Kurt didn't want to be a role-model or spokes-person for anyone, Nirvana were a big deal in a lot of kids’ lives, and his death had a profound effect on us. There's not been a band since that have had such a following or made such an impact. I prefer to remember Nirvana for that exciting period when there were kids everywhere trying to emulate them and starting bands, not caring that they couldn't play a note. Half the bands that are playing today wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Nirvana. They changed the face of music completely and put heavy guitar bands onto mainstream radio. Metal owes them for making people wake up from up their hair-metal arses and rethink their lives! At the end of the day does anything sounds as great as when Teen Spirit comes on the PA at a club? Go take a history lesson in rock and get all their albums.”

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Great Grandad, Nan, the late 60s (?)

Great Grandad, Nan, the late 60s (?), originally uploaded by Stevie Chick, Foxy Boxer.

great old picture from my nan

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Where To Start With... Husker Du

KRIST NOVOSELIC once said Nirvana’s blend of pop, punk and metal was “nothing new, Husker Du did it before us.” A trio from Minneapolis, featuring singer/guitarist Bob Mould, singing drummer Grant Hart and moustachioed bassist Greg Norton, Husker Du started out the fastest punks on the block, mellowing their pace but not their intensity for a faultless run of albums on the influential SST label. Perfecting a marriage of melodic thrash and emotionally complex lyrics, they were one of the first hardcore bands to ‘cross over’ to a Major Label, releasing two fine albums with Warner Bros, before tensions between Hart and Mould – hardcore’s own Lennon & McCartney – tore the band apart in 1988 (the suicide of manager David Savoy, and Hart’s escalating heroin addiction, were key factors). Mould would later enjoy success with his grunge-pop trio Sugar, and as a solo artist with an interest in electronica, while Hart formed the ill-fated Nova Mob, and intermittently pursues a solo career. Norton, meanwhile, is now a chef running a successful restaurant in Minnesota.

I HEART HUSKER DU

MATT DAVIES, FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND

“I always read interviews to find out what my favourites bands’ influences are, and Husker Du were always a name I’d heard being thrown around in circles. They influenced a lot of the groups I loved when I first got into them, like Jawbreaker – that post-punk sound, verging on aggressive, but balanced it with great melodies and complex parts. It’s almost ‘thinking man’s punk’; it wasn’t just abrasive, it was very cathartic, as well as being very passionate. I took a chance on ‘Candy Apple Grey’ in a record store one day – it was nice and cheap! That’s their first album for a major label. It took me a while to ‘get it’ – because I’d been into Bob Mould’s band Sugar before, and they were a lot more melodic than Husker Du. It took a while to adjust to that fiery sound. Then I got ‘New Day Rising’, which is my favourite – I have a New Day Rising tee-shirt which I tracked down in Boston when we toured there.

“I think Bob Mould was my favourite Du songwriter – I was such a huge fan of Sugar, and his method of songwriting – capturing the sense of a moment, making you feel like you were actually there, to make you feel as angry or as down as he was feeling. Husker Du made me realise that there’s more to punk rock than just sheeny-shiny production and uber-wicked backing vocals. Don’t get me wrong – I love Bad Religion to death, but it was nice to get an alternative to that.”

ESSENTIAL PURCHASE

‘ZEN ARCADE’

(SST, 1984)

RECORDED IN 40 hours, this ambitious double-album chronicled a homeless punk kid’s descent into madness, leaving his broken home for the refuge of the streets, and its junkies and hookers. Encompassing nosebleed hardcore, acoustic strum, psychedelic pop and 15 minute jazz-mantra improvs, this dark, psychologically-scarred album won the mostly-overlooked hardcore genre a new respect in the mainstream.

FOLLOW-UP PURCHASE

‘NEW DAY RISING’

(SST, 1985)

FIRST OF two pop albums they released in 1985, ‘New Day Rising’ captures a band on fire and perfecting their sound, sunshine melodies gleaming behind the scouring guitars and serrated vocals. The Beatles-esque ‘Books About UFOs’ and the whimsical ‘Celebrated Summer’ were highlights, mature songcraft signalling the group’s move away from hardcore’s tunnel-vision, coining a template Nirvana would ride to success.

ALSO RECOMMENDED

‘WAREHOUSE: SONGS AND STORIES’

THEIR FINAL album was another double, twenty crushed diamonds of punk-pop poetry drawn from the roaring guitars and heart-attack drums. They never sounded more melodic, more accessible, but the darker lyrical content spoke the truth: the band were already done, Hart’s psychotic, groove-driven closer ‘You Can Live At Home Now’ a fierce farewell note to Husker Du.

WILD CARD

‘LAND SPEED RECORD’

(New Alliance, 1981)

17 SONGS in 26 minutes, this live set rushed past at fierce velocity, a whirlwind of napalm-spitting fretboard runs. The gonzoid thrash of ‘Bricklayer’ – 2 verses, 2 choruses and a guitar solo in 53 seconds – is a highlight, but this molten mess of frantic riffage is best experienced as a whole, remaining one of the most extreme statements of the hardcore genre.

AVOID

‘EVERYTHING FALLS APART’

(New Alliance, 1982)

WHERE EARLY Huskers’ hardcore flared furiously on Land Speed Record, it sputtered in the studio. Warners’ later CD reissue adds awesome early single ‘In A Free Land’ and the anthemic ‘Do You Remember?’ (the title translating their band name, taken from a Swedish boardgame), but the album itself is frustratingly limp, save for the angsty power-pop of the title track.

BURN THESE: THE ULTIMATE HUSKER DU MIX CD

‘IN A FREE LAND’

OLD SKOOL guitar heroics abound in this melodic, hard-riffing rant, evidence of Husker Du’s short-lived period as politicised punks.

FIND IT: ‘Everything Falls Apart & More’, 1993

‘BIG SKY’

OF ALL Land Speed Record’s lightning-strike whirlwinds, Big Sky punched hardest, its riffs like fighter-jets screeching into the ground.

FIND IT: ‘Land Speed Record’, 1981

‘IT’S NOT FUNNY ANYMORE’

THERAPY? COVERED this EP’s rape/murder fantasy ‘Diane’, but the chiming pop melodies and whip-smart lyrics made this the highlight.

FIND IT: ‘Metal Circus’, 1983

‘NEVER TALKING TO YOU AGAIN’

BITTER FAREWELL-letter to abusive parents, set to heart-broken acoustic strum. Huskers’ growing maturity and ambition inspired the hardcore community.

FIND IT: ‘Zen Arcade’, 1984

‘PRIDE’

SIDE TWO of ‘Zen Arcade’ was a furious, unbroken rush of bloodthirsty thrash, ‘Pride’ the most venomous, Mould’s self-lacerating vocal shredding the speakers.

FIND IT: ‘Zen Arcade’, 1984

‘PINK TURNS TO BLUE’

‘ZEN ARCADE’’s nameless hero discovers his junkie girlfriend’s corpse, to the tear-stained strains of Grant Hart’s psyche-pop lament. A career highlight.

FIND IT: ‘Zen Arcade’, 1984

‘WHATEVER’

THE PUNK kid explains his secret life to his parents, perhaps a veiled reference to Mould’s own (then-secret) homosexuality.

FIND IT: ‘Zen Arcade’, 1984

‘EIGHT MILES HIGH’

DOUSING THE Byrds’ psychedelic classic in kerosene, this 7” almost buckled under the weight of Mould’s gut-wrenching howls and lacerating fretboard runs.

FIND IT: ‘Eight Miles High’, 1984

‘CELEBRATED SUMMER’

A LUMP-IN-THROAT farewell to adolescence, Mould’s startlingly mature, poignant lyric is well matched by the sort of melodicism Get Up Kids would later explore.

FIND IT: ‘New Day Rising’, 1985

’59 TIMES THE PAIN’

FRACTURED, ODDBALL, this brooding hurricane of anguish posited Mould as his generation’s insightful bard of dysfunction and disaffection.

FIND IT: ‘New Day Rising’, 1985

‘BOOKS ABOUT UFOS’

HART’S BUDDY Holly-esque croon perfectly matches the giddy pianos and frazzled guitars on this light-hearted love song – perfect Summer mixtape music.

FIND IT: ‘New Day Rising’, 1985

‘MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL’

MOULD CALLS the emperor out as naked in this phosphorent jangle-driven thrash, mid-period Du’s apotheosis.

FIND IT: ‘Flip Your Wig’, 1985

‘DON’T WANT TO KNOW IF YOU ARE LONELY’

HART’S UNFLINCHING analysis of the aftermath of a broken relationship evidenced the maturity and intensity of Warners-era Du.

FIND IT: ‘Candy Apple Grey’, 1986

‘TOO FAR DOWN’

MOULD’S SUICIDAL confession is breath-taking in its honesty and darkness; accompanied by brittle acoustic, he sounds bereft.

FIND IT: ‘Candy Apple Grey’, 1986

‘HARDLY GETTING OVER IT’

FEW PUNK bands would dare record such sombre musings upon mortality; Husker Du had the balls, and the skill to make it darkly electrifying.

FIND IT: ‘Candy Apple Grey’, 1986

‘FRIEND, YOU’VE GOT TO FALL’

A NEON psyche-pop riff accelerated Mould’s account of a friend living too fast – Hart, perhaps – into a savage grunge-pop classic.

FIND IT: ‘Warehouse: Songs & Stories’, 1987

‘ACTUAL CONDITION’

HART AFFECTS a rockabilly holler for his haywire country-punk response, a perversely-upbeat admission of emotional deterioration.

FIND IT: ‘Warehouse: Songs & Stories’, 1987

‘NO RESERVATIONS’

MOODY PROTO-EMO scores Mould’s philosophical admission of defeat – or, at least, acceptance that his future lies elsewhere.

FIND IT: ‘Warehouse: Songs & Stories’, 1987

‘VISIONARY’

CRUNCHING METALLIC riffage and multi-tracked harmonies glimpse at the direction Mould’s post-Du group Sugar will take.

FIND IT: ‘Warehouse: Songs & Stories’, 1987

‘KEEP HANGING ON’

RECORDED ON their final tour, Hart’s optimistic ‘Flip Your Wig’ anthem is recast as anguished last-ditch attempt as reconciliation.

FIND IT: ‘The Living End’, 1993

Where To Start With… Screaming Trees

They formed in the rural wastelands of Ellensburg, WA. Van and Gary Lee Connor were man-mountain brothers playing in a covers band; Mark Lanegan was a local wild-boy always in trouble with the cops, driving trucks for the Connor family’s repo business. When Lanegan took the microphone Screaming Trees were born, touring the US and recording albums of psychedelic proto-grunge for SST Records, penned mostly by drug-abstaining Gary Lee (Lanegan had been selling drugs for some years by this point). They signed to Epic at the start of the 90s, their Lanegan-penned ‘Sweet Oblivion’ - a set of anguished country and blues-influenced classic rock - the most potent and profound album of the Grunge explosion. But deserved success never arrived for this fractious band, and the tempestuous, Josh Homme-aided tour for the majestic ‘Dust’ was their last. Lanegan fought his addictions, pursued an acclaimed solo career and joined QOTSA as a floating member; following a farewell set opening the Seattle Experience Music Project in June 2000, Screaming Trees finally withered.

I HEART SCREAMING TREES

Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters

“Sometime during the first few months of living with Kurt, we went up to Seattle to visit Mark Lanegan and his friend Dylan Carson [of the drone-core band Earth], who shared a house. We went out drinking that night and we got back about 3am, and they put me on this pullout couch in the living room, where I passed out. I remember waking up, and there was Mark, sitting in a chair at the end of the bed. I looked up at him, and he said, who the fuck are you? I said, I’m Dave, Kurt’s new drummer. We sat there talking for a while, and that was the genesis of our relationship. [laughs]

I remember listening to his solo album, ‘The Winding Sheet’, over and over again, when I was living in Olympia. It was Winter, when the sun wouldn’t come up until 8am, and would go down by 2 or 3pm - it was like a rainy Scandinavia, it was fucking depressing. And that album was the perfect soundtrack for that season.

Mark is one of the most gifted and tortured artists you’ll ever hear. I have nothing but respect for that guy. I remember Nirvana playing Roskilde festival in Denmark with the Screaming Trees, 1992. In the middle of their set Lanegan freaked out, picked up a monitor and threw it into the pit and beat up three or four security guards. We had to hide him in the dressing room. But you don’t wanna mess with that dude. Give him a microphone, let him sing, then get the fuck out of his way.”

ESSENTIAL PURCHASE

‘Sweet Oblivion’

(Epic, 1992)

DEEP STEWED angst filtered through soaring riffage, ‘Sweet Oblivion’ showcased Lanegan’s burnished vocals and Gary Lee’s howling, poignant solos. ‘Dollar Bill’, a brilliantly-wretched farewell ballad, became their signature tune, while the disarmingly-pop ‘Nearly Lost You’ features on the soundtrack to ‘grunge’ rom-com Singles. But it’s the pulverisingly bleak, heroic ‘No One Knows’ that kills hardest, Lanegan audibly wracked with guilt and regret.

FOLLOW-UP PURCHASE

‘Dust’

(Epic, 1996)

AFTER SCRAPPING two albums’ worth of material recorded after ‘Sweet Oblivion’, the Trees hooked up with legendary producer George Drakoulias (Aerosmith, Black Crowes) for this psychedelic epic, Drakoulias honing the cinematic breadth of the Trees’ classic riffage. Strings, tabla, sitars - all were enlisted for this grand, finely-detailed canvas, and Lanegan was never in finer voice. Still, the mainstream remained unmoved, and subsequent drug- and violence-fuelled touring finally killed the band.

ALSO RECOMMENDED

‘Anthology: SST Years 1985-1989’

(SST, 1991)

LATER DISOWNED by Lanegan, the Trees recorded three albums and an EP for legendary hardcore label SST during the 1980s, tentative tracks that spanned garage-rock, psychedelia, and the classic-grunge that later won them fame. ‘Anthology’ compiles choice moments from these impossible-to-find albums, at times amateurish and awkward, but more often grandiose and glorious in the Trees tradition. ‘Grey Diamond Desert’ is worth entrance fee alone.

WILD CARD

‘Whiskey For The Holy Ghost’

(Sub Pop, 1993)

LANEGAN’S SOLO career began in 1989 with an aborted EP of Leadbelly covers accompanied by Nirvana’s Kris and Kurdt; a version of ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’ from that session made the cut for his solo debut, ‘The Winding Sheet’. This follow-up is Lanegan’s favourite, compiled from various aborted sessions over 4 years, a darker and deeper vein of blues than Screaming Trees ever mined. The thunderous ‘Boracho’ is the highlight.

AVOID

‘Uncle Anaesthesia’

(Epic, 1991)

FROM ITS grotesque sleeve to the weedy production job from Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell (Don Fleming would prove on ‘Sweet Oblivion’ to be the Trees’ perfect match), everything about the Trees’ major-label debut is a misfire. Even the songs, caught between their psychedelic past and their classic-grunge future, never quite inspire. Its failure temporarily split the forever-feuding band, and inspired Lanegan to finally take the reins.

BURN THESE!

Cold Rain

A STROLL across the Northwestern landscape during a thunderstorm-abetted acid trip, soaking up addled magic, this whimsical, rough-hewn stomp captures early Trees at their naive best.

FIND IT: ‘Even If And Especially When’, 1987

In The Forest

BRUTAL STACCATO guitar slashes open this vicious garage-rock throw-down, pondering the primal Law of the Jungle. “This animal’s wild, he roams where he wants,” warns Lanegan.

FIND IT: ‘Even If And Especially When’, 1987

Girl Behind The Mask

A GHOSTLY, shimmering ballad, the earliest indication of where Lanegan’s muse would later wander. His baritone rings like Seattle’s answer to Nick Cave, swaggering and mysterious.

FIND IT: ‘Even If And Especially When’, 1987

Grey Diamond Desert

LANEGAN’S WEARY vocal hovers wisely over echoing sand-dune guitars and reverb-drenched pianos. Stunningly evocative and bravely experimental, it’s the best of their work for SST, and maybe their career.

FIND IT: ‘Invisible Lantern’, 1988

End Of The Universe

THIS WONDERFULLY ludicrous epic of bubblegum psychedelia delivers Armageddon with a whip crack riff of planet-levelling proportions. Lanegan sounds almost grateful for obliteration.

FIND IT: ‘Buzz Factory’, 1989

I’ve Seen You Before

THEIR EARLY psychedelic experiments redrawn with a new confidence, this sliver from their sole release on Sub Pop is a trip of karmic guitar, death-rattle tambourine, and Lanegan’s stoned, immaculate vocal.

FIND IT: ‘Change Has Come’ EP, 1990

Disappearing

A BRIGHT spot amid the mire of ‘Uncle Anaethesia’, this elegant, eerie Calexican waltz indicates the influence Lanegan’s solo work would soon have over the later Trees output.

FIND IT: ‘Uncle Anaesthesia’, 1991

Shadow Of The Season

AN EXISTENTIAL blues written from the brink. Over a spidery Old Testament squall, Lanegan sounds impressively ancient, pondering options of “pain and misery” or “sweet oblivion”.