Husker Du catalog

I know I'm late to the party on this one but I have been obsessed with Sugar for the past few years. I like everything I've heard from Husker Du so far but at the moment only own the Candy Apple Grey RSD reissue on vinyl.

The pressings of their catalog seem to be very limited and from what I heard kind of a mess on ownership rights. So should I go ahead and grab what I can find (cd and vinyl) or hold out hope that someone like Rhino is gonna do a big reissue project in the next year or two?

 

Yes. Without reservations.

 

New Day Rising is my favorite Husker Du album.

 

There's a few releases, on vinyl and CD, still in print over at SST.

http://www.sstsuperstore.com/category/Husker-Du.html

I recommend Zen Arcade and New Day Rising

 

New Day Rising is excellent. In retrospect I see it as a transition from their hard core past into their noise pop future.

 

I wow..I didn't even think to check SST's page..thanks!

When I was in high school in the 90s we used to order a bunch of stuff from them and they would give you that little folded up catalog I used to love to read through.

 

This is a pretty good listen, Bob Mould Live at ATP 2008. I picked it up from the classifieds here a few years ago.

There's one on Amazon for just under 10 bucks. Check out the samples.

http://www.amazon.com/Live-Atp-2008-Band-Mould/dp/B002ZS4196/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1402364341&sr=1-1&keywords=bob mould live

This is a CD.

 

I recommend Flip Your Wig. Every song is a hit.

 

There's little hope a remastering project will happen anytime soon. In order for them to extricate their catalog from SST (as Dinosaur Jr, the Meat Puppets, and several others have done) Mould and Hart would have to agree to work together on a lawsuit, and there seems little hope that will ever happen. Hart has said (several years ago) that Mould was only willing to do it if they would let him buy out their shares of the band and then proceed with the suit on his own. Don't know if that's true, but it seems unlikely they will find a way to work cooperatively on this, ever.

 

Everything from their catalog is essentially in print, with the exception of the Everything Falls Apart EP and some of the early singles...though the first single was reissued for a recent RSD. Also, the posthumous live album (The Living End) appears to be out of print, but I suspect that's easy enough to find.

Like Jason said above, don't bother holding out for a reissue program, since it will probably never happen...at least not anytime soon. The catalog has been in need of a decent remastering for well over 20 years.

 

I recently noticed that the price of the Zen Arcade LP was jacked up from $10 to $25. The longer you wait, the more you'll end up paying more. Vintage copies of Husker Du are rare to come by, so if you see one, grab it!

 

Apparently Warner Bros. thought so too and wanted to release it. However, out of loyalty, the band - who by that time were already signed to Warners - gave the album to SST as a parting gift. The general sentiment now is that, had Warner Bros. released Flip You Wig and put their full promotional muscle behind it, it would have been a monster hit along the lines of Nevermind.

As much fun ad it would have been a blast seeing Hüsker Dü storming the charts and shocking the bourgeoisie, there's a downside to fame and wealth as we saw with the Nirvana, Amy Winehouse and others.

 

Well, in the last issue of Uncut Mould more or less backed up Hart's more positive recent statements, saying "There's been back and forth between SST and the Husker Du estate...There's non-disclosure, so I can't get into it too deeply, but there's been dialogue and I'm optimistic." So take that for what you will.

 

I loved Flip Your Wig, and while agree that album--and the rest of Husker Du's output-- blazed a trail that others , including Nirvana, followed, I doubt it would have been a hit like Nevermind. For one thing, it was released a few crucial years before , and America and MTV , fat and happy with Gun's and Roses and hair metal--as well as Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey--would have ignored it. For another, Flip Your Wig didn't contain either an obvious single like " Smells Like Teen Spirit", or possess a hard rock sheen that Butch Vig helped give Nevermind. Finally, Husker Du was not the most photogenic of bands. However, it is criminal that their discography hasn't gotten the respect and revamping it deserves. Or that it's even readily available.

 

Flip Your Wig is my favorite Hüsker Dü record, but I think it's a real stretch to suggest it could have been a "monster hit along the lines of Nevermind" no matter how much major-label promotion it received. The market was a lot different in 1986 than it was in 1991. And FYW is nowhere near as commercial, accessible, slickly-produced and radio-friendly as Nevermind is. To the contrary, it's horribly recorded like all the other Hüsker records. No bass, and the drums sound like cardboard boxes.

edit: Joe beat me to it...

 

"No bass, and the drums sound like cardboard boxes" Exactly.

 

When I listen to live recordings where you can actually hear the bass (and it sounds great), I wonder what they were thinking when they mixed those records. And Bob has continued that into his post-Dü career. Aside from Black Sheets of Rain, there isn't a Mould album that has really good sounding bass.

 

I wonder what a guy like Steve Lillywhite could've done with the Huskers. He was a commercial producer with some experience in giving bands with trebly guitar attacks some oomph.

 

Get it all. Will you like some better than others? Absolutely. That's always the case. But here's a case where even the failures are worthy and you will not
regret getting them. How can you resist a band that specializes in chaos and sheets of sound and yet inspires references to the Byrds. one-of-a-kind.
like all really great ones.

 

I like all of their albums except Land Speed Record, which I find practically unlistenable. Get whatever you can find.

It would be fantastic if the catalogue could be resurrected by some caring label, and it would be even more fantastic if that label were the Numero Group. After all, they rereleased the band's first single for last Record Store Day and worked with SST Records on the Dinosaur Jr. box set they released this Record Store Day, so they've got form.

 

It IS unlistenable. It amazes me that is a professionally-recorded tape. It sounds far worse than any audience tape I've ever heard. It sounds like it was taped on a recorder that was placed at the bottom of a trash can in the men's room.

 

I'd love to see Husker Du's catalog get not only a remaster but a remix

 

Warehouse and Stories has some great songs as well.

 

Yep, agree with most of the above posts. You can't go wrong with Zen Arcade, New Day Rising or Flip Your Wig, all are excellent!

Oh and if my memory is correct the vinyl is far superior sounding to the CD's, at least I remember the Zen Arcade CD being inferior to the vinyl. Perhaps someone else who knows both can confirm this, like I said it's been a while and I'm a vinyl guy.

 

Yes, I think "Warehouse" often gets unfairly slammed.