Bob Mould has deviated from the script somewhat. While that solo album, Workbook (Virgin), was a critical success, it was less than boffo at the box office. Many of his faithful old slam-dancing fans were turned off by the quieter Mould, whose lyrics could finally be discerned over the din. (Unless you heard Hüsker Dü play live, you probably can't imagine just how loud they really were; my wife claims she once enjoyed one of their concerts while sitting in a car parked several blocks from the club.) And not enough new fnas took their place: Mould had little name recognition as a solo act, and he doesn't exactly have what you'd call matinee-idol looks. His extraordinary shows were often sparsely attended. (There is an excellent promotional live CD of the tour, with cuts from the album and a cover of Richard Thompson's "Shoot Out The Lights.") So before he knew it, the new, mature, low-key Bob Mould found himself pumping up the jam again.
"I really did think there was a more adult way to do this, but I was wrong," Mould says, taking a drag on his last remaining vice. (Once the possessor of an impressive beer gut, he's just about skinny now, and he's no longer writing any of his tunes while he's got a buzz on.) "There's no other way but to go out and sweat and die. The Workbook tour was supposed to be calmer ... like how I'm sure Suzanne Vega does it or John Hiatt does it. But when you get people yelling shit at you, it's like you have to do something. They're yelling 'You suck' or Play some old stuff.' So I'm, like, 'Well, okay, I'll just turn it up a little louder. Pick your head up at the door onthe way out.' I thrive on that hate. 'C'mon, hate me some more,' y'know? 'See if I care
GEE, and it was such a good story too.
Here was Bob Mould — singer, guitarist, writer, noisemaker — leaving America's loudest and most accomplished garage band, Hüsker Dü, moving to a barn in rural Minnesota, far from big-city pressures, and creating a pensive, mature solo album with such a broad mix of sounds that some tunes made sense for thrash-rock fans and others were so user-friendly that one actually made the regular rotation between news stories on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. It almost seemed like a sitcom created by the producers of thirtysomething. The lead could have been played by Jeff Daniels (a nearly perfect voice match for Mould), and each week "Bob" could have been shown trying to balance his hard-core past with the "live slow, die old and leave a smoke-free corpse" Nineties. Imagine the hilarious high jinks and
anymore.'" As a result, his new music started getting louder and harder (and better if you ask me; I fell for Workbook only after seeing Mould play' live).
Mould also found that he needed to get even farther away from the Minneapolis music scene, of which Hüsker Dü had been such a prominent part — the band helped spawn a veritable midwestern hard-rock culture of such groups as the Replacements and Soul Asylum that were the perfect counterpoint to Prince's local funk legacy. Rumors persisted that Mould and his former power-trio mates — one of whom was battling a heroin addiction — might be reuniting. So Mould decided he no longer wanted to be a big fish in (or living next to) a small pond. He opted to move east and be pond scum all over again.
"I got to the point where the place I lived was holding me hostage," he says. "It was, like, people were saying, 'You have to respect him because he helped build this scene.' You've staked out this claim: You're famous, people will buy you drinks." So he moved a year ago. "Within twenty-four hours, I was out and my stuff was on the way here. I didn't have a (continued on page 162)
