SOMETHINâ TO DĂ
1
Located mostly within New York Stateâs vast Adirondack Park, Franklin County sits hard against the stateâs border with Quebec. The county is home to potato and dairy farms and, not surprisingly, brutal winters. Franklin County is also notable for a number of correctional facilities brought to the area in an attempt to stabilize the economy. Two of these prisons are located in Malone, a dot a little more than ten miles south of the Canadian border comprising a town and a smaller village of the same name. In short, Franklin County is upstate of the upstate New York commonly known as a vacation destination.
Bob Mould spent the first seventeen years of his life in Malone. Born on October 16, 1961, his parents were literally the âmom and popâ who owned and operated the small local grocery store. Mould was introduced to music early on. His grandmother cared for a woman who had been struck by lightning and permanently disabled. Bob would tag along and was allowed to play the womanâs piano while his grandmother worked. He eventually learned how to bang out songs that were familiar through hours of radio listening. Bob also spent a lot of time helping out around his parentsâ grocery. The storeâs cigarette distributor happened to stock jukeboxes as well, so Bobâs father would purchase 45-rpm records for a penny apiece. During an installment of San Franciscoâs City Arts & Lectures in late 2007, Mould was asked to describe how he came to punk rock in such an isolated town:
Well, the path, the way that I got into it, it was a circuitous route. You know in high school I was into KISS and Aerosmith and all that. My first concert was going to the Montreal Forum on a bus with a bunch of my drunk friends on a high school trip to go see Rush opening for Aerosmith and I would buy ⌠a magazine that was published in the mid-â70s called Rock Scene⌠. And they focused a lot on KISS and Aerosmith ⌠but also they would always talk about these bands, like the Ramones and Television and Patti Smith and the whole CBGB scene at the time and I got sort of introduced to it that way. And, you know, I thought they looked sort of cool and I remember getting the first Ramones album when it came out and I put that on the stereo and I said, okay this is music, you know, this is what music is supposed to be. No offense to Aerosmith or any of the other groups, but when I heard that, everything sort of changed for me and I decided that I needed to make that kind of music.
That wasnât going to happen in Malone, especially for Bob Mould, who by that time was hit with the reality of his prospects in the tiny village:
I started applying for college in my sophomore year of high school. I took SATs very early. I had an exit strategy. I mean [Malone] was a great place. It was a very idyllic, you know, a quiet place to grow up. You are used to long winters; very harsh winters. I guess I was a little different than most kids. I had friends and did sports in high school, so I was engaged with other folks. But I knew that I really had to get away from that town as quickly as possible, partially because there were no jobs and partially because of my awareness as a homosexual. As a gay kid I knew that it wasnât the place to be. So yeah, I got accepted to Macalester College, I think at the end of my junior year, on an underprivileged scholarship. My parents were sort of poverty-line and I was lucky that they had a spot for me at the school. Macalester is a good school and I was very fortunate. And I also knew that there was punk rock in Minneapolis already.
The political leanings at Macalester, located in Minneapolisâ âTwin Cityâ of St. Paul, also attracted Mould, who liked the fact that in the 1960s the school gave college credits to students who protested for at least three hours a day (with official organizations, of course). And Mould liked that Macalester was notorious for having one of the historically worst teams in all of college football.
So in 1977, Mould, an intellectual punk rocker with an impressive knowledge of underground music, moved to the Twin Cities. In retrospect, considering their common interests and proximity, it would have seemed a freakish accident if Mould didnât eventually meet G. Vernon Hart.
Grant Hart was a friendly, outgoing, resourceful, underground-obsessed teen who was also fearless and inventive, especially when he wanted something. âI was a mall rat at the Signal Hills Mall in West St. Paul on Robert Street,â he explains, going on to describe time spent in the mallâs record store, Melody Lane. âI probably put in a thousand hours sitting on the radiator being turned onto new and different music by this employee named Mark Wheeler. Also on staff there was Sharon Boyd, a funky little fox that had more or less made lip service to me about the possibility of working there. I, of course, took this to be a job offer. Then one day I go up there and a new guy is working. I approached Sharon, asking her why she didnât call me about the job, and her response was, âGrant, youâre only fifteen.ââ
That new employee was a lanky teenâone year older than Grantânamed Greg Norton. Norton remembers his first encounter with Grant a short time later. âI was hired at Melody Lane in February of 1978, and I met Grant a month later,â Norton says. âIâm walking through the mall and this kid comes up to me and says, âHey man, you took my job ⌠Sharon said I could have a job at the store once I turned sixteen, but she went and hired you!ââ
Norton attended Henry Sibley High School in West St. Paul. âI already knew how to roll a joint before I entered high school and that really helped hone my people skills once I was there,â remembers Norton. âWhen I was fourteen, I worked in downtown St. Paul, when there was still an actual, vibrant downtown with lots of theaters, lots of cool things happening. Then, over the years, St. Paul literally died. They did some weird things with some malls, they tried to copy some things done elsewhere, but St. Paul culturally, more or less, died towards the end of the â70s, which was sad to see.â
Hart attended South St. Paul High School. Like West St. Paul, South St. Paul is a separate municipality from St. Paul, and Hart remembers a certain issue with his high school experience: âI was marking time in high school. I took the art and music classes that I could, and I was in the band, but it was a weird situation at South St. Paul. The band had separated itself so much from the cheerleading activities but had won a couple of âBest Instrumental Jazz Ensemble Awardsâ already. The school decided that the band needed to be more in line with the football and hockey activities, so they hired this guy who was really big on marching in uniform. Just marching and marching and marching and marching so much that it didnât take long for me and this man to alienate ourselves from one another, and he had the power to tell me not to sign up for my senior year.â
While in high school, Hart had a cover band called Train. He was the keyboardist and owned a Farfisa organ. Train played out one time, at a bowling alley called The Cooler. âI suggested a Patti Smith song to be added to our cover repertoire,â Hart recalls, âand the guitarist, who was in his early forties and was the biggest redneck to ever wear a ponytail, shot it down with âWell, thatâs punk rock!ââ
It wasnât that people were unaware of punk rock by 1977âit was that people hated punk rock, especially in places like South St. Paul, a noted blue-collar bastion whose economy was based in its stockyards. âGrant and I would go to parties with a knapsack full of records and eventually commandeer the turntable and just piss people off by playing the Ramones and Patti Smith,â remembers Norton. âWe cleared a few rooms.â
In his high school art class, Hart made a T-shirt depicting Cleveland band Pere Ubuâs logo in preparation for their upcoming show at what was then Minneapolisâ premier punk rock club, the Longhorn Bar, in 1978. âWe show up, and [the band] thought we had followed them from Cleveland,â remembers Norton. Instead of wearing the shirt, Hart had made it as a gift so that he and Norton could meet the band. âThey were really impressed,â Norton adds.
Hartâs and Nortonâs penchant for punk rock would also capture Mouldâs attention. âI had a practice PA that would fit into the back of my car, and I had a powered turntable,â Hart continues. âWe would go to the park and set up⌠. When I worked at Cheapo Records [near Macalester College], I would hook my PA up to the main system, put the speakers out in front of the store, and just blast punk rock out across and down Grand Avenue. And thatâs what got Bob Mouldâs attention. Plus, it was the only record store within walking distance of the dorm. I donât remember what quantity, but I was also moving a little weed at the time, and that might have played into the early contact we had with one another.â
Hart may or may not have sold weed to Mould, but the common claim that it resulted in their meeting is a convenient yarn. A better and more poignant explanation of their meeting lies in their common interests. Punk rock had arrived in the Twin Cities, which, though culturally progressive, was still a moderately sized urban area, unlike New York or L.A.
âThere were probably several ways that Bob and I got the attention of one another,â Hart explains. âThese were the days when there was no competition. We were both young homosexuals and we werenât destined to be two ships passing in the nightâwe were going to find one another somehow. Bob would bring in records [to Cheapo] that he had purchased up in Toronto or Montreal before he moved to St. Paul. Bob could also bring a record back to his dorm room and know how to play all of the guitar parts by the following morning.â
By his late teens, Hart was musically formidable in his own right and could play multiple instruments. However, he was most proficient on the drums. His kit had been inherited from his older brother, who taught him to play along to âThe Age of Aquarius.â In 1971, Hartâs brother was killed by a drunk driver when Grant was ten. His brother was just two years older.
Hart was still in high school when he and Norton formed the outfit that would morph into HĂźsker DĂź. âWe hung out a lot in my basement on Pontiac Place,â Norton says, referring to his momâs address in suburban Mendota Heights, an address that would later appear on most Reflex Records releases. âAlso, in the year leading up to the band forming in March of 1979, Grant and I spent a lot of time at the Longhorn. We went to a lot of shows, and Grant was underage. The funniest thing was, on his eighteenth birthday, when he was finally legal, they carded him for the first time and heâd left his ID at home. They wouldnât let him in.â
Hart goes on to recall the bandâs first gig. âA bunch of us were at a friendâs house one night and things got weird, so part of the party, including myself and a guy we knew named Charlie Pine, went up to Ronâs Randolph Inn [a few miles from Macalester] because it was in the neighborhood,â he explains. âWhen Charlie was getting a pitcher of beer, he asked the guy managing that night, âSo you have bands here?â The guyâs response was, âYeah, you got a band?â to which Charlie replied, âYeah, weâre called Buddy and the Returnables.â The bartender said, âGood, youâre booked on the 30th and 31st of this month.â Buddy and the Returnables was something that Charlie had just pulled out of his ass right at that moment.â
âCharlie came back to the table,â Norton continues. ââGrant! Grant! Weâve got to put a band together. I just booked us here on March 30th and 31st. Who else can we get to play?â And Grant said, âWell, I know this guy thatâs really good on guitar.â The next day, Grant and I picked Bob up and we went to my momâs basement and jammed out a bunch of Ramones tunes, essentially. Then we practiced with Charlie in his kitchen for the actual gigs. We put together three sets of cover songs.â
In Michael Azerradâs Our Band Could Be Your Life, Greg Norton is quoted describing his and Hartâs first impression of Mould: âBob was this dorky kid in a leather jacket with long hair and a Flying V like the Ramones.â
Norton was probably misheard, as Johnny Ramone didnât play a Flying V, and certainly Norton, a dedicated Ramones fan, wouldnât associate a Flying V with the band, especially seeing as how Ramone famously played a white Mosrite Ventures II. Norton likely was referring to a purple Mosrite that Mould used sporadically throughout â79 and â80 (it can be heard on a couple of their first demo tracks), though Mould did own a âFlying Vâ of sorts. Often wrongly identified as a Gibson Flying V, the guitar was a 1975 Ibanez Rocket Roll, and it would become Mouldâs mainstay and as much a band icon as the umlauts in their name and Nortonâs handlebar moustache.
During the first explosion of copy guitars in the early â70s, the Japanese company Ibanez went perhaps overboard, producing its own versions of Gibsonâs Flying V, among many other models. (The company even made a copy of Ampegâs Dan Armstrong model, the transparent Plexiglas guitar that became Greg Ginnâs signature instrument throughout Black Flagâs history.) In 1977, Gibsonâs parent company brought a copyright infringement case against Ibanez, and a certain stigma became attached to copy guitars, regardless of their quality.
âI never knew him without it,â Hart says of Mould and his Ibanez.
âThat was the guitar that Bob brought with him from Malone,â Norton remembers. âThat was the guitar.â
In a 1981 City Pages interview (just the second piece of local HĂźsker coverage), Mould told the writer, âI use the Flying V [sic] partly because I donât want an angular sound. I just go for a real flat signal. Gregâs bass is the same way; itâs a real antagonizing sound.â
It was at the first practice sessions in Pineâs kitchen that Hart yelled out âHĂźsker DĂź!â during an improvised section of a cover song. It means âDo You Remember?â in Danish but most likely popped into Hartâs head because it was also the name of a popular board game from his childhood.
The practice sessions in Pineâs kitchen not only yielded a name but eventually would result in a final lineup too. âAfter the first night at Ronâs,â Norton continues, âthe three of usâGrant, Bob, and myselfâsaid âWell, this seems to be working out, we like playing together.â And that was based on the previous times we jammed in my basement. So the three of us got to the gig really early the next night, and the guys that worked there took us downstairs to smoke some weed. Once Charlie showed up, it was clear that we werenât going to be playing with him for long.â
Pineâs tenure with the band wasnât quite over, however. âAt that point, Charlie Pine calls up and says, âHey, Iâve got another gig for us.â It was playing SpringFest at Macalester. It was a yearly festival and we were the headlining band.â After Bob, Greg, Grant, and Charlie had played everything they knew from the Ronâs Randolph Inn gig, they were informed that fifteen to twenty minutes remained in the set, so Bob, Grant, and Greg launched into some of the original songs from their practice sessions in Nortonâs basement.
Though justifiably taken off guard, Pine made a game attempt to play along with the songs heâd never practiced.
âHis organ was one of those older, hard-wired pieces,â Hart recalls. âIt had a series of wires coming out of it. A friend of ours, Steven âBallsâ Migitowski, had given the thumbs-up to Bob, Greg and I, while giving the thumbs-down to Charlie, literally, and he had also disabled Charlieâs organ.â
Officially a three-piece after the SpringFest incident, the band was ready to take on the cityâs top punk rock stage. âThe third time we played out was our very first gig at the Longhorn,â Hart says, referring to the former downtown steakhouse turned pillar of punk rock, both for local and touring bands. âWe probably spent a little while practicing and developing new material, because this was like playing the Apollo for us.â
âIt was us, then Wilma and the Wilbers, and I want to say the Testers,â Norton remembers. âWe got paid twenty bucks for that gig.â
In order to play the Longhorn, local bands had to first schedule a weekday audition. These auditions were held during what was called âthe businessmenâs lunch,â though it was unclear what criteria had to be met for a band to be invited back for the elusive nighttime gig.
âThe way I remember it, Grant told us that we had an audition at the Longhorn, when there was no audition,â Norton says. âWe hauled all of our gear down there on a Tuesday, in the middle of the day. We set up and started playing. A few minutes later, the guy who ran the Longhornâhis name was Hartley Frankâshowed up screaming, âStop! Stop! Okay! Okay! You can play here. You got the gig!â The thing is, we never had an audition. It was a completely balls-out move on Grantâs part. We just went in there and set up, played, and the purpose of the whole thing was to keep Bob in town for the summer.â
âBob was prepared to go back to Malone for the summer because we had no other gigs lined up,â Hart confirms.
âNot only did we get that gig,â says Norton, âbut we got a lot of gigs. I remember all summer, the only way we knew if we were playing an upcoming Friday or Saturday was by looking at the Longhorn ad in the paper. Weâd open it up each week and it was âLook! Weâre playing this Friday!ââ
After the 1979 school year, Mould did indeed fly home to Malone, but only for a short stayâthe Longhorn ploy to keep him in the Twin Cities for the summer worked. âThat was the summer that Bob lived at my folksâ house until the fall semester started up,â remembers Hart.
Also by the summer of â79, Hart and Norton were...