"I'm sure you've heard this until your nauseous: What does Hüsker Dü mean?"
While barely even qualifying as a footnote in a 50-year career that ended with Joan Rivers' death today, the scene of the legendary comic welcoming the members of one of Minnesota's most influential bands to the set of Fox's "The Late Show With Joan Rivers" in 1987 is one permanently etched in the minds of local music lovers.
The appearance followed the release of Hüsker Dü's second album for Warner Bros. (and last record, period), "Warehouse: Songs and Stories." Besides proving they were one indie band not beholden to image or fashion in the slightest, the Rivers gig also demonstrated how they were more than willing to play the music industry game. It proved Rivers was game, too. She misstates the title of the song -- "You Could Be the One," instead of "Could You Be the One?" – but goes on to ask relatively pointed questions about them leaving the "radical" underground for the corporate music world.
"As you get older, your emotional spectrum becomes a little more involved, a little wider," Bob Mould responds. "It's not just screaming about how messed up the government is and how much you hate your parents anymore."
Things get a little awkward from there. It's pretty clear the band members -- who also went back and played Grant Hart's "She's a Woman (And Now He's a Man)" to end the show -- weren't exactly best buds by that point. Still, Mould seems to hold a fond memory of that TV appearance: He dedicated "Could You Be the One?" to Rivers just this past Sunday during his Hüskers-heavy surprise gig at 7th Street Entry.
