If you file it alongside everything else you can buy in a store with the band's fractured logo on it, the new book on the world's most contentious rock trio is the first new Hüsker Dü product since the live album "The Living End" came out in 1994. Amazing, really. Sad, definitely.
From that perspective, it's easy to get excited about "Hüsker Dü: The Story of the Noise-Pop Pioneers Who Launched Modern Rock," which lands this week from Voyageur Press, the same publisher behind Jim Walsh's Replacements oral history, "All Over But the Shouting."
Maybe because most Twin Cities writers know better than to get between Grant Hart and Bob Mould, the Hüskers book was authored by a Memphis-based freelancer and humorist, Andrew Earles. He predictably finds very little humor here. This is the first compendium on the band aside from its chapter in Michael Azerrad's 2001 indie-rock bible "Our Band Could Be Your Life," which Earles seems weirdly fixated on discrediting -- eventually coming off as sour as some of the gripes the band members have with each other.
With invaluable input from local vets Terry Katzman, Chris Osgood and Hüskers bassist Greg Norton, Earles does a terrific job painting the Twin Cities scene of the late '70s and early '80s. As the author points out, most scenesters were less than receptive to the scrappy-looking, noisemaking trio from (gasp!) St. Paul. Which is why Hart, Mould and Norton started their own label, hit the road and became DIY trailblazers when most bands didn't even know where to buy a van.
Earles' non-local residency status proves unimportant, but there are shortcomings among the 288 pages. He announces in the introduction that his book will address neither the band's drug use nor the fact that two of its three members are gay. (Avoiding the latter issue seems unfathomable, especially for a book with "pioneers" in the title.) There's also little detail on the band's legal issues with SST Records and the total lack of any best-ofs, reissues, etc. It just seems that Earles did not want to ask the hard questions.
The most glaring hole is that Earles could not ask any questions of Mould, who "politely" declined to participate. Mould instead spent most of the past year working on his autobiography with assistance from (guess who?) Azerrad, due to be published in June by Little, Brown & Co. Even when it comes to books, the Hüskers can't get on the same page. Hart and Norton do all the talking here.
Earlier this week, Mould said he has not read Earles' work, but he wished it well and emphasized that his tome will undoubtedly be different.
"Naturally, my book deals with that period, but it's only one facet of who I am, what I've done so far, and how I became the person I am today," he said, citing at least one specific contrast: "I've had major issues with my own sexuality over the years, and my book will shine a very bright light on that part of my life."
