>>PREVIEW
BOB MOULD
Friday, March 3
MacEwan Hall (U of C)
Do you remember the first time a song punched you right in the gut?
For me – and I know I’m not alone – it was Hüsker Dü’s cover of "Eight Miles High." The guitar felt like a thousand vacuum cleaners sucking my brains out through my eye sockets. Even now, some 15 years after I first heard it (at an older, much cooler friend’s house), it stands up as a perfect example of musical catharsis.
That single transports me to a time before the complete commodification of music for outsiders and geeks, before dating disasters and marriage meltdowns, before the real complications and consequences of adult life had set in. A time when it was still OK to be moody because that was what young people did, damn it. When angst was a relatively new experience instead of a tired old guest who has long since worn out their welcome. A perfect time to hear Bob Mould’s voice howling, incoherent and full of multi-directed rage.
"I think pop music is a very immediate art form that speaks of a particular place in time," says Mould. "And I think sometimes people want to romanticize the first time they heard an artist or a band, or the first time it impacted them. And maybe that’s the freeze-frame – maybe that’s where they want artists to stay because they always want to be that age or in that place."
That could explain my penchant – and again, I know I’m not alone – for checking in on Mould’s music from time to time, but always returning to the safety of that SST seven-inch single for what I tell myself is the real thing.
"People like what they want because it can be difficult for them to come with me as I want to change and grow and adapt and revise," he says. "I understand completely. I do it as a fan as well, it’s totally understandable. Having said that, it won’t stop me from looking outward or looking onward."
Some fans might have thought he didn’t understand at all when, in 1998, Mould announced he was leaving behind the guitar-heavy sound he’d been associated with for 20 years. He experimented with electronica, took more than half a year off to write scripts for the World Championship Wrestling organization, performed in Burn To Shine, a film by Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty, and started DJing at Washington, D.C.-area clubs with friend and sometimes bandmate Richard Morel.
Mould also spent time in the last decade getting involved with the gay community, both locally and nationally, something he’d never afforded himself before. In 2004 he played at wedROCK, a benefit concert for Freedom to Marry. The organization is a gay and non-gay partnership working to win marriage equality in the United States. Does he foresee a time when the US will catch up to Canada and other countries that have passed gay marriage rights legislation?
"Not right now," he says, letting out a long sigh. "Not right now. I mean, this country is in pretty rough shape. I remember the ’80s and I thought that was bad, and it was bad, but I just think when I look at the ’80s and I think about the Reagan era through the Bush era and how tough that was for people socially. Then Clinton came into office and there were eight years of prosperity and eight years of peace and eight years of growth, of new ideas, and it all got wiped away."
Does he feel the need to comment on the situation through his lyrics?
"No, not specifically or literally. I mean, there are references to it in the context of how it affects me personally from day to day," he says. Take the gorgeous lead track "Circles" on his latest album, Body of Song, in which he writes, For Tuesday I walk to the village/and I know that my vote doesn’t count anymore/I got my opinions about you/I keep them inside of the ballot box.
"But I don’t really like the soapbox idea," he continues. "I like to write pop songs about relationships, so if I want to talk about it I have a blog (modulate.blogspot.com) or I have this interview. I’ve got other ways to do it."
Back to the music, then. He’s had a few years to, as he put it earlier, change and grow and adapt and revise. With Body of Song, Mould has now returned to his familiar guitar-based sound, but with ample evidence of his continued attachment to electronica. The results are pleasing. And no matter what era of his career you’re fixing for, he’s going to deliver on this tour. The set list?
"From all eras of the catalogue," he confirms. "From Hüsker Dü to solo work to Sugar to more solo work to the most recent records, and possibly some music I’m working on for the next record."
He adds slyly, "There are lots of the hits," and laughs. |
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