Bob Mould

September 19 - 26, 1 9 9 6 [Music Reviews]

Re Mould

Bob's back, and Pete's to blame
by Matt Ashare
It made sense -- a strange kind of sense -- to see Bob Mould moderating a panel discussion on "Artists and Musical Transitions" at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York City two weeks ago. Mould may not be as much of an expert on the subject as, say, Donny Osmond or Billy Idol. But in the highly specialized, integrity-conscious realm of indie rock (or, as some of my friends used to call it back when Mould was writing songs like "Makes No Sense at All" for the "hardcore" band Hüsker Dü, "college rock"), he has always been wrestling with growing pains. And through his ongoing struggle to maintain artistic integrity and personal space in the face of the compromises that commerce demands, he has emerged as the embodiment of alterna-rock's troubled conscience.
Along with Henry Rollins, another former "hardcore" dude and SST alumnus, Mould stands as one of the few who made the transition from the '80s underground to the '90s alternative mainstream. Both have fans who know far less about Black Flag and Hüsker Dü than the Rollins Band and Sugar. As Mould put it in "Wishing Well," a powerful track from his first post-Hüsker Dü disc and a song that he'll almost certainly open his set with when he comes to Avalon this Tuesday on a solo acoustic tour, "There's a price to be paid for every wish that comes true."
Mould got sick of paying that price earlier this year, so once again he became an artist in transition. He announced the break-up of Sugar, offered a de facto explanation by titling one track from his first post-Sugar solo disc (Bob Mould, Rykodisc) "I Hate Alternative Rock," and issued a statement that he would not be touring or giving interviews for the remainder of the year.
"I recognize that most people might not understand the conflicts and contradictions of the music business that have made themselves apparent to me over the last few years," he wrote in a press release; it concluded, "I have no desire to talk about myself every day for the next three months, nor do I feel any great need to perform these songs 100 times in the four months after the talking stops." But the dedication at the end of the credits on Bob Mould said it all: "This one is for me."
If the solo disc, which featured some of the darkest, most emotionally turbulent personal songs Mould has ever recorded, represented the end of one phase of his career (Sugar), then the tour that brings him to town this week offers the possibility of a new one. He's joined on the tour by Andrew Duplantis, an acoustic bassist from Austin, and rather than focusing on tunes from Bob Mould, they'll be playing songs that span the whole of Mould's career.
"This is the first time that anybody has dabbled with the old stuff with me," he explains over the phone from his home in Austin. "We're doing all kinds of stuff from the Hüsker years, from Sugar, and from my solo albums. I'm finally letting go of the little schisms that separated those songs."
So, what made Mould change his mind about talking and touring this year? Well, for starters there was Pete Townshend, who asked him to open two shows in New York City back in May -- an offer he couldn't turn down. And then there's the issue of revealing his little secret about the song "I Hate Alternative Rock." "It's a five-line limerick," he chuckles, "and the line `The 20th century has not been particularly kind to me' is kind of a joke. It's the funniest line on the record." But mostly it was the Townshend thing.
Mould goes on, "Last spring I did an acoustic show at the Academy in New York and Pete came down. After the set, before I went back out for the encore, the stage manager came up to me and said, `Pete Townshend is here. Can he come back and say hi?' And I was like, `Of course, after the encore.' I didn't realize he was such a big fan, but he came back and he was going on and on about [the Hüsker Dü tune] `Celebrated Summer' and the way I changed the words to `Man on the Moon.' Then I got this call from his American manager, who said that Pete really wanted me to do those shows in New York. I was thinking, `God, I told myself I wasn't going to tour, and I told the media I wasn't going to tour, so it's going to make me a liar, but sure, I'll do it.' It was really just me letting go of my own bullshit."
That bullshit had been building in response to the pressures that commercial necessity exerted on Mould's personal life and artistic freedom over the course of Sugar's four-year existence. During that brief busy period he was a somewhat unwitting participant in his own "outing" by Spin magazine. The extent to which his home life suffered is probably best measured by the seething pain and bitterness expressed in songs like "Anymore Time Between," "Roll Over and Die," "Thumbtack," and "Next Time That You Leave" -- the ones on the new album that he refers to as "very serious, personal, and definitely not funny."
Mould says that those problems have been "settled." But the issues surrounding the demise of Sugar are something he's still actively mulling over as he ponders the next phase of his career.
"Sugar was an accident that turned into this big unwieldy thing. I'm not sure that [bassist] David [Barbe] and [drummer] Malcolm [Travis] can appreciate how bad it is to be in a band that breaks up on bad terms in public. We're lucky that it was not an acrimonious thing We all still talk and we're all still on good terms. I have my regrets about it ending, but I think it was the healthiest thing for all of us. It's not like we were all in our 20s and living in the same house. We're people in our 30s that have lives.
"I remember Sugar as a great experience, but one that was pretty taxing. That band, in a three-year span, did a lot more than most bands do in a career, and it took a lot out of me. Being the focus. Not so much musically, but in terms of being the caregiver -- which means trying to balance the needs of 10 or 11 people and their families. It beat the shit out of me because when I do that I rarely take care of myself. I think what happens is that when it all starts to get too big, when I start to feel that I don't have a life, when it's 18 hours a day of obsessing and taking care of every detail, it gets me down. And it's just natural that I have to step back to decompress and find things to write about. Emotionally it's tough, but the work is usually better for it."
For now, Mould is enjoying the freedom of being an artist in the midst of a musical transition, of having the luxury to make decisions that don't affect the income of two bandmates, a road crew, and their families.
"I'm fortunate that I have a bass player I get along with. We can get in a car and go play for a while. I might put a band together or I might do acoustic touring for two years. I just don't want to get totally locked down to a notion too quickly. I want to leave some doors open for a change."
Bob Mould plays Avalon this Tuesday, September 24. Call 262-2424.