Grant HartThe ArgumentDomino, 2013
Two days ago marked the fifth anniversary of Grant Hart's death. I stopped in my tracks and decided I was going to listen to a significant amount of Grant's music this week. Naturally, I also wanted to write about one of his records. More accurately, I wanted to write about my memories of him.
I had several false starts over the previous two days. Nothing felt right. Memories had become less clear, yet every sentence felt reproduced, an inferior plagiarism of myself.
Thanks to today's Facebook memories, I know why. I had already let my thoughts on Grant fly in a long post I made on my personal page five years ago. Presented here, with minimal editing, is that post...
Friday, September 15, 2017. 2:15 AM
I was a Bob Mould fan first.
I knew “See a Little Light” and “It’s Too Late” from heavy rotation on KJ104. Late in the summer of 1992, that magnificent station introduced me to “Helpless,” the lead US single from Mould’s new band Sugar. Soon the video for that song attained coveted Buzz Clip status on MTV’s 120 Minutes and Alternative Nation.
During that first week of September in 1992, three notable things happened to me:
- KJ104 suddenly switched formats from modern rock to country.
- I started high school.
- Sugar’s Copper Blue was released. I think I bought it at Title Wave.
Less than a month into my freshman year of high school, I befriended a long-haired sophomore named Matt Cronk. He was hilarious, blunt, and slightly intimidating. He made fun of my Jane’s Addiction and Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirts, and in turn introduced me to a lot of pretty great music. He wore a Hüsker Dü shirt. Kind of a lot. I probably never admitted to him that, while I loved Sugar, I had never heard Hüsker Dü. Before I would have to face up to that embarrassment, I was saved by the cutout cassette bin at Holiday Plus, where I found Candy Apple Grey (and The Replacements’ All Shook Down) for three bucks.
As I listened to side one, I realized I DID know Hüsker Dü! I recognized “Don’t Want to Know If You Are Lonely” and “Sorry Somehow” as songs they used to play on KJ104. But that definitely wasn’t Bob Mould’s voice! Huh.
By the end of freshman year, I was a superfan. Hüsker Dü was unquestionably my favorite band. I was always a music kid, but nothing I heard before had ever punched me in the gut like them. There was chaos, fury, beauty, and pain. But it was insanely catchy. Rock ‘n’ roll was shaping a naively romanticized vision for my world. Hüsker Dü led my inner revolution. Soon my world was flipped upside down by my new circle of friends. Most of them were older than me, and a great many were in bands -- and they were all heavily influenced by Hüsker Dü.
Having peers play original music in Robbinsdale basements changed my view of the entire world. Hell, it became my world. My favorite was Matt’s band God’s Date. Matt sang a few of their early songs, but most of them were sung by Sean Peterson. I was fifteen and Sean was nineteen when we met. That’s a pretty big age difference when you’re fifteen. But the fact that he could legally buy cigarettes for everyone at the 24-hour Byerly’s restaurant in Golden Valley (the official hangout for the freaks and geeks of the district) still didn’t explain how someone I personally knew could write songs like Sean could.
So, I’m a Hüsker Dü superfan, but really Bob Mould is still the hero. I got my driver’s license early in my sophomore year, and one of the first mixtapes I made for the car was called “God Mould.” All killer, no filler from Sugar, his two solo albums, and my favorite Bob-sung Hüsker songs. And I just didn’t know how to react when Sean -- who is now my real-life songwriting hero -- states that he prefers Grant Hart’s songs. I don't think I was ready to admit Sean was right. But I couldn’t say he was wrong. Hüsker Dü was amazing because of the rival songwriter dynamic.
I picked up Grant’s solo album Intolerance, and I found the cassette for his band Nova Mob’s
The Last Days of Pompeii in yet another cutout bin. I liked both. Each had a few great tunes. Grant’s first new music since I had become a fan was 1994’s self-titled Nova Mob CD on Restless Records. It received some reasonable airplay on REV 105, but it’s a damn shame that it didn’t receive the same attention as
Copper Blue, (Paul Westerberg's)
14 Songs, and (Soul Asylum's)
Grave Dancers Union. That it didn’t only seemed to be Grant’s lot.
My favorite Grant Hart memory occurred sometime during the winter of my junior year of high school (1994-95). On a Saturday afternoon, my high school sweetheart Shannon and I were driving around, looking for something to Dü, when we heard on REV 105 that Grant was going to be giving a free in-store performance for the grand opening of the new Best Buy store on 494 and Lyndale.
We arrived and asked the greeter where Grant Hart was playing. No idea. We walked through aisles of TVs, VCRs, cameras, and whatever else to the CD section -- which seemed the most logical place to hold a performance -- and found… nothing. Asked another employee about the Grant Hart in-store. He had no idea who or what we were talking about. We turned a corner and ran into Grant standing all by his lonesome with a microphone and an electric guitar. It was just the three of us. He started playing some songs. I think a few other people came over to see what was happening, but my memory is that Shannon and I were the only two who were actually there to see Grant.
It was a weird scene. He was standing in the middle of a chain big-box store playing some of my favorite songs ever written. We were standing five feet in front of him. Nobody else was paying attention. At seventeen, Mould and Hart were my Lennon and McCartney. And this was our private concert.
After a few songs, he asked what we wanted to hear. In possibly the most romantic gesture of my life to that point, I sheepishly asked if he could play “Green Eyes.” (Cuz, duh, Shannon has green eyes.) It was magical. The rest of his set was basically me nervously blurting out “Books About UFOs,” “2541,” “Old Empire,” “Never Talking to You Again,” and more, and him playing them all. For the two of us.
I saw Grant play several times after that. Some were among the most awkward and uncomfortable shows I’ve ever seen. Others were bliss. I didn’t have a personal encounter with him again, though, for another five years.
A week or two after I started working at Oar Folkjokeopus in the fall of 1999, Grant came in just before closing time. He hit me up for money. “Hey, can I borrow twenty bucks?” When I told him I didn’t have twenty bucks, he asked if he could borrow it from the register. “I’m a friend of [my boss] Mark’s.”
It was intensely uncomfortable for me. I didn’t give him the money. By that point, I was keenly aware of his addiction history and had already seen at least one remarkable on-stage meltdown. Still, it was a profound fall-from-grace moment for a guy who I had placed on a pedestal.
Thankfully, things got much better. Over the next sixteen years, I had many encounters with Grant at
Oar Folk/Treehouse Records. It slowly developed from him stopping in to look specifically for his old buddies Mark or the late, great Terry Katzman to him just showing up and shooting the shit with me, my friend and co-worker Brian, and potentially anyone else who was working or shopping.
It was often awkward, but as the years went on I guess I got used to him. Things shifted from a kind of cool discomfort to moments and conversations that I cherished. I don’t know if there’s a subject that Grant couldn’t talk about. He was a smart, smart man. He’d talk about Burroughs and the beat poets. He’d talk about weird ‘50s science fiction magazines. He’d talk about art. He'd talk about cars. He’d talk about philosophy. He’d even talk, quite unfiltered, about Hüsker Dü. Much of what he’d talk about was over my head, and it was often non-linear. It was quite a few years before I realized he actually knew my name. That was a pretty cool feeling.
A few favorite Grant memories from Treehouse:
- The first time I was behind the counter when he busted us for having a Hüsker Dü bootleg. We had just acquired copies of a surreptitious LP called Do You Remember? and they were piled up front on the new release rack. He picked one up and started studying the back cover. I started shitting myself. He said, “Tell Mark I’m taking one of these,” and walked out the door with it. What could I do? Call the cops and say I’ve got a guy in here stealing an illegal record of his own band? After that I found that Grant seemed highly entertained by the various Hüsker Dü bootlegs that occasionally found their way into the store. He would always buy them. It was only that one time that he stole one!
- When his last album The Argument was released in 2013, he played an in-store at Treehouse. It was really well attended and we sold quite a few records. I’ve been to some pretty sparsely attended Grant Hart shows, so it felt so great to see a big turnout for that. I remember not being able to hold back a big dumb grin while he’d mess with his old Hüsker soundman Terry, who was of course running sound on that day. Definitely near the top of my list for favorite in-stores we hosted.
- Record Store Day 2013. The Numero Group was reissuing the first Hüsker Dü single that day. Grant stopped in a couple days before to give us a bunch of blue vinyl promo copies of his “So Far From Home” single and told us to “give them out to anyone who buys the Hüsker record… or whoever.” Then he showed up unannounced on Record Store Day and hung out by the counter to sign copies for anyone who bought the Hüsker Dü record. But the best was when he showed up again the next day. He wanted to check in to see how the record did. (It sold out.) He was still hanging out on the other side of the counter 20 minutes later, when a hip-hop kid was intrigued by the cover of the Roky Erickson & The Aliens “Mine Mine Mind” b/w “Bloody Hammer” 7" reissue that Light In the Attic had released for RSD. I don’t know how I can describe the amazingness of that scene. The kid had no idea who he was talking to, but that was of no consequence. Grant would talk to anyone about anything. And in a few minutes, Grant had either scared or inspired (probably -- hopefully -- both) this kid to add a Roky single to his pile of bargain bin disco and smooth jazz records. I still wonder what that kid thought when he got that record home. I wonder how it may have changed his life.
Anyway, that’s my Grant Hart ramble. I really didn’t know him all that well. But I knew him. I can safely say I’ve never had another connection to an artist quite like this.
Thank you, Grant.
 |
| Grant Hart at Treehouse Records, August 17, 2013 |
“If your heart is a flame burning brightly
You'll have light and you'll never grow cold
And soon you will know that you just grow
You're not growing old”
About my copy:
US double LP, personally signed to me at Grant's in-store performance at Treehouse Records to celebrate the album's release. I realize I didn't write anything specific about the album on this entry, but it's a beautiful and ambitious collection of songs, and an absolute highlight of Grant's musical legacy.
