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Saturday 24 April 2010

Husker Du 'Divide And Conquer'


Back in the early-to-mid 1990s, when it was all dance music round here, far as the eye could see, I got back into Husker Du. I'd not been a massive fan previously, but had Candy Apple Grey and the Eight Miles High 7" (which is astonishing, and I'll have to post it at some point). At the time we'd fallen in with a chap, who had the most enormous punk rock record collection and who did the lights and projections at Cream in Liverpool. Hence, on many Saturday nights we trekked over to Liverpool, got into Cream for £1, and danced all night in the back room to Weatherall, The Chemical (then known as Dust) Brothers and other leading lights of the dance scene. We usually ended up back at the flat he shared with his then girlfriend and played records til dawn. Often punk-y stuff. It was a good counter-point to the dance music we'd bashed our brains about to and spent our income on. So it sent me tumbling back into the mid-80s US hardcore stuff. Black Flag were, and remain, too hardcore for me on the whole, but Husker Du were frequently just what the doctor ordered, their fuzzy but melodic power-punk-pop echoing round my head for days on end. This is Divide And Conquer, off Flip Your Wig (the best place to start I reckon, punk-pop, tunes and choruses; save Zen Arcade for later). This is a Bob Mould song, great riff and drums, angry political lyric, but catchily sung. Top stuff.

Divide And Conquer.mp3

1 comment:

hsd said...

This is very cool.Zen Arcade is a great album also. revisited it recently, forgot how good it is.