By Working at a record store taught me a tragic truth; no matter how much you love your favorite albums, they’ll never be as popular as they deserve to be. Each month at Merry-Go-Round Magazine, I dust off some long-overlooked records, revisit my pretentious past, and explore how this music forever etched itself into my history. Eventually, all your memories get marked down and thrown into The Bargain Bin.
“What do you mean you don’t want to be my plus one for Bob Mould?” I asked my coworker at the record store, John. “It’s Bob fucking Mould, man! Dude’s a legend. Hüsker Dü, Sugar, the ebbs and flows of his solo career!”
“I know who Bob Mould is, smart ass,” John said, rolling his eyes. “But last time he was in town, he did an acoustic thing with a light show and electronic beats, and it was a slog to sit through.”
“But he’s playing with a full band this time! What if he plays songs from COPPER BLUE? You’ll be kicking yourself if you miss it.”
“Well, first off, I saw Sugar on the COPPER BLUE tour and my ears are still ringing, so I’m good. Sorry, dude. I don’t think you’ll find anyone to take you up on your offer. You’re on your own.”
John was right, of course. I dangled the plus one via Myspace messages to all my usual show pals, but none took the bait. As legendary as Bob Mould was, the previous show had soured his reputation among a small portion of St. Louisans.
It’s not that I wasn’t comfortable going to concerts alone, but more because it was something I had never really done before. My parents and their siblings began taking me to shows at a very early age, often accompanied by their friends and the friends of those friends and so on. Live music became a literal family affair. I quickly learned that dancing and cheering and shouting along to your favorite songs was a group effort. Live music often felt so incredibly special that you wouldn’t want to hoard it all for yourself. Concerts, no matter the venue’s size, were the closest thing I’d felt to a religious experience, and I’d never once attended church alone.
I was head over heels for BODY OF SONG and had already slotted it at number three on my Best Albums of 2005 list. It was a return to form for Mould, one that would precede an incredible run of records over the next two decades. I loved the fusion of electronic elements with the eardrum-piercing guitar rock that made him a legend. It was just as much a dance record as a rock one. It was loud, mesmerizing, and queer as Hell. “Paralyzed,” the most single-worthy track on the album, felt like classic ‘90s Mould with a chorus and guitar hook rivaling some of his greatest Hüsker Dü and Sugar tracks.
I’d gotten a little into Hüsker Dü in high school when a hand-me-down copy of WAREHOUSE: SONGS AND STORIES was handed down to me in a stack of CDs one of my uncles was getting rid of. I may have hung out with all the punk rockers back then, but I was more of the new wave, alt-rock outlier of the gang. I dug the more alt-rock direction Hüsker Dü were heading before the breakup over their chaotic early records, and often preferred the Bob Mould-penned songs over the Grant Hart ones. Grant was great, but there was something about Mould’s vocals that resonated more with me than Hart’s often-frenzied delivery.
After Hüsker Dü became Hüsker Dön’t, Mould tried his luck with two solo albums that underperformed before forming Sugar. Between 1992 and 1996, Mould’s sweet alt-rock project would release two incredible albums, an aggressive EP, and a collection of B-sides before dissolving in water along with so many other pop-stained alt-rock bands.
I first sampled Sugar’s discography when my BODY OF SONG obsession was at its peak and my self-esteem was at an all-time low. I cranked the volume to 11 and listened to COPPER BLUE for the first time to drown out my sadness while driving back from visiting an ex at her college dorm after I’d spent a desperate weekend snuggling, playing DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION on a 32-inch TV, and finding out she only invited me because her new boyfriend had smoked pot at a Modest Mouse concert and she wanted to make him jealous. COPPER BLUE’s songs about heartache, feeling helpless, and trying to pretend like everything was fine when it most definitely was not spoke to me more than Hüsker Dü’s punk rock ethos ever did. I wouldn’t miss this show for the world.
On that late September evening, I drove down to the legendary local music venue Mississippi Nights, which sat a few blocks from the towering monument that makes the St. Louis skyline unique. The club had earned its legendary status long before I started frequenting it. Maybe you were in the near-riot when Nirvana played there in ‘91. Or perhaps you saw the bass player for Ultraman hanging like a bat from the rafters above the crowd. You may also know it without ever having stepped foot in St. Louis. When Jeff Tweedy sang about sincerely missing those heavy metal bands he used to go see on the landing in the summer, those bands were playing at Mississippi Nights.
I told the guy checking IDs that I was on the guest list. While crossing my name off his list, he asked if the dude behind me was my plus one. I shook my head. He gave me a knowing look as he stamped my hand Under 21 in red ink. The crowd in front of the stage was only about three-middle-aged-men-in-flannel-deep, so I hit the merch table and treated myself to a tour shirt and sticker of the BODY OF SONG album art. I’m a sucker for concert shirts that list the tour dates and cities. It gives me an excuse to sort of gesture to my back and say, “I was there!” to anyone who might someday ask. No one has ever asked, but one never knows what tomorrow may bring.
—
I made my way to the middle of the dance floor just as the lights went out and the Bob Mould Band assembled on stage. They immediately tore through the first three songs on COPPER BLUE as I thought about those poor sucker friends of mine that turned down the invitation. What idiots.
From my spot in the crowd, I was lined up straight with Bob Mould’s guitar amp. My ears were bombarded by the might of his guitar the entire show, a level of pressure I had never felt before slamming into my eardrums. I didn’t know a guitar could be so loud, so piercing, so thunderous, so deafening—I felt like blood was pouring from my ear canals and I didn’t give a good goddamn. It would have been an honor to lose my hearing to such a legend.
I was spiraling deep within myself as the band played on. It awoke something inside me. I didn’t have the words to describe it at the time. I just stared in awe at Mould gripping the guitar neck firmly while fingering every chord, shredding the strings with every powerful strum from his brawny arms. And Jesus Christ, what an Adonis. He looked as if he had been chiseled out of marble—a towering Greek statue in a tight, black t-shirt. I felt a tingling sensation coursing throughout my body that felt like when a cold breeze suddenly hits you, or when you catch a crush’s eyes and they give you a little smile. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
While I never felt like I was what society or pop culture claimed was a typical “man,” the fact that I found many women attractive seemed like a sure sign that I was straight. I thought back on all the handsome dudes I had innocent crushes on through the years. Straight men know the basic definition of handsome; surely they could feel that some other dude was handsome and point him out in a lineup. I had never BEING JOHN MALKOVICH’ed anyone in real life, so I was left with little understanding of what was going on in anyone else’s head. If it was happening in mine, it felt perfectly normal and I was sure any guy could relate.
I assumed a straight dude would look at, for example, a shirtless Brad Pitt in FIGHT CLUB and agree that, yes, he was objectively attractive. Everyone else must be having those same realizations, right? And while I, obviously a very “straight man,” could personally admit I thought Mr. Pitt was hot as Hell in that movie, that didn’t mean I wanted to fuck him. Maybe he could hold me tight in his muscular arms when I felt vulnerable and lonely, but I didn’t want to, like, do hand stuff or whatever.
As far as I knew growing up, you could be either straight or gay. Those were the labels and no one had provided any additional options. You could either be like your parents, and most main characters on network TV, or you could put a target on your back for bullies to throw insult darts at until high school ended. (There was a secret third option I heard about in high school, but nobody believed it was real.) I was naive about the existence of additional sexual orientations, the ones that I truly needed to describe myself. There wasn’t yet a place to easily access that information, and it would be another decade before I found the words and pieced my true self together as someone who just loves people of all types.
—
All in all, the band played seven songs from COPPER BLUE, a smattering of Hüsker Dü favorites, a few from BODY OF SONG, and a handful of other essential favorites from his solo albums. When the show ended, the venue staff threw on an album to be the soundtrack for the crowd as they shuffled to their cars. I couldn’t make out what album it was, something my ears could usually decipher in a matter of seconds. It sounded muffled, distorted, and distant, like it was millions of miles away, buried on. It seemed odd for them to put music on so quietly, but then something caught my eye.
I noticed a small group of folks crowded in a half-circle at the edge of the stage. As I moved towards them, I saw they were talking to Bob. My natural instinct was to choose flight and run away to avoid what was sure to be an embarrassing moment in front of such a golden god, but my legs felt frozen to the dance floor.
My thoughts rushed a thousand different ways that meeting Bob Mould could go wrong. What if I’m too nervous to speak? What if I say something awkward? What if I can’t stop shaking his hand? What if he holds me in his arms so tight I feel safe? I stuck out my hand, and he grabbed it firmly. I could feel my cheeks starting to flush red and blood rushing to a particular part of my being. After holding on to his hand a touch too long, I snapped out of the hypnotic state his rippling muscles had put me in.
“I… I love you… I mean, ‘your!’ I love your new record,” I said as my voice quivered, though I may have also been shouting. “It’s just incredible. Will you sign…” I felt around my pockets before realizing the guest list meant I didn’t have a physical ticket; the door guy just checked my name off the list. “Um, this sticker?”
He smiled and scribbled his name with a large “B” followed by some squiggles in black Sharpie. I smiled back before heading directly to the exit as quickly as possible.
Maybe there was something about going to the show alone that let these thoughts and feelings manifest. I was alone and with no one to talk to, my thoughts were free to wander to places it was comfortable going when I didn’t have to entertain a plus one. I could just be me, which was something I often found difficult to be in front of other people.
The moment I stepped out onto the street, I lit a cigarette and took a long drag, much like lovers do in bed after sex in the movies. I noticed the sound of folks chatting about the show outside the venue sounded distant and slightly off, like someone was playing a somewhat warped record at the wrong speed.
When I arrived at my car, I called one of my friends, who had politely declined to be my plus one, but when she spoke, her voice weirdly sounded like Alvin and the Chipmunks had answered her phone. I asked her to sing “Christmas Don’t Be Late,” ignored confusing urges, and started wearing earplugs to concerts.
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