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HÜSKER DÜ: The Complete Spin Radio Concert (Radio Silence Records, Europe)
VENUE: The legendary First Avenue club, Minneapolis MN; August 28th, 1985.
SOUND QUALITY: Muddy, distant, hollow-sounding without much instrumental separation, the vocals all but buried in a miasma of droning sonic overkill. Plus, there’s a sort of buzzy effect on the vocals that tickles your eardrums like a shard of broken glass. The entire album sounds like it was sourced from second-or-third generation tape of the original radio broadcast or, worse-case scenario, from a previous vinyl release. Pretty shabby…
COVER: Colorful psych-drenched front cover with a photo of the band superimposed against a spotty, purple-tinted electric backdrop. Nice heavy cardboard, with a period photo of the band onstage at (presumably) the First Avenue club on the rear cover along with the track list.
TRACKLIST: Side A: 1. Flip Your Wig • 2. Every Everything • 3. Makes No Sense At All • 4. The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill • 5. I Apologize • 6. If I Told You • 7. Folklore • 8. Don’t want To Know If You Are Lonely • 9. I Don’t Know For Sure • 10. Terms of Psychic Warfare Side B: 11. Powerline • 12. Books About UFOs • 13. Hardly Getting Over It • 14. Sorry Somehow • 15. You’re So Square/The Wit and the Wisdom • 16. Green Eyes • 17. Divide & Conquer
COMMENTS: Minneapolis rockers Hüsker Dü were anything but a household name in the mid-‘80s. The critically-acclaimed trio had three well-received albums under their belt, including bona fide classics in 1984’s Zen Arcade and 1985’s New Day Rising, and were poised to release what would be their final SST Records’ album, Flip Your Wig, before leaping from the indie world to a major league deal with Warner Bros. Records. This August 28th, 1985 hometown performance at the legendary First Avenue club was taped for the syndicated Spin Radio Concert series and was distributed to radio stations on a 12” double-LP set that remains quite collectible to this day, selling for $50 - $75 in VG/NM condition.
On the First Avenue stage – which had hosted such talents as Prince, the Replacements, Soul Asylum, and the Jayhawks as well as appearing in Prince’s Purple Rain movie – Hüsker Dü roared through a 17-song setlist that mostly featured material from New Day Rising and the upcoming Flip Your Wig. The sequencing on this Radio Silence vinyl isn’t the same as on the original promotional release, which sprawled across three sides to make room for DJ chatter and national underwriting advertising. It also drops a song in “Celebrate Summer,” crams “You’re So Square” and “The Wit and the Wisdom” into a single track, and magically includes a pair of worthwhile tunes that don’t seem to have been included on the original acetate.
What’s left is still pretty powerful stuff, even if the sound quality is so hollow, hidden, and horrible as to be offensive to your poor lil’ eardrums. Opening blast “Flip Your Wig” manages to scramble its way out of the deep canyon that is the album’s mix to grab you by the lobes, machinegun guitar and blistering vocals matched with turbocharged drumming to raise the roof from the first strummed note. The six-string assault continues unabated as Bob Mould and gang (esteemed bassist and drummer Greg Norton and Grant Hart, respectively…) roll right into “Every Everything” without a second’s break, the song a two-minute flash-bang that segues nicely into “Makes No Sense At All,” all three songs roaring out of the grooves of the soon-to-be-released Flip Your Wig. There’s a scrap of melody discernable in “Makes No Sense At All,” cowering in fear, perhaps, beneath the Panzer-like blitz of the thrashing, crashing instrumentation.
The next flurry of kidney-punches comes courtesy of my personal fave Hüsker Dü flapjack, New Day Rising, “The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill,” “I Apologize,” “If I Told You,” and “Folklore” all offering squalls of soaring fretwork that dives at your skull like a hungry raptor while the rhythmic backdrop crushes your ears beneath an onslaught of thunderclaps and lightning-strike drumbeats. Oddly, neither “If I Told You” or “Folklore” are listed on the original Spin Radio Concert track listing, but they’re dancing around in these grooves nevertheless, even if “Folklore” seems to be a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it blur of sound and kinetic energy. By contrast, “Don’t Want To Know If You Are Lonely,” which wouldn’t actually appear on wax until 1986’s major label debut Candy Apple Grey, is built from the sort of gorgeous, melodic, guitar-driven wall-of-melancholy that could have made it college radio hit if WB hadn’t fumbled the ball.
The radio-ready “I Don’t Know For Sure” is another song from Candy Apple Grey (for those keeping track at home, Hüsker Dü are reaching forward across two future albums for songs, saying something about the band’s prolific songwriting chops). With a driving rhythm and engaging vocal harmonies rising above the din of Mould’s slashing guitar licks, the song could have been a contender! Flipping back to New Day Rising, “Terms of Psychic Warfare” is like a Blue Öyster Cult tune on amphetamines, a snarling, metal-slagged behemoth with counter-harmonies and stomping rhythms. Side two plugs in with another pair of molten gold NDR tracks in the stripped-down “Powerline,” with its mesmerizing guitar riff, and “Books About UFOs,” which is a surprisingly spry and up-tempo rager with clashing vocals and screeching guitar licks.
Hailing from the future (and Candy Apple Grey) come “Hardly Getting Over It” and “Sorry Somehow,” the former a lethargic dirge with wistful vocals and dense, droning instrumentation with an imaginative guitar solo while the latter offers angular guitars driven by emotional, apologetic vocals and another thick-as-mud musical mix. “(You’re So Square), Baby I Don’t Care” is a cover of the 1957 Elvis Presley hit penned by the legendary songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller for the movie Jailhouse Rock. Suffice it to say that old ‘E’ never sang it quite like this, Hüsker Dü ripping through the song at like a buzzsaw with no little joi de vivre, grinding right into the plodding, dino-swagger of the guitar-crazed “The Wit and the Wisdom” before snapping back to the 1950s for an Elvis reprise. Hüsker Dü close out the side with a storm of mortar-fire, the yearning “Green Eyes” afforded a respectfully melodic arrangement and performance while “Divide & Conquer” is an up-tempo rocker with shouty vox and a barrage of wiry guitar and explosive rhythms.
The Spin Radio Concert is probably the most often bootlegged Hüsker Dü performance in existence, and its widespread circulation among fans from day one only helped in the creation of dodgy titles like Lynndale’s Burning, Minneapolis Is Burning, or Psyche Power Pop that are sourced from poor-quality cassettes taped off the radio, other vinyl and CD releases and, infrequently, the actual master tapes. Because there is a distinct lack of decent Hüsker Dü live recordings, and this show is so readily available, some dodgy European labels have released albums with different dates and cities credited in an attempt to disguise the performance’s origins. The Complete Spin Radio Concert is up front about its source, and while the band righteously kicks out the jams with an A+ performance, the poor (albeit lively) sound quality drops the grade a couple of points. I’ve heard worse, but surely there’s a better-sounding recording hidden away that could be restored and reissued to the glory this performance deserves?
Grade: C+
Bonus view:
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