In 1981, Husker Du arrived on the scene not with a whimper, but
with a thud.
Who else but this Minneapolis-based punk trio would make their
debut,
Land Speed Record, a live release featuring the band
literally plowing through 17 songs in less than a half-hour? Who
else would challenge the listener with an
if-you-can’t-follow-the-music-dive-outta-the-way attitude? Who else
would challenge the Ramones for pure adrenaline in their
performances?
That all being said,
Land Speed Record is not the kind of album you may think it
is. It’s sloppy, unproduced, and damn near unlistenable at times.
It’s almost as if you’re listening to a tape an audience member
made and decided to market as a bootleg.
Part of the problem lies with the band — vocalist/guitarist Bob
Mould, bassist/vocalist Greg Norton and vocalist/drummer Grant Hart
— and their don’t-give-a-fuck attitude towards their own music. I
know this is punk, and that conventional rules were often thrown
out the window when it came to punk rock at this time in its
history. But even
this goes past common sense.
The mix of the show is absolutely atrocious; vocals and
instruments fade to the forefront and the background, often with no
warning. It’s almost as if the soundman was on the job for one day,
and was discovering just what all these cool little knobs and
slides did.
In a sense, that’s really a shame, ’cause
Land Speed Record could have been a nice showcase for such
Husker Du compositions as “MTC,” “All Tensed Up,” “Bricklayer”
(which would come into its own on
Everything Falls Apart) and “Ultracore”. Instead, it’s a
sonic mess.
Of course, some of the blame has to go on the band themselves.
They roar through these songs with the gentleness of a bull in a
china shop. Every song they touch basically gets splintered, to the
point that the album becomes so much white noise.
Disappointed? You bet I am… and that’s only because I know how
capable the band really was. True, they were still working their
way up to the top of their craft (which point that was, though, is
still up for discussion… I still lean towards
Zen Arcade), but is this really the first impression Mould
and company wanted to leave with listeners?
