The coronavirus pandemic is wreaking havoc on live music across the globe, with giant festivals — including Coachella and South By Southwest — postponed or canceled and tours in the U.S. and around the world being canceled or curtailed in an effort to protect large crowds from transmitting COVID-19.
This is a round-up of the week’s new albums, expanded reissues and/or box sets, appearing each Monday on Slicing Up Eyeballs. All releases due out this Friday unless noted. This week’s new releases include a brand-new solo album from Hüsker Dü’s Bob Mould and a new collection of covers from The Lemonheads.
Bob Mould, the legendary frontman of Hüsker Dü and Sugar, is back with a new album and single — both called Sunshine Rock — that he says find him looking on the brighter side of things after a few years living abroad. Or, more simply, “This is not Black Sheets of Rain.” He’s also going on tour next year.
The musical festivities in Minneapolis leading up to this year’s Super Bowl will include an outdoor concert featuring some of the Twin Cities’ indie-rock luminaries of the ’80s and ’90s, a lineup that includes Hüsker Dü’s Bob Mould, Soul Asylum, The Jayhawks and The Suburbs. The bands will play for free on Feb. 3.
Minnesota Public Radio’s The Current has just launched a five-part documentary podcast series called “Do You Remember?” that promises to trace the formative years and legacy of Hüsker Dü through interviews with those who were there as well as the three band members themselves — including Grant Hart.
Grant Hart, the founding drummer who served as co-songwriter/singer for pioneering hardcore-punk trio Hüsker Dü, a band that laced tuneful melody with blistering power to help define the ’80s indie scene, died overnight at the age of 56, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. He had been diagnosed with cancer.
After dropping hints for months, Numero Group today finally revealed full details of their multi-disc Hüsker Dü box set Savage Young Dü, which collects new remasters of the punk/hardcore trio’s entire studio output from 1979 to 1982 — including 47 unreleased tracks. See the full tracklist here.
The Hüsker Dü catalog famously has been in dire need of a sonic upgrade and expansion, and it seems, at long last, that it’s happening, courtesy of the Chicago-based reissue pros at the Numero Group, who are assembling something “massive” around the band’s archives.
Former Hüsker Dü frontman Bob Mould has again expanded his planned spring solo-electric outing, adding new shows in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Cambridge, Mass. — plus an appearance at Wire’s Drill: Los Angeles festival. Mould is touring in support of his 12th solo album, Patch the Sky.
Legendary post-punk act Wire will open its 40th anniversary celebrations this year with the release of the band’s 15th studio album, Silver/Lead, which is preceded by the single “Short Elevated Period” — and you can stream that track here.
Former Hüsker Dü frontman Bob Mould is expanding a planned solo-electric outing from two previously announced New York City dates to a total of at least 10 shows, with seven new performances set for Denver, St. Paul, Minn., Chicago, Toronto, Cleveland and Austin, Texas, in April.
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