Sugar

[vvv]

..., awe honey.

The re-mastered set of Copper Blue with Beaster and a 90's Chicago Cab-Metro concert is excellent, really well-done.

The liner notes (interviews) are a great read and the sound quality, well, especially on Beaster, is like when they cleaned up Exile on Mainstreet - a little disconcerting and revealing in a very cool way.

The live show is as good as I remember it being, also.

5/5 olives.

(Mould was good on Letterman the other night, also.)

[frans_13]

I just put "copper blue" in the CD player again after many years... great songs! Still I'm not too sure about the guitar sound but then again, I don't care.

[vvv]

I recall back at the time reading how he preferred S/S amps and was going deaf and so everything was super bright.

I don't know, I recall Marshalls with maybe a Roland JC120? Not sure now, and there was a lotta whiskey that night ... I do recall my gurlfriend passed out backstage and I hadda fend off some cognescenti.

I do like the sound of his last 3 studio solo records, which he produced, and yes, they are a bit bright. The live record and the DVD are great. All are rockin', too.

I listened to Modulate the other night, also (which was said to be made because of his hearing probs) - it seems directed at a particular and specific club audience ...

[segerandpriest]

I am of an age such that Sugar came before Husker Du as my introduction to Mould. It's always funny for me to remember how the first two Sugar records far outsold the Huskers because, so help me, nobody I discuss Sugar with will own up to liking them!

Alas, that's not my problem. I think Copper Blue and Beaster are devastating. And while Malcom Travis' drumming on those records is metronomic and unreal, I think Jon Wurster's playing on the new Mould records AND the recent Copper Blue tours has added, uh, "swing" to the proceedings. Maybe in a Keith Moon way? Sugar did, after all, play a cover of Armenia City in the Sky back in the day... and despite the shoegaze-y trappings of the records, I always thought they were identifiably turned on by very muscular pop vibes that sometimes got submerged in the name of other interests. Wurster unleashes a swaggering side to Bob's songs, I think, without sacrificing Travis' ability to make counting to 4 seem like ecstasy.

But also I like the way the last couple-three solo albs sound. Even the autotune? Maybe. Bob can make weird things work. Some combination of inner editor and outward identities makes for him reconciling diverse audio palettes with rock-solid songwriting in a way that keeps shite interesting for all of us who are still on board with him.

Can anybody help me understand what makes the Beaster/Copper Blue records sound like they do? I know from interviews and the Bob bio that there was a lot of overdubbing and My Bloody Valentine worship, but what does that mean more specifically? Compression? Where does Travis' drum sound come from? Speculation, inference and/or horse's mouth insight would all be welcome.

[vvv]

I think that Flood was very important to the sound, and your mention of shoegaze strikes a, ahem, chord also as being a pretty big factor.

I have always thought Mould from the daze of Husker D. has a bit of an unspoken liking for psychedelia; I mean, check out the very covers of Warehouse, Flip Yer Wig, Zen Arcade, Candy Apple Grey, etc. And he covered the Byrds' "Rock-n-Roll Star".

Also, I have always felt like those Sugar records were mixed to be played loud, altho' the re-masters less so.

FWIW, my appreciation of Mould's music keeps growing. The latest solo record is played a cuppla times weekly here, since it's release; I even like the live HD record he claims to have never heard.

[segerandpriest]

I have always thought Mould from the daze of Husker D. has a bit of an unspoken liking for psychedelia; I mean, check out the very covers of Warehouse, Flip Yer Wig, Zen Arcade, Candy Apple Grey, etc. And he covered the Byrds' "Rock-n-Roll Star".

...

FWIW, my appreciation of Mould's music keeps growing. The latest solo record is played a cuppla times weekly here, since it's release; I even like the live HD record he claims to have never heard.

When I saw Bob in Detroit a couple weeks back, you could see the band sigh with relief upon finishing the Sugar material and then foam at the mouth with happiness about breaking into their own shared repertoire. After "Steam of Hercules" from the new one faded out, they did a full on raga-cum-Richard-Thompson vibe for a tasteful two minutes. The stereo HiWatt amps were brighter than the hottest cleansing flame and basically scraped my ear drums like they were plaque-slathered teeth.