speak.to

Went to Blowoff at the 9:30 Club on Saturday. Bob Mould and Richard Morel gave nice guitar and vocal performances in the middle of their usual tag-team DJ set, backed up with interesting visuals by Nick Lopata. These guys are all incredibly friendly and talented, and draw an interesting crowd with a great vibe. No booth for Rich and Bob, they DJ from right on the floor. I should really go more often, since I can walk to the 9:30 from my house, and actually hang out with these guys, and several dozen--or a few hundred--of their friends depending on which room they’re in.

Bob is one of my musical heroes, and he’s got quite a canon. I’ve followed his work since the mid-80s, when I was very surprised the first time I saw him perform. He was on the Today show in Minneapolis with Husker Du. I was amazed that the Today show could be so cool. I remember them playing Love Is All Around as they went to a commercial, I heard they recorded it and could never find it at the time, but this punked-out version of the Mary Tyler Moore show’s theme has now been re-released. When I was looking for the date of the Today show performance, I found a video from that era (1987), of a Husker Du performance on the Joan Rivers show, complete with a clumsy but interesting interview.

Bob’s music today incorporates more dance and electronic sounds, along the lines of Richard’s re-mix of New Order’s Krafty, which they played on Saturday. The video for Krafty (also here) is nice, and sort-of shows how love and sex bring joy to your life.

Blowoff has introduced me to several great bands, my favorite take-away so far has been Silversun Pickups. The Pickups are my favorite new band/album/song/video of the last year or so. Check out their site at the link above, where you can listen to Kissing Families from the album Pikul, and see the wonderful video for Kissing Families which includes a sort-of nipple tweak among other interesting quirks.