The Daily Deep Cut

The editors at JamsBio like to think of ourselves as music fans first, not critics, and that’s the sensibility we strive for at JamsBio and that we seek in other sites as well. That’s why we’re so jazzed about Damn Fine Day, a site that each day profiles a deep album cut that’s been overlooked, but deserves a place in everybody’s collection. In the name of spreading the gospel about great music, we present “The Daily Deep Cut,” where we add our two cents about the songs featured on Damn Fine Day. Once you read our unique take, we’ll send you over to Damn Fine Day so you can stream the full track and download it if you like. Sometimes we might even suggest another deep track from the same album or present some other novel twist on what their hawking.

I was a little young to partake in the glory of the American hardcore heyday during the early to mid-1980s. But that didn’t stop me from joining the party late in the game. Already a huge Replacements fan by 1987, I was introduced to that band’s Minneapolis colleagues, Hüsker Dü, in 1987, when the trio released its swansong – the sprawling, bristling, double album, Warehouse: Songs and Stories. I got the cassette as a gift from a much musically wiser friend from Philly. Bundled with it was Fishbone’s In Your Face, a record that has not enjoyed the longevity of Warehouse, at least for me.

Listening to Warehouse was an eye-opening experience. Up until this point, I always associated hard core music with sheer aggression, but I was captivated by the hummable melodies that bursted out from the buzzsaw guitars made famous by Bob Mould. Songs like “Could You Be the One?” and “Up in the Air” were as much power pop confections as raging punk anthems. I liked what I heard and immersed myself in this album for months, enjoying the disparate songwriting styles of both Mould and Grant Hart. Warehouse was really like two solo albums fused together, as Mould and Hart were clearly drifting apart. By the time I devoured Hüsker Dü’s early catalog, the band was officially finished. Like most “alt-rock” fans, I stuck with Mould when he released his stunning solo album Workbook and followed his career right through the Sugar years and back to the more recent solo work. I also kept up with Grant Hart, purchasing the excellent Intolerance in 1989, although that would be the last we heard from Hart for over a decade.

Of all the Hüsker Dü records, Warehouse is the one I revisit most often. Take a listen to Hart’s “Charity, Chastity, Prudence, And Hope” at Damn Fine Day and you’ll hear why.

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