“This year was the worst I can remember, except when I was five years old, pushed open the front door, got lost in the snow.” An unnamed band member wrote those words as liner notes on the last Husker Du album; soon after, the group was history, a victim of the centrifugal spin of underground superstardom. Guitarist Bob Mould, pained by the split (drug-related, it was said) with ten-year partner Grant Hart, has resurfaced with a searing solo album, Workbook. Husker Du, live and on record, made sounds appropriate to the opening of death’s roaring maw; Workbook at times hints at noises like that, but on the whole it’s quieter–sonically, that is. Thematically it’s about things like centrifugal forces. Mould’s live band is an all-star outfit: Golden Palomino drummer-theorist Anton Fier, Pere Ubu bassist Tony Maimone, and former dB guitarist Chris Stamey. Plus you have the enormous Mould in front, dancing, as he did in the Huskers’ heyday, like a whale on a beach. Wait for Light opens. Sunday, 7:30 PM, Cabaret Metro, 3730 N. Clark; 549-0203.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Marc Norberg.