Hüsker Dü announce new live album ‘Tonite Longhorn’
Legendary Twin Cities hardcore punk band Hüsker Dü has announced a brand-new archival live album, Tonite Longhorn.
Originally recorded at the Longhorn Bar in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the album’s recordings date between July 1979 and September 1980. All 28 tracks on the double-disc album were previously unreleased.
Originally formed by guitarist Bob Mould, drummer Grant Hart, and bassist Greg Norton in 1979, Hüsker Dü released their first official album, the Land Speed Record live LP, in 1982. The band’s earliest demos from May of 1979 were previously collected on the 2017 compilation album Savage Young Dü.
“Most artists begin their careers by looking to their heroes for inspiration. Tonite Longhorn is a comprehensive overview of three teenagers paying homage, experimenting with different genres, and — most importantly — building a foundation for things to come,” Mould says in a statement. “We knew what we had: good chemistry, great melodies and harmonies, and an overabundance of young (and sometimes dumb) enthusiasm. We knew we were different, and we knew we were on to something different.”
“The audition. Bob was done with his freshman year and we didn’t have any gigs lined up,” Norton adds about the band’s first shows at the Longhorn. “He was considering going home to Malone for the summer. Grant shows up all frantic and tells us we need to load the gear and get to the Longhorn, we had an audition. We arrived during their lunch service, load in and start playing. The manager comes storming out of his office and stops us. ‘What the hell do you guys want?’ he asks. Grant says, ‘We want to play here.’ He replies, ‘Fine, you can play the opening set Friday night, just stop playing and get out of here.'”
Tonite Longhorn will feature original artwork from Hart, who passed away in 2017. The album will also come complete with liner notes penned by former Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore.
“Hüsker Dü could play hardcore to death but they were not hardcore through and through – they were something else,” Moore writes. “And that’s what I fully related to and what I’m hearing in these live recordings unearthed from those days which made such magnanimous impressions it’s as if they are the batteries of our lives as we continue to tick off the years… ‘Sexual Economics’ and ‘Do You Remember’ are righteous rippers with Bob’s metallic and perfectly-fuzz-boxed guitar sounding like a punk take on the MC5, his leads sputtering off the fretboard like a demented refraction of Wayne Kramer and Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith.”
“The momentum is like a horse bolted from its harness,” Moore continues, “where the specificity of notes get trashed on the way to the next immediate move, Grant’s drums rolling forth both in apprehension and thunderous command, Greg’s bass acting as two melodious hands, primal and swinging, holding the jowls of the guitarist and drummer, keeping the two in check as the trio blasts to a breathless finish line”.
Listen to ‘Do You Remember’ from the album down below. Tonite Longhorn is set for an August 25th release.
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