Hüsker Dü
Eight Miles High

...It's not Funny Anymore

It's my 200th review; I never thought I would get here... especially in these conditions, confined at home.

I had three writing options: a Voivod collection, Paul Westerberg's solo debut, and indeed, Husker Du.

In the end, by a landslide, the three lads from Minneapolis won.

The most attentive have surely noticed how many of their songs I've been playing during these strange recent days; a lot of time available. I listened again to the band's entire discography, mostly purchased decades ago on vinyl.

A love for them that began in high school, in the distant winter of 1984 - 1985 when a classmate played that Sacred Scripture of Zen Arcade for me. A love bordering on obsession that still resides within me; forever.

It's completely useless to recount the band's history. There is a beautiful page by my fellow citizen Lewis Tollani regarding The Living End; I invite you to read it to understand who the Huskers were and what they represented.

Unruly, undisciplined, surly, brawling. Proud of their choices; they never gave in to compromises, even when they signed with Warner.

They had the courage to present themselves to SST, their early years' record label, proposing a Byrds cover. I imagine the faces of the Californian label executives who never would have expected such a daring and risky choice.

I also imagine the trio entering the SST offices: upfront a decisive and laconic Bob, behind him a much more smiling and loquacious Grant wrapped in one of his ‘70s style freakish shirts, way past their time. And last, slightly withdrawn but ready to support his mates’ plan, the mustachioed Greg.

Few words spoken, take it or leave it.

"No compromise, we call the shots"... the phrase reverberates in the small office.

And so it is.

This is the genesis of Eight Miles High.

A Hardcore-Punk group tackling a classic from the colorful sixties. In my opinion, and I repeat, in my opinion to avoid misunderstandings, the most beautiful reinterpretation of a song written by the Byrds.

Seething psychedelia and uncompromising hardcore meet, collide... and with disbelief, it turns out they also get along.

Derailing speed, overwhelming aggressiveness; but everything holds together. Because even though Bob, Grant, and Greg go at it like madmen, the original form is respected and not distorted.

"I always thought we played it like the Byrds," Bob maintained years later.

A point of no return for the band: there's no going back, one must look forward and start incorporating new musical elements.

And indeed, a few months later Zen Arcade was born; and in just over two and a half years, four more timeless masterpieces followed.

Eight Miles High presents itself, identifies itself as a flare that they shoot into the sky. Highly visible from afar and able to suggest the path to follow to the hundreds, indeed thousands of bands that subsequently took inspiration from Husker Du.

Bob takes the lead vocals, with his solemn and husky tone that rises and explodes at the end with piercing screams enough to destroy his vocal cords. His Flying guitar sows, Grant’s commanding drums reaps. Greg’s bass is the perfect meeting point. And it arrives at the end, the final delirium not before a brief pause where they seem to want to catch their breath... immense, unique, always unparalleled Husker Du...

Who knows how the cover sung by Grant would have sounded; certainly more restrained vocally.

It's 6 in the morning... the dawn of a new day awaits me... New Day Rising... indeed...

It's (not) Funny Anymore...

Ad Maiora.