Monday's Earful: Bob Mould @ Irving Plaza

By: David Schultz

One of the misconceptions people have about you when you write about music is that your breadth of knowledge on the subject is all-encompassing and that no album of note or artist of worth has eluded your musical radar. It’s a myth. For me, Bob Mould’s entire career falls within the interstitial spaces. I’m aware of his solo career, own a homemade cassette tape of a Sugar album (Copper Blue) and am relatively sure I’ve been in a college dorm room with Husker Du blaring from someone’s speakers but for the most part, I’m probably more conversant on Mould’s time crafting story lines for World Championship Wrestling than I am on his life as an alt-rock pioneer. When a group of Mould fans brought me along for his Thursday night show at The Fillmore at Irving Plaza, it made for a pleasantly rare scenario where I had absolutely no idea what to expect.

In the late Eighties/early Nineties, there emerged a genre known as alternative rock. Mainly consisting of bands that found their popularity on the college music scene, the alternative rock charts were where you could find The Replacements, Fishbone, School of Fish and other bands that would now be deemed indie-rock. Until R.E.M. erased the barriers between alt-rock and the rest of the world, Bob Mould was one of its more significant figures. Needing nothing more than a bass and drums, Mould offered ear-shattering bursts that rattled with the stripped down drone that could be found in many alt-rock mid Nineties releases.

Over the course of his ninety minute set, Mould covered all facets of his career, opening with a Husker Du song, playing “A Good Idea” and “Hoover Dam” from Copper Blue and offering a couple songs from Life And Times, his latest album. Mould’s near monotone drone makes a fine complement for his brusque and ridiculously loud guitar barrage. Given that many mid-Nineties alt-rock bands loved to bury their vocals within the mix, it’s unclear whether the ability to make out much of what Mould sang was by design or the result of a poor sound mix. Regardless, the volume bears note: for the first time in dozens of shows, I left the show with my ears ringing.