28-30 November 2024
Wurundjeri and Gadigal Lands
It was 1989. I was 13. See feature photo. My brother was in the high school band. He had to sell magazine subscriptions as a fundraiser. To help my brother reach his fundraising goal, my parents let me pick out a magazine subscription.
I was really into BMX bikes and a bit into hair metal bands – not exactly the topics covered by the magazines sold in high school fundraisers. So I settled on a subscription to Rolling Stone magazine. In May of that year, there was a review for an album called Workbook, by an artist called Bob Mould.
(If you are here for my cycling tales, you can click away now, as there’s no cycling in this post. A bike post is coming soon. But if you’ve known me for awhile, you might enjoy this music adventure. I just want to get this down for my own memories later).
I thought the album sounded interesting. In 7th and 8th grade, I used my allowance, and my lunch money, to buy LPs and CDs (which was the brand new format at the time). I had already discovered Midnight Oil (my second fav band of all time) and was exploring their back catalogue. I loved their sound, particularly their harder stuff. I loved the songs about environmental and social justice – it was NOT something that anyone talked about in super conservative Indiana, but something I innately resonated with, even if I didn’t understand all of the context (yet).
So I was experimenting with different music because I did not relate to the music my parents or friends listened to. My mom listened to easy listening pop sort of stuff. We baked cookies together to John Denver and the Bee Gees. I went with her to a Michael Bolton/Kenny G concert (!), but that music just did not have depth or meaning to me. It did not speak to me. AT ALL.
My dad liked the blues. I couldn’t stand that music. I thought it was so cowardly. Like, ‘go kill yourself already, but you’d be too much of a coward to do it’. To this day,I still call it the ‘oh, woe is me’ genre.
I had, and still have, a lot of fight. I generally don’t get sad, I just get pissed off, and I just wanted to tell those depressed, sad people on my dad’s garage stereo to get their shit together, get angry and then move on!! In contrast, the music I would come to love was the exact opposite of this – as a preview, below is one of Bob Mould’s break-up ‘ballads’ called “Explode and Make Up” played live with his band Sugar in 1994. You need to cue the video up to 55:18 for the song.
THIS is what I related to when people disappointed me, not “I’ve been drinking again, cause those blues keep following me…. You know I called my baby and begged, please come home, baby, please come back child” (not kidding, those are real lyrics).
Now, Bob’s lyrics, on the other hand: “I HATE YOU! Explode and make up. Put it in the yard. Burned it in an ashtray. And I, I don’t need you. Even though it’s all made up”.
It was that primal despair, anger and SCREAM that I related to. And still do. Some of us have ‘the roar’ within us, and some do not.
But that’s getting ahead of things.
My friends were all obsessed with the boy band of the time: New Kids on the Block. I REALLY did not relate to any of that. I was listening to hard rock and hair metal bands. I liked the speed of the music and the heaviness… but it wasn’t quite it. It just didn’t have the lyrics or speed I needed (I just didn’t know this yet).
But I was intrigued by the Rolling Stone album review – which I can still see on the magazine page in my head all these years later – though I cannot remember the text now.
After a shopping trip to Indianapolis with my mom where I found and purchased the album, I took it to my bedroom. I slid a pair of scissors through the plastic wrap, ripped it off, and then opened the plastic case. I inhaled the fresh print smell of the liner notes and popped out the CD. I put it in the slot on the CD player and then laid on the bed. My ritual was to listen to the album all the way through first, and then listen to it a second time while reading the lyrics on the liner note booklet.
The first song, Sunspots, is an instrumental. I was intrigued. It was whimsical mixed with prelude. Now, I wasn’t yet a classical music fan because you don’t get exposure to that in a crappy town like I grew up in, but even so, I knew a prelude when I heard one! It was like we were ready to go on a journey, just hanging in the lobby of an airport or something.
And, boy, were we!
Sunspots ends and Bob launches into Wishing Well. OMG, those first three chords!!!
It was my first experience of someone playing an acoustic guitar in a way that conveyed angst and anger. This was no folk music, even though it was not electric. Wow – this angst, this isolation – this guy is singing exactly what I feel, even though I haven’t even looked at the lyrics yet.
Halfway through the album, I get this feeling I’ve never had before. I didn’t even know what to call it at the time. It is catharsis – but I don’t know if I would have called it that at the time – I would have just said I felt everything, absolutely everything, just flow through and out of me for the first time in my life. Relief.
I just knew this guy had been on a journey. He’d been to bad places and was making his way back. And that is all I knew (and this is actually an accurate description of that album in a way… he wrote it while secluded in a farmhouse for a year after the tumultuous break-up of the punk band, Husker Du, he’d been with between 1977 and 1987).
When he got to the break in the song “Brasilia crossed with Trenton” and Bob howled through “I get disillusioned and throw my hands up to the sky….’ I was overwhelmed. I was in love with this feeling, with this music, with this sense that, finally, somebody felt the things I felt. We weren’t on the same journey, but we were going forward despite battle scars. I resonated with this music.
The album finishes in a whirlwind of electric guitar and noise in “Whichever way the wind blows” and I felt like I’d just run a marathon. How could somebody put that much passion into an acoustic album? How could you feel so pummelled by strings?
For 13 years I’d been living with a brain that processed things very quickly. I knew I was different from my friends because I just knew I saw and felt and thought things so much more deeply than those around me, where all the information coming into my head all the time meant I was thinking ALL the time…. For the first time ever, the music pummelled that out and I felt a sort of peace. I knew this feeling a little bit from riding my bike and practicing freestyle tricks, but music had never given me such an absolutely powerful release from myself and the world.
Until June 1989. With Bob Mould and his album Workbook.
Now, later in life I learned that many gifted people listen to heavy metal music (punk music – my fav – is lumped in with metal). Studies show it is one the most preferred genres of highly intelligent folks. Gifted folks also really like classical music – as I do. I’ve always said it was what punk music would have been in the 1800s. (And you can diagnose me as you will, but I got labelled gifted along the way, have the requisite IQ, went to a selective ‘gifted and talented’ high school where I met other people just like me for the first time in my life, and have generally found in life that I may be ugly, but I AM pretty clever and I do think very fast.)
The theory behind this preference for heavy music is that it provides catharsis. Gifted people are extremely perceptive and their brains process much more info from the environment at much greater speed in any given moment than the average Joe. It can be exhausting. And heavy, hard, fast music provides the catharsis – you can’t think about too much else when you are being bombarded with so much sound.
I didn’t know any of that at the time, but it perfectly describes how I felt that day after I heard Bob the first time, and how punk music has made me feel throughout my life.
So that day I went back and listened to the album a second time. With the lyrics. And I was hooked for life.
I just had to get my hands on the rest of his work with his former band Husker Du. I saved my allowance and lunch money (because I hated the food in the cafeteria anyway) and starved my way to the whole Husker Du collection.
I immediately loved Husker Du even more than Bob’s first solo album which had transfixed me. I loved this fast, hard stuff. I loved the political songs (gifted people also have a strong sense of justice, and though they will follow rules when they make sense, they are also highly likely to question authority – ask me about my actions with the Gideon Bible in 4th grade and the Pledge of Allegiance from 4th grade onward).
In a Free Land quickly became a favourite. Its lyrics are even more relevant now than when they were written in 1981.
And I loved Bob’s angry relationship songs. I have been very fortunate to hear him play “I Apologise’ live a couple times. This is how I heard it the first time.
You may never have heard of Husker Du, but they were highly influential in the punk scene and are known as one of the pioneering bands of alternative rock. Without Husker Du, there never would have been the Pixies, Nirvana or Green Day. The Foo Fighters and Dinosaur Jr also list them as a major influence.
So Bob, and Husker Du, and his next band, Sugar, became a soundtrack to my life.
I went to see Bob live with Sugar three times in 1995. Sugar was a super loud and heavy band and I would go right up front and ride the edges of the mosh pit. I came away from those concerts bruised, exhausted and unable to hear for several days. It was catharsis with a whole theatre of other like-minded souls. You lost all sense of time bouncing up and down and flowing along with the crowd. Those will always be some of my favourite memories.
Over the years, I’ve seen Bob play solo electric and solo electric/acoustic several times. In 1996, he was playing the Fox down the road in Boulder. My mom happened to be visiting at the time, so she drove me and attended the show with me (she owed me for that Michael Bolton concert, lol!). That was so much easier than taking the bus!
The show was a 21 and over show, and I was just 20. I was hoping I could somehow talk my way in since I had my mom with me. When we arrived, Bob just happened to be standing out the front of the theatre smoking a cigarette (this was right around the time smoking in venues was finally being banned). I plucked up my courage, even though I was starstruck, and thanked him for all of his music over the years. I then said I was going to try to get in but wasn’t 21. He was surprised it wasn’t an 18 and over show. He told me he would talk to his people to let me in. And I got in!!
Bob played in Sydney in 2013 with his ‘Bob Mould Band’. So I went. Nigel went with me but sat up the back (he doesn’t have The Roar in him, so it’s not his sort of music) while I bounced around with everyone else down the front.
Yes, Bob has been such a big part of my life, that friends and family have been dragged in or gone to see him just to see what has made me so happy for so long. A friend from Americorps went to see him play in Seattle at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. My friend Jenny went to see him in San Francisco and even smuggled in a tape player for me (I still have that tape and play it!).
So earlier this year, I saw that Bob was coming back to Australia for the first time since 2012. YAAAAAAYYYYYY (picture Kermit with arms flailing in the air)!!!! So I bought tickets.
Now, my reasoning for my indulgent Bob Mould groupie tour is as follows: he is 64-years-old. He last played Oz in 2012. If he only comes here every 12 years…. well, this may be my last chance to ever see him live. So I bought tickets for both Sydney AND Melbourne.
Now Sydney and Melbourne are very different cities. Sydney has the most magnificent setting on the harbour and the most beautiful beaches you will find anywhere. Taking the ferry from Circular Quay to Manly and sitting under the Norfolk Pines there with some fish and chips should be on your bucket list.
What Melbourne lacks in spectacular location, however, (it just sits on a polluted river and its beaches are ‘meh’), it makes up for in ‘vibe’. It is just such a cool city and has got a cultural and sporting feel to it. It’s hard to describe, but where Sydney is brash, Melbourne is inviting. There is always something on and you feel like you fit in regardless.
So I take the train down to Melbourne. I have time to kill. The fare cap means for $10.60 I get a train ticket to Melbourne and then can go anywhere in the city for free. So I have a look at some maps and take a train up to a suburb I’ve never heard of before to check out a vintage toy store. I’m always on the look-out for Muppet stuff. Sadly, their selection doesn’t have anything I really want, and it’s all at collector prices, but if you were into Star Wars, HeMan or Transformers, that is definitely the place for you! https://g.co/kgs/G7RG7Ge
I head back into the city, consume some quite authentic and spicy Thai for lunch, and then head over to the National Gallery to check out an exhibit. It’s a bit hard to take in all in one go, as it’s just in one place from floor to ceiling, but I spend a while pondering. https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/bark-salon/
I then head over to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. They have an exhibit that features a lot of the set pieces and figures used in Adam Elliot’s recent stop-motion animation “Memoir of a Snail’. Check out that movie for sure if you get a chance (It’s on youtube for purchase). It is VERY, VERY dark comedy. You will laugh and cry at the same time and get totally drawn into these sad clay figures. It is an emotional roller coaster. If that’s not available, check out his Oscar-winning Harvie Krumpet or the longer film, Mary and Max.
I am so enthralled with the detail in all of the set pieces and the enormity of the work involved. Everything there was constructed and painted by hand. It just blows my mind. I spend almost an hour checking out this exhibit.
I go check into the motel. It’s a Hilton of some sort and one of the cheaper options, and it has mixed reviews. My room is fine, though, and when I see that the room number is a number very special to me… I know it is a good omen and it will be a good night.
The show is at the Forum Theatre. I’ve been there before during the International Comedy Festival but never in the main theatre. This place is pretty special. It was lucky to miss the wrecking ball in the 1980s and is one of only a few atmospheric theatres outside of the US. Check out its cool history here:https://marrinergroup.com.au/forum-melbourne-history
I enjoy looking at all of the ornate statues and being reminded of the Paramount Theatre in my hometown, way back when I first got into Bob. It feels a little full circle!
Bob plays a few of my favourites, and he is in good form tonight. The crowd is a friendly and engaged one. I stand a bit back in the main section where I can get good sound and be blown away by the speakers simultaneously. A lot of people just stand, but throughout the crowd are the head bobbers and the bouncing people like me.
Bob rips through song after song, and a super tall guy next to me bounces right along with me. We yell out the lyrics during “Something I learned today” (one of my top three favs and a song that got me through an incredibly rough time when I was 16). We yell the callbacks to “Makes No Sense At All”. We bounce and bounce, because hey, I was sick for a long time there and didn’t know if I would ever bounce again. So I am always grateful for the energy and will pogo until the day I die.
At the end of the concert, my fellow ‘bouncer’ smiles at me, shakes my hand and says, “Now that was such a fun time wasn’t it! Stay safe.” And then he’s off to the merch table. How fun is it to hang out with a whole crowd of superfans just like you! I have a habit of good things happening on Thanksgiving Day (this is Thanksgiving Day Oz time, and no, Oz does not celebrate Thanksgiving; the Sydney show will be Thanksgiving America time). I had my very sick and inflamed gallbladder removed on Thanksgiving Day Oz time in 2021.
So much fun! Let’s do it again!
I fly up to Sydney mid-afternoon and get lucky. It’s been raining all day up there but a break in the weather allows me to walk to my motel from the airport without getting wet. I take a shower and then hightail it to Mascot train station before the next heavy round of rain. (Sydney gets 146 mls in 48 hours while I’m there).
I wait out a deluge in Town Hall Station (there are people without umbrellas that come in literally dripping wet like they’ve just stepped from a shower). I let the worst get past and then umbrella it a few blocks down to The Metro. It’s a pretty famous Sydney venue.
One of the things I love about Australia is how laid back and informal everything is. Here I am in one of the world’s major cities attending a concert and it appears there is one security guard for the whole show and he’s just hanging out on a stool by the bar perusing his phone. When I go to the bar to cloak my soaked backpack and umbrella (so I don’t have to hold them the whole show), they give me a little paper ticket and just stick my stuff on a table, and I know it is 100 percent absolutely safe there. No one will mess with it.
Contrast this to when I went to see Midnight Oil in Denver at The Paramount in 2017. Not only were there heaps of security guards who roamed the aisles during the show, but you had to go through a metal detector AND then be patted down to get in the show. There were also police at the door! I doubt they would have allowed an umbrella in. There are an infinite number of reasons I am so grateful to live in Oz instead of America these days!
So I hung back a bit in Melbourne to get the best sound, but I know Bob is playing pretty much the same songs each night, as I’ve looked up the set lists for his previous three NZ shows and they were all pretty much what he played in Melbourne.
So when doors open, I head straight for the front and get a spot right up against the front barrier. Yee-ha! You only live once, and if this is my last time ever to see Bob, then it’s got to be front row. I talk to another tall dude next to me that has come down from the Blue Mountains, and we watch a large puddle form on stage from where the ceiling is leaking from the deluge.
A bit later, another guy comes next to me on my right. He is jealous that this is my ninth time seeing Bob play. He has only seen him play once – at that Sydney show I went to back in 2013. He says he got into Bob in 1989 when his friend’s roommate let him borrow the Workbook album. He says, and mimes with his hands, that the album blew his mind, and he’s been a fan ever since. I tell him it was the exact same for me! Throughout the concert we bounce along together and he laughs at my screaming (I will be hoarse for hours afterward). We have a great time up there on the front barrier.
It’s a hot and humid night and I watch Bob’s shirt get drenched with sweat around the collar, and then the complete wetness travels all the way down to the bottom of his shirt. By the end of the concert, even his jeans down to his crotch are soaked. His guitar is also dripping. (His facebook post the next day included, “was it hot enough for you last night”?)
I’m close enough to get flicked with sweat when he stampedes around the stage in the guitar solos. I love being so close to watch his intricate finger work during those solos. He’s not known as a punk guitar god for nothing. I yell out the call backs to ‘Makes No Sense At All’ with the crowd, and I must be loud and off-tune enough that Bob actually looks right down at me.
Absolute time of my life.
The Sydney crowd wasn’t as good as the Melbourne crowd, and some arse even interrupts with song requests when Bob is talking between songs about being a gay guy in San Francisco during the early years of the AIDS crisis. I will say that at least the arse had good song requests, but it is amazing how different the vibe was in Sydney and Melbourne. Public transport is safe at night in both cities though – again a contrast to all those times nervously hurrying back down E Colfax in Denver after a concert, even back in the 1990s.
The huge deluging weather system continues the following day. Flights are delayed, and all of the little regional planes, like the one I fly home on, are getting cancelled and delayed. Gosh, you don’t want to be going to Dubbo, Parkes or Tamworth. We actually board our plane to Albury on time (it’s one of the few little planes to have made it into Sydney this morning). But then we sit there and sit there. I note that they don’t load the luggage. The door never closes.
So I get on my phone and start looking for motel rooms near the airport. I get one all ready to go – all I need to do is press the ‘book’ button. And yep, eventually, the Captain comes out of the flight deck and says we’ll have to deplane as the flight has been cancelled.
There is pretty much no communication about flight rebookings. Way to go Qantas – not! So I keep refreshing the app and eventually see my new boarding pass. Great, it’s the 2pm flight. Ahhhh, but shit… that is tomorrow’s date! Crap. I hit the ‘book’ button on the motel page and then walk back to the airport motel area (the weather is actually not that bad now and not raining, but apparently it was really terrible and foggy in the early AM which set off a chain reaction).
I am lucky I acted quickly. I’m out $269 for this room that is just okay. But later on, as every single room gets booked out everywhere from the extensive cancellations, I note that the crappy place I stayed last night for $165 gets up to $430. So I’m out of pocket, but not as bad as it could have been! The Travelodge motel room is pretty small, spartan and very stark white, but the AC works well and cuts out the oppressive humidity. This motel was one of the ones they used for hotel quarantine during COVID – I absolutely cannot imagine staying in there for 14 days straight.
The flight home the following day is uneventful. What amazing memories I will have from these concerts! October and November were pretty shitty months for me, so I had plenty of angst to pogo out – just like the old days. Some things change over time, and people change, too. I’m older and wiser and much less shy. But deep down within me, I still have The Roar and am grateful to have found Bob way back in 1989. I am certain my life would not have been the same without his music in my life for the past 35 years.
