Husker Du

Foo Fighters have always enjoyed putting out limited and rare b-sides for their hard core fans, but finding them all can be a big frickin’ problem. To solve this minor dilemma, they compiled the whole lot of cover songs as an album for Record Store Day 2011 and dubbed it Medium Rare. The vinyl included thirteen songs from various EP’s, singles and soundtracks. The CD version, which was released as a companion to Q Magazine subscriptions, was missing the Prince cover of “Darling Nikki.”

As cover albums go, the songs are over the spectrum including numbers from Prince, Joe Walsh, Husker Du, Paul McCartney & Wings, Cream, Gerry Rafferty and few others. The whole album sounds great and gets held together by the Foo Fighters enthusiasm for the material. Taylor Hawkins vocals sound stellar on “Life Of Illusion” and the guitar solo on “Baker Street” is a genuinely glorious bit of ragged string bending.

Thing is, trying to get a copy.

Record stores sold out of this a very long time ago and I’ve only seen one copy in the used bin of my favourite record store (or any other for that matter) once in the last four years. Discogs seem to have the most reasonable prices in the resale market with asking prices in the $100.00 range for either of the CD or vinyl.

On the other hand, e-bay resellers have sealed copies with asking prices that balloon to nearly $250.00 for a CD copy and over $500.00 for the vinyl. However, those high prices are by no means an average, and if you have your eyes open you should be able to snag a copy for under $100.00.

I think the best bet might be to hope for a limited re-issue at some point. The market is certainly there for it, let’s hope Grohl and co. decide it is worth doing.

As the weeks become days and the information begins to flow, the list for Record Store Day grows, grows and grows. Things that I didn’t know I even wanted get underlined in red, and some things I had forgotten jump out at me from the shelves themselves on that very day.

Such was the case on Black Friday/RSD 2014 when I turned to see Warehouse: Songs & Stories by Husker Du sitting on a cart. I had not heard Warehouse since my University days as my “infamous roommate” was a big fan of Husker Du and Bob Mould. Suddenly my brain was straining to remember. Sure I have a CD copy of Candy Apple Grey, but, I couldn’t remember Warehouse until I saw the cover.

This might have been due to the fact that unlike other Husker Du records, it had not been re-issued since its initial release in 1987. It was if Warner had decided it wasn’t worthy of even being remembered.

Well, they were wrong. Two glorious pieces of vinyl, one coloured fluorescent yellow and the other fluorescent green sound absolutely fantastic. Maybe hindsight is leading me a bit, but you can definitely hear the development of Mould’s guitar work and song writing as he drifts towards the more accessible material he would write later with Sugar. Mould himself has stated that Warehouse might have benefited from being pared down to a single record, but it is honestly impossible to figure out where such a cut could be made.

I couldn’t find out how many of these vinyl editions were made, but it is still available. Discogs have it listed for $38.16, Amazon.ca at $55.60 and E-Bay at $28.04.

What can I say, they both look and sound great, and can still be had for a good price.

barrettbites

Vinyl and Collectibles reviewed and geeked about!

A Glorious Bit Of Ragged String Bending or Foo Fighters – Medium Rare

And some things that should not have been forgotten… are Found! RSD and Husker Du – Warehouse: Songs & Stories