Copper Blue - Sugar (1992)
The Week That Has Been
This was my last week of 2026 releases for a while. It helped me catch up on some recent releases I’d really been excited to get into, as well as helping me find a couple of unexpected gems.
- the first new Neurosis release in a decade doesn’t disappoint
- solid midwestern roots rock from Ratboys
- Durand Bernarr’s funky soul expo
- The emotional carpet bombing of the new Phoebe Bridgers
- Akusmi’s spiritual jazz / electronics hybrid
- a second blast of angular and aggressive math rock from Quebec’s Angine de Poitrine
And now, a trip into the past
As you’ll know if you’ve been here long, my musical tastes are all over the place. There are a handful of artists, though, who have stuck with me for dacades, whose work lives in my head rent-free, who will just always be with me.
The longest-lived of those is Bob Dylan, about whom I haven’t published in the Substack era because I’m trying to find a way to get into it without just having this become an all-Dylan publication because I can’t figure out where to start.
A close second, though, is a guy many people haven’t heard of. Bob Mould was a trailblazer in post-hardcore with Husker Du, and carved out a space for the music in the pop world. He maybe didn’t have quite the same foundational effect on 90s alternative rock, but you find his fingerprints all over that music, and in indie rock ever since.
I didn’t get to my listen of the day on this day because I was traveling to see Mould’s 90s band, Sugar, on their reunion tour. It was transcendent. I hadn’t been inside Minneapolis’ First Avenue for probably 30 years (that was probably to see a Mould solo show), but it was great to be there, great to be among the throng of middle-aged men in cargo shorts and old Husker Du and Replacements shirts, and great to hear Sugar. I haven’t seen Mould in a long time live, but I’ve always paid attention when videos of his performances crop up on Youtube. He’s still played Sugar songs over the years with his modern trio, and they’re great. But it’s never felt quite right.
Hearing Sugar together again seems to also have energized Mould as a performer. He flailed around the stage, counted off the band, and just seemed like a younger man again. And I got to hear most of my favorite Sugar tunes the way they were originally intended, with David Barbie playing bass and singing harmony and the uniquely propulsive drumming of Malcolm Travis.
Copper Blue
Here’s what I wrote about one of my all time favorite albums, Sugar’s debut Copper Blue when I first published it on the blog on May 15, 2022. I can’t make you feel like I do about this record, but hopefully I’ll at least get you to press play.
Bob Mould was part of Husker Du (o_O), an early-80s hardcore band that progressed into a punk/pop hybrid and paved the way for everything from The Pixies to Green Day. He’s kind of a minor figure in rock stardom, but his songwriting and guitar skills put a real stamp on what guitar rock sounded like in the 90s. This is the first album by his band Sugar (don’t kid yourself: there are two other guys sharing the bill, but this is Mould’s project every bit as much as his solo albums). This one became an instant favorite the moment I heard it, and it’s not just “a favorite record that starts with ‘C’” but more like “a favorite record” or maybe even, possibly, “the favorite record”. I’ll try to restrain my fanboyness.
The guitars are what really make Sugar stand out from its peers. Mould is a great guitar player, and even when he’s just playing an unaccompanied electric guitar as he does live sometimes, he has a great fuzzy distortion sound that people used to call the “swarm of bees.” As he became a more experienced producer he did a lot of interesting things with his guitars in the studio. It’s pretty common to “double” a vocal, recording it twice and superimposing them to make it sound stronger. Mould does that with his voice, but often harmonizes with himself. And then he’ll do the same with that massive guitar sound, layering three or four (or more) distinct guitar lines on top of each other, all in that snarling distorted sound that blends them together. If there’s a criticism of his methodology, it’s that he doesn’t leave much room for anything else The bass and drums get drowned out, and even the vocal is often buried under that swarm of bees. But it’s amazing in the level of detail it brings and the cumulative effect of that sonic firehose that–as intense as it is–still manages to sound like you need to turn it up. This record (and seeing the force of nature that Sugar was in concert multiple times) is likely part of the reason I have so much hearing loss in my middle age, but I won’t say it wasn’t worth it.
Tracks I Liked
The Act We Act - great opener with a great riff
Hoover Dam - a sort of travelogue with some interesting use of backwards tracks
The Slim - a terrifying meditation on dealing with loss
Man On The Moon - Honestly, one of my very favorite songs of all time. I used to sing it to my kids at bedtime, though i had to avoid mouth-guitaring the solos and stay away from the massive, second-side-of-Abbey-Road-ready bridge.
