HUSKER DU at MAXWELL'S Hoboken, New Jersey - New Year's Eve December 31, 1984

My brief three-year career taping live concerts began 40 years ago today, December 31, 1984, in my home state at the now-legendary bar/concert venue Maxwell's (named after the Maxwell House coffee factory a few blocks away) in Hoboken, New Jersey on the Hudson, just across the river from lower Manhattan. What better way for a 25-year-old to spend New Year's Eve than to join a crowd of about 200 like-minded people jammed like sardines into the back room of a nineteenth-century-vintage tavern watching one of the loudest and most exciting bands of the 1980s. As anyone who has read about punk band culture in the 1980s knows, the bands lived practically like homeless people, driving back and forth across the country in vans and crashing wherever they could find a couch or bed, playing to crowds of no more than several hundred for low wages, and generally leading an exhausting life. This show occurred 5 or 6 months after the band released its opus double-album on SST Records, Zen Arcade. That masterpiece and this band, with its inspired melding of noisy punk with melodic hooks inspired the next generation of rock bands, including Nirvana, Green Day and many others. This is the band at the peak of its powers. In 1986 it signed with Warner Brothers, released and within two years had disbanded. Unfortunately this recording ends abruptly. I don't know what happened to the rest of the show but have a vague recollection that I accidentally taped over it. I started this channel a little over a year ago to upload the many concerts I taped during the period 12/31/84 to 9/10/88, before heading to graduate school and starting a career. I've almost reached the end of my tapes that I recorded. This was the first show I taped. Within a week or two, I will upload the final show I taped, Power Tools at the Bottom Line. After that, I still have plenty of tapes acquired through trades that I will continue to upload, but my goal to make my own recordings available to the public is nearing the end. Husker Du (sorry no umlauts) Bob Mould - guitar, vocals Greg Norton - bass Grant Hart - drums, vocals The Show: 00:00 Little Red Riding Hood Joke 01:04 Somewhere 03:45 Target 05:25 What Do I Want? 06:37 From the Gut 08:02 Wheels 10:04 Everything Falls Apart 12:40 What's Going On? 14:15 Chartered Trips 18:01 Data Control 23:03 Medley: Reoccurring Dreams- Helter Skelter (Beatles)- Reoccurring Dreams 35:26 Never Talking to You Again 37:00 Hate Paper Doll 39:10 Green Eyes 42:10 Divide and Conquer 46:02 Pink Turns to Blue 48:27 Eight Miles High (Byrds)(incomplete) Recorded on a Sony TCS-350 cassette recorder with built-in microphone. Uploaded solely for educational purposes and historical interest. Enjoy.