News

Numero Group’s 200th title is a big deal for any self-respecting ’80s punk fan: a triple-disc box set chronicling the rise of Minneapolis legends Hüsker Dü.

Savage Young Dü captures the band in studio and in concert from their humble beginnings in 1979 through the release of their debut studio album Everything Falls Apart in 1983–before their fateful signing by SST Records and their increasing awareness among the indie faithful. Singer/guitarist Bob Mould, singer/drummer Grant Hart and bassist Greg Norton began as an all-out, thrashing hardcore band, but their penchant for melodies not usually heard in the loudest clubs quickly set them apart from the pack.

The band earned enough recognition to sign to Warner Bros. in the mid-’80s, but by the end of the decade they broke up amid internal struggles stemming from the suicide of longtime manager David Savoy. Mould and Hart embarked on solo careers while Norton got into the restaurant business, and Hüsker Dü has largely avoided nostalgia in the years since. (Most of this was out of necessity, thanks to an ongoing dispute with SST over royalties that prevented the kind of catalogue activity a band of their stature would normally get. Mould and Hart did spontaneously reunite onstage for two songs during a benefit concert in 2004.)

In recent years, there is at least active communication between the band members, resulting in official social channels and some merchandising deals–and now, four years after Numero reissued and expanded their debut single for Record Store Day in 2013, Savage Young Dü lifts the curtain on the roots of this seminal band, in a newly-assembled, fully-remastered set featuring 69 tracks–47 of which have never seen release. (The released tracks, at our count, include the contents of the “Amusement”/”Statues” single, Numero’s vault material from that 2013 reissue, the “In a Free Land” single and B-sides, and a remaster of Everything Falls Apart that was made available digitally earlier this summer.) Additional highlights include demos, outtakes, unreleased songs and an “alternate” version of the band’s 1982 live album Land Speed Record, taken from a no-holds-barred set at a Twin/Tone Records showcase in Minneapolis in September 1981, two weeks after the recording of the set featured on the released album.

Savage Young Dü, which ships in November, will also feature a 108 or 144-page hardcover book (depending on format) featuring flyers, sessionography, 40 previously unpublished photographs and a 12,000 word essay by Erin Osmon. It’s all packed in a linen-lined slipcase. Fans can also pre-order a bundle with a 7″ EP, Extra Circus, featuring five outtakes from the sessions that produced the band’s Metal Circus EP in 1983.

If this doesn’t excite you enough, NPR has a detailed account of how the set came together over the last decade, and is streaming the set in full! The full track list and Numero’s page link is below.

Savage Young Dü (Numero Group NUM200, 2017)

Disc 1

1. Do You Remember?
2. Sore Eyes
3. Can’t See You Anymore
4. Picture Of You
5. The Truth Hurts
6. Do The Bee
7. Nuclear Nightmare
8. All I’ve Got To Lose Is You
9. Chinese Rocks
10. Uncle Ron
11. Data Control
12. Insects Rule The World
13. You’re Too Obtuse
14. Outside
15. Sexual Economics
16. What Went Wrong
17. Statues
18. Amusement
19. Writer’s Cramp
20. Let’s Go Die
21. Walk With The Wounded
22. Industrial Grocery Store

Disc 1, Tracks 17-18 released as Reflex Records single A REFLEX, 1980
Disc 1, Tracks 19-20 released on Numero Group single NUM704, 2013

Disc 2

1. Drug Party
2. Call On Me
3. Termination
4. I’m Tired Of Doing Things
5. Stick It To Me
6. Wheels
7. All Tensed Up
8. Don’t Try To Call
9. Im Not Interested
10. Guns At My School
11. Push The Button
12. Gilligan’s Island
13. MTC
14. Don’t Have A Life
15. You’re Naive
16. Strange Week
17. Big Sky
18. Ultracore
19. Let’s Go Die
20. Won’t Say A Word
21. Don’t Try It
22. Private Hell
23. Diane
24. Sex Dolls

Disc 3

1. In A Free Land
2. What Do I Want?
3. M.I.C.
4. Target
5. Signals From Above
6. From The Gut
7. Blah, Blah, Blah
8. Punch Drunk
9. Bricklayer
10. Afraid Of Being Wrong
11. Sunshine Superman
12. Signals From Above
13. Everything Falls Apart
14. Wheels
15. Target
16. Obnoxious
17. Gravity
18. Do You Remember?
19. Travel In Opposite Car
20. It’s Not Funny Anymore
21. Real World
22. Out On A Limb
23. It’s Not Fair

Disc 3, Tracks 1-3 released as In a Free Land EP – New Alliance Records NAR 010, 1982
Disc 3, Tracks 6-17 released as Everything Falls Apart – Reflex Records REFLEX D, 1983
Disc 3, Track 18 released on Everything Falls Apart and More – Rhino Records R2 71163, 1993

EP: Extra Circus

1. Heavy Handed
2. You Think I’m Scared
3. Won’t Change
4. Is Today The Day?
5. Standing At The Sea