My first who Husker Du cassettes were bought by my mother for my 17th birthday from my friend Dan Nugent at Sooto records In Shreveport, La.
But this was the Sooto records that was on Mansfield Road. It wasn’t the one everybody thinks of on Kings Highway. There was a short period of time when owner, Steve Timmons opened a store in Southern Hills. And that’s the store I wandered into looking for a psychedelic band called Rain Parade. Dan didn’t have a copy, but he gave me his personal copy and said he would just order himself a new one. And from that point on I just hung out there, all the time for hours listening to records, as Dan and held court talking shit. It was awesome. It was like cheers a little bit. In fact I could write a treatment for a sitcom based on that story. Anyway, Yes, my mom bought me Zen arcade and new day rising on cassette from dan for my 17th birthday. And from the get-go as I said, I just wasn’t prepared for what I was gonna hear. Also the stereo in my car was kind of crappy. I didn’t have the speakers mounted properly. I just stuck them in Nike shoe boxes and put them in the back window and ran the cables under the seat hooked it up that way. Beaumont ingenuity, baby! I learned from the best. Over the years I have covered, “I’m never talking to you again” off of zen arcade, which I would recommend listening. Though It sounds nothing like any other Husker Du song ever recorded, but it is great. And most recently I covered pink turns to blue the Grant Hart song off of zen arcade as well on my transit damage album. we did a total rearrangement of that song. You should listen to them both back to back and you’ll hear how much.
