i guess it started with the death of my brother, thomas v. hart, in a freak automobile accident in 1971. i was 10 years old and suddenly i owned a set of drums.

by age 13 i was a stand-in drummer for an agency that booked weddings and those sorts of parties where all kinds of music was requested and expected. At a greek new year's eve party i found myself over my head in exotic time signatures and sudden changes in structure. the basuki player, a 65 year old, told me to use my brushes and go through the motions without making a sound. the people had paid for a drummer and a drummer they were going to get. luckily there was a five car pile-up outside the hall that distracted the greek partiers for the rest of the night. fortunately, no one was hurt except me. i was so crushed that i gave up greek music forever.

there were other things to do though. my parent's living room soon became a repository for amplifiers, drums, guitars and stoned looking junior high school aged musicians with long hair, mothers who drank and pimples. the bands had names like "cheyenne", "adt", "grant and the hartbeats" and "switch". the guitarist of the last band and i had a falling out over money. as i quit the band he gave me these words of advice. "drummers are like assholes, everybody has one." the next band i joined as the keyboard player. that band's name was "train".

it was during this time that i became of legal aged to work. i found a job at "melody lane" a record store near my home. one of my co-workers was greg norton. we became good friends and the two of us turned all of our friends onto the new wave and punk music that was starting to happen then. exciting times, a new underground, fantastic lsd.

a guy popped into the record store one day. his name was, and still is, bob mould. he came to the neighbourhood from upstate new york. he went to school down the street. bob was wearing a leather motorcycle jacket. so was i. we talked about music, which is a funny thing to talk about in a record store. we spent many joyous hours listening to each other's records. bob would play along sometimes on his flying-v guitar that would later become a trademark.

my boss, charlie pine was involved with a band, "buddy and the returnables". they broke up, leaving a rather lucrative engagement open at "ron's randolph inn" in st. paul. charlie had the notion that we should get a band together quickly to make some good dough. i immediately thought of bob. greg and i had been making really strange music already, calling our two man outfit "the electra-cutes", after my 75 buick electra deuce-and-a-quarter. charlie on keyboards, bob on guitar, greg on bass, leaving the drums to me. we practiced for two weeks, played the show and claimed our $275.00 reward. bob, greg, and i continued to rehearse sans charlie. soon we have two original songs, "mtc" and "sex dolls", so named because it sounded like the sex pistols and the new york dolls. meanwhile, back at the record store, charlie had lined up a show for us at macalaster college, bob's alma mater, under the condition that he play with his again. we solved this moral dilema by playing most of the set as a four piece and then firing charlie on stage. the three of us then played our two new songs and husker du was born.

these pages could fill volumes if i were to go on into any sort of detail about the decade long existence of the band. most of the important facts are easily obtainable and to include them now would be contrary to the purpose of this article, not to mention the wishes of my literary agent. i will say, however, i experienced the widest variety of unrealities that a 17 year old could have thought possible. at age 26 i quit husker du, december 17, 1987 to be exact. in the years between the conception of the band and it's demise i had acquired a solid musical reputation, a 2 year old son and a respectable heroin addiction. 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

i was already playing in another band, "the swallows" when husker du dissolved. i would probably have put more effort into the new band if i hadn't been soon busy recording my album "intolerance". i needed some time to work by myself and i felt that i had something to prove. i was very bitter about the way the press was handling the breakup. how i put up with that and managed to fight my habit at the same time i will never know. "intolerance" was my therapy i took my time recording it and played all of the instruments. whatever it was that i had set out to prove, "intolerance" proved to me my need to work with a band.

i had known kevin (snake) lavaly for some time, seeing him at shows and at an anarchist center in town. we ran into each other one night and later returned to his squat to play guitars. we learned a few songs over the next couple of weeks. one night we have a chance to jam all night at full volume with drummer tommy rey. snake and i met tommy that night at minneapolis' finest nightclub, first avenue. leaving the club later, i ran into my friend, tommy merkl. i had seen him play bass before and spared no time asking him to come along and play with us. by the end of the evening i had a new band, NOVA MOB.

we rehearsed the material that would form "the last days of pompeii" and several covers. during a road trip to st. louis tommy rey told us he wanted to be replaced, but that he'd play with us live until someone new could be worked in. after playing with us for seven months, tommy rey was replaced by michael crego, an old friend of tom's. tom the bass player that is.

for some reason kevin and i started drinking too much. we probably wanted to get drunk. when we drank we couldn't play. when we couldn't play we wouldn't get along. after a disastrous groundhog's day performance we were furious with each other. we weren't getting along too well on the stage either. today he and i joke about not being able to remember whether he quit or if i fired him. it's not important either way. what is important is the fact that we are still friends and are sober.

tommy, michael and i have concentrated on overseas touring and recording. our first ROUGH TRADE album, "THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII" is coming out in february. i think that it is the finest record i have ever been a part of making. maybe that is because i really am very happy working with tom and mike. I am having the time of my life!

that's all for now. i hope that i didn't bore you.

grant hart

(gh)
c.c. rough trade
doug myren

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