Snakes on the Mesa

On the Mesa

Inside a packrat’s nest is a kitchen area, with little shelves where different kinds of food are stored. There is also an area like a refrigerator, with better airflow

Nuts and seeds are stacked in the warmer area

Why don’t serial killers ever talk about the good times?

By Tama Janowitz

Robert was still back and forth between California and the Mesa. When we first met, some years ago, he liked to watch Hallmark movies. They started with things like a beautiful lost veterinarian whose car broke down and a local farmer took her in and gave her coolant. When he made her pancakes, she realized her boyfriend was shallow and trivial. The lonely farmer and his tame deer — rescued from a hunter — were a better choice. But once Robert was with me on the mesa, his tastes in programs changed. He only watched serial-killer series, murder documentaries, and various other shows featuring men disposing of bodies. Screams from his cell phone in the other room kept me awake at night. He found it soothing. Then he would return to California again, to get things finished up there so he could be here full time. It took him eleven hours each way and he was often gone for a week. The drive was so grueling that when he arrived back on the mesa he had to unwind by watching a show about a …

Interview

Q&A With Bob Mould

Hüsker Dü was the loudest, fastest band in the world while prefiguring nearly the entirety of '90s indie rock.

Now ex-lead singer Bob Mould speaks in his ‘quiet voice’ after living in a farmhouse with chickens for company.

Camped out on Jello Biafra’s back porch; though they were better than U2. Now he wants everyone to listen to Best Coast.

By Susannah Samuels

In order to understand what Hüsker Dü accomplished as a band, it’s important to look at the vacuum in which it existed. The band was created in 1979 — a time when the Ramones, the Damned, the Clash, and Buzzcocks were the hip new things. But when I listen to Hüsker Dü now, it doesn’t really feel like it’s from the same era. The Ramones can feel like classic rock. Hüsker Dü has eternally felt and sounded like a ’90s band to me. Their music has a forever-young Peter Pan quality. That’s because Hüsker somehow vaulted ahead of its own genre while introducing a specific sound that people had never heard before. In a great documentary by PBS, titled Hüsker Dü, the Fastest Band in The World, one of the first things said is this: “I said, like, ‘What’s Hüsker Dü?’ And he’s like, ‘They play fast.’ ‘Like what, like fast… like the Ramones?’ ‘Like, maybe faster.’ ‘Like, really?’ ‘Faster than the Ramones.’ You’re like, wow.” Hüsker Dü’s creative arc also prefigured a now widespread phenomenon: So …

Snakes on the Mesa

Q&A With Bob Mould

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