by Al Crisafulli (@Sugarblastmusic)
A collection of archival performances from the summers of 1979 and 1980, Tonite Longhorn captures the post-adolescent energy of a young band at the very beginning of a lightning-quick evolution that would yield some of the most important post-hardcore albums of the era. Featuring sets recorded at Jay’s Longhorn Bar in Minneapolis, the album mines similar ground as the brilliant Savage Young Dü archival release issued by Numero Group in 2017, while still helping fans to better understand the roots of the legendary Hüsker Dü.
Recorded 1-2 years prior to the performance that would become the band’s debut, the aptly-titled Land Speed Record, the latter documents a faster, louder, more ferocious band, its skills honed by two years of touring. By contrast, Tonite Longhorn is a looser, melodic assemblage - performances from a band that is still unsure of what it wants to be. Already exploring musical themes that reached beyond hardcore, the songs are more mid-tempo, hinting at what we would hear with 1984’s brilliant Zen Arcade, but still unpolished and often unfocused. When drummer Grant Hart announces “We’re not the most professional band in the Twin Cities,” at the conclusion of the album’s opening track, the witty “Insects Rule the World,” he wasn’t kidding.
The recording is clean and full, with wide, stereo separation - the fidelity, at times, eclipsing that of the band’s earliest studio recordings. It also wisely leaves in elements that help us understand the still-developing early ‘80s etiquette of live punk shows (at one point a emcee announces “all girls in cutoffs will be admitted free” to a future concert), and where Hüsker Dü already fit in the quickly-evolving Minneapolis music scene. Listening in its entirety helps paint a picture not only of what Hüsker Dü was in 1980, but where.
Many of the tracks here will be familiar to fans, as they can be found on Land Speed Record, Everything Falls Apart & More, and of course, the aforementioned Savage Young Dü. Still, these are different recordings, earlier and more deliberate, almost uncertain, like a foal getting his legs underneath him for the first time. A version of Bob Mould’s “Don’t Try to Call,” slower and less frenzied than the version featured on Savage Young Dü, is a highlight, Mould’s signature guitar phrasing more audible and melodic than on the SYD recording. The opening of “Industrial Grocery Store” hints at the band’s subsequent cover of “Love is All Around,” which would be released five years later as the flipside of the band’s landmark “Makes No Sense At All.” The almost lush vocal harmonies in the chorus of “Industrial Grocery Store” would be virtually nonexistent in the band’s earliest records, here serving as a hint of what was to come.
While fans patiently wait for similar treatment from the music of the band’s brilliant SST Records period, Tonite Longhorn represents an exciting window into the earliest days of a great American rock and roll band, still finding its way. Listening with the benefit of hindsight, knowing the brilliant songwriting that was to come from what would eventually be an almost mythological band, the album serves as the definitive document of the band’s earliest days.