The official list of limited-edition releases for Record Store Day 2023 was released over the weekend, and Hüsker Dü fans are officially stoked.
A new double-LP collection featuring some of the Twin Cities punk band's earliest live recordings, "Tonite Longhorn," will be pressed to vinyl and sold exclusively in participating independent record stores on the big national shopping day, April 22.
The recordings were captured over four different nights in a one-year span, July 1979-September 1980, at the legendary/notorious Longhorn Bar in downtown Minneapolis (aka Jay's Longhorn Bar, later Zoogies). They were culled from the collection of the band's longtime sound engineer and friend, Terry Katzman, who died in 2019 not long after his meticulous archival work resulted in the well-received box set, "Savage Young Dü."
None of the "Tonite Longhorn" recordings were featured in the "Savage" set, though it's a lot of the same material. Among the offerings are such early Hüsker Dü staples as "All Tensed Up," "Do the Bee," "MTC," "Do You Remember?" and "Statues," the latter of which would become the band's first 7-inch single. Many of the songs were later captured live in the newly opened 7th St. Entry and released as "Land Speed Record," the trio's first album for SST Records. A cover of "Chinese Rock" (aka "Chinese Rocks," first released by Johnny Thunders) is also featured.
Promo for the collection on the Record Store Day site hypes it as "the aural and enchanting equivalent of a time machine that vividly thrusts the listener straight back to Hüsker Dü's embryonic unsheathing on stage."
The site also notes the set will be limited to 5,000 copies as an "RSD First" release; which means it could also become available elsewhere later. It is not available for preorder. The collection marks the return of the band's own label, Reflex Records, which was originally run with Katzman.
Former Hüskers guitarist/singer Bob Mould promoted the announcement of "Tonite" on his social media channels, while Brigid McGough Hart — widow of drummer/singer Grant Hart — similarly posted it to his fan page on Facebook. It's not any kind of unauthorized release, in other words.
Bassist Greg Norton, who also wrote and sang several of the songs that appear on "Tonite," is on the mend from prostate cancer treatment and is scheduled to return to the stage with his new group UltraBomb at the Punk Rock Bowling festival in Las Vegas in May.
Only two other Minnesota acts are featured on the long list of Record Store Day 2023 releases: The Cactus Blossoms are dropping a blue-vinyl 45-rpm edition of their four-song tribute EP, "If Not For You: Songs of Bob Dylan, Vol. 1;" and Soul Asylum's "MTV Unplugged" performance is also being issued on vinyl, as was publicized last week alongside the announcement of a special unplugged State Theatre gig.
