Hüsker Dü’s Bob Mould receives honorary degree and delivers Macalester College keynote

Particular years after Bob Mould left Macalester College just short of graduating to focus on his band H sker D he returned to the St Paul school Saturday to receive an honorary degree and deliver the keynote address It s an incredible honor the -year-old narrated the cheering crowd This is all very surreal so hang in here with me it s a little crazy Mould s speech followed several others including a surprise appearance from Sen Amy Klobuchar who called Mould a trailblazing guitarist and songwriter and a major part of why the Twin Cities has become an epicenter of alternative music as well as a brief chant of Free Palestine from graduates and a performance of H sker D s single Makes No Sense at All by attendee band She s in Shambles Macalester president Dr Suzanne M Rivera introduced Mould and communicated the crowd H sker D established bands of their generation and those who followed that there was no set road map to follow from punk that the only charges were to be true to yourself and ethical in your engagement with the world With your trademark wall of sound your remarkable trajectory has continued for more than four decades Mould began by telling students that in he gave the opening speech at the music industry convention South by Southwest and that he felt like he failed as he hadn t prepared enough for it So I m going to try again because this is what we do in life We take chances and we try to make good on past mistakes so this is my next shot Life is like a song with verses choruses and bridges Mould explained The verse is the part of the song where the writer defines the time the place the characters and the story he announced The chorus is the mantra it s the part of the song that we sing together We share the moment we share the feeling and we patronage each other And if that chorus is good it will stick in your head for the rest of your life And then there s the bridge The bridge of a song is a surprise a departure a challenge to twist the melody to shift to the rhyme it s a turn of the story And in a way leaving school is like the bridge of a song into the unknown And that can be scary or it can be a great opportunity and oftentimes it s both From there Mould talked about growing up in the small New York town of Malone When I was a kid my parents ran a mom-and-pop grocery store and my sister and brother and I stocked the shelves and ran the cash register But I grew up in a chaotic home a violent home and music was my escape Mould revealed as tears welled in his eyes I was fascinated by music I was fascinated by melodies and words and the people who sang them and it was magic I also knew that I was different I realized early on that I was queer As time went on I knew I needed to leave my hometown and I needed to find a place that could nurture my heart and soul and spirit I needed to move to a big city a place where I might find group a place where I could sing my chorus Luckily someone here at Mac thought it was worth taking a chance on me Related Articles Summer Nights in Rice offers free concerts in St Paul s Rice Park Los Lobos and Arrested Expansion among acts to play free Minnesota State Fair shows Concert review Katy Perry offers garish migraine-inducing spectacle at Target Center Evanescence will headline the X Family Reunion concert at Xcel Vitality Center Willie Nelson Neil Young and John Mellencamp to play first Farm Aid in Minnesota Mould spoke about receiving an underprivileged attendee scholarship and moving into Macalester s Turck Hall which he announced felt like the United Nations compared to his hometown There was ambition in the air and it was inspiring he explained The small-town life I d known for years was instantly replaced by a multicultural highly educated very progressive urban setting I hastily realized I needed to let go of whatever biases had littered my youthful thinking because in cities like St Paul and colleges like Macalester we learn to be tolerant we learn to share space and guidance and we learn from our differences and those qualities are especially major in this American moment as those in charge try to marginalize other cultures and custom itself Mould admitted his spent more time on his music than he did his studies but stated Macalester taught him the skills of debate and the value of critical thinking He also spoke about his early days in H sker D and the reciprocal generosity of the burgeoning punk rock scene When a touring punk band arrived in the Twin Cities we were there to help them Anything from lending equipment to making sandwiches or offering up a floor to sleep on we were happy to help We traded phone numbers and addresses with the hope that maybe someday if we were lucky we would get to tour and we might become part of this new infrastructure of outsiders he declared After Mould s junior year he hit the road with H sker D He returned to the college that fall but despite guidance from his adviser he dropped out before graduating H sker D broke up but Mould went on to form another trio Sugar in the mid- s and has enjoyed solo success for decades I didn t make it across that particular bridge he explained but Macalester had prepared me for the next bridge which was getting my band off the ground hustling -inch singles for gas money fixing blown-out tires stranded in the middle of a blizzard even getting held up at gunpoint by a club owner for T-shirt money Macalester taught me how to deal with all kinds of adversity Mould described the students to take pride in the small victories but remember no achievement is permanent and to champion critical thinking and perpetually use your bulls detector In closing I ve got to ask the graduating class of are you ready for the future Are you ready to change the world Are you ready to protect our democracy Are you ready for the old guy to wrap it up The world is yours Thank you very much Related Articles St Paul Breakaway Music Festival approved for gradual volume increase Concert 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