Hüsker Dü

Hüsker Dü /ˈhʊskər ˈduː/ was an American rock band formed in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1979. The band's continual members were guitarist/vocalist Bob Mould, bassist Greg Norton, and drummer/vocalist Grant Hart.

Hüsker Dü first gained notability as a hardcore punk band, later crossing over into alternative rock. Mould and Hart split the songwriting and singing duties.

Following an EP and three LPs on independent label SST Records, including the critically acclaimed Zen Arcade (1984), the band signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1986 to release their final two studio albums.

Mould released two solo albums before forming Sugar in the early 1990s, while Hart released a solo album on SST and later formed Nova Mob. Norton was initially less active musically after Hüsker Dü's demise and focused on being a restaurateur instead. He returned to the recording industry in 2006.

History

Formation and early years (1979–1980)

The members of Hüsker Dü first performed together when Grant Hart, Bob Mould, Greg Norton and keyboardist Charlie Pine began playing in 1979 in a band called Buddy and the Returnables. At the time, Mould was a freshman at Macalester College, and frequented Cheapo Records, a St Paul record store where Hart was a sales clerk. Hart and Norton had originally met while applying for the same job, which Norton eventually got. Hart and Mould bonded over a shared love of Ramones, and soon after enlisted Norton and Pine to form a band. They were soon gigging, playing mostly cover songs, some classic rock, and frequent Ramones tunes. Unbeknownst to Pine, the remaining band members disliked the sound of the band with Pine's keyboards and began practicing without him, writing a few originals.

Hūsker Dū?

Hūsker Dū? is a memory game that can be played by children and adults, published in North America in the 1950s. The game is, as of August 2012, owned and distributed by the New Jersey company Endless Games.

Game play

The game board consists of a surface with holes in it, laid on top of a dial which contains small pictures. The dial is rotated before the start of the game, so that each image falls under a hole. Each hole is covered up by a marker. On each turn a player removes two markers to reveal the pictures underneath; if they match, the player gets to take the two markers as their score, but if they do not, the markers are replaced and the next player takes his or her turn. The winner is the player who takes the most markers.

Controversial advertisement

The American version of the board game was first distributed in the 1950s by the Pressman Toy Corporation. The boxed game proclaimed itself one "in which the child can outwit the adult."

A notorious advertisement for the game that aired during the 1973 Christmas season featured subliminal cuts, with the phrase "Get It." Even though subliminal messages are commonly believed to be ineffective, the FCC received complaints about the ad and issued a public notice calling subliminal advertising "deceptive and contrary to the public interest." The Premium Corporation of America voluntarily removed the commercial from the air, claiming that the subliminal message was inserted by a misguided employee.