Soul Asylum

Any other fans of this band round these parts? My first roommate in college was a huge S.A. fan and he turned me on to them during our freshman year together.

I'm listening to HANG TIME (1988, seen on the left) right now for the first time in a while and it's a good, catchy hard rock album. (Fave tracks: "Cartoon," "Sometime To Return," and "Marionette.") GRAVE DANCERS UNION, my favorite CD of theirs, was of course a huge hit in the early 90s ("Somebody To Shove" is a classic song!), and the follow up LET YOUR DIM LIGHT SHINE has some cool tracks as well. Unfortunately, as the 90s ended they released the rather blah CANDY FROM A STRANGER, where they went all Goo Goo Dolls on me and I lost interest.

For a while in the early 90s when I still wore my hair long, a few people told me I kinda looked like Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner, which I thought was kinda odd, but at the time he was dating Winona Ryder and I always had a thing for her, so I could live with that.

They are a band that I always wanted to explore but never did.

spectrefate wrote:

They are a band that I always wanted to explore but never did.

I'm sure you'd be able to find GRAVE DANCERS UNION fairly cheap if you hit a used CD store. There seemed to be a bit of a backlash towards these guys as the 90s ended and they went more "pop," because suddenly all the used stores I visited seemed to be flooded with Soul Asylum CDs. Which was fine by me because I needed to upgrade all my cassettes of their pre-GRAVE DANCERS stuff.

"I want somebody to shove me". Love that song, Black Gold, Runaway Train, and Homesick.

DallasBlack wrote:

"I want somebody to shove me". Love that song, Black Gold, Runaway Train, and Homesick.

My friend's band used to do a kickass cover of "Black Gold."

They were from my neighborhood. I saw them play frat parties at the U 0f M in the early 80's. Them, The Replacements, Husker Du, The Suburbs - all started out pretty much as hardcore bands. Pirner started loosing his hearing and had to adjust thier sound, which is how they got mainstream popularity with "Grave Diggers Union". Everything before that was much harder (and preferable to my ears). You still see all the guys at the local shows.

SAXON1500 wrote:

They were from my neighborhood. I saw them play frat parties at the U 0f M in the early 80's. Them, The Replacements, Husker Du, The Suburbs - all started out pretty much as hardcore bands. Pirner started loosing his hearing and had to adjust thier sound, which is how they got mainstream popularity with "Grave Diggers Union". Everything before that was much harder (and preferable to my ears). You still see all the guys at the local shows.

Yea, the earlier Soul Asylum stuff is way more punk than the mainstream "GRAVE DANCERS UNION" era material. It's all pretty good tho (with the exception of CANDY FROM A STRANGER, anyway... that one's a snooze fest...zzzz)
Never knew that Pirner was having trouble with his hearing, that kinda sucks!

I had "Gravedancer's Union" back in the early 90s. Good alternative album.

Love ths band.....

"And The Horse They Rode In On" is my favorite....

great great band!!

I need to 'revisit' them again. I got kinda bored of them I guess. Perhaps I'll pick up a copy of "Gravedancer's Union" used. I had it on cassette - and we all know what happens to those things - they just wear out.

Love these guys! I can do a perfect Pirner impersonation. I could be in a Soul Asylum cover band.

SAXON1500 wrote:

They were from my neighborhood. I saw them play frat parties at the U 0f M in the early 80's. Them, The Replacements, Husker Du, The Suburbs - all started out pretty much as hardcore bands. Pirner started loosing his hearing and had to adjust thier sound, which is how they got mainstream popularity with "Grave Diggers Union". Everything before that was much harder (and preferable to my ears). You still see all the guys at the local shows.

I grew up in the same neighborhood. I remember them when they were actually called "Loud Fast Rules", and the highlight of their show was a mean cover of Highway Star by D.Purple.
Unfortunately the Minneapolis alternative sound (S.A., Replacements, Husker Du, etc.) just never appealed to me for some reason. I did like them all when they were punk bands though.

I've only heard Runaway Train, and that song is addicting.

i liked them up until Grave Dancers Union. after that album, i lost interest.

mc666 wrote:

i liked them up until Grave Dancers Union. after that album, i lost interest.

Without looking, I think they only had like two albums after that. Good albums, though.

Eyesore wrote:

mc666 wrote:

i liked them up until Grave Dancers Union. after that album, i lost interest.

Without looking, I think they only had like two albums after that. Good albums, though.

I think there were three, actually (LET YOUR DIM LIGHT SHINE, CANDY FROM A STRANGER and a new one a year or two ago that I've never heard). DIM LIGHT was okay but CANDY FROM A STRANGER was dull as dishwater.

There's also a cool "best-of" out there called BLACK GOLD that has quite a few non-album tracks on it.

Found this link on another board... you can download Soul Asylum's new tune, "Let's All Kill Each Other" (their ode to the 2008 election) for free from their site until election day...
http://www.enterthesoulasylum.com/

I didn't discover these guys til they reached mainstream success with " Grave Dancer's Union" a classic alternative rock album, I was surprised to discover that their earlier albums had a Replacement feel to them almost garage rock than "Grave Dancer's Union'

Saw them live on this tour with the Spin Doctors and another band I can't remember, I would love to say it was the Screaming Trees but I would like to think I would remember that.

Their next album " Let Your Dim Light Shine' had the classic screwed up love song " Misery ' which has that great chrous " Frustrated incorporated", cool band.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Found this link on another board... you can download Soul Asylum's new tune, "Let's All Kill Each Other" (their ode to the 2008 election) for free from their site until election day...
http://www.enterthesoulasylum.com/

I like this new tune!

Cool tune! They gots their rock back!

sidenote: Just my opinion, but here is an example of a cool band and what musicians can do to be more selfless:






After The Flood: Live From The Grand Forks Prom


A couple of months after a disastrous flood in Grand Forks, ND, Soul Asylum came to town to play a joint prom for a couple of high schools at the Grand Forks Air Base hangar, which had been used as the refugee camp in the wake of the flood. This is the audio document of the event, and Soul Asylum s first live album -- in fact, at the time of its 2004 release, it was the first Soul Asylum non-compilation album of any sort since 1998's Candy from a Stranger As a performance, it doesn't offer many surprises: it's well-played, well-recorded music emblematic of the time when much alternative rock had moved toward mainstream hard rock The repertoire, thankfully, is more surprising, as the 18 songs -- while leaning heavily on material they recorded for their Columbia 1990s studio albums -- include a number of less-traveled items, some of which the band had done only on soundtracks and compilations. There are, for instance, covers of Marvin Gaye s "Sexual Healing," Lulu s "To Sir With Love," Alice Cooper s "School's Out" (the crowd-pleasing set opener), Johnny Nash s "I Can See Clearly Now," and, perhaps strangest of all, "Rhinestone Cowboy." It's hardly esoteric, though, also including runs through their hits "Runaway Train" and "Misery." As a live record, then, it succeeds in offering what both the average and more fanatical fans want, though some of Soul Asylum s most veteran followers might be disappointed by the absence of songs from the band's early career. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide

This was done completely on their dime, without receiving any advance. Not sure how strong it sold, or if they got a piece of the sales, but, for once, something was not done just for the $.

Never heard any albums, but I love "Runaway Train".

I'm tired of Sax thinking he's the authority on Minneapolis music. What a fake!

I am sad.

SAXON1500 wrote:

I am sad.

...and a fraud. You really live in Wisconsin. I don't know why they don't just make it one big state named "Cold" anyway.

Not a bad song - I really like grave dancers union and lit your dim light shine is a decent album