Hüsker Dü book interesting, but terribly edited

book-cover-husker-duAndrew Earles is a fine writer. His new book, Hüsker Dü: The Story of the Noise-Pop Pioneers Who Launched Modern Rock, is a well-written history of the Minneapolis legends. However, it is also a book that succeeds in spite of myriad issues, not the least of which is a terrible editing job. The most egregious error is really errors, plural. For whatever reason, whomever was in charge of Hüsker Dü managed to allows Earles to repeatedly use quotes.

To explain, the following quote appears on both page 145 and 173:

“Guys would show up at gigs, or they would call, but it didn’t make sense because SST had been doing a good job.”

It’s used in conjunction was other quotes, but despite the context of each appearance, that line is instantly recognizable, even with thirty pages separating each instance.

And, really, it happens repeatedly. There are other occasions when Earles uses some variation of “people might not have known them when they showed up, but they had jaws dropping during the show, and people knew who they were when they left,” or, when listing the litany of Chicago punk bands, ending with “and for a short time, Strike Under.”
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