Onstage and in autobiography, Bob Mould retraces raging youth to melodic middle age

Onstage at the Birchmere last week, Bob Mould set down his sky-blue Stratocaster and picked up a book.
It was the story of a teen who flees an abusive home, starts a band, hits the road, gets hooked, gets sober, goes solo, comes out of the closet, detours into electronic music, works a stint in pro wrestling, reinvents himself as a DJ and finally decides to write it all down.
It was his autobiography.
Performing songs and reading from his book for the first time ever, the 50-year-old punk legend punctuated his recollections with overwhelmed sighs. “It’s very reminiscent of May of 1989 all of a sudden,” Mould said from the stage, nervously pushing his glasses up his nose.
He was referring to his solo debut after the implosion of Husker Du, the hair-on-fire hard-core punk trio Mould formed in Minneapolis in 1979. Triangulating indelible extremes in melody, volume and speed, the band’s breakneck sound would ripple across the ’90s and beyond, influencing Nirvana, Foo Fighters and every band since that’s ever tried to coax an angry barre chord from an electric guitar...

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Chris Richards @'The Washington Post'