While I officially lived with Mark Michicich for a year (which does not include the many nights, prior to entering the formal lease arrangement, that I passed out on one of his many couches), I don't seem to recall his apparently lingering obsession with WPGU. As a Junior Manager at Star Course under "The Mic," our beloved leader could always be counted on to rise above the pettiness that would have felled a lesser man.Â
What he could not rise above, however -- in fact, none of us could -- was the idea that we could somehow convince our fellow Illinois classmates that we knew the best music and, if they would only stop and listen for a minute, maybe Husker Du would sell enough records (yes, records -- this was 1988, when CDs were not only really expensive -- $14.99 a pop! -- but also required an entirely new system called a CD player. You might remember that as those big clunky things that people used before iPods) to stay in business, or at least to continue to be able to play venues like Foellinger. (They didn't.) On the bright side, as a former manager, I received two complimentary tickets to Def Leppard's Assembly Hall show, which I scalped for $100, good for two weeks of groceries. Bad taste had its benefits.
Speaking of Husker Du, their shoulders were just two of the many we rubbed against before, during and after the shows. (Yes, they were a trio, but Bob Mould and Grant Hart skipped out.) It never stopped being surreal. As a freshman ushering one of my first shows, I managed to offend Michael Stipe and Mike Mills in a single, ill-advised request for their autographs. There was the time I tried to cock-block Robyn Hitchcock from making a move on fellow staffer Kathi Brinkman, whom I'm convinced he was attracted to because they had the same haircut. There was the after-party at Mark's subterranean apartment on High Street when Husker Du bassist Greg Norton wouldn't leave. (For all we know, he's still there.) And nothing topped the day I spent escorting Bobcat Goldthwait around Champaign, taking in the sights at Market Place Mall, entertaining the masses at Follett's, and then, back in his hotel room at Jumer's, teaching him the opening riff to R.E.M.'s
"Driver 8" on an acoustic guitar he had picked up in Indianapolis the day before.Â
Later than night, Bobcat brought the guitar on stage as part of a goof on Bono. It bombed, and shortly thereafter, so did Bobcat's career. I'll always wonder whether I should have taught him "Pour Some Sugar on Me."
