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JBM Promotions Presents
Bob Mould Solo Electric: Distortion and Blue Hearts! with Jason Narducy
Fri Oct, 22 @ 8:00 PM (Doors: 7:00 pm )
Memorial Hall , 1225 Elm Street, Cincinnati, OH
All Ages
$22.00 - $35.00
Bob Mould

Legendary singer-songwriter-guitarist-bandleader Bob Mould has announced the release of an explosive new album. BLUE HEARTS arrives via Merge Records on Friday, September 25; pre-orders are available now on LP, CD, and tri-color Peak Vinyl in the Merge store, or your favorite independent record shop.

Mould’s 14th solo LP, BLUE HEARTS – which follows last year’s critically acclaimed SUNSHINE ROCK – is heralded by today’s premiere of the provocative first single, “American Crisis,” available now for streaming and download HERE; an official lyric video is streaming now via YouTube HERE.

“‘American Crisis’ is a tale of two times,” says Mould. “Past Time and Present Time. The parallels between 1984 and 2020 are a bit scary for me: telegenic, charismatic leaders, praised and propped up by extreme Evangelicals, either ignoring an epidemic (HIV/AIDS) or being outright deceitful about a pandemic (COVID-19).” From today through June 7, all of the proceeds from “American Crisis” will benefit OutFront Minnesota and Black Visions Collective.

BLUE HEARTS is perhaps the most directly confrontational work of Bob Mould’s four-decade career, a raging 14-track collection described by its creator as “the catchiest batch of protest songs I’ve ever written in one sitting.” Produced by Mould at Chicago’s famed Electrical Audio with longtime collaborator Beau Sorenson engineering, the album – which once again features backing from the crack rhythm section of drummer Jon Wurster and bassist Jason Narducy – nods to the veteran singer-songwriter’s groundbreaking past while remaining firmly planted in the issues of the day. Where SUNSHINE ROCK captured Mould at his most “violently happy” (according to Rolling Stone), BLUE HEARTS is both seething and pointed, the raging yin to the previous album’s positive yang. The acoustic opener, “Heart on My Sleeve” catalogues the ravages of climate change, while “American Crisis” – written initially for SUNSHINE ROCK but deemed “too heavy” by its writer – spits plainspoken fire at the people who fomented this catastrophic moment in history: “I never thought I’d see this bullshit again / To come of age in the ’80s was bad enough / We were marginalized and demonized / I watched a lot of my generation die / Welcome back to American crisis.”

Elsewhere, the political and personal collide on songs like “Everyth!ng to You,” “The Ocean,” and the salaciously autobiographical “Leather Dreams,” the latter two composed earlier this year during an epic three-day writing binge prior to January 2020’s sold-out Solo Electric tour. As volatile, hook-laden, and aggressively honest as anything in Mould’s remarkable canon, BLUE HEARTS is fueled by a pervasive sense of déjà vu, its angry anthems of today equally informed by his experiences and memories of the early 1980s. Back then, Mould was a self-described “22-year-old closeted gay man” touring with the one and only Hüsker Dü as AIDS consumed his community. Leaders – including the one in the White House – seemed content to let the epidemic kill a generation. No wonder Bob Mould found his mind wandering back…

“We have a charismatic, telegenic, say-anything leader being propped up by evangelicals,” he says. “These fuckers tried to kill me once. They didn’t do it. They scared me. I didn’t do enough. Guess what? I’m back, and we’re back here again. And I’m not going to sit quietly this time and worry about alienating anyone."

Jason Narducy
Jason Narducy is a singer/songwriter from Evanston, IL.  At age ten, Jason formed a band called Verböten with some Evanston friends. The band played at clubs in Chicago and schools on the north shore. The band broke up before he went through puberty but was later featured in Foo Fighter’s HBO Sonic Highways series. 

As an adult musician, Jason has performed the national anthem at a Bulls game, sung a duet with jazz artist Patricia Barber on her Blue Note Records debut, and repeatedly lost guitar picks. When he’s not touring as bassist with Bob Mould or Superchunk, Jason focuses on his band Split Single, instead of his family and children. 

Split Single’s second album, Metal Frames, was released in November 2016. Greg Kot of The Chicago Tribune called Jason a "first-rate songwriter' in his review of the record. Jason’s mom loves it, too. 

Jason writes and produces short comedy episodes called "The Sexiest Elbows In Rock" which feature Fred Armisen, Michael Shannon, Jeff Tweedy, Todd Barry, Margaret Cho, Tim Meadows, Dave Hill, and many more. 

Jason has played bass for Robert Pollard, The Pretenders, Eddie Vedder, and Liz Phair. He also wrote the music and lyrics for Verböten, a musical about his first band that premiered in January 2020 in Chicago.