Hüsker Dü lead singer and guitarist, BOB MOULD (nee: Robert Arthur Mould) was born on this date. An American musician, principally known for his work as guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for alt-rock bands, Husker Du in the 1980s and Sugar in the 1990s.

Forming in 1979, Hüsker Dü first gained notice as a puink rock group with a series of recordings on an independent label. In 1986, they signed with a major record label (Warner Bros. Records), but found only modest commercial success. However, they were later often cited as one of the key influences on 1990s alt-rock, including bands such as Nirvana and the Pixies.

In the late 1980s, Hüsker Dü broke up acrimoniously amid members’ drug abuse, personal problems, disputes over songwriting credits, musical direction, and the suicide of the band’s manager, David Savoy. Mould and Grant Hart, the band’s other songwriter and vocalist, still take occasional jabs at each other in the press, though the two briefly revisited their Hüsker Dü back catalog together at a 2004 benefit concert for an ailing friend, the late Karl Mueller of Soul Asylum.

Though Mould’s sexual orientation had previously been something of an open secret, he was outed in the early 1990s in an interview in the music magazine Spin; he came to terms with being out gay, even appearing in the movie Bear Nation, self-identifying as a bear.

In April 2004, Mould was a co-organizer of the WEDRock benefit concert for Freedom to Marry. “WedRock” was a play on the word “wedlock”. The event raised an estimated US$30,000. Mould also contributed the song “See a Little Light” to the 2006 album Wed-Rock: A Benefit for Freedom to Marry, an album to support in the legalization of marriage equality.

Mould’s song “Dog on Fire” is the theme song for The Daily Show, performed by They Might Be Giants. On December 19, 1996, Mould made a cameo appearance on The Daily Show Holiday Spectacular in an homage duet of “The Little Drummer Boy” with Mould playing the part of David Bowie to Craig Kilborn’s “Big Crosby”.

The song “See a Little Light” has been used more than once in various television applications: It was used in the closing scene of the original un-aired test pilot episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It became one of the principal theme songs for the HBO series The Mind of the Married.

In 2001, Mould played lead guitar in the house band for the film of John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch and on the film’s soundtrack. In 2003, Mould also participated in a Hedwig tribute album, Wig in a Box, on which he covered the song “Nailed.”