Although no longer at this location, the empty parking (next to the Thai restaurant) is where Cheapo Records used to be, on the edge of the Macalester College campus. Bob Mould (guitar/vocals) was a student at Macalester, and he would frequent the record store where Grant Hart (drums) worked as a clerk. Mould and Hart bonded over a shared love of The Ramones.
Grant Hart and Greg Norton (bass) had met while applying for the record store job that Hart would eventually get. Although they started the band as a four-piece (with a keyboardist) called Buddy and the Returnables, by the end of March 1979 the band had morphed into a three-piece called Hüsker Dü. The name is drawn from a board game in the 70s that translates to "Do You Remember?"
To see a picture of Grant Hart pointing to the former location of the cash register at Cheapo, click here.
Cheapo Records is still around, only now it's up the road on Snelling.
