Pitchfork

Age: it sneaks up on all of us. One minute Brian Johnson is the super-hot rocker at the helm of AC/DC, and the next thing he knows, he's the guy in the old-man hat on Saturday Night Live screeching out the gross double-entendres.

n But what do you do if you're Bob Mould? Okay, so you've laid down some foundational work in Hüsker Dü, then you formed a power-pop outfit called Sugar, and now you've settled down with a solo career. You start including acoustic guitars and strings in your songs to soften them up a bit. Then you go indie.

n According to a source close to the band, Bob's been unable to get a contract for too long. What he's proposing now is three separate discs, to be released on the Granary imprint-- an album of dark acoustic material, an album of "aggressive electronic" material, and an album of ambient/instrumental material. Apparently, he wants to get it out by March, too. You go, Bob! The as-yet-untitled discs will be for sale online at his website and at shows in the near future.