Soul Asylum “Hang Time” released 30 years ago today, April 25th, 1988. Pre-grunge, Midwestern melodic punk, their first major label release (on A&M with support from their previous Minneapolis-based label, Twin/Tone). I saw Soul Asylum perform a gazillion times in the 80′s and early 90′s – they toured constantly and hit the Appleton/Green Bay all-ages venues a lot (I used to have a photo of them in front of that damn owl mural at Kutska’s Hall) plus I saw them at least once or twice at the UW-Madison Memorial Union – but I am not overly fond of Soul Asylum. I loathe their Grammy-winning 1993 hit single “Runaway Train” with a vengeance and thought Dave Pirner’s appearance in Reality Bites was hilarious, ridiculous (he was dating Winona Ryder when it was filmed). That said, Hang Time is really alright and even though it’s probably been close to 30 years since I’ve listened to it, I’m remembering how much I like many of the tracks, including “Little Too Clean,” “Sometime to Return,” “Cartoon,” “Beggars and Choosers,” “Ode,” “Jack of All Trades” and the foot-stomping bluegrass-goes-punk “Twiddly Dee.” “Soul Asylum made a number of albums that sold a lot more than Hang Time, but in most respects they never got better than this – it hits the ideal balance between their snotty roots and their more ambitious later recordings and shows these two sides of their personality could have easily coexisted under the right circumstances.” (Allmusic)