The Melvins: S/D

Their records on AmRep are terrible, especially Prick.

I haven't heard the trilogy or the new one, but have been on a Melvins kick, so I might search one out myself.

The new one (Hostile Ambient Takover) double RULES.

Hm, Scott, we must make arrangements. A career overview or something.

have you seen decibel yet, ned? it's really cool. and now i'm writing for them so it's even cooler. and you get a full-page of john mountaingoat every month.

On a related note, the song "at a crawl" off of the book comp/let's kiss will finally and firmly convince anyone who listens to it that Nirvana should have been writing royalty checks to the Melvins. It's from 1984, and it sounds exactly like a lost B-side from "Bleach". No argument possible. It's kind of unnerving...

I know, and I should be paying more attention to it. :-(

i fail to see how you could say this about their first 3 or 4 records, have you heard those? they're pure heaviness and totally indebted to metal. and the records you specifically name, stoner witch and retarder, were after they made a major stylistic shift from strict heaviness to the genre-hopping weirdness found on their more recent stuff, none of which interests me.

Man, phil you couldn't be more wrong. And I say that as someone who finds my taste intersecting with yours pretty often (dude you would have loved the gig I caught last night -- Marshall Allen, Henry Grimes, Fred Anderson and Avreeayl Ra, awesome.) There's nothing indie boy about em. GREAT powerful rhythm section early on. Caught em back in 1991 opening up for Helmet and it absolutely blew my mind. Have you checked out the earliest stuff? One problem is just the number of intentionally goofy and sub-par releases they shit out all the time nowadays. But that's them, that's who they are. Personally I lost track of em after they signed to Atlantic -- they fuckin sold out, maaaan. isn't Buzz like the only original member at this point?

i'm listening to this judas priest "metalworks" double cd i got from the library and realizing how much ozma sounds like priest w/ weird time signatures.

Oh heck no, Dale Crover on drums is the other one. The only thing that's changed since the start is who plays bass.

when the first Earth records came out at the time I remember just thinking "oh, they're just taking the Melvins Lysol thing and stretching it out even further". I like Earth, mind you, but that's kind of what they did.

yeah "Charmicarmicat" is a monster.

"of course people said .. they're drunk!"

Mare - "Nightgoat"
The Dillinger Escape Plan - "Honey Bucket"
Mastodon - "The Bit"
Strapping Young Lad - "Zodiac"
Pig Destroyer - "Claude"
High On Fire/Keelhaul - "Oven"
Meatjack - "Shevil"
Strapadon Factory - "Joan of Arc"
Isis/Agoraphobic Nosebleed - "Boris"
Absentee - "Revolve"
EyeHateGod - "Easy As It Was"
Dog Fashion Disco - "Anaconda"
Disengage - "Raise a Paw"
Blessing The Hogs - "Hogleg"
CKY/Gnarkill - "Laughing With Lucifer at Satan's Sideshow"
Maritime Murder - "Copache"
Made Out Of Babies - "Bar X and The Rocking M"
Pincer 2 - "Echohead/Don't Piece Me"

THESE THINGS ARE USUALLY PRETTY DIRE, BUT THIS LOOKS PRETTY GOOD, SO WHO KNOWS.

Buzz Osborne: If I had known then what I know now I would have killed the guys in Alice In Chains before they ever got a chance to start.

According to an interview with buzz this is why she was replaced, "Well, we tended to wanna work a little harder than she was willing to do, and I was going out with her for a long time, and I basically got sick of her. Dumped her. Just rid her from my life completely, and there's no way I could see playing in a band with her. That had a lot to do with it, plus, I thought she was lazy."

Here's mine: Kurt Cobain of Nirvana used to be a Melvins roadie.

I still remember seeing Melvins at the UCI Student Center circa Houdini.. it was a VERY windy day. So windy that one of the PA speakers flat out FELL OFF the riser onto the stage and almost flattened Lori. She saw the speaker fall smack down on the floor centimeters away from her, and she didn't flinch at all.. she just laughed it off, just grooving along to her bass-playing in her shades.

Later that day during a radio interview, she screamed "I WANNA HEAR 'SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT AND I WANNA HEAR IT NOOOOOOOOOOWWWW!!' .. Buzzo and Dale ignored her the entire time. She was replaced a month later with Mark.

no problem, faggot.

pssshh. i've known that since, oh, 1935.

Anyway.

Finally, four years after Hostile Ambient Takeover, another Melvins release (no collaboration/compilation/reissue, that is). Unfortunately, it's no new real Melvins album: Houdini Live, May 16th.

i wish those recordings would surface.

I've seen them 8 times since and every damn time was different and amazing. One of the best being a 2001 gig at the HOB in new orleans with Lou Barlow playing guitar and wearing a cow print dress.

For newbies, start with Bullhead and the Maggot. Then Stoner Witch, Lysol (great cover of Flipper's "sacrifice") and Gluey Porch Treatments.
For die hards - make sure to grab the bootleg of their singles and the kill rock stars comp which has a killer speed core song entitled "Ever since My accident"

That was the first Melvins song I heard!

Gluey Porch Treatments is a great album. Ozma & Bullhead are good too. I'm not familiar with much of their later stuff.

Avoid Prick, it's terrible.

get ears.

thank you.

fwiw heres two tracks from "bullhead" so you can at least hear a record of theirs
Boris
Zodiac

as far as "spot the grunge band", as far as i know you've got it backasswards and you're probably hearing the melvins in those other bands. they started in '84 after all and nirvana, mudhoney, et al were big fans.

i have to say i'm not as hot on this band as i used to be so i can see them not sounding all that great to a new listener in '06.

The Melvins/Biafra collab is tops too. Very anthemic, kind of reminds me of the first Black Sabbath album on speed.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41LNP%2BE8lML._SS500_.jpg

thoughts on above?

excellent album

hey, wow, stoner witch is way better than i remember it being. like houdini but more cohesive or something. cohesive, that's a good word.

Hostile Ambient Takeover: SO underrated. so much interesting stuff going on throughout. kicks ass also.

Is the remixes album worth checking out? I generally hate remixes

Not heard it yet. i hear each remixer is actually using elements from a whole album rather than just a song, so could be interesting

The remix album is best avoided.

my annoying co-worker keeps talking about how heavy metal is his favorite music to make powerpoint presentations to. I found out he was talking about the Melvins.

the remix album has its moments of brilliance and its moments of bleh, but none of it is better than unadulterated melvins.

As noted by Andy K elsewhere:

http://grungereport.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/buzzworldseries.jpg

buzz like the giants

Cuet panda hat girl too.

that's thalia zedek

lol

Anyone else going?

http://blowthescene.com/bands/melvins-bands/the-melvins-spaceland-residency-this-january.html

The Melvins are set to perform each Friday throughout January at Spaceland (Silver Lake, Calif.) with a different set and featured albums including the band’s current line-up, a 1983 incarnation with Mike Dillard and several albums in their entirety.

The band’s most recent release, The Bride Screamed Murder, was released by Ipecac Recordings in June. A limited edition vinyl version of the album will be on sale at the shows with each handcrafted album featuring detachable artwork from one of ten different artists.

If you missed it, Blow The Scene Senior Staff Writer Adam Rauf caught up with the Melvins in Washington DC as part of Isis‘s final tour for an exclusive interview.

Performance information is as follows:

Jan. 7: Melvins set (current line-up performing songs from Colossus of Destiny); Lysol and Eggnog records in their entirety

Jan. 14: Melvins 1983 (Buzz, Dale and Mike Dillard); Melvins set (current line-up performing normal set) and Houdini in its entirety

Jan. 21: Melvins Lite (Buzz & Dale only); Melvins set (current line-up performing normal set) and Bullhead in its entirety

Jan. 28: Melvins set (current line-up performing normal set) and Stoner Witch in its entirety

going on the 14th i think

I wish I could go tomorrow.

y'know Stag is a really cool album, for all of its genre-hopping weirdness...

whoa dude this sounds dope imo

anyone here go the the show last week??

good show! had to leave a bit early because of the sitter but glad i went

Any other reports on that show? I should try to dig up a piece I wrote when we booked Melvins to play outside of our student union at Macalester spring 1990. "Like an atomic bomb in a paper bag."

Melvins Poll

new live album Sugar Daddy Live is really awesome, one of their best live things. and these guys have a LOT of live albums... i dare not even count them. i think i have four but i know there's a few more.

Yeah, I was listening to it yesterday. The Melvins are better now than they've ever been, and this live album is the proof of that.

i agree, though consensus seems like Bride was a bit undercooked/a mixed bag. do you agree?

totally loved Senile and Nude, tho

The first and last tracks kinda sucked; everything in between was great. (And I liked the first track when they played it live.)

huh, maybe i should listen again, its been a year or so

dudes bride is good melvins for sure listen

run me run me in the dust
huh me huh me ten hut

i mean dude evil new war god is top notch c'mon

if you listen to pig house and don't die awesome

Whiney's feature on _Lysol_ is a must-read:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-06-01/music/the-melvin-s-power-disinfectant/

http://www.ebay.com/itm/World-Famous-MELVAN-MELVINS-Tour-Van-Artwork-Kurt-Cobain-NIRVANA-/150771070206

free EP download at Scion A/V

(info http://www.facebook.com/melvinsarmy )

new album Freak Puke out on Ipecac this summer!

http://loudwire.com/files/2012/02/melvinslitefreakpuke-300x300.jpg

hah! good title.

this part of Buzzo's Village Voice interview had me laughing--

What was the thinking behind doing an album with stand-up bass? Trevor has played electric bass for you guys.

Well, I saw Trevor play stand up bass with Nels Cline and I thought it was something we could do and the wheels started rolling in my head. We reinvented the band but it's just an extension; it's not going to take over. We're gonna do both things—Melvins Lite and regular Melvins.

So Melvins Lite is not just a one-off thing. It will continue?

I certainly hope so.

And the two-drummer lineup will go on, as well?

You bet. Or we'll totally go insane and overdose in the toilet like Elvis.

I have been on a Melvins kick. I really love "The Bootlicker". That record is pretty much the Melvins make a their Pink Floyd album (or close as they ever gonna get) and kinda a bit of both Syd and later Floyd at that too.

More just to showcase this bit of angry hilarity:

http://www.avclub.com/article/melvins-buzz-osborne-picks-songs-by-bands-that-wer-200741

I pre-ordered one of these in December
http://i.imgur.com/SqzRqLd.jpg

great article btw Ned, thank you!

so great

Buzzo OTM throughout

THE MELVINS' BUZZ OSBORNE RELEASES FULL-LENGTH SOLO DEBUT, THIS MACHINE KILLS ARTISTS, JUNE 3 VIA IPECAC RECORDINGS

http://exclaim.ca/images/buzz2.jpg

Buzz Osborne, the legendary grunge progenitor who has helmed the Melvins for thirty plus years, releases his debut solo full-length album, This Machine Kills Artists, on June 3 via Ipecac Recordings.

"I have no interest in sounding like a crappy version of James Taylor or a half-assed version of Woody Guthrie," said the grunge progenitor of the 17-song offering, continuing, "which is what happens when almost every rock and roller straps on an acoustic guitar. No thanks... This Machine Kills Artists is a different kind of animal."

Rolling Stone gave listeners early access to music from Osborne's acoustic release, premiering the song "Dark Brown Teeth." The magazine described the song as "doomy, ill-angled" and with the "Beefheartian edge his band is renown for."

This Machine Kills Artists track listing:

1. Dark Brown Teeth
2. Rough Democracy
3. Laid Back Walking
4. Drunken Baby
5. Vaulting Over A Microphone
6. New River
7. The Vulgar Joke
8. Everything's Easy For You
9. The Ripping Driving
10. How I Became Offensive
11. Instrument of God
12. The Spoiled Brat
13. Illegal Mona
14. Good and Hostile
15. The Blithering Idiot
16. Useless King of the Punks
17. The Hesitation Twist

lol i like this

SubPop has put the new Mike & The Melvins album on youtube and I'm loving this insane final track. Dale doing blast beats!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_HMmhLIMxk&index=12&list=PLbOGt8cOph4V-FsNSj924xHIG6myxdF7T

I always figured King Buzzo was one of those weirdo libertarians that liked to say provocative things to piss people off, but uh the quotes I've seen from his interview with Gav1n Mc1nn3s(!!) don't paint him in a very favorable light.

aw man :(

I have no desire to seek it out, but the quotes on Twitter are "lesbian weirdo liberals", "socialists are the real Nazis" and apparently a rant about "racial diversity" in film.

Buzzo has always seemed like an asshole

he used to be on that "hip" Fox news show Red Eye

Yeah that was as big a warning sign as any.

Damien from Fucked Up was a fixture on there iirc, to the best of my knowledge he's not like this tho

Yeah, was just reading that was where he developed a relationship with Mc1nn3s started. I'm not at all surprised he's an asshole, just disappointed to learn what flavor of asshole he is.

Wow I botched that sentence, I blame answering a work call in the middle of typing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zZFwUljowg

Enjoy!

^ Video where he breathlessly praises Thomas Sowell

malkmus has been on red eye

Malkmus once complained about leftism within indie

Malkmus prob. didn't praise Thomas Sowell for five minutes or call people weird lesbos, though.

That's for the next solo album uh wait.

Should have known people would already be on top of this. I definitely don’t feel guilty about never actually checking them out anymore (it mostly stopped when I saw the swastika album but part of me was thinking some of that was badly-executed irony)

They were huge for me when I was in high school but since at least 2000 they have struck me as only being interested in finding creative ways to fleece their collector scum fan base.

The last time I thought they were remotely interesting live was mid-90s opening for Nine Inch Nails, otherwise every time I've seen them since they have seemed nearly as bored with playing their music as I was having to hear it.

They were huge for me when I was in high school but since at least 2000 they have struck me as only being interested in finding creative ways to fleece their collector scum fan base.

As part of that collector scum fanbase, this is a classic

https://www.discogs.com/Melvins-Shit-Sandwich/release/1120833

Lowest: $250.00
Median: $274.40
Highest: $300.00

I was big into them in the mid to late 90s, but I'll cop to also being really into the Big Business era line-up.

That said I'm blissfully unaware of what the "swastika album" refers to, or at least I think I am because I don't know which one that means.

https://www.discogs.com/Melvins-The-Trilogy/release/1129351

Oh, thanks. Had no idea. I only had The Maggot on CD, so I wasn't aware of that vinyl version.

Not just a swastika, but a Klan cross-with-blood-drop too. That's a real racism deep cut.

I liked the Big Business quartet lineup a lot (interviewed all four members for a Wire cover story, saw them live twice, possibly three times) but don't really care for/about the bulk of their catalog. The impression I got of Buzzo was "smart guy who's being sarcastic 90+ percent of the time," plus he's closing in on 60, so it's no surprise that his quest for ways to bait interviewers and/or anyone listening to him drifted into right-wing bullshit a time or two. I mean, if you read the "Political and social views" section of his Wiki page, it's obvious that his real politics boil down to "fuck you, leave me alone, and stop caring so much about stuff, you big pussy":

Political and social views
In a 2011 interview with the music magazine L.A. Record, Osborne stated when asked about American politics that "I hate conservatives, but I really hate liberals. Here's the thing. I have my own opinions about everything, and it's basically classic liberalism." In 2008, he told the magazine Alarm that he opposes what he sees as both modern socialist and fascist thought, stating that he's "into true liberalism, which means you mind your own goddamn business; you take care of yourself." In a 2014 interview with Tonedeaf, Osborne expressed that American economist, Thomas Sowell, has been a major influence on his career. "I consider Sowell the greatest philosopher of all time." Osborne explained. "He is a PhD economist and he's written more than 30 books about everything you can imagine, from social commentary to how economics works."

In a 2008 interview with City Newspaper of Rochester, when asked about his collaboration with Jello Biafra on two albums, Osborne stated that "I don't relate at all to his politics. I believe in personal freedom, personal responsibility. And nobody tells you what to do more than the left wing. They're a bunch of fascists."

In terms of issues covering copyright and illegal file-sharing of songs, Osborne's remarked, "The internet downloading—people need to get over it". He's also added, "Is it stealing? Sure, yeah—but it doesn't matter. It's over. Things have changed. We have to move on." In an earlier interview, he argued, "For me musically, I wish I woulda had something like YouTube when I was a kid so I could go, 'Oh, what's this Captain Beefheart?'"

i hate it when people say that a racist is more authentically anti-social than they are .. what? some other racist that didn't make music that you like i guess. that their real politics is just being an asshole and the racism is like a symptom of that. such a trope in underground scenes. and just stupid, sorry.

like yep as it turns out racists tend to have the attitude of "fuck you, leave me alone, and stop caring so much about stuff, you big pussy"

Buzz sounds like every asshole who watches SOUTH PARK and lets it completely inform their worldview.

"Well, conservatives aren't cool, but those fucking liberals and their anti-bigotry shit, man..."

did frogbs get a new username?

What is it with internet leftist message board posters and their weird obsession with how other people watch South Park?

those darn internet leftists are at it again!!

the bootlicker was the last thing of Melvins I really engaged with, I did dig that

I know a couple of folks who have worked with Melvins, Inc. in the past couple of years and the recent developments come as no surprise nor as anything really recent. Fleecing collectors is capitalist job #1.

Weirdos being weird I suppose.

"A History of Bad Men" indeed. Whatever...that is a pretty wicked riff.

heard someone say this:

"oh, that’s what the melvins sound like!? for some reason i thought they were 90s ska or something…"

please somebody make a 90s ska cover of a melvins song, thanks

Ever Skince My Skaccident #skozma

Are they still doing the tour thing where the opening band fills in half the slots on stage in their line-up? They just need the right ska band....