Miss Piggy Lunchbox

I swear to god, the Melvins sit around laughing at me and the rest of their fans who are just like me.

“Hey, do you still have that s**t we recorded when we were 18 in your mom’s basement?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Dude, let’s put that s**t out. You know KEN will buy it. He’ll buy anything with the word Melvins on it.”

It’s true, I’m helpless. You put Melvins or Ipecac on something, and it’s like I’m legally required to empty my wallet for you. Not that I don’t enjoy it, I’m just sayin’. I mean, it’s like they didn’t even try to market this. They just called it what it is: mangled demos from 1983. It was released in 2005.

Like most rock bands, Melvins had a lot of self-recorded and -released material before they first started getting recording contracts, and the history of said back catalog is pretty sketchy. With the help of their new label, Ipecac, though, they’re doing a pretty fair job of documenting it all.

It used to be that the earliest Melvins album you could get on CD was Ozma, released in 1989 on Boner Records. You knew they had an album before that, though, called Gluey Porch Treatments, from 1986 and also on Boner, because it was included on the Ozma CD. Unfortunately, Gluey Porch Treatments was only available on LP and cassette.

Now, if you got the cassette, which I did, you were treated with the inclusion of Melvins “first six song 7-inch.” After extensive rock magazine reading, you’d realize this was what was called 6 Songs, also from 1986, which was later re-released as a full LP with four more songs and entitled 10 Songs. Again, none of this material was available on CD.

Thankfully, though, Melvins and Ipecac realized I would shell out 21st century money for these songs in a digital format. In 1999, Ipecac released Gluey Porch Treatments, and also included another 12 “unreleased garage demos” at the end. In 2003, they put out 26 Songs which was 10 Songs with 16 more “alternate recordings and garage demos” included. You’d think they were done, going back to the band’s first ever demo. However, they were able to find even more old recordings, this time from 1983. Slap some fancy packaging on it, dangle it in front of KEN’s face, and you’ve made a sale.

As you’d expect, there’s not a lot of high quality work here. This is yet another CD for Melvins completists only. The sound generally has way too much emphasis on the high end, to the point of sounding as if some of the songs were composed for crash cymbal with backing band. There are some examples of the seven-ton heavy sound the band would later develop, though, namely on “Set Me Straight” and “I’m Dry.” The second version of “Forgotten Principles,” whether intentional or not, puts most bands with millions of dollars in production equipment to shame with its trippy, loopy sounds throughout. I’m suspecting a warped tape was all it took, though. Even with all of these issues, this still surpasses the awful sound of The Stooges’ Raw Power, which was presumably recorded in something other than a crappy trailer on the Olympic Peninsula.

The most compelling part of Mangled Demos is where you have the 18- and 19-year old band members, including Matt Lukin, who would later go on to star in Mudhoney and have Pearl Jam write a song about him, performing “If You Get Bored” to an audience, in person and over the radio, at the Aberdeen Elks Club. I never get tired of hearing the Fargo-esque broadcasters and MC describe the music and interview each band member.

MC: Your name is?
Drummer Mike Dillard: Uh, Mike Dillard.
MC: And you are from Montesano also?
Mike: Yes, sir.
MC: A-ha, and how old are ya?
Mike: Uh, 18.
MC: Oh, boy. Big age, good age, fun age.

Other oddities include a five-minute track consisting of the boys fighting over food and talking about puke (“Bibulous Confabulation”), two 23-second tracks of silence (save for a half-second of hiss at the beginning of the first one) to close out the CD, and several tracks only identified by a symbol, including a scissors (track 22), an airplane (track 23), and a pencil (track 19). Like I said, this is for Melvins completists and documentarians only. Unless you like raw (read: lousy) sounding thrash, there’s not a whole lot for you here.

Rating:

DMP Keepers: “Set Me Straight,” “Forgotten Principles” (track 10)
Filed Between: Melvins’ Neither Here Nor There and Mercury New Music Sampler

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 9:31 pm and is filed under CD reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.