Miss Piggy Lunchbox

Here’s another Melvins CD paired with a “comic book” (again, I’m sure I’m not supposed to call it that) by their friend Brian Walsby. Instead of pulling out their earliest experiments with a four-track, this time the band stayed on the Melvins vs. Minneapolis path and released portions of two concerts: one from Berkeley in 1989 and another from Boston almost 20 years later in 2008, recorded just a few weeks after I reviewed this Seattle show.

The Berkeley show is filled almost entirely with content from 1989’s Ozma, much of which I like better in this format and some of which, amazingly, actually sounds better than it did on Ozma. The end with a fantastically powerful rendition of “Your Blessened,” one of their best songs and probably the best one from 1991’s Bullhead.

The Boston show, like the show I saw that summer, is primarily filled up with content from A Senile Animal and that summer’s Nude With Boots. In contrast to the Berkeley show, nothing here sounds as good as those albums’ studio versions, but its nice to have live versions of those fantastic songs, even if they’re a bit lacking. The band also reaches back to 1987 and 1991 with “Eye Flys” and “Boris,” respectively. I’ve gained a greater appreciation for Melvins’ early material in the past few years, and hearing them play those old sludgy songs with their modern, razor-sharp virtuosity and musical sensibilities is one of the richer experiences of Melvins fandom. They’re able to bring out aspects of those songs they couldn’t in their earlier days, as if you’re finally hearing the songs they way they heard them in their head when they were written.

Waslby’s Manchlid 4 was not as good as I remember Manchild 3 being, but it was still pretty good. The largest chunk of it is devoted to the history of his membership in bands, which was interesting but also reminiscent of that scene from Crumb where the art in his brother’s “comics” become overwhelmed by the text. The best parts were the excorating dismantling of the requisite and nonsensical conformity of the North Carolina hardcore scene and his tales of dealing with too-passionate Melvins fans from behind the merch table on tour. That one might have even stung a little bit. ;-)

I ended my review of The Making Love Demos/Manchild 3 by telling Melvins that this pairing was unnecessary, that I’d buy anything they put out and it didn’t have to be paired with a friend’s product. I’m not sure I feel that way anymore. These accompanying books have added a new dimension to the band and increased my appreciation of them. I’m an even bigger fan than I was before, but now I know how not to act like a tool, especially if Walsby is behind the table at the next show I go to. Keep it up, guys.

Rating:

Mixers: none
Keepers: “Koolegged,” “Oven,” “Raise A Paw,” “Your Blessened,” “Eye Flys,” “Boris”
Filed Between: Melvins Vs. Minneapolis and Melvins + Lustmord (Pigs Of The Roman Empire)

Worst. Melvins show. Ever.

There, I said it. My heroes let me down, though it wasn’t always their fault.

It’s still hard for me to believe that the Melvins’ 25th anniversary show with Green River involved sucked, but it sucked.

Things got off to a great start, with Melvins kicking off the night. They moved drummer Dale to bass and had somebody else drumming while they performed songs from all the way back in 1983, the band’s sludgiest, raunchiest, punkiest stuff. Then they moved into newer stuff, focusing pretty heavily on their most recent studio album, Nude With Boots. And that’s where the suck started.

Since Melvins’ newer stuff is more complicated, a move back to drums for Dale was necessitated. And apparently Melvins couldn’t find a single person who could play bass for their 25th anniversary show. Melvins goes through bassists like Spinal Tap goes through drummers. Invariably they herald each new bassist’s arrival as finally having found the bassist that’s right for them, and just as invariably that bassist leaves amid Buzz and Dale mumbling about how that bassist just couldn’t play right or didn’t play hard enough or didn’t want to keep up with their brutal touring schedule or whatever. And so Melvins has become the Buzz and Dale show with a revolving door of bassists. To this point, that hasn’t been such a bad thing, but when you can’t find a single bassist to play for your 25th anniversary show, that’s kind of a sign that maybe you shouldn’t be such an asshole to all your bassists because your songs SUCK ASS without low end.

Anyway, then Green River came on, and as if to make up for the lack of bass in Melvins’ first set, there was waaaaay too much bass in the sound, which basically cemented Jeff Ament’s position as my second-least-favorite member of Pearl Jam. I generally don’t like being dickish, so I rarely point out to sound guys that their sound is awful, but the bass was so overpowering that it was pretty much impossible to enjoy the songs. The sound guy seemed to be paying attention, in that he was looking at the stage, but he was completely clueless. I damn near said something, but decided to err on the side of not getting punched in the face.

The saving grace for this set was that they did a longer set than at SP20 and really got into some deep cuts, including the awesome “New God.”  I’ve had the line “I’m not really asking for much/I only want your soul” going through my head ever since the concert.

Unfortunately, the same problem with the sound existed for Melvins’ second set, which consisted of them doing Houdini in its entirety. And now I’m getting pissed just remembering how bad the sound was, so f**k you Showbox sound guy, you should be fired and should have to reimburse us all for our tickets, since we got such a lousy show. You should also probably burn in hell and be forced to listen to lousy sounding music for the rest of eternity…though apparently that wouldn’t bother you since it didn’t back in May. But I don’t like being dickish….

When I loaded up Melvin’s Bullhead into iTunes, one of the pieces of data that came down with it was that it was at 192 BPM. Whoever put that joke in there, bravo. The idea that Melvins recorded anything at 192 beats per minute is preposterous, of course. Sometimes they don’t even get 192 beats on an album.

Probably the busiest week of the quarter this week, exacerbated by the fact that I actually tried to enjoy myself over the holiday weekend instead of “getting things done.”  I went to the Melvins/Green River show and then My Baby and I went to the surprisingly sunny Oregon coast and took a cruise in Oregon’s fourth largest estuary.

I did want to update you that my “internship problem” has been solved.  I’ll be working for one of the faculty members over the summer as an RA.  So it’s not really an internship per se, but it can count as one.  In addition, I’m planning to start work on a thesis this summer that I hope I can wrap up in the fall with my final class and get my degree in December.

That’s the rough plan.  We’ll see.

Buzzo’s shirts are back in stock.

I ordered a large and an extra-large, just in case.

First, I’d like to announce I’m moving back to Minneapolis.  Here’s why:

Yeah, that’s right, King Buzzo, lead singer of my fave band, Melvins, was tending bar and selling a limited edition 7″ in my hometown this weekend before doing a show at a bar they play all the time.  Oh, and guess where I was?  I was in Minneapolis at the office holiday party, unable to break away for the 10 minute drive to the show.  Biggest.  Cock tease.  Ever.

Here is the band’s modification of the Grumpy’s logo.

I want that shirt for Christmas.  If I don’t get at least one I’m going to pee in your bed (yes, yours).  Unless it’s also my bed, in which case I’ll put a spider in your bed.  I can’t figure out how to buy them from the post announcing their existence, but still, peeing your bed.

Now, this all happened only a few months after the band released a 3-CD box set named Melvins vs. Minneapolis featuring ten concerts (the third disc is an MP3 disc) all recorded in the Twin Cities.  I found out about it after the 666 copies were sold out and had to get it on eBay (review on the way) as soon as I was treated for the priapism from which I was suffering as a result of the news that there were 666 copies of a box set titled Melvins vs. Minneapolis.

Finally, it’s hard for me to imagine anything that would be cooler than young children and a goat puppet rocking out to Melvins.  Sure enough, there’s not.  I checked.  This is the Greatest Thing Ever.

The entire vid, which features the passive-aggressive goat challenging Melvins to karaoke, is hilarious, but if you just can’t bring yourself to give five more minutes to spiritually bonding with MPL today, at least make sure you watch the stretch where the kids rock out while Melvins play from 2:55 to 5:00.  There’s more gold in those two minutes than is in Fort Knox.

For all this, I’m granting Melvins their own category.  Seriously, guys, I’d like to see your favorite band have a year like that.  Suck it, not-Melvins.