Much love to The Melvins

I'm listening to the Melvins' A Senile Animal, and I have to say it is superb. Easily one of their best, with two drummers, even! I know the Melvins aren't everyone's cup of tea, and that's fine. You're either in the Melvins' boat, or awash in the sea of human detritus where you belong--it makes no nevermind to the Melvins.

When I DJ'ed the metal show in college (WVUR 89.1 FM, every Friday from 9pm to midnight, sponsored by Paul's Automotive), we received some borderline unlistenable promos, including the infamous Gluey Porch Treatments (on long-since lost vinyl, of course). This is way before Kurt C. and company ever made a peep outside of Olympia, WA, like '88-'89. Honestly, given the state of underground metal at the time, Matt L., Steve P. and myself thought The Melvins were a joke. Had to be--there was no way a band could (or should) actually play that slow. What the hell? It sounded like Black Sabbath IV played on 16 RPM at the bottom of a swimming pool, a sharp contrast to the oft-spun Slayer, Death, Sodom, Anthrax, Megadeth, Nuclear Assault, Mekong Delta, Voivod, Sacred Reich and all the other thrash stuff we were spinning at the time.

Fast forward to the post-Nirvana Pacific northwest, and everything that entailed as a fan of heavy music living here circa 1994: yep, that'd be grunge. I always liked that those flying the flannel wore their metal influences so proudly on their respective sleeves, if you will. Bafflingly, The Melvins were lumped into this subgenre (more likely from their Aberdeen roots than their musical style). It's around this time that Stoner Witch came out, and something clicked. The Melvins finally made sense: perhaps it was better songwriting or production (since it certainly had nothing to do with their still mostly-unintelligble lyrics), but that disc ripped my head clean off.

Sometime in 1996 (October 8th, according to Wiki), the Melvins played a 3 set monster show at the mighty La Luna. I knew the band allowed taping of their shows and brought a friend's Sony D2 along with a stereo condenser mic to capture the event, but was almost thwarted by doing so by Monqui security. Once I finally got to the front of the throng of (mostly male) concertgoers waiting for admittance, the conversation went like this:

Security Guy: What's in the backpack? Mind if I take a look?
Me: No, not at all...A tape recorder and a mic. I'm gonna tape the show.
Security Guy: You can't bring that in here! That's bootlegging! NOT allowed, dude...
Me: You sure about that? I'm pretty certain The Melvins are OK with it...
Security Guy: (chuckling) Well, you'd have to ask the band...
Me: Oh, sure. That's cool. Take me backstage and I'll ask Buzzo or Crover. Or can I just ask the soundguy, Old School? Look, I'm sure it's OK...
Security Guy: (visibly puzzled)...umm...I dunno, maybe I should hold onto your bag...

I eventually retrieved the soundguy, who set them straight and got the gear back for me. Taped the mic to the post in the middle of the room about 7 feet up and set the db level to -10. It was awesome, but the sound pressure was so intense at that particular location even with the cut it was still incredibly distorted.(**see addendum) Oh well. I guess some of the best musical moments are lost to the ether, never to be heard again, and undoubtedly 3 man gong solo in the third set of this show easily qualifies as one of these. Too bad I was the only one taping the damn thing.

When the Melvins signed to Mike Patton's Ipecac label a few years later and announced their plans to release a 3 album cycle (The Maggot, The Bootlicker, and The Crybaby), one of which would include a set of covers with guest vocalists, I was pretty fired up. I mean, Hank Williams III singing his grandfather's "Ramblin' Man"? Leif Garrett doing "Smells Like Teen Spirit"? Patton and Tool (the whole band) getting all freaky? Wow. The record store where I worked at the time had used copies within about a week of their respective release dates; allowing me to pick up all three on the cheap. Too weird for the general public, and no crossover potential, I guess.

As of 2006, the newest incarnation of the Melvins emerged: two drummers, with Buzzo's interminable Iommi-on-quaaludes guitar playing, and yet another bass player who's unfamiliar. A Senile Animal is a long album, by Melvins standards, but it's one of their best. It contains aspects of The Melvins that make them so original, daring and tight. Experimental enough to place them outside of the mainstream, A Senile Animal contains riffs which make all that shit on KUFO's playlist for the past 10 years sound fake, pretentious, pussified and downright lame by comparison. Check it out. I can't say enough good things about it.

Anyone have any good metal tips for the 2K8? Please advise

**addendum: Loud as it was, The Melvins show holds a very distant second to the loudest show I attended at La Luna: good ol' trip hop weirdo Tricky holds that title, from his Pre-Millennium Tension tour. An incredible show, but so loud the subwoofin' bass moved the organs in my chest cavity with every 808 kick, and gave me motion sickness. I left early, and puked when I walked outside. Seriously. That's some LOUD fuckin' music. However, the all-time loudest show I ever saw (regrettably, without hearing protection--I was 17 at the time) was Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force with special guest vocalist Joe Lynn Turner. I'm pretty sure that was how the ticket read, along with special guests Lita Ford and Black 'n' Blue. Anyway, Yngwie's guitar tech couldn't pick up his scalloped-neck Strat for a line check without initiating an endless feedback time tunnel, and I should've known what I was in for right then. A friend of mine, Kevin McD (who later would marry my youngest brother Patrick and his wife, Heather) stood dead center in the front row and was escorted from the show for flipping Yngwie the bird for the first 4 songs, right during the intro to "I'll See the Lights Tonight." Hilarity! My ears rang for about 3-4 days straight after that, effectively rendering the crisp high end of my tender ears a vague memory from that point forward. Ah, youth.