Pages tagged “mudhoney”

Click above to watch "Touch Me I'm Sick" from Mudhoney's album Superfuzz Bigmuff Deluxe, out now on Sub Pop Records.

Related Links:
Review: Mudhoney - Under A Billion Suns
Mudhoney on Myspace
News: Mudhoney recording new album

Superdistorted Seattlerock hungry and fuzzy as ever

Before grunge turned into the grace and pain of St. Kurt and the meat-head oomph of Nickelback, it was garage rock. More specifically, it was Mudhoney, and they were really drunk. "We wanna get loaded!" runs the motorcycle-flick sample that precedes "In 'n' Out of Grace," and on Sub Pop's deluxe 20th anniversary reissue of Superfuzz Bigmuff, Mudhoney still sounds like it: loaded and wanting more, wanting the world. Anchored by impeccably rude singles ("Touch Me I'm Sick," "Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More") and the endlessly squalling distortion pedals of Steve Turner and Mark Arm, this two-disc set doubles the already-expanded CD Sub Pop issued in 1990. Filled out with demos, a Sonic Youth cover, a contemporaneous live set from Berlin and a radio session from Santa Barbara (which concludes with a feedback-soaked 14-minute "Dead Love"), the Seattle quartet hammers with a youthful abandon that keeps it miraculously unscathed.

Angry aging rockers wanted for music-and-thought crimes

Special agent Foster adjusted his govt.-issue shades and scribbled thoughtfully in his notebook: Bone-rattling, darker-than-Sabbath, minor-key riff metal. Eastern flourishes. Explosive horn section. Three producers, yet sound remains seamless. Rowdy, Chuck-Berry-through-the-meat-grinder double-stop guitar bends. Venomous lyrics delivered with old-school garage-punk sneer. Hmmm. The clues at the crime scene all pointed to a notorious gang of Seattle ear-drum-rape veterans. Mudhoney. They were back, stirring up trouble as usual. But it wasn’t just noise violations and general lewd behavior this time. Nor was it just knee-jerk social commentary; it was abrasive, apocalyptic rock played by a bunch of Americans both pissed and scared shitless about terrorism, U.S. foreign policy and an unstable world—rock that’s bleak, violent sound aptly soundtracked the kidnappings and roadside bombs taking down soldiers, journalists and civilians in Iraq with such alarming frequency. But suddenly, mid-album, an absurd guitar figure—with a melody approximating Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music”—erupts, and so does a little bit of that oh-well-we’re-all-FUBAR-anyway, grinning-and-shrugging Zen-tinged Mudhoney nihilism, because sometimes the only way to keep your wits is to laugh in the face of impending doom. A song called “Hard-on for War?” Agent Foster could only shake his head.

Seattle elder statesmen Mudhoney are in the process of recording a new album for long-time label Sub Pop.

Currently, the new project is without title and is tentatively scheduled for an early-2006 release. Production duties will be split between Phil Ek (Modest Mouse, The Shins), Johnny Sangster (The Posies, Young Fresh Fellows) and Tucker Martine (Jesse Sykes, Steve Turner). Additionally, several tracks will feature backup vocal harmonies by Christy McWilson and Amy Allison (daughter of Mose Allison), while a horn section peppers some of the album's other songs.