It's Like Nearly I Puked In My Face!

grunge.

Mundhoney has been a big part of my life since 8th grade. Maybe even earlier as their appearance in the Chris Farley-David Spade vehicle Black Sheep made a pretty big impact on me as far back as 1997. Regardless, they are the best "grunge" band I know of. This album is a whole lot of fun for lovers of any rock 'n' roll. Like Paisley Underground, it needs to be remembered that most music scenes are likened by geography and attitude than sound really, and grunge was no exception. Mudhoney, unlike many of their peers like nirvana or Soundgarden come from the MC5/Stooges side of rock. Their sound relies most on distortion (as seen in the title) and energy than anything else.

Image was also a big part of grunge, whether they liked it or not and Mudhoney, via Sub Pop heads Jonaythan Poneman and Bruce Pavitt was the prototype. The band, consisting of college-euducated middle-class suburban kids was marketed to the famously frantic UK press as rural lumberjacks along with the rest of the label's roster. This, best chronicled in Our Band Could Be Your Life, presented the PNW groups as an oddity to the "sophisticated" European indie scene. When you pick up a legit copy of this the pictures inside will make this even more clear with the sometime shirtless band chugging cheap beer and dogpiling. This strategy in fact worked quite well and had much to do with the rise of grunge in the home country.

Perhaps in assumption that the proto-punk influence was apparent fromt he very beginning (or perhaps the MC5-like image ont he front cover), Mudhoney pays tribute to their more contemporary influences by covering Sonic Youth and Texas hardcore group the Dicks. These songs are pretty great, and as in most cases, Mudhoney outdoes Sonic Youth at their own game. Some of the best original cuts include "Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More," "Need," the epic masterpiece "In 'n' Out of Grace," and closer "Mudride." The band is pretty talented, especially drummer Danny Peters, who briefly was a member of Nirvan during a Mudhoney hiatus, and the guitar dynamic of Mark Arm and Steve Turner is one of the best of the 1980s. This is one to rock out to like you were still fourteen, which is exactly what my friends (particularly former bandmates) I do every time we hear this - especially with some watery domestic in the system. It jsut doesn't get much better than this.


Mudhoney - Superfuzz Bigmuff plus Early Singles (1988)

*It should be noted the early singles are the first half and the EP is second.