The Melvins, who have a history of imaginative line-up changes, feature not one, but six different bass players on their appropriately titled new album, Basses Loaded (June 3, Ipecac Recordings).
The collection features Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover joined by Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic, Redd Kross’ Steve McDonald, Butthole Surfers’ J.D. Pinkus, Big Business’ Jared Warren,  Mr. Bungle/Fantomas’ Trevor Dunn (aka Melvins Lite) and Crover swapping the drum kit for bass in the Melvins 1983 iteration. The album’s nod to baseball, and the inclusion of the band’s own version of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” is a natural one, with Buzz and Dale often spotted at games across the country.

Read an interview that King Buzzo recently gave to Rolling Stone and/or listen to the new single Hideous Woman

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Truth is stranger than fiction, as they say, and the best proof is strange tour pairings – to witness:
Exhibit A: Sonic Youth and Neil Young
Exhibit B: Devo and Sun Ra
Exhibit C: Melvins opening for Rush
While not as well documented as SY/Neil Young tour, nor as random as Devo scaring off Sun Ra fans on Halloween Night in 1975, the meeting between Melvins and Canadian kings of prog rock uber-nerdiness still deserves a closer look (one might also argue that this slowed down version of Rush classic shows that two bands are not too far off from each other, but I digress).
According to an interview that Buzz did with Ventura County Star, Rush fans didn’t took too kindly to Melvins:

We did some shows opening for Rush that were pretty weird — their audience totally didn’t get it.

Further confirmation comes from one self-described Rush fan:

Not that The Melvins are bad, but a Rush crowd may not necessarily be a Melvins crowd. The Melvins got booed mercilessly and they just played their set as fast as they could. I kind of felt bad for them.

According to the same VC Star interview Rush themselves were far nicer to the band – the evidence in the form of postcard mentions both Primus and a bottle of champagne. Even more evidence comes in the form of Youtube vid that captures the band playing “Oven” (do note comments from Mark Deutrom, another former member of Melvins):

Further Reading:
The Strangest Opening Act Bookings Ever (Ranker)

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Seeing the band playing for the 3rd time shouldn’t be full of surprises, but this case was different – for one the invitation seemingly came out of the blue (credit goes to Matt Icklan, Melvinhead extraordinaire) and was delivered via Facebook.
Surprise #2 came in the form of a bearded bass player – he surely didn’t look like ex-Karp Jared. First thought that crossed my mind was that Jared was kicked out of the band and replaced with Kirk from Crowbar. Further investigation revealed that the owner of the beard in question was Jeff Pinkus, a former Butthole Surfer! (hope that my ignorance can be forgiven since all bearded folks look more than a bit alike and there are few photos of Mr. Pinkus lying around).
Anyhoo…revving up the night was a Mexican trio called Le Butcherettes of whom I know laughably little (other than the country of origin and the fact that more recently they and Melvins shared a split on AmRep). Their sound could be loosely described as garage rock/punk and isn’t terribly original by any means, but is alright if you’re into that kind of thing.
Their main attraction of the trio is a frontwoman by the name of Teri Gender-Bender. She struts across the stage, she extract squiggly noises out of her keyboard and at times she looks like she’s plugged into the amp along with the guitar. I believe that she would’ve made an excellent one-person art performance piece – there’s no need for music even (not that its bad or embarrassing, but its got that “been there, done that” kind of feel to it).
Back to Melvins….
As stated above, Ex-Karp Jarred Warren wasn’t present on stage that night (paternity leave) but the trio of Buzz, Dale and Jeff still did an amazing job (not that I expected anything else out of them). Its not every day that you see a bunch of 50-somethings playing with an abandon reserved for people half their age, but that certainly can be said about Melvins.
Loud and raucous and weird and noisy – they always seem to deliver on all those fronts, both on record and live (even with an occasional misstep here and there). I pity the day when Melvins will retire and hang up their microphones for good, but hopefully that day won’t happen in the foreseeable future.

Further reading:
The Melvins / Le Butcherettes Part 1: Buzz Osbourne on Le Butcherettes (Glide Magazine)
The Melvins / Le Butcherettes Part 2: Teri Gender Bender Loves the Melvins (Glide Magazine)

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“Are you guys in line for a comedy?”

Admittedly, I’m not the biggest fan of Freak Puke – Melvins most recent LP.
While not a complete abomination a-la Load or Cold Lake, Puke is still far from being ideal – good record from a band that can do much, much better. Safe to say, when the album includes a cover that’s more inspiring than much of the original material surrounding it (we’re talking about Wings classic “Let Me Roll It”, of course), then, Houston – we definitely have a problem.
With that being said, the band still slays live (as seen in a show that they played last night) and in 2012 the world needs Melvins – whether it realizes this or not, if because they’re a breath of fresh air in a stagnant pool of mediocrity that defines so much of pop/rock music coming out today.
Tweak Bird opened with their drum/guitar dual assault. TB (which is a brotherly duo of Caleb and Ashton Bird) were described somewhere else as being similar to Karp and the comparison is certainly valid.
They also reminded me a lot of bands like Sleep with vocals being the only weak spot – no big deal, as you can barely hear vocals during a live show anyway and in that type of music vocals often take a backseat to a sheer aural assault of razor-sharp riffs and heavy-as-concrete drumming.
As for Melvins…
This was my third time seeing them (first was one in 2009 when they played with Big Business and second one was in 2011 when the band played few albums back-to back).
And this was a fairly different experience from the previous two show…far more bizarre and humorous than the previous two, I’d say!
Their part of a show as a mix of old/classic Melvins, new Melvins (Melvins Lite, to be exact – the trio of Dale Crover, Buzz Osbourne and Trevor Dunn) and Jazz Odyssey-era Spinal Tap.
That last part should be blamed squarely on ex-Bungle Trevor Dunn (whose outfit definitely resembled something stolen from Angus Young wardrobe)  as he played Eruption-style solo improv jams on his bass and all kinds of twisted stuff which added a little bit of spice to the show (as well as some vocal protests coming from different parts of the room – most notably a loud groan from the right hand side).
Dunn’s presence definitely added something to fresh to older tunes that Melvins played this evening and new tunes sounded bloody good too (again, I feel that studio versions of said songs weren’t as powerful as their live ones).
Finally, the Spinal Tap-esque tomfoolery went even further with onstage banter provided by Buzz himself in which he talked about being on tour, being a parent while being in a rock band, spending 15 hours a day and driving from Washington to Boston and Pawtucket.
For a grand finale, each member quietly bowed out – first Buzz, then Dunn (grabbing his bass along the way) and finally, Dale Crover closed things out with a Kiss-size drum solo, something that he definitely excels at.
In the meantime, I would keep an eye on Tweak Bird – they just might go places….
Video credit: idlehanz

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Label: Ipecac
 
One thing that you can say for sure – Melvins adore their classic FM rock.
As if there wasn’t proof enough already (see “Going Blind”,  “Ballad Of Dwight Fry”, “Buick McCane” etc etc), their new album contains a cover of Wings “Let Me Roll On It” delivered in crunchy Melvins style.
In general, though, the influence of classic rock permeates the entire album (up to the ending of “Tommy Goes Berserk”  – a slight poke at Pink Floyd’s “Bike”), which brings me to another point.  “Freak Puke”is Melvins album in anything but the line-up and band name only.
There are a couple of stylistic detours from Melvins work on the album (Waitsian “Worm Farm Waltz” and semi-symphonic opener “Mr. Rip Off”), but by far and large it relies on big, chunky riffs which  provided a foundation for Melvins own “Nude In The Boots”.
While by no means a disappointment or a horrible failure (though I can live without a throwaway like “Inner Ear Rapture”), I simply expected something a bit more adventurous out of “Freak Puke” given that Mr. Dunn is in the band. As it stands – its a good, high quality album that anybody would expect out of any Melvins-associated project, but it also comes off sounding a bit short on fresh ideas.
 

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