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The Melvins will be ushering in 2021 with “Melvins TV: Volume 1, New Year’s Evil,” a 5-song livestreaming event also featuring interviews and extras, on Dec. 31 at 12 noon pacific/3 pm eastern/8 pm gmt/7 am aedt.
$5 tickets are available now at melvins.veeps.com. A limited-edition, commemorative poster and t-shirt, both featuring artwork by Junko Mizuno and Mackie Osborne, are available exclusively to attendees. The stream will be available to view or purchase for a full week following the Dec. 31 debut. Over an hour of entertainment, featuring a killer Melvins setlist, fun extras, interviews with the band and an opening set by our friend Void Manes. Only $5!
“’Melvins TV, New Year’s Evil’ is as close to a live show as we can get during this hideous pandemic,” said Buzz Osborne. “We’ll be doing more of these so tune in and enjoy! Happy New Year!”
The first in a series of streams, the outing features the core Melvins line-up of Osborne, Dale Crover and Steven McDonald.

 The band has also recently premiered "Brian, The Horse-Faced Goon", another song from their upcoming album Working With God.

 
Poster Art by Junko Mizuno

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Today Melvins announced the release date of their forthcoming Melvins 1983 album Working With God. The album is set for release on February 26th, 2021 via Ipecac Recordings. Along with the presale for Working With God, they also announced the presale of vinyl reissues of both Gluey Porch Treatments and Hostile Ambient Takeover. GPT gets updated artwork, and this is actually the first time HAT will ever be on vinyl. The best place to submit your pre-order is via the Ipecac Blixt merch store or their European store if you're on the other side of the Atlantic. As a teaser, the band released I Fuck Around / Bouncing Rick to stream, these tracks were also included on the Mullet EP released in September on Amphetamine Reptile Records.

“I F**k Around” is — you guessed it — a juvenile re-imagining of The Beach Boys’ classic “I Get Around”, and “Bouncing Rick” is about Osborne and Dillard’s junior-high biology teacher. Musically, it’s the kind of noise-sludge-punk amalgamation you’d expect from the early Melvins lineup that formed in Aberdeen and Monstesano in Washington state decades ago. It’s reflective of our 8th grade sense of humor, which we’ve never grown out of,” Osborne said of “I F**k Around”. “We hope Brian Wilson doesn’t get mad.” - Buzz

 Working with God Tracklist:
01. I F**k Around
02. Negative No No
03. Bouncing Rick
04. Caddy Daddy
05. 1 Brian, The Horse-Faced Goon
06. Brian The Horse-Faced Goon
07. Boy Mike
08. 1 F**k You
09. F**k You
10. The Great Good Place
11. Hot Fish
12. Hund
13. Good Night Sweetheart

The band also has a ton of new merch on their Blixt merch store, including a holiday sweater, beanie, and xmas tree ornament.

 

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Dale Crover's new album, Rat-A-Tat-Tat!, arrives Jan. 15 via Joyful Noise Recordings! Pre-orders, including limited edition vinyl variants, are available now via Joyful Noise. The VIP version from Joyful Noise even includes a bonus flexi with a song not included on the album. Dale has also premiered the video for I Can't Help You There from the album via Flood Magazine. Dale had this to say about the video: “I enlisted Toshi Kasai and Alicia DiGiovanni to help direct, film and edit. I gave them the basic ideas I had and they ran with them,” Crover shares before citing a handful of other visual reference points. “Inspiration came from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, The Cramps’ 1978 performance at Napa State Mental Hospital, and the creepy face mask of LA Dodger Kiké Hernández.”

 

Rat-A-Tat-Tat! Is that the sound of the reaper knocking on your door to collect your soul -- or Dale Crover hammering out another distinctive drum fill?

There are pretty good odds it’s the latter; between 36 years (and about as many full-lengths and EPs) as drummer/bassist for the Melvins and his contributions to acts as varied as Altamont, Peeping Tom, Redd Kross, Shrinebuilder, and a little band called Nirvana, he’s built quite the body of work. In 2017, he added a proper solo album to his extensive catalog, The Fickle Finger of Fate. Now he’s followed that with Rat-A-Tat-Tat!

Crover takes the solo thing seriously: he wrote the album while on the road and provided vocals, drums, guitars, vibraphone, and miscellaneous percussion. Just like the last album, recording took place over at Toshi Kasai’s Sound of Sirens Studio in beautiful Sun Valley, CA. Kasai recorded and mixed it again, as well as co-producing it with Crover under the sobriquet Deaf Nephews. Celebrated graphic designer (and regular Melvins cover artist) Mackie Osborne created the striking album art, just as she did for The Fickle Finger of Fate.

So what’s different this time around? Crover assembled an actual band to help him out. Redd Kross bassist Steve McDonald asked Crover to open for Redd Kross, Crover asked McDonald to play bass for him, and the rest is history. It’d be difficult for even the multi-talented Crover to put on a live show by himself without one of those one-man-band contraptions. In addition to McDonald, Kasai (ex-Big Business, Plan D) helps with keyboards, synths, jawharp, and backing vocals. Mindee Jorgensen (Dangerously Sleazy) sits behind the kit live and contributes additional drumming and some sweet saxophone skills here. His former Altamont bandmate Dan Southwick plays bass on “Tougher,” a track Crover cowrote with Kasai.

Some pieces of the songs may sound familiar to the 127 completists who grabbed the limited-run lathe cut record Piso Mojado, a collection of experimental drum weirdness. Although insanity certainly abounds on Rat-a-Tat-Tat!, there are also some surprisingly poppy moments. Crover claims “Shark Like Overbite” may be the poppiest song he’s ever written. It’s also the puppiest: it was inspired by the three dogs he’s had over the years. A few tunes (“I Can’t Help You There,” “Kiss Proof World”) harken back to his Pacific Northwest lineage. That said, “Tougher,” “Supine is How I Found Him,” and “New Pharaoh” careen right off the dial. It’s an eclectic mix, one that draws on song fragments he’s had for years. It still feels cohesive and uniquely Dale Crover.

But then, who would expect anything other than the unexpected? The opportunity knocks to hear more Dale Crover jams; be sure to answer.

-Jeff Treppel

Rat-A-Tat-Tat! track listing:

  • Moclips
  • I Can't Help You There
  • Tougher
  • Stumbler
  • Shark Like Overbite
  • Supine Is How I Found Him
  • I'll Never Say
  • New Pharaoh
  • Untrue Crime
  • The Bowie Mix
  • Piso Mojado
  • Kiss Proof World

 

Dale and Matt Cameron of Soundgarden/Pearl Jam were recently featured in  Modern Drummer magazine if you're a subscriber check it out!

Dale was a guest on the New York venue Saint Vitus' podcast Age of Quarantine which was hosted by Christopher Enriquez of Spotlights.

Dale was also a guest on episode 155 of Conan Neutron's podcast Protonic Reversal.

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AmRep has announced they'll be releasing Mullet, a Melvins 1983 EP in the upcoming weeks! The EP will be released on 3 different limited edition vinyl variants as well as CD on SHOXOP. Bifocal Media also has a schnazzy long sleeve t-shirt with HAZE XXL's artwork on it. For those that aren't aware, Melvins 1983 consists of Buzz, Dale on bass guitar, and the original Melvins drummer Mike Dillard. Check out the track Bouncing Rick from the EP below!

"It has a 403 4bbl V8, Cragers and a Pioneer cassette deck...Er wait. It's actually a Melvins 1983 10" and she's chuggin' her way down a backwoods dirt road to you! It's like Bullitt, except the star of this early-80's B-movie is a sleazebag who can't drive for shit and spends his time stoned at a Dairy Queen, hitting on teenage girls...MULLET."

 Mullet EP Track listing:

  • Fuck Around
  • Bouncing Rick
  • Caddy Daddy
  • Horse Faced Goon

 Melvins recently did a quick track for the credits of a Tigtone episode "Tigtone and Lord Festus: Credible Threat", the track is titled The Magic Inside You

Brian Walsby's new book Self Empunishment which features quite a bit of Melvins content is out now, you should definitely check it out.


Melvins 1983 Mullet EP via Amphetamine Reptile Records, artwork by HAZE XXL

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AmRep has recently announced they are releasing for the first time on one slab of wax the compiled b-sides from the Hostile Ambient Takeover 7"s that Ipecac released back in 2003. The release gets a fancy HAZEXXL update on the original Halloween mask artwork. There will be limited variant art editions, as well as a factory version picture disc and of course a cheapie CD, available as always from SHOXOP. Bifocal Media has also put together both a hoodie and a couple t-shirts featuring Haze's artwork.

Flashback to 2002, when Ipecac Recordings released a Melvins studio album called Hostile Ambient Takeover. The following year, they issued a series of 7" singles with the A-side from that record, but the B-side was an exclusive track of the Melvins take on various cover songs. Since then, people have wondered, "Yo Goober, is there gonna be a follow up LP with the B-'s?" It only took 17 years to answer that question, but yes, yes there is & it's called Hostile Ambient Besides.
The cover is designed by our very own HAZE XXL keeping up with the cheapo plastic mask theme of the singles with his take on the whole Nutty Mad/Weird-Ohs genre.


Melvins Hostile Ambient Besides via Amphetamine Reptile Records, artwork by HAZE XXL

Hostile Ambient Besides tracks:

Side A
Jerkin Krokus (Mott the Hoople)
Promise Me (The Gun Club)
Arny (Warlock Pinchers)
Fast Foaming

Side B
Return of the Spiders (Alice Cooper)
White Punks on Dope (The Tubes)
Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World (Ramones)

Diabolique Magazine has an interesting article about the making of the Bar-X the Rocking M music video by Gregory Dark.

Buzz recently interviewed Rob Halford of Judas Priest for Revolver Magazine. Buzz is a big Judas Priest fan, they discussed Rob's new book Confess.

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Today is the official release date of Gift Of Sacrifice, the new solo album from King Buzzo w/ Trevor Dunn via Ipecac Records! The album is available on vinyl, CD, and digitally from Bandcamp. The limited edition pink vinyl is already sold out. Buzz had this to say about the album via distortion-magazine.com: "“Gift Of Sacrifice” is a lot more produced. We spent a lot more time on making synthesizer sounds, modular-synth stuff and noise-stuff. We didn’t do it on the first one. So we spent a lot of time on that. A lot more then people might think. And just see the addition of the bass. Stand up bass changed the dynamics of the album in a way I couldn’t even dream of. But in a way, I’m extremely happy about. Trevor Dunn is a fantastic player. I had the songs! Most of them were recorded already. And he just added bass to after the fact. So the only thing I told him to do is “to overplay”. As much as he can on these. With the idea that he’s probably not going to overplay. But he’s gonna feel that he’s free to do whatever he wants. And that’s kind of how I wanted it do go."

 

Spin has an article about the new album: “What we do as artists is try to provide the people of the world with something they don’t get in their normal lives,” Osborne says. “That’s my whole entire existence. That’s what I do. And I charge into that with way more enthusiasm and way more gusto than I would for a 40-hour-a-week job.” - Buzz

Revolver's Age of Quarantine posted a video interview with Buzz recently. The interview was conducted by Chris Enriquez of recent Melvins tourmates Spotlights.

Buzz was recently a guest on Spectrum Culture's podcast Enjoy Your Life, they talked about golf, dogs, and guitars amongst other things.

Episode 195 of Conan Neutron's Protonic Reversal features both Buzz and Trevor, they of course discuss their new collaboration Gift Of Sacrifice in detail.

Buzz continued to make the podcast rounds with an appearance on Consequence of Sound's podcast. "Buzz Osborne gives Kyle Meredith a call about Gift of Sacrifice, his new King Buzzo album with oft-collaborator Trevor Dunn. The Melvins frontman talks about working with an acoustic bass, a modular synth, and his ever-growing alternate tunings. Osborne also discusses the ever-looming influence of Miles Davis on his writing, how The Melvins continue to be underestimated, dealing with bad criticism. Towards the end, he dives deep into his philosophies on science, evolution, and religion."

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