AmRep announces Melvins - "Lord Of The Flies" EP

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Written by brian

Created: 13 January 2022

Amphetamine Reptile Records has announced the release of LORD OF THE FLIES a new EP from Melvins. The CD is out now via SHOXOP, with the vinyl coming at a later date due to record pressing plant backups. Prints are also available of the HAZE XXL artwork and Bifocal Media has the T-Shirt up for pre-order. Check out Never Say You're Sorry, the first track from the EP!

From AmRep: "We're right out the gate in 2022 with another Melvins 4-track EP release. Normally, we'd be releasing the fancy vinyl version at the same time, but the pressing plant is still backed up since everyone else stopped releasing records in all of diseasy 2020 & then swamped the system when things started up again. Includes 2 heavy Melvins tracks from an upcoming LP & 2 insane covers, 1 of them featuring Matt Cameron of Soundgarden even. For now, you'll still get the music you wants on crystal-clear cee-dee format for the low price of just 5 bucks."

LORD OF THE FLIES track list:

1. Never Say You're Sorry
2. Spoon Man
3. Misty Mountain Urge
4. The Receiver & the Empire State

Ipecac shared some Melvins vinyl related updates: 

Many of you have been asking, and we finally have a few answers to your VINYL questions…

FIVE LEGGED DOG - Our manufacturer had to split up the order we did across a few months. Ipecac Webstore/Bandcamp orders will ship around the original Jan 28th release date. US record stores should have it March 11th and International record stores on April 8th. Good news is they came out looking and sounding great, as you can see in the short video clip.

(A) SENILE ANIMAL - The manufacturing gods have not smiled upon us on this. We thought we’d have the corrected versions in December, but now it’s looking like it won’t be til the Summer.

OTHER RELEASES - Also this Summer, we should be getting some more stock of the standard color for the other reissues: Nude With Boots, Hostile Ambient Takeover, The Bride Screamed Murder and Gluey Porch Treatments. Lastly, we’re working on a couple new vinyl reissues for later in 2022, so stay tuned for info on those.

Buzz shared his "5 Albums I Can't Live Without" with SPIN.com

Dale appeared on Episode 72 of the Songwriting Malpractice Podcast

AmRep also released a limited edition throwback surprise to kick off the New Year!
The 7" that shouldn't have been, it's Sugar Daddy Disaster!
Long-winded description about a small run of records. Well then, a decade or so ago, the Melvin’s and AmRep launched a series of 12” records called the “Sugar Daddy Series” that were split/shared records with other bands the Melvin’s were influenced/inspired by. It ended up being like, 13 records in all and included a ton of greats like the Butthole Surfers, U-men, Killdozer, Napalm Death and many more. The first released was to be with Minneapolis legends, the Cows.
Well, when the records showed up, through whatever miscommunication long since lost in time, what were waiting for me were 7”s. We already had the 12” sleeves printed, and expensive specialty bags sitting here, and we couldn’t use 7”s. Their existence would confuse folks as the series hadn’t even been established yet. So the manufacturer agreed to have them destroyed.
Fast forward a decade and Haze is over there, chatting with the fine folks at Noiseland MFG (We still work with them regularly) and it’s mentioned that 150 of the fuck up 7”s survived the purge and were found buried in the warehouse, and asked did he want them?! Bam! Sugar Daddy Disaster 7” is born out of the boredom of waiting 10 months for current projects to get pressed. Haze found the same style specialty 8 mil vinyl bags, and did a new take on the original sleeve design by Mackie Osborne, had ‘em screen printed by the speedy Boxy Mouse MFG, and then added a rubber stamp cut print of a Sugar Daddy’s Sack (of dough). As a mini Sugar Daddy relic tchotchke thang, they came out really cool!
Edition of just 150 copies. Record is clear yellow vinyl. Silkscreened front sleeve insert, hand stamped with image of a money sack with a "$" sign on it designed & printed by HAZE XXL. Also stamped with the edition #. Scale 124.

Melvins announce shows to ring in the New Year!

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Written by brian

Created: 12 December 2021

Melvins will be playing a couple New Years shows in San Francisco at the Great American Music Hall. Hepa-Titus and The Side Eyes will be opening! Buzz will also be playing an acoustic solo gig in Fresno, CA at Ragin' Records. That show will include a Retrospective Show/Sale of Art Records by HAZE XXL/AMREP!

December 28 Update from the band: Our Dec. 30 & 31 shows at Great American Music Hall have unfortunately been canceled. Ticket holders, please reach out to your point of purchase for refund information. We look forward to seeing everyone again soon.

Buzz, Dale & Steven paid a visit to SPIN's Scott Lipps' podcast to discuss the recently released acoustic album, Five Legged Dog and much more. 

Buzz contributed vocals to the new track House Ghyzmal Sphynxe from Lords and Lady Kevin!

Buzz and Dale guested on the debut 7" of Harsh Mellow (O + Sarah Linton + Arrow de Wilde) out now via draplin.com

Buzz recently appeared on Gibson TV's Riff Lords where he breaks down his gear and shows you how to play the riffs from some Melvins classics! Check it out below:

Five Legged Dog acoustic double Melvins album out now!

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Written by brian

Created: 15 October 2021

Today marks the official release date of Five Legged Dog, the 36 song 2CD/4LP collection of acoustic versions of Melvins classics and along with a few choice covers! This all acoustic album is a true retrospective spanning their entire career and is out now on CD and digitally. The 4LP colored vinyl from Ipecac is currently set for a January 28, 2022 release date.

Five Legged Dog Press Release:
Where to begin with a new Melvins release? August 24, in the year 79 A.D. seems as good a place as any. On this day, citizens of Pompeii emerged squinting from their villas, fell knee-bound and, drawing panicked eyeballs skyward, watched as money shots of glowing lava spewed down upon them, flash frying bodies in suspended animation. Had the Melvins been there on that fateful day they surely would have scoffed, simply cracked free of their lava encasing, belched out a plume of ash and gone on their merry way, refusing to be frozen - or sticking with the metaphor - burned in an instance of time.

It’s not that the Melvins are timeless, nothing so anodyne or sentimental as that. Their latest offering, the acoustic retrospective, Five Legged Dog, finds the Melvins unstuck in time, the musical version of Vonnegut’s Billy Pilgrim, quantum-vaulting between eras and eardrums. At once going forwards and backwards. Is it mere coincidence the album's epicenter should be a rendering of the Stones’ rocker, “Sway,” with conspicuous keystone lyrics, “ Did you ever wake up to find / A day that broke up your mind / Destroyed your notion of circular time….” There it is, plain as Pompeii.

Move now from 79 A.D. to 1979 A.D., the catastrophic era of disco denim stuffed with schlong, and continue right up to today. Somewhere between those encrusted epochs of banker-rock, a vein of music materialized where ego and orthodoxy were anathema. Of all the lies here told, this is none of them: The Melvins gave birth to that age. Hardcore punk was the semen and heavy metal the swampy bush of this unholy conception. Both an aesthetic and an ethic is what it takes to define an age. And during a near 40-year shelf-life, the Melvins continue to dazzle, confuse and confound. Five Legged Dog is a four album beast, a testament to their unmatched work ethic, their penchant for pushing the envelope, then shredding it to bits. Said Melvins founder, Buzz Osborne, “One acoustic record seems like a joke and two is pretty normal, but doing FOUR?!? That’s like going to war against an army of gorillas on LSD.”

Long before Seattle burned under its own pyrocumulonimbus lightning fires there was Osborne and drummer, Dale Crover, from working-class Montesano and Aberdeen respectively. Multiple (trusted) sources confirm that the two met while rat-holing their way into local opium dens, sidling up to mourning widows and desultory loggers on the nod to relieve them of their pocket change. It was by this method that they amassed enough money to rent their first instruments. But their music initially took a back seat to academia when they were both accepted into the prestigious Bushwood Academy of Technology and engrossed themselves in an emerging field of physics known as T-symmetry, the scientific rule that dictates time runs differently backwards than it does forwards. Imagine an oak tree slowly descending into the ground, or a demolished building heaving upward and settling in full pristine form. Though a career in physics was not meant to be, the principal of T-symmetry had a profound effect on them, and out of this, the Melvins and their musical space-time fuckery, was born. And if this ain’t the truth, pardner, then God’s a penguin. 

 The Melvins rudder has been their love of other bands, always fans of the good shit. They were unabashedly Kids In Satan's Service. But not just KISS... The Who, Throbbing Gristle, Butthole Surfers, Blondie, Flipper and the unfathomable bathysphere of electroacoustic noise... Melvins loved those bands the way you love your oxygen. And after all this time, they breathe that music still. The more mordant their cover renditions have been, the deeper the Melvins' sound has plumbed, until all familiars are hidden, then resolved as newly slabbed granite so massive that to dismantle it into its separate sources is unimaginable. Few artists work so hard at exceeding limits, fewer still follow absurdity past all reason and yet, mile upon mile Melvins strike fertile soil of sound and conceptual fury. And with this album Osborne aimed to make a statement. “This a big one. We knew we had to do something massive to prove we weren’t fucking around.”

According to Crover, “These four albums represent a career retrospective.” Indeed, Five Legged Dog takes a measured sampling of their recorded works, alternating selections from Big Business-era albums, Nude With Boots, The Bride Screamed Murder, (A) Senile Animal, and the tragically under-appreciated Bulls and Bees, and pairing them with ancient pagan favorites Stoner Witch, Honky and Houdini (whose iconic album cover, curiously, depicts a two-headed mutt, no doubt the same rabid bitch that years later spawned this eponymous five-legged dog). Melvins diehards will foam at the 36-song track list which includes “Edgar The Elephant,” “Revolve,” “The Bit,” “Hooch,” “Anaconda,” “Billy Fish,” as well as a no-way-they-can-do-that-acoustically version of “Honey Bucket.”

But know this, the acoustic designation is a misnomer, this is not a lighter, more pensive Melvins by any stretch. No wistful preening. These songs are delta variants, weighty, plangent, cavernous, and often brutal renditions. Not since Townshend, has anyone so successfully transmuted an acoustic guitar into a percussion instrument as does Buzz. On “The Pitfalls in Serving Warrants,” his strumming is precise, immediate and determined. Later Buzz deftly shifts into a roiling version of “Prig,” which would make the perfect complement to an afternoon spent sipping soma in the shade. His guitar strumming often gallops in tandem with Crover, who, for the album’s entirety, decided to scrap traditional wooden drum sticks to compliment the album’s authentic undertones. “I used brush sticks on every track. What a pain in the ass!” But Crover nevertheless manages to blast through tunnels with those brushes. Four-string virtuoso, Steven McDonald, rounds out the trio with his wholly unique bass lines. But it’s McDonald’s ability for vocal harmonizing that contributes to the album’s haunting atmosphere. “We knew the singing was going to sell this thing,” said Crover. However, initially the idea of doing a completely acoustic retrospective was met with McDonald’s raised brow. “But once I got into the concept I was hooked to the eyeballs. I think this came out really great! It’s some of my best bass playing and singing. I got to sing ‘Sway’ by the Stones, and they even wanted to do a cover of ‘Charlie’ by my main band, Redd Kross!”

In addition to ”Charlie” and “Sway,” other covers on the album include a reverential version of Alice Cooper’s “Halo of Flies.” And sticking with flies, Melvins’ staple, “Eye Flys” ends with a slow marching cover of “Woman” by Free. Another highlight, this one tinted with country-western vocal fry, includes past Melvins bassist, Jeff Pinkus wringing undiscovered pathos from the Fred Neil classic “Everybody’s Talkin’.” The song evokes a fleeting taste of The Melvins had they taken up residence in the shit-kicker bars of Bakersfield circa 1952, or rather, if Buck, Wynn, and Hag cut their teeth on punk rock and acid. Buzz agrees, “JD Pinkus does a fantastic job! His kind of insanity fits right in!”

So here we are. A four-album acoustic retrospective that somehow evades nostalgia. Did you expect, something predictable? This is The Melvins, after-all. Keep an eye out for this Five Legged Dog, this frothing mongrel, as it stalks roadside, ready to kill or maim to protect its maggot-covered bone. Unless you’re lookin' to get down and make puppies.

Melvins announce 2022 U.S. tour with Ministry

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Written by brian

Created: 24 September 2021

Today it was announced that the band will be joining Ministry on their Industrial Strength Tour along with Corrosion of Conformity next year. All dates thus far announced are in the U.S. with additional dates to be announced at a future date. The band has also announced that they're playing an exclusive show at the House of Vans in Chicago on October 30th, special RSVP details for this event are at Eventbrite. This show will also be livestreamed on vans.com/channel66!

Pitfalls In Serving Warrants plus MELVINS TV Vol. 1-3 vinyl from AmRep

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Written by brian

Created: 17 August 2021

Today the band premiered Pitfalls In Serving Warrants from their forthcoming acoustic double album Five Legged Dog. Check out the track below along with more details from the press release:

The Melvins recently announced their most ambitious project yet: Five Legged Dog (Oct. 15, Ipecac Recordings), a 36-song newly recorded, acoustic collection featuring a career-spanning collection of songs, from 1987’s Gluey Porch Treatments to 2017’s A Walk With Love & Death, the entire gamut of the legendary band’s catalogue is represented.

Today the Melvins share the acoustic rendering of "Pitfalls In Serving Warrants", which originally appeared on the band's 1997 album, Honky. About the track Buzz Osborne says: "’Pitfalls’ is one of my favorites. A severely underrated song and one that works very well on acoustic.”

Five Legged Dog also features acoustic versions of several rarities from the influential band’s overflowing discography including a cover of Redd Kross’ “Charlie” (from the limited-edition “Escape From LA” single), “Outside Chance,” a Turtles’ cover from the “Slithering Slaughter” single and new interpretations of The Rolling Stones “Sway,” Brainiac’s “Flypaper,” and Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talking” (popularized by Harry Nilsson). Butthole Surfer Jeff Pinkus lends his vocals (and banjo) to “Don’t Forget to Breathe” and “Everybody’s Talking.”

“I knew I wanted to do something ridiculously big,” explains Buzz Osborne of the band’s first ever acoustic offering. ”36 songs reimagined by us acoustically is certainly ridiculous but it works. The magic of the songs is still there regardless of it being acoustic. Since we weren’t touring we had the time to do something of this size. I’m very excited about this record. Dale and Steven did a fantastic job on this. I think it’s a very special record. I can’t think of anyone else who’s done something like this.”
Dale Crover noted: “I think people will be surprised that we can do an acoustic version of a song like ‘Night Goat’ without losing any of the heaviness. We also worked hard on the vocal arrangements. People are going to freak out!”
The collection, which is available for pre-order now, will be released digitally, as a double-disc CD, both on Oct. 15, with a 4LP colored vinyl release arriving on Jan. 28.

Amphetamine Reptile Records has also announced that the new vinyl of the audio from Melvins TV Volumes 1-3 will be released in batches beginning in September on SHOXOP. There will be art editions as well as factory editions later. As always keep an eye on their Facebook page for timely updates on release dates as these always sell out quick. A very small batch(less than 100) HAZE XXL art edition variants of the recent Ipecac (a) Senile Animal vinyl pressing will also be going up this Sunday, Aug. 22nd. The factory editions of the Melvins Slithering Slaughter EP were released last Sunday and promptly sold out as expected.