Three Men and a Baby out today on Sub Pop

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Written by brian

Created: 01 April 2016

No April Fools Jokes here, 17 years after originally recording the album, Three Men and a Baby from Mike & the Melvins is now officially out on Sub Pop Records! While 17 years was without question a healthy duration and at this point nobody involved is definitionally a baby, as expected the wait turned out to be well worth it! You should be able to find it in LP, CD, and even tape format both through your local record store and of course through the Sub Pop Mega Mart. There's even Mackie designed t-shirts to be had! For the time being you can stream the full album online thanks to Sub Pop & Rolling Stone:

"Now, the funny thing about that is, and you can't really tell, there's almost no guitar on it," Buzz told Rolling Stone about Three Men and a Baby. "I'm doing all the low-end bass, Kevin [Rutmanis, circa-1999 Melvins bassist is] doing all the slide bass and Mike's doing all the stuff that sounds like guitar. The whole idea was it was going to be three bass players. We got as far as we could get with that, and then it was time for him to do a bunch of vocals, and he just couldn't figure out what he was going to do, so he said, "I'll just take them home with me and then I'll finish them." And we never heard from him again. Just disappeared. Literally disappeared. Like phones disconnected. We heard that he moved out into the woods, then we heard some wild story about him getting whooping cough, which I was like, what is it, 1930?"

Mike Kunka was recently interviewed on Episode 9 of the Sub Pop podcast, he gives more info on Three Men and a Baby and also discusses his musical history in general. The interview starts around the 16 minute mark, check it out!

Rolling Stone also recently put together a countdown of the 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time. Dale of course made the list, they had this to say: "Crover's main gig is his ongoing 30-year-plus stint in unstoppable art-sludge institution the Melvins — equal parts earthquake machine, hard-sticking showman and ad hoc mathematician following the ebb and flow of Buzz Osborne's Beefheart–ian riffs. Fueled by his love for Kiss and Zeppelin, Crover's distinct sound comes from tom-toms that explode like cannons, metal slats that sizzle, double kick that sputters and a sweat-soaked attack that still hits harder than your favorite teenage punk."

Melvins are on tour! Poster art by Craig Horky

Melvins releasing new album "Basses Loaded" on June 3rd

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Written by brian

Created: 07 March 2016

Melvins announced today in a Rolling Stone article that on June 3rd they'll be releasing a new album that includes 6 different bassists! The appropriately titled Basses Loaded will be put out through Ipecac and pull together tracks from recent limited edition 10" records from AmRep as well as new recordings not released elsewhere. "In June the band will drop Basses Loaded, an album featuring a whopping six different bass players: four tracks with Redd Kross bassist Steve McDonald, a track with Butthole Surfers bassist Jeff Pinkus, one with upright bass from Fantômas' Trevor Dunn, four tracks as Melvins 1983 with drummer Dale Crover holding down the low end, one with the current Melvins lineup assisted by the two members of Big Business and, most notably, a collaboration with their old friend Krist Novoselic of Nirvana."  - Rolling Stone 

Ipecac also shared a stream of "Hideous Woman", one of the tracks from the album. The song features Steve McDonald on bass, who as previously announced will be playing bass on the upcoming tour with Napalm Death & Melt Banana. Hideous Woman is one of the tracks that was also included on the War Pussy 10" that was released earlier this year on AmRep. More of those 10"s will be available at the merch table during the upcoming tour this spring. 

Poster art by Haze XXL (Click here for larger image resolution)

War Pussy out now from AmRep, stream "The Decay of Lying"

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Written by brian

Created: 14 February 2016

Happy Valentines Day! Amphetamine Reptile Records released a small batch of the new War Pussy 10" featuring Steven McDonald on bass last month. If you missed out on that have no fear, the majority of those will be available during the upcoming tour this spring with Napalm Death. The 10" has 4 tracks including a cover of the Beatles' "I Want to Tell You" and the opener "The Decay of Lying" which is now available for your streaming pleasure!

"FINALLY! An excuse to say Whar Pusshy" in a Sean Connery accent around the office, HR department, be damned! What we got here this is the mail order edition of (the) Melvins brand new 10". The HAZE XXL designed cover is a 3-color screenprint on classic chip stock & custom-cut, silk screened skull sticker adhered to the front. The record itself is in opaque orange with red & black splatters." - AMREP

Dale's side project Altamont has a new split 7" out with Jeff Pinkus' band Honky. It's part of a new series of splits being released by Valley King Records. Dale's played some live drums for Honky recently, but I haven't heard whether or not he plays drums on the Honky track. I do know that Dale was featured on Honky's previous 7" released through Valley King "Maid in China" so you might as well pick that one up as well while you're at it! This was pressed on both black and swirl-colored vinyl and can be purchased through Secret Serpents.

Altamont/Honky split 7" art by Alan Forbes

Poster art by Johnny Quinine

Three Men and a Baby by Mike & the Melvins out in April from Sub Pop

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Written by brian

Created: 26 January 2016

The bated breath is no longer necessary! Sub Pop announced today that they've set an April 1st release date for Three Men and a Baby the collaborative album by Mike and the Melvins. This album has been discussed in hushed tones for essentially as long as this website has existed, becoming something of a white whale to Melvins fans over the years. Noisey premiered the first track off the album "Chicken 'n' Dump", and had this to say about it: “Delivers on the promise of the Kunka/Melvins pairing, fixing Mike’s hellacious, chugging low end to Buzz Osborne and the boys’ thick racket, banging out a riff as joyous as it is punishing.”

'"Chicken n Dump' is quite possibly the best name I've ever heard for a song," Osborne says of the new cut. "With a title like that the song HAS to be good." Kunka explains a little more: "I stole the title from a friend (sorry Quitty), my nine-year-old daughter wrote the lyrics, it took 16 years to finish, and it sounds like this."

Three Men and a Baby is now available for preorder through the Sub Pop Mega Mart. LP preorders through the Mega Mart will receive the Loser edition, housed in a custom dust sleeve and on white vinyl (while supplies last). There’s also a rad new T-shirt.

Mike Kunka has been involved in a number of great bands that you should take the time to check out while you await the release of this album. Most notably he was part of the two-piece godheadSilo. In addition to that he was also in Enemymine, Smoke & Smoke which was in fact godheadSilo along with Spencer from the Murder City Devils doing vocals, and last but definitely not least Dead Low Tide which featured both Spencer on vocals and Coady Willis on drums. If you've been following the Melvins for a while now you might even remember that a few of these bands also toured with the Melvins over the years.

Most of Three Men and a Baby was recorded in 1999 at Louder Studios by Tim Green (The Fucking Champs), and it was finished in 2015 at Sound of Sirens by Toshi Kasai.

Tracklisting:

1. Chicken 'n' Dump
2. Limited Teeth
3. Bummer Conversation
4. Annalisa
5. A Dead Pile of Worthless Junk
6. Read the Label (It's Chili)
7. Dead Canaries
8. Pound the Giants
9. A Friend in Need is a Friend You Don't Need
10. Lifestyle Hammer
11. Gravel
12. Art School Fight Song

About Mike and The Melvins:
Three Men and a Baby is the new album by Mike and the Melvins. It was supposed to come out sixteen years ago.
 
These are the facts we can be sure of: in 1998, around the time his band godheadSilo went on hiatus, bassist/vocalist Mike Kunka busied himself by tagging along on a tour with his friends the Melvins. Somewhere along the way, Mike and the Melvins – King Buzzo (guitar/bass/vocals), Dale Crover (drums/vocals), and Kevin Rutmanis (bass/vocals), at the time – decided to make a record together, and gave the project the imaginative moniker Mike and the Melvins. Sub Pop, ever on the hunt for music’s Next Big Thing, enthusiastically agreed to fund and release the super-group’s debut, and recording commenced sometime in 1999.
 
It’s at this point that things get hazy. Apparently, one or more of the following happened:

• Some “junior-high level bullshit.”
• A house was built, a barn was raised, children were born.
• Typical record-label skullduggery.
• A scorching case of whooping cough.
• Surgery. Lots of surgery.
• Shocking and poorly-timed gear theft.
• Some other stuff, probably, or maybe not.

Whatever the reasons, the incomplete recording languished on a shelf from 1999 until 2015, when, much to everyone’s surprise, the involved parties reconvened, finished the damn thing, and delivered it post-haste to Sub Pop International Headquarters, where it was promptly scheduled for the coveted April 1st, 2016 release date. What a story, right?

So, about the record: It’s real good! Mike’s signature bass crunch and vocals are all over it, and the Melvins are in fine form. It has everything from hefty noise-rock churn to a Public Image Ltd. song to cough-syrup blues to deconstructed black metal. Neither Melvins nor godheadSilo fans will be disappointed, nor will detractors of either; to paraphrase Mike, if you don’t like it, it probably wasn’t meant for you.

Joyful Noise has a few new Melvins related releases

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Written by brian

Created: 20 January 2016

Joyful Noise is a record label doing great things, and you've probably noticed they've been working with the band quite a bit lately on special releases. Good news, there are a few recent ones for you to check out! As mentioned previously the Melvins recorded a cover of Bikini Kill's "Rebel Girl" with Teri from Le Butcherettes for Joyful Noise's "Almost Live" series. That was originally released on a very limited edition lathe cut 7" which sold out quickly, but now you have an opportunity to pick up the 7" again as it's being repressed in larger quantities as a single sided white vinyl with a Mackie designed screenprint on the b-side. This 7" is part of their VIP club 7" of the month for January. Check out the details on their VIP membership + single series.

 Joyful Noise also just announced the release of a new Hew Time 3x7" set, this is the all drumming project from Dale, Coady, and Joe Plummer. "Seconds" features six new unreleased tracks from the group, with music contained on Side A, and Side B featuring badass etchings of Dale, Joe and Coady. The release is limited to a one-time pressing of 850 hand-numbered copies. Plus, 175 copies are pressed on gold vinyl! The gold vinyl is distributed randomly to those that order... like a golden ticket. Like from that one movie...

 Dumb Numbers also recently released a triple 10" split series box set through Joyful Noise. The splits feature new music from Dumb Numbers along with Melvins, David Lynch, and David Yow. Not only does Dale of course play drums on the Melvins Lite track "Polish Trash Compactor" he also plays drums on all of the Dumb Numbers songs included in the box set. Both Buzz and Kevin Rutmanis are also featured on the Dumb Numbers side of the Melvins split 10" making this basically a must have for Melvins fans. The release is limited to a one-time pressing of 975 hand-numbered copies, packaged within a custom wooden box set, with screen-printed art by Mackie Osborne. The first 275 copies are pressed on clear vinyl w/ "haze" of gold, silver, and oxblood colors [sold out], and the remaining 700 copies are pressed on black vinyl marbled w/ gold, silver, and oxblood colors. Check out the box set "Unveiling" video preview below.

Brian Walsby and Bifocal Media have two new Melvins shirts up for sale.

• Beginning in March, this years version of the Melvins boasts Redd Kross bassist Steven McDonald. What better way of celebrating this news than with a t-shirt that parodies both? Here we have two separate Redd Kross moments (an album title and album cover which don't match up at all) and making fun of a shithole town that Buzz and Dale were familiar with in their desperate upbringings. It’s all here; tied up in a neat little bow, on a t-shirt!  - Brian Walsby
• This new Melvins t shirt boasts the trio lineup of Buzz, Dale, and the one and only Jeff Pinkus! The idea originated out of an idea I had for one of those homemade posters that I have sold out on the road. After doing this idea about forty times it was suggested to me that this would make one heckuva t shirt design. Well, you didn't have to tell me twice. Besides being sort of funny that the whole bath salts craze seemed to spring out of the state of Florida, there is also the unintended humor in the fact that Pinkus played bass on the Butthole Surfers classic "Moving to Florida". And finally, the design is also sort of my attempt at making a "metal" shirt. In a warped kind of way, that is. I hope you all enjoy it! - Brian Walsby