I prefer to consider the Melvins not as a band per se, but as
more of an organism competing in the filthy sludge of primordial rock
making. Taking our cues from biological evolution, we know that when
certain organisms have a good design—like a shark—they
change very little over time. Sure, you’ll get permutations like the
hammerhead and, of course, some standard size differentiation, but a
really good design stays much the same over the millennia, doing the
things it does better than anything else nature can throw at it.
So it is with the Melvins. King Buzzo, Dale Crover, and an
impressive array of bass-wielding monsters have relentlessly remained
true to their mission while weathering two and a half decades of the
indie music continuum. They came before grunge—maybe even
accidentally invented it—and are squarely present in its welcome
absence. Melvins apply low-throttled thunder to high-minded concepts
(the “solo” albums, The Trilogy), and when confronted by
the impending talent of Big Business, the Melvins simply assimilated
them.
To celebrate their 25th year in power, the Melvins are climbing into
a time machine and bringing past incarnations of themselves to the
stage, an idea boosted from the All Tomorrow’s Parties music festival.
The first set will be “Melvins in 1983,” the original lineup performing
early material—à la the largely hardcore Mangled Demos
from 1983—with Crover giving up the throne and sitting in for
original bassist/Mudhoney founder Matt Lukin.
I saw the Melvins perform as the Dead Kennedys (the Jellvins) with
Jello Biafra a couple of years back and there is something liberating
about watching them play an entire set at such a pace—it
justifies the inevitable quantum torpor. Departing the age of Mr. T,
Melvins will then perform 1993’s Houdini in its entirety. Touted
as their most cohesive (accessible?) album, Houdini marked the
band’s flirtation with the majors and erased all doubts that their
reign would endure all known extremities of intrapersonal psychological
turmoil and the perceived limits of audience attention span. The proof,
as they say, is in the pudding—and in this case, what an
impossibly thick and tasty pudding it is.