MUDHONEY

I saw Mudhoney play here late last month on their 17-show Australian tour. They performed a whopping seven sold-out shows in the state of Victoria alone, which surely makes my home state, at least per capita, their base of most hardcore fandom worldwide, no? Sure, five of those shows were in relatively small venues (barring the Corner Hotel show and their appearance at the Cherry Rock festival), but that's still an impressive feat. The last time I saw them play was on their 2014 tour at the Corner Hotel, and to be honest, I found their set to be rather boring. At that stage, the band were performing as a one-guitar unit w/ Mark Arm dedicating himself to full-time vocals, and for me, it didn't work. Mudhoney are a twin-guitar rhythm/lead operation, and sans that, the songs aren't fleshed out as they should be.

The first time I saw them play was on the 24th of February in 1990 at the Old Greek Theatre in Richmond on their debut tour Down Under. Support was Bored!, Proton Energy Pills and Have A Nice Day. I was fresh out of high school, and I recall it being a most enjoyable evening. My second attempt to see them was less enjoyable. They returned later that year and played several more shows around town, and on the 14th of December filled out the huge Palace venue in St. Kilda w/ the Cosmic Psychos, Nunbait and Killing Time(!). The size of the venue goes to show how popular they were at the time down here. I had a prepaid ticket, showed it to the doorman/bouncer on the night, and was promptly refused entry because he didn't believe I was 18 (I was turning 19 in a month) and had no ID to prove that I was. Despite my loud protests, I shuffled off for the long journey home and was then randomly pounced on by two thugs on the way, beaten into the gutter and spent the rest of the weekend in hospital. Not a good memory! My musical tastes were diversifying by the day at the time, and I really didn't listen to Mudhoney much for the ensuing ten years or more. Maybe that last experience soured things a bit, but it doesn't actually explain myself not paying the band much attention for the rest of the decade.

 "Grunge" soon hit the big time, became a punchline and I dropped the whole thing like a hot potato. One point of note is that, prior to the release of Nevermind, Mudhoney were much more popular in Australia than Nirvana. Their first two discs of note, Superfuzz Big Muff and Mudhoney, were both licensed to Au-go-go at the time and the band found an instant audience, their mix of punk and '60s/'70s psych/hard-rock fitting in perfectly w/ the post-hardcore racket being promulgated by the likes of the Cosmic Psychos, Bored! et al. Nirvana's Bleach also got a local release at the time (via Waterfront), and they definitely had a profile, but those in the know (who clearly didn't) were hailing Mudhoney as the band that was going to break through to the wider marketplace and teach the squares a thing or two. By the time 1998's Tomorrow Hit Today LP came out, their last for Reprise and also one which saw the band call it quits for several years, my reaction to its releases was something along the lines of, Are those guys still around? That was 25 years ago.

My reawakening to Mudhoney came c/o their Since We've Become Translucent release from 2002, which saw them back on home ground, Sub Pop. I was trading CDs at the time w/ Andy Kotowicz (RIP), A & R dude at Sub Pop and big F/i fan, and he sent me a care package containing a stack of new SP releases, in it being Mudhoney's latest. Ironically - is this ironic? Perhaps just factual - 20+ years later, it remains my fave Mudhoney recording, the second-fave being Tomorrow Hit Today. I backtracked throughout their '90s works and discovered that I dug it all. The 2006 followup, Under A Billion Suns, was almost its equal and 2008's The Lucky Ones was just fine. I was underwhelmed by both their Vanishing Point (single-guitar 'honey - blah!) and 2018's Digital Garbage, but hey, 30-year-old bands aren't likely to strike paydirt every time, if at all, when they're that long in the tooth.

2023 presents the band at just over 35 years old, and they have gifted the world a new recording which they toured on, Plastic Eternity. I have listened to it a few dozen times, even got myself a copy on the 12" format, and it's looking to be on my list of faves for '23 and is certainly my favourite recording of theirs since 2002. This one has the sound of the band ca. 1988 - 1990, which means they're either paying tribute to themselves, are the world's best Mudhoney cover band, are engaging in a 'return to form' or simply made themselves an excellent Mudhoney record. Mudhoney can do that kinda thing, and I'm opting for the latter. The twin-guitar fuzz in back, the loose, space-rock vibes of Since We've Become... are the order of the day and the short/fast/loud rockers... rock.

Opening is "Souvenir Of My Trip", which sets the pace w/ cosmic keyboards and boss interplay between Arm's almost surfy twang and Steve Turner's low-end rhythm. The second number, "Almost Everything", remains my pick for the album: Dan Peters is a monster drummer, and the addition of congas adding extra rhythmic textures to the 'Sabbath-damaged riffage is some choice ear candy. There's not a duff track on this disc; some are better than others, but none are terrible. "Flush The Fascists" (yes, please) is a statement in 2023 which needs to be made, and I'm glad they did. "One Or Two" is close to ballad territory, and it's one of the album's best. The lead single, "Little Dogs", which is accompanied by a particularly goofy clip, made zero sense for me when I first saw it, though witnessing it in a live context and then listening back to it sans visuals, it's a slight track (and wouldn't have been my choice as a single) but a good one.

I saw their show at the Westwood Hotel in Footscray. It's not a large room, so it was hot, packed and sweaty and I was right up near the front and taken back by evening's end by just how good they were. Like, not a solid run-through-the-hits night of nostalgia, but sounding like a vital rock & roll band who gave a shit. The new songs sounded alive and the required hits ("In And Out Of Grace" being the highlight - these professionals know what to do) worked the audience into a totally-expected frenzy. I was lucky enough to meet drummer Dan Peters a week or two before the show when he shopped in my store, and he told me the band was locked into a steady rehearsal regime at Mick Turner's home studio to nail their set down tight before the gruelling tour. Bassist Guy Maddison moved back to Melbourne a few years ago, so the band hadn't actually all performed together for a while. Clearly, this Ginn-like rehearsal regime paid off.

When I was younger, I used to begrudge the never-ending presence of a band like the Rolling Stones, old and embarrassing and nowhere near as good as they once were, forever touring and releasing albums of diminishing returns, an outfit who hadn't released a good album since the late '70s and not a great one since the early '70s, and wonder why they would continue to do it or why anyone would care. You get older and realise that this is just what they do, and like their blues heroes, they will do it until they die. Sure, the results aren't as good as they once were, but that's not the point. I recall an interview w/ Mark Arm when the band resurfaced in 2002, and he said something to the effect that in the time off, he came to realise one thing: he's a rocker, and always will be. It's a part-time gig now, and probably earns some nice extra coin on top of his Sub Pop job, but it runs through his and the band's veins and they'll probably do it forever. I'm very OK with that.