Vinyl is great. It’s superb quality, nice to look at (especially when, as is the case here, it’s specially coloured) and it makes you feel vaguely superior to your I-pod sporting mates. Imagine my joy when I managed to acquire a copy of Sub Pop’s reissue of Mudhoney’s seminal (in the truest sense of the word) ‘Superfuzz Bigmuff’ on splattered, pristine vinyl. Oh yes, I am a happy boy!
‘Superfuzz…’ has been knocking about, now for almost 21 years, a fact that makes me feel distressingly old, but it still maintains that raw vitality that made it so exciting back in ’88. A short listen (the original record, as opposed the re-issue, housed only 6 tracks) it managed to cram a surprising amount of ideas into its slender frame and it stands up there with punk greats such as Iggy Pop’s ‘War Power’ as a savage, bluesy, exuberant blast of feral noise. In Mark Arm the band had a fantastically atonal singer who, somehow, managed to sound absolutely right when convention would demand he be kicked out at the earliest opportunity. Furthermore the band’s secret weapon was Dan Peters who propelled the sludgy riffing of Steve Turner and Mark along at a velocity that suggested a band about to launch into the stratosphere.
First track “need” is the perfect statement of intent: a skeletal riff provides the backdrop for Mark’s vocal before the drums and bass (sounding even more mountainous than ever thanks to a spot-on re-master) crash in with all the subtlety of a brick to the head. Even better is the propulsive action of ‘Chain that door’, a ferocious rant that flies by in less than two minutes. ‘Mudride’, by contrast to the lightening punk of ‘chain..’ is a tar thick crawl through stoner rock with squealing feedback and hulking drums slamming the listener. “I’ve got a belly full of Ouzo, a head full of hurt” wails Mark like a man possessed before the band shuffle off in the direction of one of the most deranged solos of all time.
Side two sees “no one has” kick off proceedings with gritty aplomb and a beautifully disjointed central riff. “if I think” rolls up next, and it is almost tender until the rhythm section roll over the song like an invading Panzer force. Final track ‘In ‘n’ out of grace’ is an absolutely belting finale, with a simply breathtaking drum performance that flattens the listener, particularly in this new version. If the whole thing hasn’t left you sweaty, drained and bouncing off the walls then something is clearly amiss with yr rock ‘n’ roll gene and you need to go back to listening to keane or whatever heinous crimes against music float your boat!
The great secret of Mudhoney was the fact that the band blurred the lines between blues and punk to such a degree that it was hard to tell where one started and the other ended. Absolutely monumental sounding some twenty years on, it’s a far more exciting debut than a certain other Seattle band who went on to sell far more, and it’s all executed with the minimum of wastage (the whole thing comes crashing to an end within 25 minutes) and a flair that is rarely matched by today’s depressingly tame bands. If you want to sample the real spirit of Seattle then track down this fearsome gem before they vanish from the shelves forever – you’ll be glad you did.
