Seeds Documentary!

Not sure how a doc about some of my favorite proto-punks got past me.  This goes straight to the top of my list if it’s available anywhere.

These Guys Are Doing Gonerfest Saturday

Guys who can play – pretending they can’t – while dressed as monsters is fucking genius.

The Mummies are an American garage punk band formed in San Bruno, California, in 1988. Exhibiting a defiantly raw and lo-fi sound, dubbed “budget rock”, the Mummies’ rebellious attitude and distinctive performance costumes exerted a major influence on garage punk and garage rock revival acts later in the decade, as well as in the 1990s. Their recorded output was intentionally completed with poor, cheap equipment, including their first and only studio album Never Been Caught, which was released after the group’s initial break-up. Since then, the Mummies have engaged in several positively-received reunion concerts and tours, including appearances in Europe and the US sporadically through to recent years. The band is currently working on a movie.

Satisfaction?


After 40+ years, this still might be the strangest cover version I’ve ever heard of anything. The re-worked lyrics, where I can understand them, are hilarious. I know only two things about the Residents: they were from San Francisco, and they had a guitarist called Snakefinger. Perhaps former Bay area Bastards can add something. According to the comments, the animation is by Ivan Maximov, a Russian. I don’t know anything about him either. As far as I know, the song and animation are unrelated, but they make a perfect match. Beyond that, words fail me on this one.

Mike Love Raps…


…with predictable results. Even the girls can’t save this sad abomination; I couldn’t make it past one minute. According to this guy, the song was conceived as a duo with Bart Simpson for an upcoming Simpsons movie, but the producers declined, feeling that “Bart, after all, has some standards to uphold.” Indeed. Instead, it landed on Baywatch. I might have saved this one for Loathsome Thursday, but this stands in its own category of awfulness. I hesitated to post it at all.

Hit Factory

I always forget they’re Californian, as it seems like they could have spewed forth from Appalachia, or anywhere.

Fogerty’s ’68-’70 run was nuts:

  • I Put A Spell On You
  • Proud Mary
  • Bad Moon Rising
  • Green River
  • Down On The Corner
  • Fortunate Son
  • Travelin’ Band
  • Who’ll Stop the Rain
  • Lookin’ Out My Back Door
  • Long As I Can See The Light

Been reading more about them, their implosion, all the record label nonsense.

I was alone when I made that [CCR] music. I was alone when I made the arrangements, I was alone when I added background vocals, guitars and some other stuff. I was alone when I produced and mixed the albums. The other guys showed up only for rehearsals and the days we made the actual recordings. For me Creedence was like sitting on a time bomb. We’d had decent successes with our cover of “Susie Q” and with the first album when we went into the studio to cut “Proud Mary.” It was the first time we were in a real Hollywood studio, RCA’s Los Angeles studio, and the problems started immediately. The other guys in the band insisted on writing songs for the new album, they had opinions on the arrangements, they wanted to sing. They went as far as adding background vocals to “Proud Mary,” and it sounded awful.

They’re from WHERE?

While off down internet wormholes prompted by this blog, I ran across the horrible clickbait article “Best Band from Every State,” which is designed mostly to start fights. It caught my attention because the Boys of Beach, above, and as pictured in the article, might qualify for the California designation… but not without Brian Wilson, SMH.

Anyway, I learned a little band geography and will be curious to see everyone’s reaction. As the sometimes Pacific Northwest rep, I’ll say that they’re right about Idaho, glaringly wrong about Oregon, and a little off with Washington.