Some context: I was in Connecticut with The Patient Mrs. for some familial-type obligations and a couple days of the madness known as relaxation, but that wasn’t going to keep me from seeing the Melvins and Totimoshi at Webster Hall in NYC, so I hopped in I-95 South last Friday after posting the Frydee video and sat for about three hours to make an hour and a half trip.

It was only stressful because I didn’t see Totimoshi at Roadburn, and so wanted to catch their set. The show was early because Webster Hall knows what pays the bills, and that’s dance parties for yuppie assholes. 10:30 or so, and they come in and the Melvins crowd is out. Fine. Totimoshi were on stage as I paid my $30 to get in at 7PM. I barely made it.

Isis headlined. It was their last tour, and no, I didn’t stay. I’m sorry. I wasn’t interested enough to even listen to the free promo download I got of their last album, so I would have felt disingenuous staying for their set just because it’s allegedly the last time I’ll get to see them. I already have my good memories of killer Isis shows. I don’t need any more. Plus I had three more hours of traffic to sit in to get back to The Patient Mrs., and I didn’t want to miss out on that.

I like Totimoshi. I’ve liked Totimoshi for a long time now and I still like them. I think that was probably the biggest stage I’d ever seen them on, and even with drummer Chris Fugitt using half of the Dale Crover/Coady Willis combined megakit, they sounded good. But really, I’m just pulling for Totimoshi because I think they should be headlining tours instead of this perennial “always the bridesmaid” thing they seem to have going on. They could very well have sucked and I’d be blinded by my affection for them. Doesn’t mean I enjoyed the set any less.

Although, one thing about this show: it was fucking packed. And hot. And after three hours of 95, I was, well, a grumpy little bitch. About everything. I was grumpy shelling out $30 for a show I knew I wasn’t going to see all of, I was grumpy they were sold out of Melvins box sets (though the new album was just $10, which I happily paid), and I was grumpy smashed in with a douchetastic NYC crowd in the sweltering Webster Hall main room. Normally, beer is the solution to this, but the last thing I wanted was a dooey (I think that’s how it’s spelled, though I’ve seen it as D-U-I too), so I just stewed in it.

And then came the Melvins. They kicked ass. That’s all there is to it. They were really tight, the material sounded really good — highlights being the call and response of “The Water Glass” and “Electric Flower” from The Bride Screamed Murder and a couple nods to the Lysol record in the form of the Flipper cover “Sacrifice,” “Hung Bunny” and “Roman Bird Dog” — bassist Jarred Warren was dressed as a super hero, Crover and Willis‘ two-man drumset looked and sounded killer, and Buzz Osborne led the charge as only he could. Leaving when they were done, I didn’t feel like I was missing the highlight of the evening.

I took some pictures, but they sucked. I took some video, but the batteries died (hence the Bonnaroo clip below). And finally, I took myself back to Connecticut, where I watched the Black Sabbath Classic Albums: Paranoid DVD again (thanks, Pete), and called it a night. I don’t know whether to mark it a win or not — I think the math works out in the red, though I haven’t drawn up any charts — but fuck it, two killer sets is a big help when it comes to focusing on the positive, and I’m going to try to do just that.

Melvins guitarist/vocalist Buzz Osborne is notorious for not enjoying the interview process. In fact, a quick search produced an exchange from 2006 where he says, “Almost every interview I’ve ever done has been nothing but complete bullshit.” So there you go.

Of course, the counterpoint to that is simple: They are what you make them. But let’s assume — just for the sake of argument — that Osborne probably didn’t feel like talking about the Melvins‘ new album, The Bride Screamed Murder (Ipecac), about how the band has changed over the course of its three albums with bassist/vocalist Jared Warren and drummer Coady Willis (collectively also known as Big Business) in the lineup with himself and drummer Dale Crover, or even really about why or how they put together their new 13-CD box set. I guess that’ll happen.

Nonetheless, as Osborne, Crover, Willis and Warren made their way to Phoenix, Arizona, for the second date of their current tour, questions were asked and answered with a minimum of condescension and scolding, and I still made it to the ballgame that evening on time. In the end, everyone wins, one way or another.

I’ll say this about it: I still like the Melvins. The Bride Screamed Murder rules and I’m still looking forward to seeing them in New York this Friday — and if I have the cash, I’m still going to plunk down $200 for that box set, assuming there are any left. I’ve come out of interviews before and never been able to listen to the artist or band again, so take that for what it’s worth.

Please find enclosed after the jump a Q&A with Buzz Osborne of the Melvins, and enjoy the ensuing bullshit.

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It seems like every time Unsane do anything these days, it’s a comeback. I like that. They should just do comebacks for the rest of their career, and since they rule, I’m glad they’re throwing in the added shtick of playing Scattered, Smothered and Covered in its entirety. I hope it works out for them.

The PR wire informs of a comeback already in progress:

Legendary NYC rock powerhouse Unsane has announced summer, 2010 US tour dates. The revered trio — guitarist/vocalist Chris Spencer, drummer Vincent Signorelli and bassist Dave Curran — will kick off its plan of attack with a string of special US live shows this August that will see the band perform its classic 1995 album Scattered, Smothered and Covered from start to finish.

The announcement of the special Unsane live shows coincides with the 25^th anniversary of Amphetamine Reptile Records, once home to the band. As part of the cut to the bone August tour, Unsane will perform alongside The Melvins, Boss Hog and more as one of the featured artists at the AmRep 25^th Anniversary Bash, set to take place August 27 and 28 in Minneapolis, MN.

“We’re really looking forward to the Unsane shows in August,” Chris Spencer comments. “The idea of performing Scattered, Smothered and Covered in its entirety is something that I have wanted to do for a very long time. To do an album that I like that much from start to finish is going to be incredible. We’ve never done this before, and it’s going to be both challenging and very exciting. The thought of being able to also do this at the AmRep anniversary show really kicks it up a notch!”

Unsane tour dates:
August 5 New York, NY Santos Party House (w/ Keelhaul and Pigs)
August 7 Baltimore, MD Otto Bar (w/ Keelhaul)
August 22 Toronto, ON Sneaky Dee’s (w/ Today is the Day, Keelhaul)
August 23 Akron, OH Backstage Concert Club (w/ Today is the Day, Keelhaul)
August 24 Chicago, IL Empty Bottle (w/ Today is the Day, Keelhaul)
August 26 Madison, WI High Noon Saloon (w/ Today is the Day, Keelhaul)
August 27 Minneapolis, MN Grumpy’s Bar (* As part of Amphetamine Reptile Records’ 25th Anniversary Art Show)

Whatever’s left that hasn’t yet been said about Melvins, I don’t know what it is. Good and bad, they’ve been polarizing audiences since the mid-‘80s, and with The Bride Screamed Murder (Ipecac), which kicks off with a killer doomed-out riff and moves into percussive jaunts and military march cadences, I’m going to guess that’s not going to end anytime soon. At this point, you probably already know who they are and you probably already know how you feel about them. Guitarist/vocalist Buzz Osborne and drummer Dale Crover are still working with drummer Coady Willis and bassist/backing vocalist Jared Warren of Big Business, and if you dug this incarnation’s previous studio full-lengths (as opposed to the countless singles, live albums, limited releases, splits and others that pop up), namely 2006’s (A) Senile Animal and 2008’s Nude with Boots, you’re going to dig The Bride Screamed Murder as well.

That’s not to say the seminal Aberdeen, Washington, outfit is treading water either creatively or performance wise. The magic of Melvins has always been Osborne’s ability to keep the songwriting fresh and maintain the experimental edge – at times balancing the output in one direction or the other as regards accessibility – and The Bride Screamed Murder is no exception, from the aforementioned call and response of opener “The Water Glass,” on through the memorable runs in “Pig House” and the warning “Don’t look down/You might regret it” in album highlight “Electric Flower.” Their take on The Who’s “My Generation?” (here with an added question mark as though they’re not certain whether or not it is) is bound to surprise some, but it’s not without precedent when you consider their take on Kiss’ “Going Blind” from 1993’s Houdini. “Evil New War God,” being the first cut to follow “The Water Glass,” is a decent example of what The Bride Screamed Murder’s more “straightforward” – this is still the Melvins we’re talking about – material has to offer.

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There are numerous reactions I could have to the following announcement that Isis has broken up. Here is a sampler:

There’s the snide: “That’s about five years too late.”

There’s the sad: “Well that’s a bummer, they did some great work (and they did).”

The realistic: “See you in three years, guys.”

The observant: “Funny how they say they want the music to do the talking in the middle of one of the biggest paragraphs I’ve ever seen.”

The critical: “They must have gotten tired of always being second fiddle to Neurosis.”

And the fanboy: “Oh nooooooooooes!!!!111!!!!!1!!”

However you feel about them, there’s no denying that a couple Isis albums have had a huge influence on the metal that’s come since, and on that level, it’s too bad to hear they won’t be making music together anymore. On the other hand, this is by no means the saddest news I’ve heard this week, so perhaps I’m just taking it with levity because everything’s relative. Whatever the case, here’s the statement from the band via the PR wire:

ISIS has reached an end. It’s hard to try to say it in any delicate way, and it is a truth that is best spoken plainly. This end isn’t something that occurred overnight and it hasn’t been brought about by a single cataclysmic fracture in the band. Simply put, ISIS has done everything we wanted to do, said everything we wanted to say. In the interest of preserving the love we have of this band, for each other, for the music made and for all the people who have continually supported us, it is time to bring it to a close. We’ve seen too many bands push past the point of a dignified death and we all promised one another early on in the life of the band that we would do our best to ensure ISIS would never fall victim to that syndrome. We’ve had a much longer run than we ever expected we would and accomplished a great deal more than we ever imagined possible. We never set any specific goals when the band was founded other than to make the music we wanted to hear and to play (and to stay true to that ideal), so everything else that has come along the long and winding path has been an absolute gift. As with any momentous life-changing decision (which this certainly is for the five of us), we feel a very dynamic range of emotions about this and cannot express all of it within the space of a few sentences, and perhaps it’s best to do what we’ve always done and let our music speak for us. It is and has been the truest expression of who we are as a collective and in some ways who we are as individuals for the 13 years in which we’ve been together. The last and perhaps most important thing we might say in relation to all this is how grateful we are for the people that have supported us over the years. It is a lengthy list that would include those who put out our records, those that played on them and put them to tape, the many bands with whom we shared the stage, all of our family, friends and companions who supported us in our individual lives and thus made it possible for us to continue on in the band, and most importantly those who truly listened to our music whether in recorded form or by coming to out to our shows (or both). It is quite true that we would never have done what we have without those people, that is many of you who are reading this. Our words can never fully express what we feel, but we hope that our music and the efforts made to bring it into being can serve as a more proper expression of gratitude for this life and for everyone in it. Thank you.

In more immediate and practical terms the tour we are about to embark upon is indeed our last. We are hoping that these final live rituals can help us bring a close to the life of this band in a celebratory and reverent way, and also provide us with a chance to say goodbye to many of those that have supported us over the years. While there is a measure of sadness that comes with the passing of this band, we hope that the final days can be joyous ones during which any and all that wish to come and join us will do so. It seems fitting that the last show of the tour and of our active existence will take place in Montreal, the site of the very first ISIS show in 1997 (though that was an unintentional move when booking the show initially). After the tour we also plan to follow through with other projects set in motion some time ago — pursuing the completion of a final EP, compiling live audio and visual material for future releases, and generally doing whatever we can to make our music available for as long as there are people who wish to hear it.

Thanks again to any and all,

ISIS, May 18 2010

To be fair, it has been a couple months since the last Melvins album, a remix affair called Chicken Switch came out. They are due. It should come as no surprise, then, that the PR wire has details on a new record, The Bride Screamed Murder, set for release on June 1 through Ipecac Recordings. Anyone else thinking redemption for the Melvins/Big Business lineup? Here’s hoping:

The Melvins release The Bride Screamed Murder on June 1 via Ipecac Recordings with a US tour launching the same day in San Diego and including a stop at the Bonnaroo Festival.

The Bride Screamed Murder is the third release featuring Buzz Osborne, Dale Crover and Big Business’ Coady Willis and Jared Warren. While Melvins recently celebrated their 25 anniversary, the latest incarnation debuted with the highly-praised (A) Senile Animal (2006) and continued with Nude with Boots (2008).

Joining the Melvins on tour for a half dozen shows will be label mates Isis (who will also perform at this year’s Bonnaroo Festival) while Totimoshi will be along for the full run of Melvins dates.

Tour dates:
June 1   San Diego, CA   Casbah
June 2   Tempe, AZ   The Clubhouse
June 3   Albuquerque, NM   The Launchpad
June 5   Austin, TX   Emo’s
June 7   Houston, TX   Warehouse Live
June 8   Baton Rouge, LA   Spanish Moon
June 9   New Orleans, LA   One Eyed Jacks
June 10   Birmingham, AL   Bottle Tree
June 12   Manchester, TN   Bonnaroo Festival **
June 14   Athens, GA   40 Watt Club *
June 16   Washington, DC 9:30 Club *
June 17   Philadelphia, PA   TLA *
June 18   New York, NY   Webster Hall *
June 19   Brooklyn, NY   Music Hall of Williamsburg *
June 20   Boston, MA   Paradise *
June 21   Boston, MA   Paradise *
June 23   Cleveland, OH   Grog Shop
June 24   Detroit, MI   Small’s
June 25   Chicago, IL   Double Door
June 26   Madison, WI   High Noon Saloon
June 27   Des Moines, IA House of Bricks
June 29   Denver, CO   Ogden Theatre
July 2   Calgary, AB   Sled Island Festival +
July 3   Calgary, AB   Sled Island Festival +
July 5   Vancouver, BC   Rickshaw Theatre
July 6   Seattle, WA   Showbox at The Market
July 7   Eugene, OR   John Henry’s
July 9   San Jose, CA Blank Club
All dates feature Melvins (two sets) w/Totimoshi except:
* = Melvins/Isis/Totimoshi
** = Melvins/Isis
+ = Melvins

In the interest of honesty and professional courtesy, I’m going to admit that I never listened to the last Isis record, Wavering Radiant. You’ll note it wasn’t reviewed here. That’s because I figured after 2006’s In the Absence of Truth, which I found to be phoned in and largely uninspired, the band didn’t have anything else to offer, and unless they underwent some radical change or progression, that was going to remain true for the duration.

That might sound harsh, but really, how many songs have Isis made in the last seven years with the exact same drum beat? I’m glad Aaron Turner learned how to sing, and I think he does it well, and I appreciate the influence Isis has had over the post-metal genre as second only to Neurosis, but anything they do at this point, they’re not going to be the first to do it. Neurosis is like The Simpsons to Isis‘ South Park: “Simpsons did it.” Doesn’t mean South Park sucks, but it’s never going to be first.

And though I relished Oceanic and still think Panopticon is one of the best albums to come out this decade, my mind isn’t really open to what Isis are doing now. It’s simply lost my attention, and furthermore, nothing I’ve heard about Wavering Radiant or any of the reviews I’ve read have done much to change my mind. When I got the press release about their new video for the song “20 Minutes/40 Years,” yeah, I clicked on it and played the video, but I skipped my way through. From what I can tell, it looks like Tool. For the sake of fairness, here it is so you can make up your own mind.

For anyone who, like me, pissed and moaned that the last Melvins record, Nude with Boots, was boring or samey or sounded like the unused b-sides to its predecessor, (A) Senile Animal, the PR wire reveals there’s a remix album in the works. Dubbed Chicken Switch, it’s bound to be completely unlistenable. Still, it’s Melvins news, so it’s news. Look for them to tour with Down and Weedeater in the fall and to be the coolest cats in the room at the All Tomorrow’s Parties fest in New York Sept. 12.

The Melvins will release Chicken Switch, a 15-song remix CD with a twist, on Sept. 29 via Ipecac Recordings. Unlike usual remix CDs where the remixer is given a single track to work with, for Chicken Switch each remixer was given a full album to work with and pull from to create their track (and in some cases, more than one full album was used as source material). The song names were also newly selected by their remixer.

Chicken Switch track listing and remixer:

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