Mr. Bungle
Mr. Bungle
Warner
Bros., 1991
Reviewed by
Greg Perez
I always wondered why Mike Patton transformed from that long-haired rock'em
sock'em freak from Faith No More's The Real Thing into a modern day avant
artiste, the one writing chamber music and recording his throat constrictions on John
Zorn's experimental Tzadik label.
My guess is that he was bored as hell. Mr. Bungle was the first step to making music more
interesting for himself and for the rest of us who could use a good smack in the ass with
some well-crafted nonsense.
Legend has it that Patton slummed around with this circus-metal outfit since he was a
teenager in Eureka, California. It wasn't until he became a Rock Star with Faith No More
that Mr. Bungle got any notice. Wearing a Bungle t-shirt in his band's breakthrough video
doesn't hurt, either.
Their first big deal release is 73 minutes of big top mayhem, a black market Merry
Melodies cartoon set to thrash, ska and metal with just a touch of masturbation and potty
humor to complete the sideshow. It's the antithesis of good taste and sense. But they
shove it into your ears with enough skillful abandon to convince you this is the way all
rock should be: fun, clever and dirty.
Think of Mr. Bungle as the ADD-stricken love child Zappa and Zorn never had. Every track
is a rampaging romp, busting at the gut with creativity and mile-a-minute style shifts. In
"Slowly Growing Deaf" alone, there are pinches of jangly funk, breathy torch
singing, death metal, doo-wop and a little kick of country western, all before minute two.
The band swaggers through all the pie throwing with a shit-eating grin, deploying
hilarious samples, sound effects and lines like "Colonel Sanders wants to goose
Granny's loose caboose / He's gonna give'er a boost with that Kentucky fried juice."
From his gutteral growls on "Love Is A Fist" up to the breathless falsettos in
"Dead Goon," Patton switches up effortlessly. While The Real Thing only
hinted at his schizo dynamics as a singer before this, Mr. Bungle has him mugging
for the microphone, stretching his vocals to superelastic proportions. Check out his hyper
food-fuck rap on "Squeeze Me Macaroni," or his multiple personality explosion at
the end of "Egg." And you have to laugh when you hear Patton vomit out the word
"redundant" over and over for a minute and a half at the end of "My Ass Is
On Fire."
Yes, it's juvenile. Yes, it's sick, too. But what music in the '90s needed was a better
sense of humor and a bit of Bungle to keep us a little more insane.
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"Think of Mr.
Bungle as the ADD-stricken love child Zappa and Zorn never had."
Greg Perez
- NATN Design God
Interview
Trevor Dunn
Related Links
Mr. Bungle Homepage
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