REVIEWS FROM MY VINYL COLLECTION

Day: August 3, 2021

MR BUNGLE – s/t

To say that this album came out of left field would be a complete understatement. This is Faith No More’s front man Mike Patton’s side project from a variety of his perversions maybe? Who knows, but it’s very intriguing and musically stunning at times. Combining a variety of styles – and believe me, anything goes here – and interspersed with lots of weirdness (including someone doing number two’s on the porcelain palace).

You could say they took lots of references from Zappa and other avant-garde experimentalists, but you would be hard pushed to find another band like this. The putting together of lounge lizard crooning, along side metal mixed with funk, and country on Slowly Growing Deaf is total genius. The perversions are out in force on Squeeze Me Macaroni, as apparently Betty Crocker needs to be knocked up via her butter gutter. Hilarious and disturbing all at the same time.

The guitar playing of Trey Spruance is a revelation – at this point I had not heard him before. Other awesome tracks are Stub A Dub, and Love Is A Fist (I guess you can work out what that’s about), and my favourite is the absolute insanity of Carousel. Heavy metal funk avant-garde jazz at its best.

This album is not for the faint hearted, but it’s a whole lot of fun and enjoyment.

10/10 from The Grooveman.

UFO – Live In Youngstown 1978

For those of you familiar with UFO’s live album Strangers In The Night, you will be familiar with some of this recording. Strangers was captured over five nights and cobbled together to make the classic album we all know and love. This album is one of those nights in its entirety and in the correct running order. One thing you notice is that this album is a lot more raw and in your face, begging the question how many overdubs were layered onto Strangers? That doesn’t bother me that much if I’m honest, as I like this album a lot. Mr. Schenker is on fire, and it’s cool to hear this version of the band again after all these years playing their asses off. Plus, you get to hear tracks not on the original release namely, Pack It Up (And Go), Cherry, and On With The Action.

UFO were one of the best live acts around and this album is a great testament to a once great band. There are not many tracks that I don’t like by this band and all this album is killer. My favourites are Let It Roll, Natural Thing, Lights Out and the usual sing-a-longs Doctor Doctor, and Shoot Shoot. If you want a lesson in how to do hard rock, then buy yourself this (or Strangers) – you won’t regret it. It’s worth it just to hear how good Michael Schenker was around this time.

9.5/10 from The Grooveman.