We are about to take you into the world of the LSD user...
I've been on a bit of a nostalgia trip recently so I've been spinning this record an awful lot. When I was 12, life was all about Slipknot and Mushroomhead. Mushroomhead, despite having some dud album releases in the last decade or so, remain one of my favourite bands ever. I picked up XX on the strength of the band's image alone, fell in love with their music and spent the next year or so frantically hunting down the band's Cleveland-only released first three albums and two remix albums. I managed to hunt down their second album, Superbuick, on eBay, but the other two records were incredibly difficult to find, especially their third album, M3.
Then one day I saw one of those shitty ads in the back of K! magazine for companies that 'specialize' in 'rare' releases, who had Mushroomhead's first album in stock for £25. So after convincing my parents to 'lend' me £25, we rang them up. They had unfortunately already sold their one copy of Mushroomhead's self-titled, but perhaps rather unethically, offered to copy the CD for me before they posted it out to the original buyer. Despite this being really dodgy, coming from a legit CD wholesaler, I really wanted to hear that album, so the copy it was. I have since gotten a real copy (the repress on Filthy Hands) and even contemplated a real original, but have always dropped out at the last minute, unwilling to pay rediculous eBay prices. I went on to procure copies of all of Mushroomhead's self-released records (barring Remix 1997, which is basically a crappier Remix 2000), but all of them were Filthy Hands represses, apart from Superbuick.
In the face of adversaries who like to put Mushroomhead down, the usual weapon I've had to defend myself against is the statement that "Mushroomhead are just a bad Mike Patton impressionist band, man, they've never done anything original!". And yes, whilst Jeffery Nothing does bear resemblance to Mike Patton's Faith No More vocal performances, it wasn't until I got into Mr. Bungle a few years back that I realized how many similarities Mushroomhead owe to them. If you take the jazz and funk elements out of Mr. Bungle and replace them with truckloads of Twin Peaks samples, you've got the first Mushroomhead album.
This album is, in all honesty, all over the place. It is a total shambles from start to finish. The songs don't really flow, and they are often meshed awkwardly together with bad movie samples or crappy piano interludes. Despite introducing the world to the dynamic duo of Nothing 'n' J Mann, this is primarily a Nothing-led record. J Mann only solos one track to himself (the excellent "Ego Tripp"), backs up Jeff on the rest and is absent from 8 of the album's 14 tracks. But saying that, 6 of the albums tracks are devoid of either vocalist's contributions. To confuse matters further, there's a guest vocalist on the creepy-as-shit "Mommy".
Mushroomhead's self-titled was a strange debut into the band's psychedelic, multi-directional approach. The band's style, whilst unique, relies extremely heavily on external media and influences. I don't believe it was until the release of Superbuick and M3 that Mushroomhead really began to carve their own special take on things. My favourite tracks on this CD are "Slow Thing", "Elevation", "Ego Tripp", "Indifferent" and "Simpleton". I'd add "43" to that list, but the re-recorded version for XX is phenomenally better than this one, even if this one has a sample of Windom Earle laughing over the start of it, which is a nice touch.
If you liked Mr. Bungle but the ten-minute songs and the endless time changes got on your nerves: listen to this. If you liked XX and hated the direction the band went in afterwards, and aren't afraid of a slight drop in recording quality: listen to this. If you love Twin Peaks, Mike Patton and nu-metal, and have never heard Mushroomhead before: please, please, please listen to this.
You can now get your lugholes around any of the original Mushroomhead self-released CDs on Spotify, but here's a Youtube link anyway. Enjoy!
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