Sabbath Phase II: Melvins’ Gluey Porch Treatments

11 works, in the order the book names them

• 001/Compilation

  Mangled Demos from 1983

  Melvins

  When the Mangled Demos from 1983 collection surfaced in 2005, reviewers tended to categorize the roughly recorded cuts as derivatively indebted to TSOL, MDC and DRI. Capturing the band in its most primitive form, even this early document contains pungent hints that Melvins were always going to do things differently, and not only in terms of avoiding an acronymic band name in favour of christening their group after an unpopular supervisor at the grocery store where Osborne worked.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 002/Album/1993

  Houdini

  Melvins

  One of the first songs Osborne ever wrote, it would be pulled out of the bag in a decade’s time to be recorded properly for Melvins’ major-label debut Houdini (1993).

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 003/Album

  Dynasty

  Kiss

  So too were Kiss (or at least Kiss’s initial run of albums, until around 1979’s dodgy Dynasty).

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 004/Album/1992

  Lysol

  Melvins

  The sleeve to Lysol (1992) provided no track titles even though it contained three covers (one Flipper song plus two classic Alice Cooper numbers).

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 005/Album/1987

  Gluey Porch Treatments

  Melvins

  But all these tricks had their roots in Gluey Porch Treatments.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 006/Live album

  Colossus of Destiny

  Melvins

  Indeed, it is that album’s ‘Eye Flys’ that Melvins stumble into playing at the climax of the ‘live album’ Colossus of Destiny from 2001.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 007/Album/1970

  Black Sabbath

  Black Sabbath

  Just like ‘Black Sabbath’ from Black Sabbath some seventeen years beforehand, ‘Eye Flys’ was an audacious track with which to open a debut album.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 008/Album/1991

  Bullhead

  Melvins

  It’s from Bullhead [1991], which is a very innovative and phenomenal record.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 009/Album

  Freak Puke

  Melvins Lite

  Their 2012 LP Freak Puke included further testament to Paul McCartney’s role as godfather of heaviness by including a Wings cover.

  Open in YouTube ↗

• 010/Book

  The Rough Guide to Rock

  Edited by Jonathan Buckley

  It’s a distinctive sound that the 2003 edition of The Rough Guide to Rock fittingly described as ‘decidedly unsafe . . . what Sabbath would sound like with Captain Beefheart aschief songwriter’.

  Open in Goodreads ↗

• 011/Album

  Prick

  Melvins

  An album provisionally titled Kurt Kobain was changed to Prick, Kurt being ‘a prick’ for dying and ruining Melvins’ plans.

  Open in YouTube ↗