Mudhoney at the Echoplex

Mudhoney is the older brother I never had to buy me alcohol in high school.  Mudhoney is a jean jacket with a Motorhead patch on the back.  Mudhoney is cheap beer in cans.  Mudhoney is spilled bongwater.  If listening to Jack Johnson is like standing under a Hawaiian waterfall, Mudhoney is like flushing your head in a toilet. If Pearl Jam is Curly, Mudhoney is Shemp.  If Soundgarden is Gallant, Mudhoney is Goofus.

I drove to the Echoplex in LA on Sunday night, an hour and a half to see Mudhoney.  I couldn't find the entrance on Sunset (found it for the upstairs lounge, Echo) so I had to ask some people on the street and they pointed me to an overpass bridge and told me to take the stairs.  Kind of appropriate to step through puddles of piss and homeless refuse to get to the venue, which I found tucked in an alley on the other side of the street.  After getting my wristband (without even being asked for ID, Touch Me I'm 37) I headed to what passed for a box office to collect my will call ticket.  I was impressed by how disaffected and bored the girl at the desk was as she crossed out my name and told me to go in.  I asked if I could also grab a few tix for the upcoming J Mascis show, a request that seemed more annoying than if I had asked her to clean her room. Tickets online only, was the terse response, delivered without eye contact. Ah, one day my own kids will regard me with such scowls, I'm sure.

When I got inside the singer for The Adolescents who looked like a fat Mitch Hedberg was pacing back and forth, complaining that even though he was a punk, that he just couldn't celebrate murder even of a terrorist mastermind. The lukewarm response from the crowd indicated that perhaps current events was not this crowd's strong suit.  Or maybe he just lacked the gravitas of a Bono or Vedder.  Anyway, they finished up with a cover of Who is Who, which got the mosh pit stirred up for about 90 seconds and then left the stage. 

Twenty minutes and a PBR later, I staked out my position up front for Mudhoney. Mark Arm, in t-shirt and jeans looked skinnier than I had ever been twenty years ago, and had the sparkle-jet Gretsch that Chris Cornell used in the Black Hole Sun video.  Steve Turner had a Pearl Snap shirt that looked like it was ripped off a scarecrow. He had a sweet ES-335 and loped into the opening riff from You Got It. This was my first time seeing new bassist Guy Maddison, who looks like a puffier, stouter version of Jim from The Office. By the time Dan Peters ended the snare roll that kicked the tune into gear, my feet were off the ground and didn't return for the next forty minutes.  Sludgy classics like Suck you Dry, Into the Drink and This Gift poured out like Jagermeister from the freezer and the crowd jostled and jumped in a thronging pit that was more like a group hug than a threatening melee.  They let us catch our breath for a moment with the hypnotic sway of "When Tomorrow Hits" before launching off into the barely restrained cacophony of In'N Out of Grace. How great to scream along with the crowd through the classics.  My absolute favorite was Good Enough, a song that for me captures everyrthing that is fun about Mudhoney and about being a fan.

Arm put down the guitar and took the mike off the stand for a trio of tracks from 2008's stripped down The Lucky Ones and did his best Iggy Pop, leaning his head and torso way over the monitor into the crowd and cantilvering his back foot until you could see the bottom of his shoe, balancing on one leg like some kind of pose from Yoga for Stagedivers.  The band left the stage with the announcement "Paging Dr. Keith to the operating theatre" and returned five minutes later with Sonic Infusion, a gurgling, swirling psychedelic opus that made heavy use of Turner's wah pedal.  Hate the Police closed the show, the screaming refrain of "Mommy, I had a bad day" reverberating in my ears as we filed out in to the balmy, Santa Ana swept evening. I was amazed that these guys were still together, still tight and still as energetic in 2011 as they were in 1991. Hope they still rock as hard in 2031!