Dollar Bin Dandies are great for stocking up on in case you need a last minute gift or the loan shark you owe money to happens to love obscure pre-1999 independent rock music so I advise you make a little room in one of your Bags Unlimited corrugated 45 boxes and stash a grip of cheapo but primo wax in there in case of emergency. Yesterday we were hangin’ around in a small town in Mississippi in 1989, so today we’re headed back one year earlier to 1988 and 12 hours North to Kansas City, Missouri to check out the debut single by Mudhead, a five piece rock ‘n’ roll unit featuring a young pre-Coctails/The Sea & Cake Archer Prewitt, as well as future Coctails bassist/vocalist Barry Phipps. Over about a 4 year span Mudhead released a 4 song demo, this self-released single here and two contributions to compilations: one track on a 3×7″ boxset called “A Limited Gourmet Boxset Of The Unclean & Imperfect” released by KC record shop Dirt Cheap in 1990, and one track on the 1988 “Live From Lawrence” comp LP on the Lawrence, KS label Fresh Sound. Now I haven’t heard the cassette and the track on the 7″ set “666 Children” is solid, but the “Jumbo Sounds..” 7″ is where it’s at and I’ve been finding copies of this for anywhere from $.50 to $2 for decades now. Imagine Mudhoney covering one of those slower Rudimentary Peni songs like, I dunno, “The Gardener” or “Mice Race”. Kinda like that. I think I saw someone somewhere describe Mudhead as “woozy psych” and I’d say that’s about right. I’ve also heard their lead singer Mott-ly AKA “The Human Skeleton” had some odd degenerative disease and that over the course of the bands existence he performed on stage both in a wheelchair as well as on crutches supported by a prosthetic limb holding up a recently amputated leg. I don’t know what the story with that is but word is the disease eventually took his life so RIP Mott-ly. Your vocal growl stands out among the best of the late 80’s/early 90’s post-punk diaphragm stretchers that would lead us all to whatever “grunge” meant. Come to think of it, there’s a little bit of L7 in these guys and gals’ dirge and seeing as L7 recorded “Smell The Magic” one year after “Jumbo Sound..” dropped, I’d say if you’re far enough away from “MTV’s 120 Minutes” shoving Live and Alice In Chains videos down your throat to appreciate the early years of Soundgarden, L7, Green River and maybe even a little early Jesus Lizard, the Mudhead single is a solid investment in noisy rock.
