The bated breath is no longer necessary! Sub Pop announced today that they've set an April 1st release date for Three Men and a Baby the collaborative album by Mike and the Melvins. This album has been discussed in hushed tones for essentially as long as this website has existed, becoming something of a white whale to Melvins fans over the years. Noisey premiered the first track off the album "Chicken 'n' Dump", and had this to say about it: “Delivers on the promise of the Kunka/Melvins pairing, fixing Mike’s hellacious, chugging low end to Buzz Osborne and the boys’ thick racket, banging out a riff as joyous as it is punishing.”
'"Chicken n Dump' is quite possibly the best name I've ever heard for a song," Osborne says of the new cut. "With a title like that the song HAS to be good." Kunka explains a little more: "I stole the title from a friend (sorry Quitty), my nine-year-old daughter wrote the lyrics, it took 16 years to finish, and it sounds like this."
Three Men and a Baby is now available for preorder through the Sub Pop Mega Mart. LP preorders through the Mega Mart will receive the Loser edition, housed in a custom dust sleeve and on white vinyl (while supplies last). There’s also a rad new T-shirt.
Mike Kunka has been involved in a number of great bands that you should take the time to check out while you await the release of this album. Most notably he was part of the two-piece godheadSilo. In addition to that he was also in Enemymine, Smoke & Smoke which was in fact godheadSilo along with Spencer from the Murder City Devils doing vocals, and last but definitely not least Dead Low Tide which featured both Spencer on vocals and Coady Willis on drums. If you've been following the Melvins for a while now you might even remember that a few of these bands also toured with the Melvins over the years.
Most of Three Men and a Baby was recorded in 1999 at Louder Studios by Tim Green (The Fucking Champs), and it was finished in 2015 at Sound of Sirens by Toshi Kasai.
Tracklisting:
- Chicken 'n' Dump
- Limited Teeth
- Bummer Conversation
- Annalisa
- A Dead Pile of Worthless Junk
- Read the Label (It's Chili)
- Dead Canaries
- Pound the Giants
- A Friend in Need is a Friend You Don't Need
- Lifestyle Hammer
- Gravel
- Art School Fight Song
About Mike and The Melvins:
Three Men and a Baby is the new album by Mike and the Melvins. It was supposed to come out sixteen years ago.
These are the facts we can be sure of: in 1998, around the time his band godheadSilo went on hiatus, bassist/vocalist Mike Kunka busied himself by tagging along on a tour with his friends the Melvins. Somewhere along the way, Mike and the Melvins – King Buzzo (guitar/bass/vocals), Dale Crover (drums/vocals), and Kevin Rutmanis (bass/vocals), at the time – decided to make a record together, and gave the project the imaginative moniker Mike and the Melvins. Sub Pop, ever on the hunt for music’s Next Big Thing, enthusiastically agreed to fund and release the super-group’s debut, and recording commenced sometime in 1999.
It’s at this point that things get hazy. Apparently, one or more of the following happened:
- Some “junior-high level bullshit.”
- A house was built, a barn was raised, children were born.
- Typical record-label skullduggery.
- A scorching case of whooping cough.
- Surgery. Lots of surgery.
- Shocking and poorly-timed gear theft.
- Some other stuff, probably, or maybe not.
Whatever the reasons, the incomplete recording languished on a shelf from 1999 until 2015, when, much to everyone’s surprise, the involved parties reconvened, finished the damn thing, and delivered it post-haste to Sub Pop International Headquarters, where it was promptly scheduled for the coveted April 1st, 2016 release date. What a story, right?
So, about the record: It’s real good! Mike’s signature bass crunch and vocals are all over it, and the Melvins are in fine form. It has everything from hefty noise-rock churn to a Public Image Ltd. song to cough-syrup blues to deconstructed black metal. Neither Melvins nor godheadSilo fans will be disappointed, nor will detractors of either; to paraphrase Mike, if you don’t like it, it probably wasn’t meant for you.
