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Today marks the official release date of Working With God, this is the second release from the Melvins 1983 iteration of the band which features Buzz, Dale and original drummer Mike Dillard. The pre-orders of the vinyl and CD have already begun shipping so be on the look out if you ordered in advance through Ipecac, for those that didn't mask up and head on down to your local record store to pick up a copy! In the meantime, the band has put the album up for streaming on their Bandcamp site. Also be sure to check out the latest Melvins TV: Volume 2 – Divine Monkeyshines Valentine’s Day Special on Veeps if you haven't yet, it won't be available for much longer and received excellent reviews! The band also has the Valentine's Day merch up for sale at their Blixt merch shop.

Buzz appeared on Dean Del Ray's podcast Let There Be Talk on Feb. 22nd. Check it out, great conversation where they covered the new album and a ton of other stuff!

Bifocal Media has a new Melvins 1983 HAZE XXL design t-shirt based on one of his original 1983 EP art variants up for sale, check it out.

Dale appeared on Conan Neutron's Protonic Reversal Podcast a couple weeks ago, great conversation as always.

Buzz chatted with AXS TV the other day about the new album, and of course the forever hot topic of Kurt Cobain came up.

Decibel Magazine has an article with Buzz reminiscing about the year 1983.

Pollstar talked to Buzz about the future of live music after COVID.


Mike Dillard, Dale Crover, Buzz Osborne (MELVINS 1983)

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Melvins TV Volume 2: Divine Monkeyshines Valentine's Day Special is coming on February 14th! 5 songs plus band interviews and other crazy stuff just like last time on New Year's Eve! The Dale Crover Band will open. Two brand new shirts and a poster designed by HAZE XXL are also available with the purchase of this event.  Only $5 at melvins.veeps.com 

If you're on the fence, you probably didn't check out Volume 1. Ghost Cult has a great review of the stream, take it from them!

For a limited time you can also pick up the merch that was designed for the New Years Evil stream over at blixtmerchandise.store/the-melvins

Working With God, the new album from Melvins is due to come out in a little over a month, February 26th. Ipecac recently debuted two new songs from the album The Great Good Place and Caddy Daddy, check 'em out!

Loudwire has a great new video of Buzz playing some of his favorite riffs and expounding on the various guitar tunings he utilizes.


Poster art by HAZE XXL

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RAT-A-TAT-TAT! Dale's new solo album is out now on CD & Vinyl at Joyful Noise Recordings. He's also got a new merch store at BLIXT where you can pick up a copy of the album as well as a new t-shirt design! "Crover assembled an actual band to help him out. Redd Kross bassist Steve McDonald asked Crover to open for Redd Kross, Crover asked McDonald to play bass for him, and the rest is history. It’d be difficult for even the multi-talented Crover to put on a live show by himself without one of those one-man-band contraptions. In addition to McDonald, Kasai (ex-Big Business, Plan D) helps with keyboards, synths, jawharp, and backing vocals. Mindee Jorgensen (Dangerously Sleazy) sits behind the kit live and contributes additional drumming and some sweet saxophone skills here. His former Altamont bandmate Dan Southwick plays bass on “Tougher,” a track Crover cowrote with Kasai."

Punk News has named Rat-A-Tat-Tat! a staff pick and it has been charting on Billboard!

 

Dale was interviewed by Little Punk People, he talks about Rat-A-Tat-Tat!, his favorite music to listen to in 2020, and the music he grew up on on.

Dale spoke with Dean Delray for his podcast Let There Be Talk about his new album, the next Melvins album, being Neil Young and a lot of other things.

Northern Transmissions has a new interview with Dale where he talks about his new solo album, the Melvins 1983 album due out next month as well as the near term future of touring.

Dale had a conversation with mxdwn about the new album and other goings on in Melvins World.


Dale Crover photo by Buzz Osborne

Dale gave Apple Music some insight to each track on Rat-A-Tat-Tat!

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The Melvins will be ushering in 2021 with “Melvins TV: Volume 1, New Year’s Evil,” a 5-song livestreaming event also featuring interviews and extras, on Dec. 31 at 12 noon pacific/3 pm eastern/8 pm gmt/7 am aedt.
$5 tickets are available now at melvins.veeps.com. A limited-edition, commemorative poster and t-shirt, both featuring artwork by Junko Mizuno and Mackie Osborne, are available exclusively to attendees. The stream will be available to view or purchase for a full week following the Dec. 31 debut. Over an hour of entertainment, featuring a killer Melvins setlist, fun extras, interviews with the band and an opening set by our friend Void Manes. Only $5!
“’Melvins TV, New Year’s Evil’ is as close to a live show as we can get during this hideous pandemic,” said Buzz Osborne. “We’ll be doing more of these so tune in and enjoy! Happy New Year!”
The first in a series of streams, the outing features the core Melvins line-up of Osborne, Dale Crover and Steven McDonald.

 The band has also recently premiered "Brian, The Horse-Faced Goon", another song from their upcoming album Working With God.

 
Poster Art by Junko Mizuno

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Today Melvins announced the release date of their forthcoming Melvins 1983 album Working With God. The album is set for release on February 26th, 2021 via Ipecac Recordings. Along with the presale for Working With God, they also announced the presale of vinyl reissues of both Gluey Porch Treatments and Hostile Ambient Takeover. GPT gets updated artwork, and this is actually the first time HAT will ever be on vinyl. The best place to submit your pre-order is via the Ipecac Blixt merch store or their European store if you're on the other side of the Atlantic. As a teaser, the band released I Fuck Around / Bouncing Rick to stream, these tracks were also included on the Mullet EP released in September on Amphetamine Reptile Records.

“I F**k Around” is — you guessed it — a juvenile re-imagining of The Beach Boys’ classic “I Get Around”, and “Bouncing Rick” is about Osborne and Dillard’s junior-high biology teacher. Musically, it’s the kind of noise-sludge-punk amalgamation you’d expect from the early Melvins lineup that formed in Aberdeen and Monstesano in Washington state decades ago. It’s reflective of our 8th grade sense of humor, which we’ve never grown out of,” Osborne said of “I F**k Around”. “We hope Brian Wilson doesn’t get mad.” - Buzz

 Working with God Tracklist:
01. I F**k Around
02. Negative No No
03. Bouncing Rick
04. Caddy Daddy
05. 1 Brian, The Horse-Faced Goon
06. Brian The Horse-Faced Goon
07. Boy Mike
08. 1 F**k You
09. F**k You
10. The Great Good Place
11. Hot Fish
12. Hund
13. Good Night Sweetheart

The band also has a ton of new merch on their Blixt merch store, including a holiday sweater, beanie, and xmas tree ornament.

 

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Dale Crover's new album, Rat-A-Tat-Tat!, arrives Jan. 15 via Joyful Noise Recordings! Pre-orders, including limited edition vinyl variants, are available now via Joyful Noise. The VIP version from Joyful Noise even includes a bonus flexi with a song not included on the album. Dale has also premiered the video for I Can't Help You There from the album via Flood Magazine. Dale had this to say about the video: “I enlisted Toshi Kasai and Alicia DiGiovanni to help direct, film and edit. I gave them the basic ideas I had and they ran with them,” Crover shares before citing a handful of other visual reference points. “Inspiration came from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, The Cramps’ 1978 performance at Napa State Mental Hospital, and the creepy face mask of LA Dodger Kiké Hernández.”

 

Rat-A-Tat-Tat! Is that the sound of the reaper knocking on your door to collect your soul -- or Dale Crover hammering out another distinctive drum fill?

There are pretty good odds it’s the latter; between 36 years (and about as many full-lengths and EPs) as drummer/bassist for the Melvins and his contributions to acts as varied as Altamont, Peeping Tom, Redd Kross, Shrinebuilder, and a little band called Nirvana, he’s built quite the body of work. In 2017, he added a proper solo album to his extensive catalog, The Fickle Finger of Fate. Now he’s followed that with Rat-A-Tat-Tat!

Crover takes the solo thing seriously: he wrote the album while on the road and provided vocals, drums, guitars, vibraphone, and miscellaneous percussion. Just like the last album, recording took place over at Toshi Kasai’s Sound of Sirens Studio in beautiful Sun Valley, CA. Kasai recorded and mixed it again, as well as co-producing it with Crover under the sobriquet Deaf Nephews. Celebrated graphic designer (and regular Melvins cover artist) Mackie Osborne created the striking album art, just as she did for The Fickle Finger of Fate.

So what’s different this time around? Crover assembled an actual band to help him out. Redd Kross bassist Steve McDonald asked Crover to open for Redd Kross, Crover asked McDonald to play bass for him, and the rest is history. It’d be difficult for even the multi-talented Crover to put on a live show by himself without one of those one-man-band contraptions. In addition to McDonald, Kasai (ex-Big Business, Plan D) helps with keyboards, synths, jawharp, and backing vocals. Mindee Jorgensen (Dangerously Sleazy) sits behind the kit live and contributes additional drumming and some sweet saxophone skills here. His former Altamont bandmate Dan Southwick plays bass on “Tougher,” a track Crover cowrote with Kasai.

Some pieces of the songs may sound familiar to the 127 completists who grabbed the limited-run lathe cut record Piso Mojado, a collection of experimental drum weirdness. Although insanity certainly abounds on Rat-a-Tat-Tat!, there are also some surprisingly poppy moments. Crover claims “Shark Like Overbite” may be the poppiest song he’s ever written. It’s also the puppiest: it was inspired by the three dogs he’s had over the years. A few tunes (“I Can’t Help You There,” “Kiss Proof World”) harken back to his Pacific Northwest lineage. That said, “Tougher,” “Supine is How I Found Him,” and “New Pharaoh” careen right off the dial. It’s an eclectic mix, one that draws on song fragments he’s had for years. It still feels cohesive and uniquely Dale Crover.

But then, who would expect anything other than the unexpected? The opportunity knocks to hear more Dale Crover jams; be sure to answer.

-Jeff Treppel

Rat-A-Tat-Tat! track listing:

  • Moclips
  • I Can't Help You There
  • Tougher
  • Stumbler
  • Shark Like Overbite
  • Supine Is How I Found Him
  • I'll Never Say
  • New Pharaoh
  • Untrue Crime
  • The Bowie Mix
  • Piso Mojado
  • Kiss Proof World

 

Dale and Matt Cameron of Soundgarden/Pearl Jam were recently featured in  Modern Drummer magazine if you're a subscriber check it out!

Dale was a guest on the New York venue Saint Vitus' podcast Age of Quarantine which was hosted by Christopher Enriquez of Spotlights.

Dale was also a guest on episode 155 of Conan Neutron's podcast Protonic Reversal.

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