Mike Patton >> California screaming

I can't believe it's still California Month, tremor #43:

Mike Patton - "Pajama Party Horror"

(Tzadik Records,1995)

In the '80s, Mike Patton was the singer for a then-terrible band called Mr. Bungle.  He was tapped to replace Chuck Mosley as Faith No More's new singer in 1989, leading them through their golden era.  He has always been a seriously ADHD-addled individual (personal observation / opinion), and this solo album, Adult Themes For Voice, is an unabashed manifestation of that.

As an obsessive and newly internet-savvy Faith No More fan, I bought this album right after it came out in spring of '96.  (I remember the lady at Borders in Richmond having trouble finding it and asking me "Michael Penn?"  "No, Mike Patton."  This was in late April.  I ended up buying it in New Orleans a week or two later because that Borders didn't have it in yet.)  I knew what I was getting myself into, having read about the album on the FNM / Mr. Bungle website called Caca Volante, but it was still quite surprising to see just how far he pushed the envelope.  As the liner notes say, "All themes composed by Patton for voice/microphone.  Recorded and mixed in fine hotel rooms around the world using a TASCAM 4-Track Portastudio."  32 specific hotel rooms are listed in the CD booklet, which is printed in cool silver ink, a Tzadik specialty.  The album was produced by Patton and was executive produced by his apparent idol (and Tzadik owner / and Mr. Bungle producer), John Zorn.  The four-part "Guinea Pig" suite is particularly unnerving.  I chose to post "Pajama Party Horror" because it's a good sampler of all the extremes on the album, packed into one minute, and has a great title.  Most of the songs have great titles, and I'm actually shocked that there haven't been noise bands named after almost every song on the album yet.

I don't want to go off on a rant here, but I hate it so much when the clocks "fall back" this time of year.  The sun went down at 8:30 just a few months ago, and now it goes down at around 5:45.  If anything, the "savings time" should be reversed.  This way, sunset would be around 7:30 (not 8:30) in the middle of summer, and 6:30 (not 5:30) in the dead of winter.  This would help keep people's biological clocks, and henceforth their sleep patterns, more consistent throughout the year, and would help fight Seasonal Affective Disorder.

I do want to go off on an extended rant about how Tumblr is destroying the world, but I'll save that for another time.  Instead I'll just post some of my favorite Garfield Minus Garfield strips, since I've amassed a folder full of dozens of them.  The guy who came up with this idea said he did it after realizing that Garfield was not a comic strip about a cat, but rather one about the sad life and existential turmoil of his owner, Jon.  They range from silly to heartbreaking to baffling, and the first one is very apropos to this Patton song / album, and the last one is very fitting for this site:

There have been earthquakes in unusual places recently.  Check out: Did fracking cause the Oklahoma earthquake?

Planets with similar climates - You tell me...


Currently listening to in my car: New Fast Automatic Daffodils - Body Exit Mind, Antipop Consortium - Arrhythmia, Memoryhouse - The Hours EP (2011 version), Cliff Martinez - sex, lies, and videotape (soundtrack), V/A - Ambient 4: Isolationism, Above The Law - Livin' Like Hustlers, a July 2006 mix CD.