Mudhoney - Plastic Eternity

 

Once more into the moshpit dear friends once more. I never latched onto Mudhoney, even though I was aware of them fairly early on. You couldn't help but be so when they arrived on U.K. shores in the early Nineties as John The Baptist to the imminent  Christ of  Nirvana. I should probably have bought the 12 inch to Touch Me I'm Sick I suppose, or Superfuzz Bigmuff, when John Peel started playing them on his show, to be able to say 'I was there', after the event.

Why didn't I. Well really because I was never that much into the music. The same goes more than thirty years later. I'm glad Mudhoney were there and I'm glad they're still here. Their's is really a story of survival against the odds, given what's happened to so many of the bands and people that they rose with and inspired.

But listening to Plastic Eternity I have to say what I would say about so many of those bands that were lumped together as Grunge. While the attitude was great and the kick in the ass that it gave music, and especially American music, (though not just), entirely required, a lot of the music really didn't float my boat, or at least it didn't chime much with everything that I loved.

Perhaps I'm being a peasant or an ingrate. Or both. But a lot of the records that these bands had in their collections and seemed to revere, brought me out in hives. Sure, the primary influence on Mudhoney was and still is The Stooges, and particularly Funhouse. But much as I love that record and you have to of course, I only play it once in a while, when I really need to clear the cobwebs out.

It's difficult to fully appreciate the records that legendary bands like this make thirty years into their careers if you weren't entirely sold on the stuff they built their reputations on in the first place. Such is the case here with me. I thought some of it was OK and some of it rather meh. You'd probably need to go to a proper fan or someone who appreciates their legacy more than I do to get a fuller perspective. Here's Everett True, (a man who was very much there at the time), take on the record for those who'd like that.