Performer Notes

Melvins: King Buzzo (vocals, guitar); Dale (vocals, drums); Lorax (bass).
Additional personnel: Kurt Cobain (guitar, percussion); Bill Bartell (guitar, bass); Billy Anderson (bass); Al Smith, Mike Supple (percussion).
Recorded at Brilliant Studios and Razor's Edge, San Francisco, California; Laundry Room, Seattle, Washington.
To essay a concise, surefooted summation of the Melvins' catalog would be reductive at best, and laughable at worst. This is, of course, underground rock's trio of pranksters -- unpredictable and capable of complete musical about-faces in the turn of a measure. That said, Houdini is about as close as one gets to a representative Melvins album, and it vividly captures the band's unreconstructed power, vision, and musical strangeness. During the early-'90s purge of hair rock and candy-footed funk metal, the Melvins, as with many other acts, seemed fair game for a major label in search of another post-Nirvana gold mine. With Kurt Cobain's assistance, the band was snatched up -- and summarily dropped (after three brilliant albums, this being the first) -- by Atlantic. Though Houdini's immediate predecessors, Eggnog and Bullhead, pried open a few screwball chasms in the Melvins' syrupy distillation of Sabbath riffage and Flipper's noisy anti-punk, it was this album that displayed the full fruition of the outfit's sonic breadth, from the cough-syrup river drag of "Night Goat" to the revved-up "Honey Bucket," and from the creepy "Joan of Arc" to the glue-damaged "Sky Pup." Ringleader King Buzzo's riffs are stretched -- taffy-like -- to meltdown, and at other times they are razor sharp. Either way, they abound with a lumbering, lurching power. With their voluminous output and determination to continuously expand their sound regardless of musical trends, the Melvins oeuvre has begun to rival -- at least on paper -- the career arcs of Frank Zappa and Neil Young. ~ Patrick Kennedy

Professional Reviews

Spin (11/93, p.133) - Highly Recommended - "...A few sections on [HOUDINI] are recorded so hot that the guitar distortion literally breaks up into white noise in your speakers: the hits are classic Melvins tuneage, which means they'll make you wonder if the batteries are going dead in your radio..."

Musician (11/93, p.13) - "...[HOUDINI] is a slow-motion barrage of buzzsaw noize apocalypso, with tracks like "Pearl Bomb" achieving a formal brilliance that slams together the Ramones, Stooges, Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham...."

Album: Houdini
#	Song Title		Time
1)	Hooch	More Info...	0:03
2)	Night Goat	More Info...	0:04
3)	Lizzy	More Info...	0:04
4)	Going Blind	More Info...	0:04
5)	Honey Bucket	More Info...	0:03
6)	Hag Me	More Info...	0:07
7)	Set Me Straight	More Info...	0:02
8)	Sky Pup	More Info...	0:04
9)	Joan of Arc	More Info...	0:03
10)	Teet	More Info...	0:03
11)	Copache	More Info...	0:02
12)	Pearl Bomb	More Info...	0:02
13)	Spread Eagle Beagle	More Info...	0:10

Album: Houdini
#	Song Title		Time
1)	Hooch	More Info...	0:03
2)	Night Goat	More Info...	0:04
3)	Lizzy	More Info...	0:04
4)	Going Blind	More Info...	0:04
5)	Honey Bucket	More Info...	0:03
6)	Hag Me	More Info...	0:07
7)	Set Me Straight	More Info...	0:02
8)	Sky Pup	More Info...	0:04
9)	Joan of Arc	More Info...	0:03
10)	Teet	More Info...	0:03
11)	Copache	More Info...	0:02
12)	Pearl Bomb	More Info...	0:02
13)	Spread Eagle Beagle	More Info...	0:10