“Skinner” is the mononym of a self-taught and quite gifted Oakland muralist/illustrator who works in lysergically vivid and intricately detailed style that at once evokes underground comix father figure S. Clay Wilson, punk skull purveyor Brian Pushead, and the violent imaginings of Mike Diana, rendered in the eyebleedy colors of the psychedelic poster era. Metal fans will know his work from his INSANE covers for Mastodon’s Once More ‘Round the Sun and Alexisonfire’s Dog’s Blood, apparel designs for High on Fire, Mastodon, and Skeletonwitch, and an awesome poster for the Melvins documentary Colossus of Destiny. His work was collected in the book Every Man is My Enemy.

Skinner has recently begun an art video series for the entertainment company Super Deluxe titled, fittingly, “Drawing with Skinner.” The first episode, released last month, featured Skinner drawing and chatting with the trippy and eccentric hip-hop producer The Gaslamp Killer. The new episode, released yesterday, features as Skinner’s guest Melvins singer/guitarist Roger “King Buzzo” Osborne. The episode begins with Buzzo protesting that he’s never painted, but paint he does—an abstraction emblazoned with the slogan “KILL FOR DRUGS.” While the two are painting, they talk about creative processes, dish dirt on who sucks to work with, and generally just have a fine time yakking, and the eavesdropping is worthy. Skinner, however, was nervous about working with a hero, confessing on his Facebook page:

The thing about the show that I have learned, is that every one is totally aligned with the vibes of the guest. You will see that it’s sort of the beauty of the thing. I also am totally learning as I go. I’m letting the show organically unfold and rolling with it. I also was kinda nervous because I’ve been a super fan of Buzz and the Melvins forever. I also know that his particular brand of contrary type punk antagonism that I love so much could possibly be something I’d come to face one day!

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
King Buzzo goes mansion shopping
The Melvins’ King Buzzo talks about his rescue dogs

 
Bill Maher is sometimes a trenchant, cranky, and astutely funny gadfly telling brave truths to power, and that guy can be a joy to watch. However, sometimes he’s merely a smug and cringeworthy backpfeifengesicht poster child nursing a nauseating schoolgirl crush on his own opinions. Maher’s unabashedly opinionated nature is an asset, but his arrogant posturing often blemished (I won’t say “marred” because that’d be cheap) his otherwise great feature length documentary-as-takedown Religulous. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool atheist who largely agrees with him on matters of faith, but his pomposity in that film sometimes felt just as gross to me as the most self-satisfied hubris of right wing Christian exceptionalists. But when he’s on, he can be magnificent, and the remarks that land him in the hottest water often happen to be the ones where he’s most dead-on correct.

And once in awhile he’s just an ass with shit for taste in music.

Just a couple of years ago, Maher tweeted that the game show Jeopardy was a game show for smart people and that Wheel of Fortune was for idiots. He’s not really wrong, but he might be a wee bit biased, as he himself appeared on Jeopardy twice. In November of 1995, he played Celebrity Jeopardy against actors Swoosie Kurtz and Charles Kimbrough. (His charity of choice: PETA. Have fun with that.) He returned two years later for a “Power Players” match against NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell and I shit you not disgraced Lieutenant Colonel and serial non-recaller Oliver North. In that episode, Maher pulled an Audio Daily Double in the category “It Came From Seattle,” wagered $1,700, and was treated to a clip of the excellent Melvins’ song “Copache,” a fan favorite from their 1993 album Houdini that’s liable to turn up in the band’s live sets to this day. The clip accompanied a question about the grunge movement, which of course rather famously emerged from Seattle (though Melvins themselves did not). Maher chose to opine about the song instead of answering the question, betraying his pedestrian tastes by lamely joking “well that song sucked, that’s for sure.” His pleas that he intended to answer the question fell on the tinnitus-deaf ears of righteous sludge metal rager Alex Trebek, and Maher forfeited his $1,700.

Serves his ass right. He’s probably a fuckin’ Eagles fan, anyway.
 

 
There is more, after the jump…

 
An amusing side-effect of the ‘90s post-Nirvana OMFG SIGN EVERY BAND WITH WEIRD CLOTHES RIGHT NOW moment was the attention given to quality strivers who would likely have escaped the mainstream radar altogether had the corporate music sector not taken to throwing entire scenes at the wall to see what would stick. And while yes, we had to suffer the temporary ubiquity of 4 Non Blondes and Crash Test Dummies, moments like this almost made up for it: sometime in the mid-‘90s, MTV took Melvins singer/guitarist King Buzzo mansion shopping in Beverly Hills.

I’m having trouble pinning down the actual date of this, but judging from Buzzo’s hair, my best guess would be between 1994-1996ish, give or take. (And I love the idea of Buzzo’s hair functioning as rock ‘n’ roll carbon-dating. Surely someday it’ll serve as an oracle.) This was squarely within the short period during which Melvins were on Atlantic records, but though they’d influenced very very successful bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden, the Melvins themselves weren’t really filling stadia in accordance with their accolades. Which, along with Buzzo’s natural charm and warped sense of humor (that ridiculous fake evil laugh gets me every time), is exactly what makes this video hilarious—America’s love affair with quality notwithstanding, he’s not a guy who’s ever going to be buying a Beverly Hills mansion.
 

Hanging with Kim Thayil? Cool, no doubt, but no mansion. Maybe a nice bungalow?
 

Hanging out with Kurt Cobain? STILL no mansion. Sorry, Mr. Influential.

And he hammers that point home at the end, attempting to pay for the place with indie-cred, in the form of magazine articles full of accolades for how influential he was. But of course, all that influence didn’t really make Melvins any real cash. The real estate agent, who took this shameless waste of her time in admirable stride, then proceeds to state the incontrovertible fact artists of all stripes have been trying to tell cheapshit clients for ages: praise and exposure for your work don’t support you if you don’t get MONEY for it. And really, in that era of overwrought and myopic Fugazi-purity, that it took a goofy prank on a real estate agent to point out something so screamingly obvious is actually kind of unsurprising.

By the way, Melvins are on tour, and Butthole Surfer Jeff Pinkus is serving as their bassist (he and BHS guitarist Paul Leary played on the last Melvins album Hold It In). If there’s a show coming your way, do try to make it out to see them. After over 30 years, they still bring it HARD.
 

 
Thanks, Rob Galo, for letting me know this exists.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
King Buzzo of The Melvins gets a dream-come-true invitation from Dave Grohl (and totally blows it)
The Melvins’ King Buzzo talks about his rescue dogs
From Brainiac to Buck Owens: King Buzzo guest DJs with Henry Rollins on KCRW

 
There’s all kindsa Melvins news to report: they’re soon to be the subject of the documentary with the best name ever, The Colossus of Destiny - A Melvins Tale, which you can help Kickstart here, and they’ve announced a summer tour to support their LP Hold It in, with the Butthole Surfers’ Jeff Pinkus on bass (YAY!). But I’d way rather tell you about the band’s singer/guitarist Buzz “King Buzzo” Osborne’s recent interview on Dogster. It seems that the godfather of sludge-metal and his wife have quite a few rescue dogs, and frankly, I respond to dogs the way the Internet writ large responds to cat pictures. I have a rescue, myself, a terrier mutt, most likely part miniature schnauzer, part Boston, possibly part Scottie, named “Lulu” after Emily Flake’s alt-comic, and she happens to be the single most adorable goddamn thing on Planet Earth. (I’ll spare you the treacly “who rescued who” shit, as I hate that kind of naked mawkishness with the power of a million squirrels.) If I lived on a huge property instead of in a rented duplex, I’d probably have a commensurately large number of rescue dogs. Dogs kinda rule.

Osborne talked to Dogster’s Kezia Willingham about life with his two Jack Russells and his Staffordshire, Buster, Coco, and Gigi (cool that he’s a terrier guy, too…), and how he and his wife came to be serial rescuers:

The first dog my wife and I had was a rescue Pit Bull-Whippet-Lab mix named Itchy. He lived to be 17, and we had to finally put him down a little over a year ago. That was tough. He was pretty much the best dog ever.

When we got him, he had been severely abused and had never been indoors, never slept on a dog bed, and never eaten or drank out of a bowl. He was malnourished and extremely skittish. The people who had him before us used to let their children throw baseballs and other assorted garbage at him while he ran around terrified and helpless in their backyard. People who behave like that should be in jail. They ended up abandoning him to a neighbor of theirs, who told us the whole story.

He didn’t trust us at first, but once we started treating him right he warmed up and became a wonderful companion for the better part of two decades. I can’t imagine a better dog. The first time he ever tasted steak, I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head.

Rest in peace, Itchy. G’boy.
 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
One of the least likely candidates this side of Whitehouse for an acoustic phase was surely The Melvins’ King Buzzo, whose name is pretty much onomatopoetic for his IMMENSE electric guitar sound. But the progenitor of both grunge and sludge-metal did just that this year, doing a brief solo u-word tour and releasing a super-limited 10” acoustic EP called This Machine Kills Artists.. The tiny number of copies of that EP that were released online were gone in no-time (I got extremely lucky and nabbed one, just by the sheer happenstance that I took a look at AmRep’s Facebook page right when they announced it was up for sale), and the rest were sold only on tour dates.

But if you got shut out of that release, never fear. All but two of the EP’s six songs are coming out on Buzzo’s full acoustic LP, also called This Machine Kills Artists, which will surely confuse no one. As the EP was accompanied by a short tour, the LP will herald a long one. The dates are listed here.
 

 
The album will be released physically and digitally by Ipecac Records on June 3, and will feature 17 songs. Individual tracks have made their way to the public via The Quietus and ScionAV, but Dangerous Minds is proud to be the first to bring you the entire album stream.
 

 
Melvins’ frontman Roger “Buzz” Osborne guest DJ’d on Henry Rollins’ KCRW show last Sunday. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to these two yap about music and life. Buzz describes his playlist as “musically schizophrenic.” I’m going to have to agree.

It’s definitely a fun listen. Hope you enjoy.

Set List

Albert King – Born Under a Bad Sign
Brainiac – Fresh New Eyes
Gang of Four – Paralyzed
Scientists – Set it on Fire
Judy Garland – Stormy Weather
The Fugs – I Want to Know
U-Men – Blight
Birthday Party – Fears of Gun
King Buzzo – Drunken Baby
Jimi Hendrix – Power of Love
Miles Davis – Black Satin
Tweak Bird – Spaceships
David Bowie – Quicksand
Bobby Darin – Beyond the Sea
Gun Club – Ghost on the Highway
MC5 – I Want You Right Now
Tom Waits – Bad as Me
Latin Playboys – Lemon ‘N Ice
Captain Beefheart – Glider
Bob Dylan – It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
Buck Owens – Memphis

 
As DM reported several weeks back, Melvins singer/guitarist Buzz “King Buzzo” Osborne went on an unlikely-seeming acoustic tour this year, and released a now sold out tour-only acoustic E.P. on the Amphetamine Reptile label. (It’s since been announced that he’ll be releasing a full length acoustic album on Mike Patton’s Ipecac label in June.) Osborne has always been an affable storyteller in interviews, so it was no surprise to hear that his stage banter in these intimate shows were just as worthy of the ticket price as the music, but THIS story, told last week in Chicago about Nirvana/Foo Fighters/Them Crooked Vultures/total rock god Dave Grohl, is just AMAZING:
 

 
Poor bastard COMPLETELY BLEW IT.

In case you were wondering how the music on the tour was, there’s more live King Buzzo after the jump…

 
Guitarist Buzz “King Buzzo” Osborne of the Melvins is widely known for a brutally heavy sound that served as a major influence on post-hardcore, stoner rock and doom metal. Despite almost never having played a quiet, undistorted note in his 30-plus year career, he’s just announced a solo acoustic tour for this spring.

This has GOT to be interesting. The following dates were listed this morning on the Melvins’ official Facebook page:

Mar. 2 - Minneapolis, MN - Grumpy’s Bar & Grill
Mar. 6 - Omaha, NE - The Waiting Room
Mar. 8 - Kansas City, MO - The Riot Room
Mar. 10 - Norman, OK - Opolis Production LLC
Mar. 11 - Dallas, TX - Club Dada
Mar. 13 - Austin, TX - Record Label Rummage Sale
Mar. 16 - Little Rock, AR - Stickyz Rock N’ Roll Chicken Shack
Mar. 17 - Memphis, TN - Hi-Tone
Mar. 20 - Louisville, KY - Zanzabar
Mar. 21 - Indianapolis, IN - Radio Radio
Mar. 22 - Chicago, IL - Beat Kitchen
Mar. 23 - Madison, WI - High Noon Saloon

 

 
In commemoration of the tour, a 10” EP titled This Machine Kills Artists will be released by Amphetamine Reptile.

Footage of Osborne playing without amplification is unsurprisingly hard to come by, but what exists is terrific. Here he is playing an acoustic version of “Revolve” from the Melvins’ 1994 LP Stoner Witch, and talking in some depth about his process.
 

 
Bonus! Here’s Buzzo being interviewed by Fox News’ douche-god Greg Gutfeld, on the now-canceled Red Eye. You’ll cringe at Gutfeld’s name-dropping attempts to establish OG punk bona fides, but Buzzo is his usual laid-back self, and he uses the platform to inform America’s neurotically hyperpatriotic mouthbreathers about totally sweet bands they’ll never listen to, like Tweak Bird.