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Mike Patton: Quantity over Quality

Started by Noodle Lizard, May 17, 2019, 06:29:48 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Noodle Lizard

The Peeping Tom album has some great tracks on it.  We're Not Alone, 5 Seconds, Don't Even Trip, Sucker etc.  And some videos of their live performances covering Marvin Gaye deep cuts like this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwetH5x3Nvk  Also bringing some talents like Imani Coppola, Rahzel and Butterscotch into the limelight ... hard to hate, really.  I hear it was a great live show an' all.

As for the improv stuff, it might not be much to anyone looking for a banging tune or whatever, but as someone who's tried to do some complex vocal stuff himself, this kind of thing is practically godlike:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPsXRiV6yo4

chveik

anyway if we're posting links I particulary like his singing in this Eyvind Kang song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qiu5Ir-unV8

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: chveik on May 21, 2019, 01:21:06 AM
anyway if we're posting links I particulary like his singing in this Eyvind Kang song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qiu5Ir-unV8

Oo, I like that.  That's somewhat out of his wheelhouse.

That being said, I can think of several people off the top of my head who could have done as good (or better) a job of it, assuming it's this Eyewing Kang who've done the composition.

EDIT:  The next thing that came up was this, which I'd also never heard:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4f1hOm8cUg
Which was absolute shit.  Can't think of a worse fit for a voice as recognizable as Patton's.  Actually embarrassing.

McFlymo

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on May 21, 2019, 12:59:59 AM
It's the fact that he's coming out with some "new and exciting project" every few months and it's almost always underwhelming and dies off as quickly as it started (whatever happened to the Nevermen, for instance?).  Then it's onto something else. 

I think it's more his approach than the respective quality of each specific piece of work.  Back in the day, he'd have his two or three main projects and turn up occasionally on a Bjork album or whatever, but now it seems to be more of him getting together with whoever for an afternoon and knocking out some material.  When Dead Cross is probably his biggest actual "project" of the past 5 years, that doesn't bode too well - especially since, as I understand it, he was brought in to do vocals at the very last minute.  And it's pretty not good, but that's neither here nor there.

But who's saying it's "new and exciting"? And also, I think a lot of the time this has to do with marketing / pr etc... Something with which Patton is fairly well-known not to be very interested in, or just plain bad at. Peeping Tom is a good example of a Patton project getting a bit more marketing and PR, (Danny DeVito in one video, TV interviews and so forth) and I think it's notable, because this was in the era, just before MTV and any sort of music industry TV presence was utterly destroyed by the internet / streaming services / youtube etc. Once we hit that era of everything being online (the death of CDs, the death of TV shows ABOUT music and so on) we also see a large drop in media attention (and probably record sales etc... At least we see Patton doing less live touring with his various projects after this time and I would argue that is directly because of lack of revenue from music sales and the like - no money to promote a record and market it properly - so no money to tour it = no money coming in to help sell the record etc etc... )

Of course you'll have a few online music magazines mention Patton's work, but that's more out of some sort of respect and obligation to him, as opposed to hype and popularity generated by people working on behalf of Patton or any of the bands he's involved in.

He also started to put more focus on his film scoring work around 2010 or so, so that's probably another reason why he doesn't have a few main projects that he works on, with more casual cameo's on other records. It seems he's just continued to do as much as he can, but with a focus on the film stuff in more recent years.

McFlymo

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on May 21, 2019, 01:18:00 AM
As for the improv stuff, it might not be much to anyone looking for a banging tune or whatever, but as someone who's tried to do some complex vocal stuff himself, this kind of thing is practically godlike:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPsXRiV6yo4

That's the one bit of Patton improv I've seen and been genuinely in awe of.

This (and all the clips I've seen of this show) however is just drunk uncle at a wedding levels of embarrassing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkfJ6Nlk16M

Quite liked that Eyvind Kang song!



Noodle Lizard

Quote from: McFlymo on May 21, 2019, 02:54:43 AM
But who's saying it's "new and exciting"? And also, I think a lot of the time this has to do with marketing / pr etc... Something with which Patton is fairly well-known not to be very interested in, or just plain bad at.

No, I'm with you.  It's his Facebook page I follow or whatever that proclaims it to be "new and exciting".  Other than that, I'm not sure any of it has even crossed remotely into the mainstream, except for maybe Dead Cross.

Quote from: chveik on May 21, 2019, 01:17:40 AM
I haven't had the chance to see him live. I was perhaps a bit unfair, because Zorn also has the same "quantity over quality" problem, and his Moonchild stuff would still remain flawed without Patton.

As much as I love FNM and other Patton stuff that I've heard, I stand by my opinion that he sounds utterly awful live.  The FNM Live at Brixton album sounds so amateurish, I'm almost embarrassed to listen to it.

Sin Agog

Don't like him.  Whatever style he's taking on, whoever he's collaborating with, I can hear the turgid funk-metaller at the root of it, and I never grew up with that stuff, it never sowed a seed in me, so I am incapable of warming up to anything Patton's been involved in.

alan nagsworth

The best thing about the Patton live stage presence isn't his singing, it's his unrepentant assholery, berating crowds and just generally being a total bellsprout. When I had the pleasure of seeing Fantômas in 2004(?) at the Astoria - with Kid606 in full noise/breakcore mode and Flat Earth Society supporting, no less! - it was a very good show but my favourite bits were when Mike was being antagonistic.

Dickhead audience kept whooping and cheering unnecessarily when they were playing first album/Suspended Animation stuff which had as much silence as it does frantic noise, and it was seriously annoying. After a short while enduring this, Patton eventually howls SHUT THE FUCK UUUUPPPP sounding as intimidating and prickish as Richie Aprile in The Sopranos.

Elsewhere in the set, he bemoaned Emma Bunton (who was due to play later when the Astoria turned into G-A-Y), calling her "Old Spice", and when he introduced the band, he'd pre-asked the lighting guys to make the huge "GAY" letters flash up when he announced Trevor Dunn. Childish stuff all round but to this day it still makes me chuckle.


Anyway yeah he hasn't excited me for years and I specifically remember when Oddfellows came out I was so massively disappointed. Anonymous, patchy though it was, had at least trod new ground into that "anxiously sweating through miles upon miles of sprawling American plains" vibe. Oddfellows just did a really boring U-turn which I found very uncharacteristic.

McFlymo

My London Astoria, Patton-being-a-dick story was in 2002, when Tomahawk were touring Mit Gas.

Long story short, I was about the distance of 3 people away from the front barrier when this happened:
QuoteAt the London Astoria in 2002, in front of 1,500 people, Mike Patton urinated on a security guard. For no apparent reason. And got away with it.
Article here.


Fun times!

a duncandisorderly

Quote from: alan nagsworth on May 21, 2019, 10:45:23 AM
The best thing about the Patton live stage presence isn't his singing.... Childish stuff all round but to this day it still makes me chuckle.


I read somewhere that he was in the habit of shitting in hotel room hairdryers. I quite liked his voice & looks during a very brief part of FNM's career when they were a sort of sophisticated alternative to nirvana, pearl jam & the rest... all that shoegazing bollocks.... I played 'angel dust' a lot, in the couple of years before I began working at Mtv. thereafter, I had to avoid almost everything remotely mainstream because of overexposure at work, & so stuff like 'superunknown' (a great album- cornell's voice & so on) I'm catching up on many years after the fact.

sponk

Quote from: McFlymo on May 21, 2019, 04:31:41 PM
My London Astoria, Patton-being-a-dick story was in 2002, when Tomahawk were touring Mit Gas.

Long story short, I was about the distance of 3 people away from the front barrier when this happened: Article here.


Fun times!

Hey man that was a metaphor for how THE MAN is constantly pissing on us and getting away with it.

Or:

What if that security guard was a fascist?

Are either of these potential responses funny? Let me know which you all prefer and I'll delete the other one

Dirty Boy

Quote from: McFlymo on May 21, 2019, 04:31:41 PM
My London Astoria, Patton-being-a-dick story was in 2002, when Tomahawk were touring Mit Gas.

Long story short, I was about the distance of 3 people away from the front barrier when this happened: Article here.


Fun times!
He did a similar thing at the '95 Phoenix festival during Epic. You'll be better placed to know than me, but i always assumed it was a false willy that sprayed water. He did drink his own urine from a shoe at Brixton Academy though, which can be glimpsed in the Easy video.

Some of the most interesting Patton shows are the ones where the band was at odds with the audience, like when Mr Bungle went on the Warped tour. There's apparently some recordings from when Fantomas supported Tool and went down as you would expect from playing 'pages' to folk expecting 10 minute proggy metal stuff.

Forgot to say before that the fan written FNM book Small Victories that came out last year is very readable and often funny (despite no involvement from Pattonchops.) and has some fascinating insights particularly involving the bands trips to South America (even though the post-KFAD era is somewhat skipped over).

Shaky

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on May 21, 2019, 01:18:00 AM
The Peeping Tom album has some great tracks on it.  We're Not Alone, 5 Seconds, Don't Even Trip, Sucker etc.  And some videos of their live performances covering Marvin Gaye deep cuts like this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwetH5x3Nvk  Also bringing some talents like Imani Coppola, Rahzel and Butterscotch into the limelight ... hard to hate, really.  I hear it was a great live show an' all.

I expected a lot from Peeping Tom but it's quite... slight. Patton doesn't quite manage that mix of sincerity and cheese he's aiming for. There's a fair bit of filler on there too, I think.. The Marvin Gaye cover is excellent, though. You prob knew already but a demo version of that track leaked a few years before the PT album dropped, along with earlier versions of stuff that ended up on the LP (with placeholder vocals, different sections etc). I liked those - they had a scuzzier, lo-fi feel which the finished article doesn't have. There were also a couple of great tunes which didn't make the final cut, such as this banging bastard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qft1ebjLbic

Quote from: McFlymo on May 21, 2019, 04:31:41 PM
My London Astoria, Patton-being-a-dick story was in 2002, when Tomahawk were touring Mit Gas.

Long story short, I was about the distance of 3 people away from the front barrier when this happened: Article here.


Fun times!

No such luck when I saw him in Belfast the same year, sadly.

PlanktonSideburns

Quote from: sponk on May 21, 2019, 04:55:39 PM
Hey man that was a metaphor for how THE MAN is constantly pissing on us and getting away with it.

Or:

What if that security guard was a fascist?

Are either of these potential responses funny? Let me know which you all prefer and I'll delete the other one

Fair play

This is a quality post, just EXCELLENT

McFlymo

Quote from: Dirty Boy on May 22, 2019, 12:07:50 PM
He did a similar thing at the '95 Phoenix festival during Epic. You'll be better placed to know than me, but i always assumed it was a false willy that sprayed water.

In the article I linked there, there is an explanation of why most people believed it was a rubber dildo at the Tomahawk gig: Because Tomahawk immediately issued  a story along those lines on the Ipecac Records website, most likely to cover their asses, legally.

Quote from: Dirty Boy on May 22, 2019, 12:07:50 PMHe did drink his own urine from a shoe at Brixton Academy though, which can be glimpsed in the Easy video.
I think you might be mixing up different stories here. There's a video of FNM playing Chile, around 92 / 93, where people were throwing bottles at the band and Patton finds a bottle of piss and pours it over his head. This story appeared in FNM's Video Croissant, but in the video Roddy and Bill are recounting the story, while we see footage of the bottles flying through the air, at Patton, but we never actually see when Patton pours the piss over himself.

There are also a few stories in magazines like Kerrang! and so forth around that time that tell of Patton drinking piss out of a shoe and eating tampons on stage, but I've never seen any video evidence of this.


Quote from: Dirty Boy on May 22, 2019, 12:07:50 PM
Some of the most interesting Patton shows are the ones where the band was at odds with the audience, like when Mr Bungle went on the Warped tour. There's apparently some recordings from when Fantomas supported Tool and went down as you would expect from playing 'pages' to folk expecting 10 minute proggy metal stuff.

Forgot to say before that the fan written FNM book Small Victories that came out last year is very readable and often funny (despite no involvement from Pattonchops.) and has some fascinating insights particularly involving the bands trips to South America (even though the post-KFAD era is somewhat skipped over).

Hey thanks for the Mr Bungle live recording. It's great hearing the audience booing them! Haha. It's a great quality recording too and Bungle are on fire! "Are we man enough for ya?!!!" HAHAHA.

RE: The Small Victories book, I thought it was excellent too! Some hilarious moments. A couple of minor errors here and there (yep, I'm that sort of FNM nerd) but so much insight into big chunks of their career I knew nothing about. Especially the very formative years and the Real Thing / Angel Dust touring.


niat

I also loved the Small Victories book, a thorough retelling of the FNM story with great insights from most of the band (except Patton).

Podcast Croissant is worth a listen, dedicated to Faith No More and featuring the author of Small Victories, Adrian Harte in the first few episodes.

sponk

This should be in the silly reasons you don't like a band thread, but I never got into FNM or MB because I can't get past the idea that Mike Patton started off as an Anthony Kiedis impersonator on stage. If I'd given the music a proper go before knowing that, I might have had a chance.

dallasman

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on May 21, 2019, 02:00:50 AM
Oo, I like that.  That's somewhat out of his wheelhouse.

That being said, I can think of several people off the top of my head who could have done as good (or better) a job of it, assuming it's this Eyewing Kang who've done the composition.

I voted for Eyvind Kodos, but this Kang is also a member of the Secret Chiefs Massive. Here they are playing another one of his tunes (Eyvind on violin) live in the Australian Outback in 1998, when Bungle was on FNM-related hiatus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdQy6DXoti4

And here's Patton's one appearance with SC3: a cover of Jaques Brel's "La Chanson de Jacky":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKMVzmoYnLU

dallasman

Quote from: Dirty Boy on May 22, 2019, 12:07:50 PM
Some of the most interesting Patton shows are the ones where the band was at odds with the audience, like when Mr Bungle went on the Warped tour.

That's the same as SnoCore, right? That's a great tour for crowd-baiting banter, possibly slightly "problematic" to 2019 ears, given the singular focus on the audience being a bunch of gayboys. Looks like someone has finally transferred the old bunglefever ftp (or just their own collection) onto archive.org. Thanks for the link, and three cheers for "Violator_Vtr", whoever they are. They did a nice job there.

Bungle fans, click here and have a look. At a glance, it seems like just about every known recording must be available there now, with attractive custom cover art and everything.

McFlymo

^ Holy shit, that's quite an intimidating collection, but I am excited!

as A GAY MAN NOW I always thought Patton's banter was ironic, such as that Bungle recording where his response to the audience booing them, quite considerably, Patton shouts "ARE WE MAN ENOUGH FOR YA?!" ... I think Patton's generally been about pissing off that MACHO DOUCHEBAG element. Certainly FNM had their gay-friendly moments and Tomahawk had that "Jockstrap" song, while Trevor Dunn would often dress up as Goldilocks.

Although, Patton's recent outings with Dead Cross seem devoid of any of that humour or wit, which is a bit sad.

dallasman

Quote from: McFlymo on May 22, 2019, 10:30:24 PM
^ Holy shit, that's quite an intimidating collection, but I am excited!

as A GAY MAN NOW I always thought Patton's banter was ironic, such as that Bungle recording where his response to the audience booing them, quite considerably, Patton shouts "ARE WE MAN ENOUGH FOR YA?!" ... I think Patton's generally been about pissing off that MACHO DOUCHEBAG element. Certainly FNM had their gay-friendly moments and Tomahawk had that "Jockstrap" song, while Trevor Dunn would often dress up as Goldilocks.

Although, Patton's recent outings with Dead Cross seem devoid of any of that humour or wit, which is a bit sad.

LET'S ALL HAVE A BIG MOUTHFUL OF THE OFFICIAL SNO-CORE BEVERAGE: CUM! But yes, you're correct about the target of his banter. He's not a bigot, and I think the reason the mood might be a little different at Dead Cross shows is as much to do with Dave Lombardo's followers, and just the general quality of a crowd of paunchy, middle-aged males in leather and denim. Not as plausibly homoerotic as a bunch of shirtless, tattooed nu-metal doods in cargo shorts. His jock credentials are genuine, though. Very talented athlete in his day, handsome, popular, I think his dad was a coach. But he fell in with the Slayer and Devo-worshipping outcasts, and has arguably stayed in that subversive, always-slightly-sneering mode ever since.

Quote from: sponk on May 22, 2019, 02:39:41 PM
Mike Patton started off as an Anthony Kiedis impersonator on stage.

That's nonsense. Bungle started out as a trash/speed-metal band, then introduced ska, funk and so on. I think they all liked the early Chili Peppers, so there's obviously some amount of inspiration. But afaik, Patton basically adopted the Kiedis moves for FNM, because he didn't really know what to do, suddenly fronting a well-established band who just grew twenty times bigger with their first album together. Sure, Patton mouthed off about other bands all the time, but the way he tells it, AK just came out accusing him of stealing his whole act. Then later, AK had Mr. Bungle kicked off at least one major festival, telling organizers they wouldn't play if Bungle played. AK is the real dick here, because he was a bigshot shitting on a smaller act (Bungle were never anywhere near FNM in stature, of course).

Cue this legendary Mr. Bungle Halloween show, with everyone dressed up as Chili Peppers, complete with syringes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1ld87X3DP4
Full show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sT0WSwgHLc

Incredibly juvenile, but entertaining.


McFlymo

She's probably best known as terrorist Margot Al-Harazi, in 24: Live Another Day, ladies and gentlemen, it's Michelle Farley...

flotemysost

I absolutely love FNM, Mr Bungle, some Tomahawk, Mondo Cane and what I've heard of Fantomas, Peeping Tom and Lovage (my interest probably somewhat piqued by having had a crush on Patton since seeing FNM on TOTP  when I was seven or eight, during his Album of the Year suit-wearing days), but in recent years I've felt a bit... fatigued by listening to some of his other stuff. I think that's partly because there's just so much out there that I don't really know the best way to approach it other than clicking through random YouTube videos, so I'm judging it quickly out of context without really exploring it, but also as others have said, I do get the impression that with a lot of these appearances and collaborations he's just sort of showing up and doing his thing regardless of whether it's a good fit, or even good at all.

Although I love his voice and he's obviously incredibly talented, there can be something a bit grating about it at times. I really like his antagonistic onstage persona but he can come off as a bit of an arrogant dick sometimes (I don't buy that he's a bigot though, I always thought the 'gay' stuff seemed like a very obvious stab at macho homophobic types, although these days I think the tone might come across a little misjudged). And I've always found the relentless fan-worship very offputting, although obviously that's not his fault and I imagine he doesn't really enjoy that stuff.

I guess it depends whether you're happy to just enjoy some parts of an artist's output in the context of why you liked it in the first place, rather than looking at their whole career and being disappointed that certain elements don't match up. Angel Dust, Disco Volante, California and the self-titled Tomahawk debut will always be some of my favourite albums regardless of any ropey or questionable points in Patton's career. And I've got into an awful lot of stuff via him that I'd never have heard about or looked into otherwise - not just bands/artists but also learning about different musical styles, instruments (as a non-musical person I'm pretty clueless about that stuff) and even things from his lyrics referring to parts of cultures, history etc. that have intrigued me. So I'm grateful for that.

On the topic of lyrics, that's another big part of his appeal for me - I know he's said that he doesn't really write stuff for the meaning, but he does have an interesting and thoughtful way of putting things a lot of the time.

That Peeping Tom Marvin Gaye performance is one of my favourite live covers, the energy just bounces off everyone.

Dirty Boy, thanks for mentioning that FNM book, I'll definitely be checking that out.

DrGreggles

This thread has led to me learning that the Rock City gig I attended in 2000 was the last one Mr Bungle ever played.
Pretty sure it wasn't my fault though.

colacentral

Quote from: dallasman on May 17, 2019, 11:43:46 PMTrevor wrote "Slowly Going Deaf" and (I think) "Dead Goon" (nobody else came up with that bassline, that's for sure).

Dead Goon was actually written by the drummer, Danny Heifetz. He wrote the bassline on a piano. I remember Trevor Dunn writing about how hard it was to learn on his website, along with a tab.

As far as Patton goes, his essentials are Angel Dust, parts of the three surrounding FNM albums (Just A Man and King for a Day for example - highlights on an otherwise turgid album); Disco Volante and California. I considered Peeping Tom the nadir and I gave up caring what he did after that.

There are bits and pieces I like elsewhere - I think he should have become a full time member of Dillinger Escape Plan as he worked well with their sound and they turned dreadful after that EP. I liked his contribution to Bjork's Medula album. But in general I think he goes too big, and he's afraid to show any sincerity, which is a handicap in an art form which typically relies on eliciting an emotional reaction from the audience. I find his voice quite irritating now as a result, but I can still sometimes enjoy the old stuff.

Shaky

I'd throw in the first Tomahawk album (which is a brilliantly executed piece of Lynchian, noisy alt-noir and Patton even brings his lyrical A-game) and probably the first and third Fantomas albums just for their sheer range.

But yeah, I'm struggling beyond that.

Jockice

I never thought much of The Alarm anyway.

alan nagsworth

Patton's back with a forthcoming collaborative album with a chap called Jean-Claude Vannier (I'm sorry, I know fuck all about French culture). There's a new single and accompanying video which you can cop here. I suppose it's pretty Gainsbourg-y, and I quite like it. It's nothing especially remarkable but it has its charm and I'll certainly be interested to hear the rest of the songs, especially since Patton's vocals here (despite being way up in the mix, almost annoyingly so at times) are quite restrained. But yes, I enjoyed this.