Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Reader request: Mucky Pup

I never really paid attention to Mucky Pup back in the day, but reader Savage made a request in the comments of our earlier Nocturnus post, and if there is anything that defines us here at Metal Inquisition, it's customer service. In fact, at one of our innovation retreats in 2008, we rewrote our corporate vision statement as follows:
The mission of Metal Inquisition is to provide society with superior products and services by developing innovations and solutions that improve the quality of life and satisfy customer needs, and to provide bloggers with meaningful work and advancement opportunities, and investors with a superior rate of return.
With that in mind, we enter the bizarre and frightening world of Mucky Pup.

I don't really know a damn thing about this band other than that they have a dumb name and I never gave them a chance back in the day because of it. Also that some of them were in Dog Eat Dog, who I listened to a little bit.




U Stink But I Heart U
Apparently this song was their big break, and I actually vaguely remember it. I was a huge fan of the comic strip Bloom County when I was a kid, including the hair metal band Billy & The Boingers that featured Bill The Cat. The guy who created the comic strip held a contest in which he asked bands to record their version of Billy & The Boingers' hit song "U Stink But I Heart U." Mucky Pup's version won, and was included on a flexi that came with one of the Bloom County books (which I had).

I'm not exactly sure what it mean when your band's biggest accomplishment is winning a jokey contest from a comic strip, but it is safe to say that's Mucky Pup's biggest claim to fame. Maybe they can tell me why Sarge is always so mean to Beetle Bailey!! And for christ's sake, why can't Blondie let Dagwood enjoy a sandwich in his hammock with nagging him about chores?? Fucking bitch.



Hippies don't like water
Aside from "U Stink But I Heart U" I don't remember any other Mucky Pup songs, so I fired up Youtube and checked it out. WTF is this shit?! It makes Brokencyde seem dignified, respectable, and stylish! Then again, I have to remind myself that this was 1991 and things were very different back then. Hypercolor wasn't ironic, Living Color thought it was perfectly acceptable to wear Body Glove wetsuits on stage, and MDC had turned into the hardcore version of Weird Al (see "Tofu Spaghetti"). The Youtube description notes that MTV never aired this video... weird! I can't think of a single reason why they wouldn't air it 24/7!!

Ugh I don't even know what to say... 1000000x worse than Brokencyde!

Also, "hippies" were still a relevant part of the cultural lexicon, with bands like Enuf Z'Nuf blending really shitty hair metal with a particularly superficial, irritating take on the 60s. Apparently Mucky Pup did not like this, so they made a novelty song about it. I'd like to think of it as an abominable, cringeworthy combination of Ugly Kid Joe and Murphy's Law... only without the cool parts of Murphy's Law like hitting people with an 8 ball in a sock, and with more fatties.

It gets worse when the fatty starts skanking and you can see his enormous, pasty thighs shake like a bowl full of vanilla jello

From the perspective of someone writing this in 2009, it seems quaint and a little charming to complain about hippies like we did so vigorously back in the 80s and early 90s. And maybe it is a little naive, but it reminds me of my salad days. It makes me long for simpler times, before screamo crunk and beardos, before scene hair and one-man MySpace drum machine goregrind bands. I just want to put a Scatterbrain tape in my Walkman, put on my baja jacket, and go skateboard behind Safeway. Either that or go smoke weed on a rock in the woods and listen to Pantera. Instead, I have to do my taxes and write a proposal for market research on Crest toothpaste and I am listening to Lady Gaga. Sigh...



Mr. Hand
This song is about how the singer masturbates a lot, presumably because the ladies aren't checking for him. It is actually sort of catchy, once again in a "poor man's 'Crucial Barbeque'" kind of way. I probably would have thought it was pretty funny in 7th or 8th grade. But I also thought it was a really good idea to wear red sweatpants, a Forced Entry shirt, a Batman hat and puffy white high tops from K-Mart (the brand was "Jox") six days of the week.

Between his physique, wardrobe, and hair I have no idea why he isn't drowning in pussy

Apparently the world had a big appetite for comedy metal in the 90s, and one of the staples of the genre is wearing oversize, zany Dr. Suess hats. The drummer for a local comedy punk/metal band called Dumt wore one every fucking time they played and it made me want to kill him even though I loved Dumt a lot. Actually, I still do.

These hats fill me with rage in a way that very few things are capable of

The Dr. Suess hats remind of other early 90s fashion mishaps like those stripey tights that were so popular at Lollapalooza. I always wanted to fuck the art fag chicks in my 8th grade art class that wore Doc Martens with stripey tights and listened to Skinny Puppy and Alien Sex Fiend.

Anyway, this song is fucking terrible, I don't even have the patience to look on Rapidshit for a copy of their album (or albums... did they have more than one?). This is like the equivalent of playing old NES games for the first time. Maybe if it was 1988 you would have looked past their many obvious and serious flaws, but it is 2009 and this shit sucks by today's standards.




Dog Eat Dog - "No Fronts"
I guess some people from Mucky Pup were in Dog Eat Dog, but I'm not looking it up because I just want to be done writing about this awful shit. I used to listen to this band a bit, but I haven't heard them for years and they are much fucking worse than I remembered them being. Apparently they felt like they hadn't made big enough assholes of themselves in Mucky Pup and decided to start a new band in which they would do the most embarrassing shit possible, then record it onto a CD which they would sell.

Look at him rap aggressively into the fisheye lens! He's so angry/authentic!

Listening to this song for the first time in years, the main thing I noticed is how these are maybe the very worst lyrics I have ever heard, even surpassing Brokencyde's "hardcore shit make u feel the toxic" line. I will highlight the parts that make me cringe and vomit the most:
No fronts no tricks no soap box politics
No guns just blunts we kick this just for fun

We come with the fat joints
To uplift the moods
Big up to people catchin' on this groove
This is Dog Eat Dog not a snitch or a snoop
I might chew a bone but don't call me pooch
We're not braggin - No
Are we laggin - Never
I can already see we got your tail waggin'
I could doggy bad ya
Or have you for lunch
The answer is no now - who fronts?

Introducing the kids who get loose
Microphone check one to the deuce
Deuce to the tre relax and parlay
With the 4-5-6 we roll hits
Flip the script to move your hips
Flavor we kick the boom to the bip
The boom to the bap ABK type fat
Strapped with crazy herbs and that's that

Alright kid what ya want ya get
S.G. Dog Eat Dog represent
You know the time so act like you know
Listen to the way this ill shit flow
We travel around all boro, any city
Some got beef but they wont get to me
If you come correct and your vibes are true
Peace to your crew
We're looking out for you
Holy fuck that was hard to bear, I seriously thought about smashing my monitor a few times just to make it stop. It's like a bunch of band geeks heard "Urban Discipline" and decided they wanted to give being tough a shot... only they added fucking trumpets to the mix, so it didn't work out so well. The video is full of the most annoying 90s cliches like flannels, fisheye shots, snowboards, and beanies. It's like a Saturday Night Live parody of post-Beastie Boys 90s culture, only it's all too real. Do not want.

Conclusion
I like Ugly Kid Joe and Murphy's Law better, fuck this band. Some things deserved to die with the 90s.

49 comments:

  1. I also prefer Ugly Kid Joe, that band rocked and had great songs.

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  2. if you like that hat, you'll love this clip

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukjnrXTTvPY

    fuck novelty metal and fuck the 90s :(

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  3. sweet jesus, I actually bought that Dog Eat Dog album 'back in the day', in a bright green special edition jewel case, no less...

    shit, I'm gonna do the decent thing, jam some EHG, then put myself out of my misery, nothing else will erase the shame.

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  4. i never listened to mucky pup before reading this post.

    i will never listen to them again.

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  5. I seem to remember Kerrang trying to stoke up a war of the words between Dog Eat Dog and Warrant because of the album name thing. Only to have Jani Lane ruin it all by using the word respect. Dr. Suess fashion- guilty. Now re-imagined as Tim Burton inspired fashion.

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  6. jared, you have the right idea!

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  7. "I'd like to think of it as an abominable, cringeworthy combination of Ugly Kid Joe and Murphy's Law"

    that pretty much nails it right there.

    i listened to their first tape for about two weeks when it came out. i was 11 or 12 and even then i was sort of embarrassed by how fucking goofy they were. i remember they actually do a "heavy" cover of the three little pigs. i think that nursery rhymes are pretty much an instant sign that what you are doing is beyond redemption.

    i also remember a guy in high school that i was sort of friends with coming into english class wearing one of those stupid fucking dr. suess hats and i straight up told him "i'm not talking to you ever again." about five years later i delivered a pizza to the guy and he was wearing the hat when he answered the door. what a freak.

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  8. Awful.

    This NJ Punk band Anger had a song called "Unscene" with the following spoken word section:

    Let me get this straight... you expect me to sell 50 tickets at 12 bucks a head so that my band can be one of 5 lame bands opening for Mucky Pup?
    Who the fuck is going to pay 12 bucks to see Mucky Pup huh?
    Who the fuck is going to pay 12 bucks to see us?!
    Until today, that was my only exposure to Mucky Pup.

    In conclusion... Fuck you Sergeant D! Do you know how much Soils of Fate, Internal Bleeding and Waco Jesus I'm going to have to listen to to push that out of my brain?!

    On the other hand, thanks for being a slam enabler I guess.

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  9. The most shameful thing about this band is that the main dude (or someone he momentarily shanghaied into the band) had some kind of musical ambition so there's at least one album, "Act Of Faith" I think, that has extensive liner notes about all the deep ideas and musical influences that went into each joke funk metal gem. There's even one or two songs where they try to dial the jokes down and hope that their sebaciously challenged fanbase will calm down from their Green Jello and Phunk Junkeez induced bedroom mosh and start stroking their double chin accentuating goatees in music appreciation.

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  10. their Green Jello and Phunk Junkeez induced bedroom mosh and start stroking their double chin accentuating goatees in music appreciationA++++!! when are you writing a guest post?!

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  11. Mucky Pup have reunited and are playing big festivals in Europe, with amongst others Motorhead, Sepultura, Sodom etc. (http://www.last.fm/music/Mucky+Pup)

    A sign of the impending apocalypse? You betcha!

    With regard to the article, I have to say that hit the nail on the head, particularly for someone who never listened to them back in the day. I, unfortunately, was not so lucky, because in the early 90s I used to work as a bar-back in a nightclub/disco that specialized in alternative music. This shit was often the kind of warm-up music that the DJs would play to get the people dancing, even when it wasn't that crowded yet and/or people weren't drunk enough to dance to anything (or rather I guess the logic was that they didn't want to waste the "good" songs on a half empty club...). Whatever the reason, the crappy metal funk of Mucky Pup always got the fat ugly Metal chicks to dance, who otherwise were to cool to do anything but nod from the sidelines.
    That time in my life really is filled with magical moments and good memories - but Mucky Pup clearly isn't one of them, ugh.

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  12. As soon as I can think of a topic that can use the applebee's gift card, bishonen, and home improvement tags and really mean it.

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  13. As soon as I can think of a topic that can use the applebee's gift card, bishonen, and home improvement tags and really mean it.brilliant!! i can't wait! seriously, IM or email us, i think you should do it!

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  14. i have had the misfortune of listening to dog eat dog....i copied the cassette from a friend who saw them open for biohazard and said that they were awesome... all i remember is Dio singing "The Star Spangled Banner" as the intro to some song chock full of awful baseball metaphors, then total darkness, then waking up in a hospital bed with my arms wrapped in gauze...

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  15. ugly kid joe:bokencyde::mucky pup:dot dot curve
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZpLL5ACJnE

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  16. Oh man, Act of Faith wasn't even their SERIOUS "serious" album. That would be "Lemonade", which I coincidentally bought the same day as Life Of Agony's 2nd shitty record "Ugly", and it was on my birthday too, so it was like getting kicked in the dick two times by music.

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  17. wow...that bad....

    if we can make requests, I'm gonna at least nominate a "where are they now" for caffeinated Rollins band sound alikes Stillsuit (or Season To Risk for that matter).

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  18. i obv need to do a life of agony post because "ugly" is their finest hour and you tards need to be taken to school!!

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  19. Catatonic, I actually mentioned Stillsuit the other week! I forget what the post was but I totally did.

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  20. i've now poured bleach in my eyes ten times to get the image of the singer in shorts bopping around...but i still see his white thighs. ugh.

    they were discovered in jersey while playing a show in a rollerskating rink with Trixter. holy crap. their wikipedia entry is really really long, and goes into insane detail. clearly they've been adding to it for years.

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  21. Here in Holland Mucky Pup's big hit was 'Reagan Knew', their political song.

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  22. Oh man, all this shit reminds me of being twelve years old and having my dad drag me to the Carnegie museum for the bajillionth time. I remember my old Joker shirt too.

    I remember Mucky Pup but not Dog Eat Dog. They remind me of 311. yeesh. :/

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  23. HAHAHAH!!
    i knew this would bring nothing but hatred and anger!!

    i think they are proto-wigger slam!

    i told you they were the WORST band ever!

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  24. Is it so wrong that I'm eternally grateful to you for exposing me to "Hippies Hate Water"? I thoroughly enjoyed everything about that song and video. The fat guy is so into it! The faucet attached to that guys head!! The barbershop harmony!!! H-2-WOAH-NO!!!!

    Thanks Metal Inquisition, you've opened my eyes to such goodness.

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  25. D- you are a sad, sad man. consider throwing yourself on a sword.

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  26. I am female, but I do indeed suffer from clinical depression.

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  27. i cant believe nobody mentioned the fact that the drummer is standing and playing with just a snare and a high-hat. that is so totally homoerotic. they are like Wham or something.

    until i saw this post i somehow remembered them as being more "thrash". like a tinge of anthrax or something.

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  28. Sample "Ugly" lyrics:

    "I wondered how it would if mah motha was still around. The types of relationships we could have had. The three of us, me, you and daaaad."

    This was a far cry from the moshmania that was "River Runs Red" which was definitely my early High School teen angst record. "Ugly" was just some pussy shit.

    To tie everything together with the first comment made on this post. I saw the LOA lineup when they had the singer from Ugly Kid Joe in Albany and it was FUCKING AWFUL. It was also only a dollar.

    Scot, your guest post should include a plug of our new CD so it can sell 4 more copies.

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  29. WSOU in Jersey played "HHW" all the fucking time back then. I suppose it was marginally preferable to, say, American Angel or something like that, but in retrospect, not really. Mucky Pup sort of reminds me of the Butthole Surfers a little bit, mostly because they're both strange & they both suck.

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  30. And now they're getting old and ugly, just like all of us...
    Saw them live in Paris in '92. It was pretty fun moment but more a springbreak party than a current show.
    This said, Murphy's Law was the real shit.

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  31. Aside from Alex and I I'm not sure that this will mean anything outside of the UK, but looking at the pic provided by Wizard they look like the Grant and Phil Mitchell.
    http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/05_01/philgrant_468x351.jpg

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  32. the drummer got the idea to stand there with a snare from the Stray Cats drummer...another barf inducing musical pile of doo doo

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  33. I'm glad that somehow this was the first time I heard Mucky Pop, though I can't really tell, maybe I did and my brain just blocked it. Unfortunately, my brain wasn't able to block Dog eats dog and Life of Agony. Sorry Sarge, Life of Agony sucks, and I didn't even know the lyrics to that song Mike Dikk is telling about. That's just too much...

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  34. Ugh. That reminds me I should really drop off my "Boy in a Man's World" tape off at the Goodwill. That said, I was amused when the local college station used to play "Little Pigs". There were a few kinda, er...almost thrash songs on there ("Death by Cholesterol" = S.O.D.-lite). On the song "Homosexual" they sung the entire song backwards. Odd fact: this was on Torrid the label that released "Bonded By Blood".

    Mucky Pup is to Jersey as Sweden is to Clawfinger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDyxgGYjrrM

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  35. RagnarR,
    YES! i knew that had a few "thrashy" numbers, but actually it was pronounced "death by cholester-oil".

    hardyfuckinghar, clever huh?

    ok Sarge, is this going to lead into a post about Scatterbrain???

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  36. I totally have the flexi disk and I was so pissed at the time there was no was that Billy & The Boingers sounded anything like Mucky Pup.

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  37. savage, i already posted about scatterbrain! im on my phone right now so too lazy to find the link, but search for it and tell me if it sates your appetitie for long island comedy metal... but dont call me dude!

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  38. Did anyone mention they took their name from an Exploited song?

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  39. Sarge...uuuhhhh...I cant believe you said "dont call me dude". I think i just pee'd in my pants a little.

    also, LONG ISLAND COMEDY METAL, HAHA!! that is so funny.

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  40. savage:
    http://metalinquisition.blogspot.com/2008/02/retroview-scatterbrain-here-comes.html

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  41. actually it was pronounced "death by cholester-oil".ugh, my soul just died.

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  42. I just wanna know what sort of twisted thought processes convened when a band meeting included the phrase, "but what I think this song needs to really put it over the top is a few more "way-ohs."

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  43. I've been a big Pup fan since 90. I was at the 4/09 reunion show, and everybody there loved it. The place was packed. All their albums were good, especially the first one, and they do not deserve all this hate... this page is the first time I've ever heard anyone say they didn't like the band.

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  44. This was one of those bands where you had to be there to appreciate them now. Like it or not, these guys were original which is much more then I can say about this lame ass blog.

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  45. Wow - tough crowd. That's a lot of hate for a goofball band. Yes, They were 100% a joke band - but were fun at the time and always put on a good show when I saw them.

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  46. Sir... you´re a dumbfuck for overanalyze a band like Mucky Pup who is a mix of music, humor, nonsense and catchy song with decent riff. so.... at the end they put out albums.. you just rant on this lame ass blog.. fuck you sir! :) have a good day

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  47. Like and love your post . You have thanks .

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