Melvins Free EP, Album; Tour Van For Sale

Little more than ten years ago, intrigued by name recognition and reverse packaging, I found my first taste of the Melvins. I wasn't sure what to expect behind the greyscale bar code television collage and DayGlo orange packaging of Colossus of Destiny, but what I found was almost 60 minutes of bleeps, blorps, squeals, and samples. At the time, I found it completely unlistenable.

Luckily, though, I was still curious -- a few months later they released Hostile Ambient Takeover, which delivered high octane guitars and drums and limited the electro-experimentation to an a 16-minute track and an extended outro. I was hooked. Material over their 25-year plus career range in sound from proto-grunge garage rock, Sabbath sludge at a snail's pace, and avant garde noise experimentalism. It's no wonder they've influenced bands from Nirvana to Queens of the Stone Age to Mastodon and beyond.

The grunge godfathers continue their campaign of annual output this year with not one, but two releases under two lineups and one new moniker. Listen to the track "Friends Before Larry" (via Metal Sucks) below and follow the jump for more, including the two releases.

On March 13 the four-piece lineup (including Big Business duo Coady Willis and second drummer Jared Warren) will release Scion A/V Presents: the Bulls & the Bees [EP] as a free download via Scion A/V. Poke on over to Pitchfork and Revolver to listen to un-embeddable tracks "The War on Wisdom" and "We Are Doomed," respectively.

June 5th will then see the crew release Freak Puke through Ipecac as Melvins Lite. For the effort, Buzz Osborne (guitar, vocals) and Dale Crover (drums) will be joined by Osborne's Fantômas bandmate Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle) on stand-up bass. Head on over to Rolling Stone for more including an interview where Buzz tellingly states of Melvins Lite, "it's still the Melvins. I don't think our fans will be confused by that. They've understood that we do pretty much what we want, anyway."

And finally, anyone wanting to pimp out a piece of alternative rock history can pony up the $33,000 (as of this posting) for a 1972 Dodge Sportsman Royal Van once used by Melvins on tour. The busted up (and apparently immobile) van is said to have also been driven by Kurt Cobain and displays an original KISS stencil by the late grunge icon.

Head on over to eBay to own the "World Famous MELVAN, MELVINS Tour Van" yourself (source: Brooklyn Vegan).

Love Buzz: Melvins, Alive at the Fucker Club