Is there anything fuzzier than The Melvins?

Bit of a muted garage this week, but still fun. I'm getting a bit more adventurous with my set and mixing, and hopefully it's working for you guys out there. The highlight of my evening, however, was wandering through to Marcus' room at the end of the night to witness a shirtless guy stood on stage playing air piano (air piano!!!) to Sweet Home Alabama. Brilliant

I'm going to try and do some rockier stuff this week, and after finally getting round to listening to all of Queens Of The Stone Ages' Songs For The Deaf, it seems an appropriate place to start. Now I've had this album pretty much since it came out, where it has sat with the rest of their discography. The self titled debut and Rated R get many, many repeated listens, and even the slightly dissapointing Lullabies To Paralyse gets an occasional airing. But for some reasons, possibily due to having to play No-One Knows week after week, I never really got round to listening to Songs For The Deaf

Which is a shame, because it's really very, very good indeed. Scuzzy, sleazy riffs (which reminds me, I must post something about Danko Jones soon), razor sharp drums (courtesy of Mr Dave Grohl) and some hard rocking action. A lot of grunge sounds pretty tired now, but QOTSA remind me of how good Nirvana, Mudhoney and Soundgarden were, whilst sounding fresh and urgent. The fact that I can play a record by ex-memeber of Kyuss and 18 year kids will dance to it is saying something.

For me however, the first two albums are were the real magic is at. Heavy, raw stoner rock with sludgy riffs, but coupled with the thing a lot of the grungy bands leave out - catchy melody. Whilst for a lot of people the stand out early tracks are Feel Good Hit... and The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret, for me it's all about Mexicola, Monster In Your Parasol, Regular John and Autopilot.

With their changable lineup (the only currently standing member is Josh Homme afer co-founder Nick Oliveri was kicked out due to personal differences) taking in member of Nirvana, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Kyuss and Dinosaur Jr, Monster Magnet and Pearl Jam, they read like a who's who of anyone who has turned up their distortion pedal to maximum fuzziness. I'm not going to write any more, just post a bunch of the essential, essential stuff

Queens Of The Stone Age - Monster In Your Parasol



Queens Of The Stone Age - Only In My Head



Queens Of The Stone Age - Autopilot (Acoustic)



Queens Of The Stone Age - Regular John (Live)