Okay, lately I’ve been listening to a lot of mid-to-late 1990s music and I don’t really know why. I feel like something must have triggered something in my mind that is making me revert to a certain era in my life in terms of taste in music.
And I believe it’s come to a head today with my first-time-in-years listen to California by Mr. Bungle.
I know exactly what triggered it: my infatuation with Trevor Dunn and reading the Q&A archives on his website where, funnily enough, he avoids most questions pertaining to Mr. Bungle and flat out says repeatedly he’s glad the band is defunct. Which, honestly, I understand. I was not a member of that band, I don’t know what all went on between them but I do know I wouldn’t want to be in a band I formed in high school when I’m 39.
So it’s kind of funny that talk about why it’s good that a band is no longer together would inspire me to go back and really listen to them. But that’s how it goes, I guess.
Mr. Bungle was a huge fucking deal to me in high school. I made my own shirts because I couldn’t afford to buy “real” ones. I missed my one opportunity to see them live because the only person willing to drive me there would only take me if I agreed to take acid with her before the show. I carried the cassette of Mr. Bungle’s first album with me everywhere, even when I knew I wasn’t going to listen to it at all that day.
That tape actually may have had something to do with it, too. I’ve been sort of going through an emotional and physical housecleaning lately and I got rid of a bunch of stuff, including almost all my old cassettes (sadly I don’t have a tape deck anymore). And I put that Mr. Bungle tape in the Goodwill bag. It was there for about an hour but it never made it to Goodwill. Well, the bag made it to Goodwill but that Bungle tape wasn’t in there. It’s been in my purse since that day.
That tape was my totem, my good luck token. If there is any proof to the concept of radiating energies, that tape is it. Whenever I was upset about something the mere act of holding it calmed me and helped me feel a little better (which was good for when I was at school because my natural instinct is to suck my thumb and I got picked on enough for eating paper). Mr. Bungle was my favorite band for a long time and while their first album isn’t my favorite of theirs, that cassette of their first album is as important and sentimental to me as my baby blanket and the Pound Puppy my uncle gave me when I was, like, three so I’d take my medicine so I could get well and be the flower girl at his wedding.
So what is my point? What was I talking about?
Mr. Bungle. Right.
I relistened to California today for the first time in years. I’ve listened to Disco Volante a few times recently and I’m working on a top thirteen favorite albums list for a friend of mine and I was really torn between Mr. Bungle’s last two albums to include on the list. I figured since Disco Volante had gotten a few recent listens I should give California another spin so they’d both be fresh in my mind and I could make a more honest decision.
And about two bars into Retrovertigo I completely broke down. I think based on that song alone, California’s going to have to be the one on the list. Retrovertigo is one of those songs that I put on every mixtape I made for anybody for at least two years. I don’t necessarily know what the lyrics are “supposed” to mean but I know what they mean to me and that song was so incredibly important and moving to me. It got me through tough stuff just as much as thumbsucking and cassette fondling did.
I miss Mr. Bungle. I wish could have seen them live. They are still one of my absolute favorite bands and lately I feel like their music is completely new to me again.
Be seeing you.
-Sally
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