The Mike Patton Corner: Mr. Bungle’s The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny
There are few popular musicians I find more fascinating than the enigmatic virtuoso Mike Patton. The catalog he has amassed in his 30+ year career is as impressively eclectic as it is staggeringly vast; the man has dipped his toes into a wide array of genres, and his music often pulls from many wildly different influences. Even after having familiarized myself with several of his bands, I have only scratched the surface of his discography, which is why I’ve created the Mike Patton Corner: to listen to and review his albums in chronological order, so that I can better understand the man and his art.
I’ve decided to start at the beginning, with Mr. Bungle’s 1986 demo, The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny. This release is significant for several reasons; not only is it Mike Patton’s high school band Mr. Bungle’s first recording, which they have recently reformed (in some capacity) to perform live in its entirety, it’s also the only Bungle demo where none of the songs turned up on their 1991 self titled debut. Additionally, this tape ending up in the hands of Faith No More guitarist Mike Bordin was what led to Patton’s legendary stint as their frontman, improbable though it may seem. The vocals are certainly a far cry from the mostly clean and somewhat nasally singing that ended up on Faith No More’s 1989 album The Real Thing.
On Raging Wrath, Mr. Bungle manage to sound like a bunch of teenagers fucking around while still doing pretty good job of being a competent, if slightly derivative speed metal band. Patton doesn’t do much melodic singing on this tape, most of his vocals are either growls or hardcore screams. It’s clear at this point that Patton didn’t have the technique he would display on later projects, his throat-shredding yells explode with youthful exuberance and punk amateurishness. As this is a demo, the sound quality is obviously very rough, but Bungle make an effort use the aesthetic to their advantage, and the production isn’t liable to shock anyone who’s familiar with lofi music.
The tape opens with the eerie instrumental Grizzly Adams, a psychedelic guitar composition that gives way to a brief moment of epic heavy metal. Crappy sound quality aside, Mr. Bungle were clearly skilled musicians and talented writers from the start, and the track works well as a warmup to the madness it precedes.
Following that is the punk anthem Anarchy Up Your Anus, which opens with thrash metal riffs topped with some basically unintelligible spoken word vocals. In fact, it’s hard to make out much of anything that’s said on this tape, and perhaps with the live performances will come some clarifications on what exactly the lyrics are. The song then rips into pummeling intensity, with “anarchy” being the only word I could make out. It certainly gets the message across, and it becomes pretty enthralling after the intro.
More intense speeds turn up on the following track Spreading The Thighs Of Death. This and a few other songs also feature some shrieking Slayer-esque guitar solos, which is not something I typically associate with Mr. Bungle, but Trey Spruance’s expressive playing shines through the rough recording. A press release from early in the band’s career states, “We play comedic thrash metal and hardcore punk, provoking humorous slam-diving fun — We stress the importance of diversity, and this is reflected in our music. Our speed metal originals, however, are written from a more serious standpoint, musically and lyrically.” While the purity of their commitment to thrashing is admirable, they do sacrifice some of the personality that would make their later releases undeniably unique. All bands start out emulating their influences, and these songs definitely bleed Big 4 thrash. It must feel like a full-circle moment for the partially reformed Bungle to be backed by Anthrax’s Scott Ian and Slayer’s Dave Lombardo for their live performances.
Though there isn’t much of Bungle’s trademark genre-hopping on this tape, the song Hypocrites does demonstrate their first foray into ska, a sound which would turn up on many songs off their debut album for Warner Records. The track also features a thrash interpolation of La Cucaracha, a rare moment on the tape where Bungle’s sense of humor is on full display between the speedy riffs and incomprehensible screams. The bass does tend to meld into the guitars due to the low quality recording, but Bungle were smart to give Trevor Dunn a few choice moments, and it’s nice to be able to hear him underneath the song’s many guitar solos.
The multi-phased Bungle Grind is menacing, galloping, and unfortunately pretty unoriginal. The energy keeps it from being a lull in the track list, but aside from some particularly vicious vocals and odd, inventive riffs at the beginning, it’s one of the less standout tracks.
I feel similarly about the following track, Raping Your Mind, which boasts speed and ferocity but not much variety. It’s no surprise that Bungle would become restless in the speed metal genre and move on to grander and more ambitious sounds. The humor returns on the brief and silly Evil Satan, which contains the first appearance of saxophone on a Mr. Bungle song. The bongos and slide whistles harness the thrash energy into the type of funked out chaos that would become typical of the band’s sound, albeit with less technical precision than what can be heard on the rest of Raging Wrath.
The final song is Sudden Death, another serious moment for the band. It pretty much delivers on the punk and thrash that populates the rest of the tape, but aside from a killer guitar solo it doesn’t really pull out all the stops. Listening to Raging Wrath really put into perspective Patton’s most recent band Dead Cross, a similarly relentless hardcore experience but with the benefit of Patton’s decades of honing his unique lyrical voice, vocal technique, and compositional eccentricities, as well as some quality production.
Though the band’s sound is raw and unrefined on Raging Wrath, any Patton superfan would surely find this tape worth a listen. The energy is undeniable, and as an advertisement for Bungle as a live band it’s extremely convincing. Even though it pales in comparison to their studio albums, it’s way more intriguing than a bunch of 17-year-olds’ demo has any right to be.
I give Mr. Bungle’s Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny an enthusiastic 4.5/10
Best Tracks: Hypocrites, Spreading The Thighs Of Death
