The Jumbo Sound of Mudhead 7″
Self-Released, 1988
Spinning the recently released Captured Tracks compilation of mid-80s proto-indie rock, Strum & Thrum, The American Jangle Underground 1983-1987, I was pleasantly surprised to see the Kansas City area represented with a track from The Bangtails which made me feel the need to call out the long lost haunted postpunk of The Bangtails-related band Mudhead. Anchored by the driving drumbeat of The Bangtail’s Archer Prewitt (The Sea & Cake, The Cocktails) and the off-the-rails wailing of fellow Kansas City Art Institute student and Nebraska punk luminary Mott-ly in a dense swirl of dual guitars and hypnotic basslines, this droning 33rpm single comes off as the unpredictable midwestern cousin of NYC no-wave pioneers Live Skull amped up with the unnerving intensity of a band like Of Cabbages and Kings, lit with a goth-tinged hue of Burning Image-style death rock. Tinnitus-tainted readers may appreciate this deeper peek into the festering KC underground that also produced the much more accessible Bangtails. If the single catches your ear, be sure to check out a live version of “Eleutheromania” taken from the 1988 Live in Lawrence compilation where Mott-ly “knocked satellites out of orbit… screaming like Elmer Fudd being raped by a werewolf on a bad acid trip” as an astute alt weekly writer once wrote.
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