The Melvins at Irving Plaza

Buzz Osborne

Guitarist/vocalist Roger "Buzz" Osborne, also known as King Buzzo, formed the alternative rock Melvins while in high school in 1983 in Montesano, Washington. The band was named after a despised supervisor where Osborne worked as a clerk; the band's members felt it to be an appropriately ridiculous name. A year later, Osborne recruited drummer Dan Crover, and the band's rehearsals moved to a back room of Crover's parents house in Aberdeen, Washington. The two musicians usually have worked as a trio with ever-changing bassists. The band started by playing fast punk rock and quickly graduated to sludge metal and droning noise rock, influencing the grunge movement that would soon begin in nearby Seattle. The Melvins released its 22nd album, the double A Walk with Love & Death, on July 7, 2017. One disc, Love, is a 14-song soundtrack to an unreleased film of the same name. The other disc, Death, is standard Melvins fare. The band currently is based in Los Angeles, California.

Headlining at Irving Plaza tonight, Osborne and Crover were joined by OFF!'s bassist Steve McDonald. Completely bathed in red lights throughout the night, the trio opened and ended the 16-song set with selections from the 1992 Lysol album. Osborne, dressed as usual in a floor-length black velvet robe with gold trimmings, played angular guitar riffs and sang gruffly, often to the shaking of his head of wiry blond hair. The rhythm section frequently countered with what seemed like wild jazz retorts to Osborne's frenetic, scathing guitar licks. Just as a song settled into a comfortable groove, someone in the band improvised an awkward dissonance or squealing distortion to odd-ify the arrangements. The band covered David Bowie's "Saviour Machine" and the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand," but twisted them to such a raucous degree that there were few parallels to the original versions. The only way to meet the Melvins' music was on the band's own terms. The Melvins' statement was that nothing in the blaring, abrasive music was standard or ordinary; the only tradition was to be untraditional.

Visit the Melvins at www.themelvins.net.

Setlist:

1. Sacrifice (Flipper cover)
2. Oven
3. Anaconda
4. Queen
5. The Kicking Machine
6. Saviour Machine (David Bowie cover)
7. It’s Shoved
8. I Want to Hold Your Hand (The Beatles cover)
9. Euthanasia
10. Edgar the Elephant
11. Sober-delic (Acid Only)
12. The Bit
13. Onions Make the Milk Taste Bad
14. AMAZON
15. Hung Bunny
16. Roman Dog Bird