Published on Nov 3, 2000
If I ever wondered why I never let myself get into the drug
culture, I now have the second CD that answers that question.
The first, o faithful reader, you may remember as
Jerusalem by Sleep – possibly the only band ever to feature
a lead bong player. The second album is
Cocaine Rodeo from Mondo Generator, a side project for
ex-Kyuss and current Queens Of The Stone Age member Nick Oliveri.
Unofficially labeled as featuring the final recordings of Kyuss,
this disc is nine parts cacophony to one part music, and is as
unpleasant as it is unlistenable.
Oh, sure, I realize that to speak negative of Kyuss or Queens Of
The Stone Age is about as blasphemous as using a Bible to start a
hibachi grill. And I don’t mean to slam either band, since my
exposure to both has been very limited. But the ten tracks on
Cocaine Rodeo makes me wonder just what the hell these guys
were smoking when they wrote this stuff.
On one hand, you have the short blasts that leave you scratching
your head as to what you just heard – tracks like “Shawnette” and
“Uncle Tommy” fall under this category. Then you have your
regular-length songs which are part stoner rock, part speed metal
(thanks to the rapid-fire vocal delivery of Oliveri, performing as
“Rex Everything,” and Burnt Mattress), like on “Miss Mary Gets A
Boob Job”.
And then, there’s the spacey jam of “Simple Exploding Man
(Extended Version)” – 11 minutes of make-the-dog-howl-with-pain
noise. One of the unofficial Kyuss tracks (featuring Oliveri,
guitarist Josh Homme and drummer Brant Bjork), this one is so far
over the top that it’s gasping for air. If only the fadeout around
the seven-and-a-half minute mark had kept, and not allowed the song
to fade back in. Oh, well… I can dream, can’t I?
This all said, there are two decent moments on
Cocaine Rodeo, both of them short-blast songs. “I Want You
To Die” and the title track actually have enough musical substance
to keep the listener interested, as well as make them stop trying
to claw their eardrums out.
Yeah, you could sugar coat this and call
Cocaine Rodeo a collection of one-off tracks that is meant
to be a bit of a goof. But somehow, I think that Oliveri wouldn’t
put his name on any project unless he was serious about it – and
that’s what makes me all the more scared of Mondo Generator and
Cocaine Rodeo.