Hello, Mike Patton

Midlife Crisis
Faith No More
Who Cares A Lot? The Greatest Hits
Reprise : 1998
[Listen] [Buy]

Goodbye Sober Day
Mr. Bungle
California
Warner Bros. : 1999
[Listen] [Buy]

The Godfather
Fantômas
The Director's Cut
Ipecac : 2001
[Listen] [Buy]

Book of the Month
Lovage
Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By
NicheMusic.com Inc. : 2001
[Listen] [Buy]

God Hates A Coward
Tomahawk
Tomahawk
Ipecac : 2001
[Listen] [Buy]

When Good Dogs Do Bad Things [feat. Mike Patton]
The Dillinger Escape Plan
Irony Is A Dead Scene
Epitaph : 2002
[Listen] [Buy]

Mojo
Peeping Tom
Peeping Tom
Ipecac : 2006
[Listen] [Buy]

It's sometime around the turn of the millennium and I'm in my car. My favorite Clear Channel-moderated alternative-modern rock radio station is doing a really good job of having a personality. An early-nineties track from some band that's probably never done anything else begins to play through - you know the one, the tune that goes:

You want it all /
But you can't have it /
It's in your face /
But you can't grab it

The two guys that go back and forth, sort of rapping and singing? I don't know. It sounds kind of like that "Cult of Personality" track, but I'm really just waiting for something by Limp Bizkit to come back on because I love popular music that hates other popular music.

My thoughts are interrupted by my passenger - a loner type with too much time on his hands; the kind who can trace most networks of bizarre and unheard-of music out to their farthest node. "Mike Patton is awesome," he marvels aloud. I give him the sort of "Oh yeah?" you can really only manage while you're in the middle of working your turn signal, and follow up: "Who's he?" "The singer of Faith No More." Right, that's the name of this group. Not averse to picking up a little trivia, I ask him which one, and he sort of gets quiet for a second.

"That's one guy."

Once you know, there’s no going back. Deeper than Faith No More, the galvanizing catalogue of Mike Patton spans over twenty years and at least as many genres – jazz, trip-hop, mathcore, opera, Japanese noise. His voice runs like quicksilver and battery acid to fit the mold and sometimes burn it through. No matter the shape it takes, it remains somehow familiar – it is the linking thread that keeps even his farthest efforts comfortably within listening range.

A FmGT crash course on the man is long overdue. The tunes above have been selected for painless inoculation and exposure to the broadest possible vocal spectrum, and are provided here for your continued education.
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For all of its searing synths and fuzzy guitar, "Midlife Crisis" has a distinctively acoustic feel to it - the drums punch clear through the spectrum filled up by the rest of the band without obscuring Mike, who is layered two or three times over during the track's refrain. The pre-Loudness War mastering done on this song leaves a glorious amount of headroom [see this for more], which means that you'll have to turn it up to get the full effect. And you'll want to. As an aside, not a day passes when I do not pray for this song to appear on the local karaoke machine.

"Goodbye Sober Day" is four-and-a-half minutes of genre-hopping nihilistic insanity by what is likely Patton's most [in]famous side project, Mr. Bungle. [Who somehow managed to hold a label spot on Warner Bros. through three albums' worth of what you're hearing now - and worse.] This track sounds like something you'd hear pouring out of the glowing annals of a disco built on cursed Aztec ritual grounds - one headlined by the Beach Boys and managed by Satan. If that doesn't make sense to you, you've never listened to Mr. Bungle. But don't take my word for it! The song does a better job of capturing the essence of Mike Patton than this entire post; it absolutely must be listened all the way through. Just make sure to leave the lights on.

Fantômas is an avant garde metal supergroup put together by Patton shortly after the dissolution of Faith No More, full of familiar faces: Trevor Dunn [Mr. Bungle], Buzz Osbourne [The Melvins] and Dave Lombardo [Slayer]. The Director's Cut is their second album, packed with the group's unique re-working of a bunch of mid-20th century motion picture themes - including a few that you or I could whistle with a couple seconds' worth of recollection - and so is largely pretty listenable. Marvel as Patton deftly leaps from mangled screaming to sugary falsetto; "The Godfather" is a lot of fun to listen to.

Under Dan the Automator's steady command of all sounds analog, Music to Make Love To Your Old Lady By pulses with a lurid sensuality that makes this album feel like a vintage narcotic. Patton's voice is unshaven and tough as he trades lines with a seductive Jennifer Charles [Elysian Fields]. Supposedly, there's a new Lovage album in the works - so keep your fingers crossed.

Tomahawk is what happened when Mike Patton caught Jesus Lizard on the rebound, and it's produced some seriously live ammunition. Vile, distorted verses ascend into an ear-splitting scream before they're saved by what one imagines are the soaring melodies of Patton's "natural" voice - whatever that is - for the chorus. Check out the performance below for a glimpse of one of his favorite toys.

The union between The Dillinger Escape Plan and Mike Patton should have left some glowing shell of a star in its wake, but instead produced the sort of EP on which a studio cover of Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy" feels right at home. If you can get through the early salvos of noise - an acquired taste, like poison - you'll be rewarded; the track enters something resembling 4/4 after the breakdown.

Peeping Tom is like Mike Patton's take on the Handsome Boy Modeling School concept, a disparate collection of tunes with an all-star roster of guests, friends and people who owe him favors. "Mojo" was the album's first single when it was released this past May, and is the very closest thing to pop music Patton has done in years. As such, it's a real treat. Guest stars are Dan the Automator and Rahzel, who support the track through a middle eastern-flavored verse and a chorus that sounds like a pen pal contribution from Dr. Dre.

Never stop learning - and happy listening.

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EtherbOx -- Watch this space for more from this tectonic gent.