Melvins

w/ Redd Kross

Doors 7pm | Show 7:30pm | $30 + Dice fees | 16+

— THE MELVINS—The Melvins are one of modern music’s most influential bands. Having formed in 1983 Montesano, Washington, the group – founded by vocalist/guitarist Buzz Osborne, with drummer Dale Crover joining a year later – has been credited with merging the worlds of punk rock and heavy music, forming a new subgenre all their own. Over their 40-plus-year career, they’ve released more than 30 original albums, numerous live records, and far too many to count singles and rarities. Recent releases include 2024’s Tarantula Heart, a really good collection of what the Melvins do, what they can do and what they want to do, and Five Legged Dog (2021), an ambitious 36-track acoustic collection that reimagines their heaviest songs alongside covers of their favorite artists. Throughout their discography, the Melvins have collaborated with Jello Biafra, Mudhoney, and Fantômas for individual releases and toured the world many times over. Remarkably, they had the misfortune to be in both Christchurch and Tokyo for their 2011 earthquakes. In 2012, the Melvins completed the “51 States in 51 Days” (50 states +DC) tour, which was chronicled in the film “Across The USA in 51 Days.” The current incarnation of the band is Osborne, Crover, and Steven McDonald (Redd Kross). Previous line- ups included a pairing of Osborne and Crover with Jared Warren and Coady Willis of Big Business, a four-piece featuring the current trio plus Butthole Surfers’ Jeff Pinkus, as well as Melvins Lite, which partners Osborne and Crover with Mr. Bungle’s Trevor Dunn. Sometimes, if you’re extra lucky, one version of the Melvins will open for the Melvins.

—REDD KROSS—In 1979, two school-kids all hopped-up on punk-rock started their own group in their hometown of Hawthorne, Los Angeles (birthplace of the Beach Boys) and soon found themselves opening shows for notorious scene pioneers Black Flag. Jeff McDonald was 15, his brother Steven only 11. But that didn’t stop their group from becoming one of the most remarkable, enduring and unique outfits punk- rock ever belched up.

2024, then, marks Redd Kross’s 45th birthday – an important anniversary for any group whose heart pulses at 45RPM – and the brothers are celebrating the event with a veritable multimedia extravaganza. There’s a memoir, Now You’re One Of Us, due in November, author Dan Epstein telling the group’s story in the McDonalds’ unmistakable (and occasionally contrary) voices. A brilliant rockumentary, Born Innocent, directed by Andrew Reich, will premiere later in the year. Most exciting of all, a new album – an eponymous double-album, no less, packed with 18 of their sharpest, most addictive songs yet – will hit the racks, courtesy of In The Red Records. These years of joyful service to rock’n’roll have seen Redd Kross evolve into a killer pop-rock concern, dealing in dayglo power-chords, choruses as tall as skyscrapers and a lyric sheet thick with acid couplets and arch pop- cultural references their loyal following will gobble up like quaaludes.