"I never claimed to be different, I only said I was bored"

Image by Wikipedia user goongunther (cc)

Those that know me know that I count Faith No More among my favorite bands of all time, neck-and-neck with Brainiac for the Universal Championship. Angel Dust, my all-time favorite album, took the tiny little room in my brain that contained my concept of what was possible in rock music, and blew its walls to hell with its unapologetic rejection of the mainstream’s expectations for a follow up to their breakthrough album, The Real Thing. “Oh, you liked ‘Epic?’ Then you’re gonna hate this!” they exclaimed, unleashing a glorious mish-mash of an album that was simultaneously ugly, beautiful, confounding and exhilarating. Angel Dust remains a unique species of untamed beast to this day; to listen to it now and remember that there was a time when something this original could exist on a major label is almost mind-bending in retrospect.

But before there was the purposeful, counter-intuitive originality of Angel Dust, there was the pure dog-in-a-science-lab “we have no idea what we’re doing” punk/funk/metal/goth mish-mash of the early Faith No More releases, We Care A Lot and Introduce Yourself, two gloriously raw see-what-sticks splatters of meat on a day-glo kitchen wall. And before Mike Patton lent his vocals to FNM’s breakthrough hits and emerged as one of rock’s best-ever vocalists, the fevered originality of the band was personified in a bouncing ball of manic beach bum energy named Chuck Mosley.

Even after falling in love with The Real Thing, going back to discover the Chuck albums in my teen years elicited a solid “huh?” when sliding the tapes into my double-cassette stereo. There’s certainly a degree of charm in any set of first albums from a band that congealed its vision with later releases—think Pretty Hate Machine, Bleach, Smack Bunny Baby, or any other slabs of protomatter that only hinted at the stars that would blaze bright with later, fully-realized energy. But with Faith No More, the difference between Chuck and Patton cast the band’s evolution in stark relief. While Patton entered the band with a fully-formed, calculated mastery over his dynamic range, Chuck Mosley’s vocals on We Care A Lot and Introduce Yourself were haphazard, off-kilter, and untamed. Whereas Patton has often copped to approaching lyric writing as an exercise in sculpting phrases based on how they sound, Mosley was less focused and more sincere, vomiting heart and soul onto tape via his endearingly out-of-key howl. No time to nail that melody on the head, gang—someone’s trying to charge Chuck 95 cents for a transfer, maaaan.     

Fortunately, back in my younger days we all were more apt to give new, weird music multiple spins to let it sink in and process, to decide whether or not it was our thing, and Introduce Yourself grew on me like a tapeworm. To be real, it carried a lot of similarities with The Real Thing: where TRT featured the metallic dirge "Zombie Eaters," complete with melodramatic synth-and-vocal intro, Introduce Yourself's "The Crab Song" followed the same formula. And it's hard to argue against the connective tissue linking "Epic" with Mosley's signature performance on "We Care A Lot," a song that existed in a pupal stage on the Mordam Records album of the same name before getting reworked for the major label IY. In all honesty, the primary barrier to a true appreciation of FNM's first two records is acquiring an appreciation for Chuck. Once Chuck Mosley clicks with ya, the rest is neon gravy.  

To be sure, there are hits and misses on both albums--they're by no means flawless works. The original version of the song "We Care A Lot" drags compared to its update on Introduce Yourself, and a few of the songs on the first album have instrumental stretches that sound less like musical breaks than places where Mosley couldn't think of any lyrics. Roddy Bottum's keyboards have always enjoyed a healthy dollop of 80s symphonic cheese; on We Care A Lot, they're dramatically goth almost to the point of parody. But when it all works together, like on the theatrical classic "As The Worm Turns" or the nihilistically triumphant "Mark Bowen," those traits are a strength instead of a hinderance.

And that's what's beautiful about Faith No More with Chuck Mosley on vocals: with music this daringly original, unevenness is to be not only expected, but welcomed, because when it works, goddamn, it works. By 1985, Faith No More had gone through a litany of vocalists and a few other lineup changes, and it's not hard to imagine that the revolving door introduced a myriad of ideas and stylistic influences that the band was trying to mix into a final, cohesive stew. Once upon a time, it was expected that a band might need to take an album or two in order to develop and find their groove; in this age of shortened attention spans and increased access to anyone and everyone's catalog online, there's less patience for artist development or evolution.

This is the life lesson i took from bands like Faith No More and Brainiac (whose lead singer, the dearly departed Tim Taylor, once told me "we just try to come up with stuff that's original sounding more than anything"). Sure, there's something to be said for genre exercise -- there's a consistency and prolificity to be had in sticking to a formula, and it's produced some great bands. But it's in taking chances where the real thrill of songwriting lies for me. Sure, not everything attempted pays off, and lots of ideas get trashed, but those moments when you stumble across something that is 100% unapologetically unique to the personalities involved? That's magic.

Chuck Mosley died last week at the age of 57, and his passing makes the world a less weird, less unique place. But at the same time, the world is much weirder for him having been in it--not just for the music he left behind, but for the weirdos he inspired to be the most outlandishly unique versions of themselves, no matter how unvarnished, unfiltered, or even out of tune. No musician should tire of their uniqueness.

HEY!
WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?
HUH?!

Oh nothing, just wondering what it is you're doing...
Why it is you're doing that whatever it is you're doing
Oh yeah?
WHY? WHY?
I dunno
It just doesn't seem like something you'd be doing
I mean, you of all people, ha!
Know what I mean?

Yeah I know it's been bugging you since the day I was born, huh?
I asked my friend Anne about it
I said
"ANNE, ANNE, ANNE, what am I supposed to do, huh?
It's been bugging them since the day that I was born."

She said, "Do whatever the hell you want to do!
Now is the time where you can do anything!
Everything you do, anything is still gonna turn out great
I mean, you've got the world at your feet."




P.S. One of the last recordings Chuck Mosley worked on is embedded below. Check it out.

WWE Network World Tour: Survivor Series 1997

BONUS 20TH ANNIVERSARY COVERAGE!

The Undertaker dropped the WWF World Title to Bret "Hitman" Hart at SummerSlam '97, thanks to an assist from special referee Shawn Michaels, who swung a chair in Bret's direction and hit 'Taker instead, forcing Michaels to count the pin for his sworn enemy. It was a moment that kicked off a fresh chapter in the ongoing feud between the two men, as babyfaces and heels blurred alignments all throughout the WWF. It was the "gang warfare" era of the World Wrestling Federation, as groups like the Nation of Domination, the Hispanic Los Boriquas, and the biker-styled Disciples of Apocalypse tore through the WWF's midcard and each other. And at the top of the company were Bret Hart's reformed Hart Foundation, now consisting of not only Hart and his tag parter, Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, but also his brother Owen, the British Bulldog, and briefly Brian Pillman before his untimely death in October 1997. They were reviled anti-American heels at first, until they began waging a full-scale war with D-Generation X, the new stable consisting of Michaels, his buddy "Triple H" Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Chyna, and their bodyguard, the returning "Ravishing" Rick Rude.

Alignments began to blur for a few reasons. First, as Michaels and Helmsley's behavior became increasingly sophomoric and crude, their in-ring behavior began to include more blatant rulebreaking, which alienated the fans that still respected competitors that tried to win the right way. (That said, DX was building a loyal fan base of horny teenaged Beavis & Butt-Head fans from the first time the Hitman called them "degenerates" in the first place.) Meanwhile, reality was creeping in to the on-screen kayfabe world of the WWF for perhaps the first time. With the explosion of the Internet in the mid-90s, wrestling fans banded together online and smartened each other up to the backstage mechanics of the carnival on a level not previously seen. As the Monday Night War with WCW escalated during 1996 and 1997, Internet wrestling fans followed every rumored contract negotiation, every leaked piece of backstage drama, with relish. Finding out how the sausage was made was every bit as interesting as consuming the product, and it began to enhance the "smart fan's" enjoyment of the business.

So when it was rumored that Bret Hart was about to be let out of his 20-year WWF contract to jump ship to WCW, the Hart/DX feud gained a fresh, unique wrinkle. WCW had been poaching WWF talent like crazy, and the nWo storyline had set the wrestling world on its ear, destroying the WWF in the ratings on a weekly basis based on, well, the former WWF stars Kevin "Diesel" Nash, Scott "Razor Ramon" Hall, and "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan taking over the power structure in the WWF's rival company. It was widely perceived that the reeling WWF wouldn't be able to recover if their longest-tenured star, Bret Hart, were to jump ship. As rumors flew online, it became evident that the looming Survivor Series showdown between Hart and the now-European Champion Shawn Michaels (who had defeated the Bulldog for the title) would be Bret's last WWF Title defense and last match in the company. Thus, fans became divided--several accusing the Hitman of selling out (despite the simple fact that Vince McMahon couldn't afford his contract anymore), and some choosing to cheer and thank the Hitman for his years of service. By November 9, those fans were beginning to take over as Michaels and DX behaved more and more like heels. (All this despite the anti-American, pro-Canadian act the Harts were playing out during the Spring and Summer.)

With the fans divided and Bret's fate, along with the fate of the WWF World Title, in the air--would Hart drop the title to Shawn? Would he successfully defend the belt, then relinquish it on Raw the next night?--the WWF descended on Montreal, Quebec, for a Pay Per View event built around gang violence, but with an emphasis on the drama surrounding the two individuals who would square off in the main event.

(I tried really hard to just start in with WrestleMania XIV after the last recap, but it became painfully obvious that it would be impossible without using this show to point out how radically the landscape of the WWF had shifted between 'Manias. Plus, this is maybe the second-most infamous PPV in wrestling history aside from Over the Edge '99--frown--so it's hard not to spend time on it, especially with its 20th anniversary looming. So here we go.)