Like Tomahawk, it wasn't until Mr. Bungle's third album, California, that I really started doing some research on them. I had known that this was Patton's original band from high school, yet hadn't had an opportunity to give them a listen. When the video for FNM's "Epic" hit Mtv, Patton was seen hopping around in a Mr. Bungle T-shirt, paying homage to the band he was still very much still active in.
It was 1999 when they actively showed up on my radar, mainly because of a publicized ongoing feud between Patton and Red Hot Chili Peppers' lead singer, Anthony Kiedis. California, and RHCP's new album, Californication were released within a month of each other (the latter dropping first since both were under Warner Brothers, and the label pushed Bungle's similarly-named album's release back). I bought both albums since, at the time, I liked what the RHCP were doing, and the demise of Faith No More a year earlier had me searching for something else Patton-related. While Californication was pretty much what I had expected, California was not, and I just loved it. It was simply a fun album, and probably as normal of a Bungle album as you were going to get (as I found out after getting their previous two albums, which I also enjoyed for their uniqueness).
Unfortunately, the band went on permanent hiatus in the early 2000's after some internal conflicts within the band with no word on ever regrouping. Trevor Dunn and Mike Patton still tour together in other projects, thankfully, but a Mr. Bungle reunion is still something longtime fans want to see. Patton denies it would ever happen, but the same was said for Faith No More, who reunited after 11 long years for a worldwide tour. Here's hoping!
Here's a favorite Zappa-esque tune from the album, recorded in 2000 at Bizarre Fest in Germany.
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