Mike Patton
I don't consider myself a huge Mike Patton fan anymore, in fact, I find a lot of his work to be overrated; but, the fact remains that I used to be completely obsessed with this artist, thus he has a special place in my heart. From his early days as the singer for bands like Faith No More and the almighty Mr. Bungle to his later solo and many side-projects like Tomahawk or Fantômas, I see increased production, but a slow and steady downhill slope when it comes to originality. I like to compare him with Quentin Tarantino. Both are brilliant at isolating the most fascinating elements of their influences and putting them back together as something completely new and exhilarating, but give them a few spins and the novelty soon wears off and the whole thing starts to feel very gimmicky. One makes references and inspires himself from obscure b-movies and Hong Kong "punch 'n kick" flicks while the other is influenced by obscure bands and composers. Only trouble is, Patton seems to have graduated from the school of Naked City and, regardless of what genre of music he is tackling with each new project, it always comes off sounding very academic. Even when he tries to break out of the mold, I get the impression he is running in circles ("It's probably time to sound like Faith No More - read: more commercial - again" and along comes Tomahawk or Peeping Tom).
Now take it easy, put down your weapons! You guys don't need to hunt me down even though I'm sure most of you who are reading this are probably bent on having me skinned alive, then tarred and feathered. This doesn't mean I find his work boring, I just don't find it as remarkable as his legions of fans would like to have me believe. I get a kick out of listening to most of his work, but that kick is usually short lived and rarely revisited. I don't want to diss him and his fans too much because I do have a lot respect for him, but today, it's mostly for his "gateway" abilities; if it weren't for him, I would probably never have heard of Naked City or delved even deeper into more daring musical explorations.
Pranzo OltranzistaLabel: Tzadik Release: 1997 Format: CD Cat. no: TZ 7022 |
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