This article was first published in February 1993 in Ink
Nineteen, a printed publication in Florida, and is reproduced here
with kind permission of www.ink19.com.
* * *
Walt Mink is the nation’s foremost authority on sleep behavior. Walt
Mink is a rollicking high-tension power trio. Identity crisis? Not
really. The first is a professor of psychology. The second is three
musicians/students who took their name from the first. The first feels
“pretty arbitrary” about the whole thing, explains John Kimbrough,
guitarist/vocalist for the band. “We were taking his class at the time
when we needed a name. So we asked him if we could use his. He was
pretty skeptical; he wasn’t sure we weren’t making fun of his.” And
does the eminent Walt Mink lose any sleep over the recorded output of
Walt Mink? “He probably listens to classical music or something. He’s
in his late sixties.”
Walt Mink started out playing at college basement parties. According
to Joey Waronker (drums), “One of the intentions of the name was to
let people see cheesy fliers that said ‘Walt Mink in Someone’s
Basement’.” The band played subterraneous virtually every weekend for
two semesters before trying to land a gig in a club.
The three members were attending college as the band was forming: John
majored in History, Candice Belanoff (bass) in anthropology and Joey
(drums) in Music. But the origins of the band stretch back a little
further. Says Joey: “John and I knew each other in western
Massachusetts, and we played together. It was pretty free-form,
though. Once we got to Minnesota and started jamming, we began looking
for a bass player and ran into Candice.”
The result was a tight blend of garage and pop, melodies that would
seem to lie defenseless against the towering strength of their
accompaniment (part 70’s space-rock, part funk, part Seattle
sediment), were they not so…catchy. Their debut album, Miss Happiness
showcases this approach, explicitly so in the title track. As John
Kimbrough’s voice dreams from verse to verse, the rhythm section,
seemingly locked together tighter than a Houdini escape trick, pounds
out tempo changes, rhythmic collisions and angelic harmonies.
If the Smashing Pumpkins were more red than blue, they’d sound like Walt Mink.
Miss Happiness’s cover shows a scene from a musical bordello.
Instruments lay scatter. Wall hangings, beads, balloons and trinkets
abound. The band stares sullenly and sultrily at you. The ashram has
been overrun and the vermin is music. The scene is not from one of the
aforementioned parties, or even a college groovy pad, but the
recording room of Smart Studios, which the lauded Butch Vig calls home
base. Joey explains: “John had made four track demos in our living
room, and when we did the record deal, Caroline [the band’s label]
said ‘you should bring all your living room stuff down to the studio.’
So we did, and they really got into it; ‘we gotta take a picture of
this’.”
The band feels a deep connection with the concept of the original
power trio: Jimi Hendrix, Blue Cheer, “the Outpatients from western
Massachusetts, the Poll Winners, They had it together back then,”
recalls Kimbrough. “Hüsker Dü is also way up there.” The band has a
multitude of named influences. Joey admits to listening “from Captain
Beefheart to Frank Sinatra to Ry Cooder. A lot of Seventies music,
Dinosaur Jr.…the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds…I was getting into that back
then, and nobody else would get into it. The bootlegs of the Beach
Boys’ lost Smile album are the ultimate psychedelic rock music. We try
not to work our influences directly; we try to have fun with it.”
And now, time for the dreaded “how do you write your songs?” question.
The response? “John writes songs with no real ideas in mind. He’ll
have a lyrical idea about something shitty someone did to him one day
and write about it, or something.”
Music forges ahead like a wedge formation, with one or three bands at
the tip and a multitude of others following in their own fashion.
Several don’t bother to catch up. Others were lost before they even
started. But Walt Mink found an interesting path, and stopped a while
to admire the landscape. And put out Miss Happiness.
Comments