Arts & Culture
Mudshark gets dirty with grunge rock at Jimmy B’s
The Pointer
nmeye177@uwsp.edu
Jimmys B’s Bar Parrot Club sounds like a place for birds, but Thursday night it was overtaken by Mudshark, a garage rock band that spewed their music to a thirsty crowd of bar-goers.
Patrons enjoyed brewed dollar taps and free pool while the band raged through Neil Young gems and Frank Zappa wonders, stopping from time to time to offer a moment for any public service announcements.
The band, which plays a mix of covers and originals, provided a crowd searching for a good time with that and more from 9 p.m. to bar close.
“We almost feel an obligation to fill a void for people who aren’t looking for one particular thing,” said lead singer Tim Parks.
The band kicked off the night to a slightly empty bar; apparently everyone was still studying. Their first set got off to a rocky start, as not all the pistons of the Mudshark machine were firing in sink.
After a groove-possessed original, entitled “Food Grifters,” a song devoted to stealing free food from the tables of student organizations, the band kicked into a rocky version of “Cinnamon Girl” by Neil Young.
From there on out it was smooth sailing on the blues rock ship driven by “Captain Aggression” who just so happens to be addicted to speed--as in how fast an object moves, not the recreational drug.
“Getting all the aggression out for the week makes me relax a little more,” said Parks.
The band drove the ship on through the night as the bar slowly filled until there wasn’t much space to call your own and the dance floor had been taken up by writhing hips and smiling faces.
At one point, the band effortlessly took the “Ghostbusters theme” and turned it into a scummy eddying stream of aggression and funk.
The band encouraged crowd participation throughout the night, asking people to please come touch bass player Landon’s rutabaga before ending of the show with what they call the Zappa Trilogy.
The trilogy is comprised of three Frank Zappa songs, “Latex Solar Beef,” “Willie the Pimp” and “Gumbo Variations.”
The band brought an official end to the show with Neil Young’s “Keep on Rocking in the Free World” with the crowd packed around the microphone singing along with all their vocal cords could muster.
“I like playing on the same level and having people get right up in our face singing “Keep on Rocking in the Free World With Us,” said Parks.
From the dark corners of a Stevens Point basement, Mudshark was given life, the progeny of rock and roll and good beer.
The band has been around for two and half years and has seen its share of members go in and out the revolving door. Mudshark presses on with current members Tim Parks, Nate Fleming and Tom Lentz all on guitar, Landon Griskowski on bass and Ben Walker on drums.
The name Mudshark is derived from the Frank Zappa song “The Mud Shark,” a song in which Zappa talks about catching a fish out a hotel window that people can bring into their hotel room and do whatever they like with.
“The name was the idea of Tom Lentz. He said we should call it like Mudshark or Uncle Meat, something like that; he’s big into Frank Zappa,” said Parks.
The band prides itself on a do-it-yourself work ethic, an intimate life experience and having a sound that is hard to define. People have tried coming up with titles like “Blues Shred,” and “Garage Country,” but none of those seem to hit the nail exactly on the head. The band finds the term scumbag rock much more fitting.
“We only call it rock and roll or scumbag rock,” said Parks. “That’s our thing, we are scumbags, and we call people scumbags; it’s almost complimentary now.”
Mudshark will take the stage again at Jimmy B’s on Dec. 4, and again on Dec. 18, after which Parks will graduate from college. A dark question mark looms over the band’s future and Parks seemed unsure of what the outcome would be.
“It might dissolve, it might carry on. I have no clue; it is its own entity,” said Parks.
