Rising from the ashes of ’Nam-themed CBGB also-rans Shrapnel, New Jersey’s Monster Magnet arrived on the scene like low-budget psychedelic cartoon supervillains, spewing a thoroughly ancient form of acid rock but somehow sounding like something from seven hundred years in the future.
Led by David Wyndorf – a creepy-moustachioed culture vulture with an encyclopaedic knowledge of everything cool, from underground comics to Z-grade splatter flicks and dungeon-dwelling metal acts from the dawn of time – Monster Magnet presented an alternative world far away from anything else in the ether at the dawn of the 90s.
Most of the street-rock dirtbags who first heard Monster Magnet had no idea who Hawkwind, Bang, Sir Lord Baltimore or any of the other deep-space/ downer-rock cuts Wyndorf had rattling around in his head even were. And while an entire cottage industry of be-denimed retro-rockers sprang up in their wake, Monster Magnet were it; ground zero in the dope-rock-proto-metal revival wave.
They didn’t invent shit, but they reinvented practically everything. After a few head-spinning indie releases asserting their feral dominance in underground rock circles and a wild tour with rising grunge stars Soundgarden, Monster Magnet signed to major label A&M – desperate to get a jump on the 90s alt.rock train – and the band took full advantage, crafting big, beefy, arena-rattling monster albums like 1995’s Dopes To Infinity and, more significantly, 1998’s Powertrip, the band’s apex predator move, an authentic gold record with an equally authentic smash hit in the timeless earth-rocker Space Lord.
If nothing else, it provided the only time the word ‘motherfucker’ was on mainstream radio every fifteen minutes. The story from there is as old as time eternal. They toured relentlessly over the next few years, smoked whatever was around, made music videos with half-naked models and piles of somebody else’s money, and generally lived the rapidly fleeting dream.
And while the venues and budgets eventually got smaller as the decades wore on, Monster Magnet remained the preeminent stoner rock band on the planet, the wiggest-out dope smokers and space streakers to ever rip off Amon Düül, Jack Kirby and Dario Argento all at once. Monster Magnet’s discography is legendary, on purpose.
And one to avoid...
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