THE MUD CITY MANGLERS an interview with ted tarka from the mud city manglers by shane jesse

xmass The Mud City Manglers "Heart Full Of Hate" (Stolen Records/International Trash) This is the sound of rock & roll at its optimum best. This three-piece are fuelled from a steady diet of alcohol, white pills, sociopath behaviour and a honest disgust for just about every aspect of life. The Mud City Manglers herald from miserable Pittsburgh and they utilise the word MOTHERFUCKER more times than Ol Dirty Bastard does ordering McDonalds. The songs are intimidating in all their glories - the sense of a band outrunning each other to see who can finish the songs first, which leads to the listener getting a direct current into their eardrums. The album is interspliced with soundbites from Rocky & Bullwinkle, which came to the band one day during a blizzard while they were smoking hash and watching the old cartoon. OK - the songs,standout tracks - well most of them, to paraphrase Ted Tarka "you dont like me, I dont mind,. to think Im fucked up all the time". I could get really lazy and describe The Manglers by saying they sound like another band, who wants to sound like every other band, ripping of every other punk band, but they dont. They play from their hearts rather than emulate a style, which is great - they expose the goddam phonies - ya hear that Jay Maker. Two instrumentals are included - they sound like The Ventures being murdered to a three-piece and then hanging out in Death Valley with The Family. Believe or not but this album is total FUN: booze, boredom, hate, cheap motorcycles and shit jobs. Its also out on Stolen Records from Prahran, Melbourne Australia, which really doesnt mean anything except maybe they should get a pat on the back. Tell your friends to come over, then play them the song I wanna kill my friends. As one of the samples says "No bodies happy living in Pittsburgh". - Heart Full Of Hate indeed! - with a touch of humour. So tell me more bout the curse of the mangler? Basically, its a "Murphys Law" kind of thing - everything that can go wrong, will - but its more viscous; Im sure most bands have typical bad luck, but sometimes its like some fucked up higher power just doesnt want this band to exist, and dumps heaps of bad stuff on us accordingly. The list is long and painful, but this shit is typical: tour vans breaking down THE NIGHT BEFORE a tour, losing our practise space twice, in two separate places, due to greedy realty companies buying our houses and kicking us out, weird hospitalisations...its too ugly to even think about. Pittsburgh - does it give you the shits or what? - Whats it like? - Heart Full Of Hate indeed! There are some good people in Pittsburgh, and some decent bars, but Ive just about had it with the recent crop of "rocknrollers" thats popped up lately. Its like they all read "Please Kill Me", then went out and bought their flame covered rocknroll outfitsand claim to have listened to AC/DC and the STOOGES since they were in third grade (and the reality of it is that most of them - but not all, mind you - were CRASS political punks or SCREACHING WEASEL wannabes up until a year or two ago.) Im sure its the same in every town. Pittsburgh does have some cool shit, though:dingy "old man" bars and abandoned industrial sites (which are sadly being overtaken by chain stores like TARGET and WAL-MART). Tell me about the lyrics - Dan Kritch helped write 1234 MOTHERFUCKER - They have a great tongue in cheek - fuck off - cynic quality - Who usually writes the songs? - lyrics? - Whats the story there? Ive written 99% of the stuff. Dan (he wasnt ever in the band, but has been a long-time friend of mine here in Pittsburgh) wrote the lyrics to 1234, one New Years Eve when we were shitfaced and just blasting away in the basement practise room, and they fit pretty well so I kept them. That was pretty early on, when the Manglers hadnt been together for that long. Since then, Ive written all the lyrics and almost all the music. Brian (drums) and I have been playing music together since about 1987 or 88, so Im not downplaying him, or Tim (bass) either. Tim is from the same small town we were from, so asking to join was a given. Without them, it wouldnt be the same band. We all drink

together, and the fact that we havent killed each other or broken up the band proves how well the band works as a whole. How would you describe The Mud City Manglers sound? Well, Im not gonna use the typical trendy cheeseball shit you usually hear these days. I hate it when a band tries to say that theyre "influenced" by a certain band, when theyre actually just trying to imitate them. I guess you could say that the "Mangler Sound" comes from a steady diet of alcohol, sociopath behaviour, disgust for just about every aspect of life, and a love of HONEST music, regardless of the "style". Honesty is what counts...were not doing this to get famous, or to do a shitty imitation of another band while trying to call it "original". Id name names, but Im not drunk enough to throw stones. Onstage whadya like? Sweaty, drunk, and on good nights, we run like a goddamned finely tuned machine. Its always nice when people send us free drinks from the crowd. Im usually broke at shows, so free drinks are a definite plus. What was it like recording "Heart Full Of Hate"? Well, the basic tracks were done in a day. We just loaded in the equipment, drank a shitload of beer and wine, and went at it. The studio was hellishly cold because its basically an old, drafty warehouse. We had to stand next to space heaters and the guitars would go out of tune from the temperature fluctuations about every 4 minutes or so. The next day I did lead guitars...and then things got slow because the studio does live shows in the evenings, so we had a problem trying to get time slotted to finish it. It started to get to be a bit of a pain in the ass, and then I got sick and had to be hospitalised, which put me out of commission for a few months. When we finally got back to the studio, I finished, I finished up some vocals and we mixed the fucker, and that was that. In reality, it could have been done in three days, but again, you can chalk it up to the "curse of the mangler". What or who is the worst musician - music or band alive - fucking up today? Anyone who is playing music thats all show and no go. Like I said before, I fucking hate bands that just try to emulate a style rather than actually playing from their hearts. How many DEAD BOYS/STIV BATORS rip-offs are running around out there as we speak? - I can think of at least one offending band, who are on a big West Coast "indie label"...not to mention the shitheads who are trying to be "Motor City RockNRoll" when theyre not even from The Motor City...that shit is pretty out of hand too. Draw your own conclusions...its really not too hard to point out the bastards that Holden Caulfield referred to as "the goddamn phonies". What are yall listening to now? - What would be some sounds that are influences? - I can hear The Motards in there? I was never too big on the MOTARDS...Im influenced by booze, boredom, hate, cheap motorcycles, shit jobs, and the like. Sorry, I never did like that kind of question because I listen to a lot of crazy shit and its kind of hard to narrow it down. (Im sure you can find some trendy motherfucker out there whos all too willing and ready to tell you how influenced they are by Johnny Thunders, The Stooges, AC/DC and The Dead Boys, so Ill spare you the hassle.) What gives - you guys big fans of Rocky & Bullwinkle? - It adds a nice touch One winter we had a blizzard and were stuck in the house for a couple of days, so we smoked some hash and watched Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons to stay entertained. As soon as we heard the name "The Mud City Manglers", we knew it would make a great band name. The fact that their coach was "Fearless Leader" made it all the better. Thanks for the compliment on the album samples; I thought that they helped break the album up a bit so that it didnt all run together, and theyre all pretty goddam funny but someone reviewed the album and bitched about them. Cmon! That line from "Drugstore Cowboy" is classic, and its precisely how I felt when I got out of the hospital, so thats why I put it on there.

Stolen Records - Australian label - Howd that all eventuate? Chris Subarton from 007 records in New York City got me in touch with Craig from International Trash/Stolen Records. Craig liked our first 7" and offered to put out an LP, but at the time a friend of ours was supposedly talking to Get Hip records about putting an LP out for us, so the Manglers ended up doing a split 7" with Craigs band THE SPOILERS...Then the Get Hip idea fell through so I told Craig that if he wanted to do the LP, we were up for it...so then we drug our asses around really slowly trying to get the thing recorded, and its finally out now. Any free rants - soothing words - general comments for Australian Mud City Manglers people? Supposedly Craig from International Trash wants me to comes down to Australia and do some shows with a backup band...but I told the other guys in the band, and they seem willing to pay their airfare to come along too, so we might end up coming down there sometime this year. If it happens, make sure to come out and buy us drinks - quality beer and good vodka & O.J. is always welcome!