California (Mr. Bungle album)

Musical style

In keeping with the band's other output, the album incorporates a wide variety of musical styles, including Hawaiian music, Eastern music, electro-funk, doo-wop, folk music, pop music, surf rock, circus music, psychobilly, kecak, thrash metal, lounge music, exotica, space age pop, jazz rock, avant-garde music, piano ballads and music influenced by science fiction, spaghetti western and horror film scores.

Promotion and touring

To support the album, Mr. Bungle embarked on a large scale tour covering North America, Europe and Australia. They also notably appeared on the 2000 edition of the SnoCore Tour, performing alongside alternative metal acts whom they had influenced, such as Incubus and System of a Down. According to Trevor Dunn, Mr. Bungle were "completely out of place" on the SnoCore Tour. He remarked "We were sort of the grandpas of the tour, so we started really messing with the audiences. We dressed up like the Village People and acted super gay which really pissed off the metal kids."

A major controversy with Anthony Kiedis/Red Hot Chili Peppers developed following the album's release. It was scheduled to be released on June 8, 1999, but Warner Bros. Records pushed it back so as not to coincide with the Red Hot Chili Peppers similarly titled album, Californication, which was to be released on the same day. Following the album release date conflict, Red Hot Chili Peppers vocalist Anthony Kiedis had Mr. Bungle removed from a series of summer festivals in Europe. As a major headlining act at the festivals, Kiedis and his band had a say in which bands could appear. The reasoning behind his actions have never been explained, although he had been involved in a public dispute with Mike Patton and his former band Faith No More a decade prior. According to Mr. Bungle themselves, Kiedis had never met or spoken to anyone involved with the band aside from Mike Patton. He stated "the rest of the band doesn't care. It's something to do with Anthony."

As a result of the concert removals, Mr. Bungle parodied the Red Hot Chili Peppers in Pontiac, Michigan (coincidentally the home state of Anthony Kiedis) on Halloween of 1999. Patton introduced each Mr. Bungle band member with the name of one of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, before covering the songs "Give It Away", "Around the World", "Under the Bridge" and "Scar Tissue", with Patton deliberately using incorrect lyrics. Mr. Bungle also satirized many of the mannerisms of the band, mocking heroin injections, deceased guitarist Hillel Slovak and on-stage antics. Regarding the Halloween show, Trey Spruance said "It was pretty weird, having been fans of the first two RHCP albums, realizing that somehow something personal had gone amiss somewhere. So amiss that a decade and a half after we’d liked this now hugely popular band’s music (and hadn't thought much about about since), we'd be dealing with the fact that they were unmistakably trying to bury us. Why keep quiet? I remember drawing everybody’s tattoos. James Rotundi our touring keyboardist knew the band's more recent music, and he's a great guitarist, so he did those duties." Kiedis responded by having them removed from the 2000 Big Day Out festival in Australia and New Zealand. He said of the festival shows “I would not have given two fucks if they played there with us. But after I heard about [the] Halloween show where they mocked us, fuck him and fuck the whole band.” Patton went on to claim that Kiedis' actions had "ruined" Mr. Bungle's career, while Trevor Dunn remarked "It really screwed us up. It screwed up my life in a personal way." The band officially split in 2004, although they had not been active since playing their final concert on September 9, 2000 in Nottingham, England.

Live performances

On previous tours, Mr. Bungle were known for their characteristically unconventional stage shows, where the band members would dress up in costumes and masks. The 1999-2000 shows in support of California usually featured Dunn dressed as a blonde girl resembling Goldilocks or The St. Pauli Girl, although for the other members this period was largely devoid of masks and outfits due to the increased demands of the music.

As with the previous "Disco Volante Tour", songs from the group's self-titled debut and independent demos were largely shunned, with "Quote Unquote" and "My Ass Is on Fire" (reworked with electronic elements) the only self-titled songs performed on the tour. Several of the band's early independent death metal songs were also featured as part of a medley along with the Disco Volante song "Merry Go Go Bye".

Critical reception

California has been well received by critics. A positive review came from Pitchfork, who called it "one of those albums that you can't believe a major label had anything to do with", writing, "the more I listen to California, the more I'm convinced that Mike Patton is really the devil on holiday."