365 Days of Mike Patton: “Human Fly,” Zeus! (2020)

On Tuesday, we told you about a new release for the Mike Patton/Anthony Pateras collaboration tētēma, so let’s keep the new Patton music train rolling down the track (so maybe the Patton from 1991 (and his Bungle buddies) can try to hop it).

Plus, Mr. Bungle is re-recording its 1986 death metal demo “The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny,” and Tomahawk reportedly is back in the studio to create its first album in seven years.

It’s a Patton-copia of new music during these tough times! And that includes Patton’s guest starring appearance on Zeus!’ cover of “Human Fly,” originally recorded by the Cramps in 1983.

Considering I’ve never heard the Cramp’s version of this song, this is an interesting tune. On this newest version, there are bits where it sounds a little like Fantomas, a little like Mr. Bungle, and a little like Tomahawk. But more than anything it’s just a fairly standard rock song with Patton singing about being an insect (though the song itself actually sounds a little more interesting (and a little more punk) to me than the Cramps’ version from 37 years ago).

Here’s what the original sounds like.

Revolver said Patton’s version took “the already freakishly fun song to depraved new heights.” But for me, I don’t love it. I don’t hate it. It’s just fine.

In fact, I kind of like the way it was originally sung by Lux Interior and the way he buzzed. Which just goes to show that even though Patton is masterful in the vast majority of his covers, sometimes the original is hard to beat.

Previous Patton collaborations:

To follow along on the 365 days of Patton, click here for a list of each day’s post.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s