Infectious Grooves

Slit Your Wristingly Funky!
*special introductory paragraph!
*The Plague That Makes Your Booty Move... It's The Infectious Grooves
*Sarsippius' Ark (Limited Edition)
*Groove Family Cyco
*Mas Borracho

The Infectious Grooves began as a funkadelic side project for Suicidal Tendencies frontman Mike Muir, but went on to record just as many albums as Suicidal Tendencies themselves! Or at least as many as Suicidal Tendencies recorded before they went on to record four or five more. The band plays funk metal, but really complicated funk metal with a great sense of humor. Nothing Extreme here. No shitty funk metal like the Blake Babies used to make. No awful slap bass funk metal like Radiohead. No, this was a neat slap bass funk metal, along the lines of Primus or Radiohead.


The Plague That Makes Your Booty Move... It's The Infectious Grooves - Epic 1991.
Rating = 7

Feels like a side project, what with underrepresented guest stars like Ozzy Osbourne and Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins. Robert Trujillo's bass lines are slappin', funky and occasionally complex, but a lot of the songs are underwritten experiments in Prince-esque funkness (the keyboard lines are particularly lacking, what with them all being the same one). I like a good fuck but this is more of a fuck you to the long-standing ST fans who expected something a little more intelligent from "Mister" (and I use that term very loosely) Mike Muir. He seems to think that we are a bunch of fools and sheep who will purchase anything that he releases. Not so, Mr. (and I still use that term loosely) Muir. Next time you want to shove a pile of shit down your fans' throats, may I suggest that you at least put some Crisco on it to make it go down a little easier. Your sincerely, A Former Fan

Sorry about that - just practicing for the letter I plan to write to Henry Rollins, who seems to think that his fans will be any piece of garbage that he chooses to release because he is such an "alternative icon." Well, Mr. (and I use that term loosely, so take it with a grain of salt) Rollins, next time you want to put out an album of generic boogie blues, may I suggest that you change the name of your band from Rollins Band to what it SHOULD be at this point -- The Lousy Shit Band. Yours sincerely, a former fan.

Please let me apologize for that. That wasn't meant for you to read. I am putting together a short novella about my experiences and I thought that instead of telling true stories, it would be more interesting if it would just be a bunch of angry notes to people who used to be good but suck now, like Henry Rollins, Wire, X, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Pere Ubu and the Heartbreakers (who totally kicked ass when they were backing up Tom Petty, but suck shit out of their own noses now that they're backing the late Johnny Thunders).

But I digress. This first Infectious Grooves album has three or four awesome funk-metal tunes with unique riffs that help masquerade its status as a side project, but a lot of it is pretty alto defuncto. Howe'er, if you enjoy funny characters like the Church Lady and Emily Litella, you'll love all these hilarious between-song skits featuring some funkyass dopeass lizard named Sarsippius. He's got a silly voice and says some funny things in an offensive racist parody of the entire African-American race. Fuck you, the Infectious Grooves, for surreptitiously attempting to establish a genocidal fourth reich here in the greatest country in America.

Reader Comments

Amy12376@msn.com
I've been listening to this album for like almost 15 years now when it came out and the only reason I don't have the others is they are so hard to come by. The music is funky and unique. No other band has come close to duplicating this style. It puts a swing in my step and a groove for my ass to shake to. So unlike yourself I enjoy the band. I wish they would have done more over the years, but not many people have even heard of them. Just because you never heard them on the radio doesn’t make them a shitty band. Most of the time the crap they play on the radio isn't worth listening to in the first place. I'm no music critic but I know what I like and this band should have had more exposure. Thanks for your time.... Oh and by the way to quote a line from Infecto Groovalistic. I HATE STUPID PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Sarsippius' Ark (Limited Edition) - Epic 1993.
Rating = 7

More of the same. Not just figuratively or metaphorically, but literallyer than can be. Inasmuch as they claim that this is a new hour-long CD, it actually contains about six new songs. The rest are demos and live versions of songs from the first album, as well as oodles of tracks that are just that silly Sarsippius guy and some new cohorts. Good humor, but the new songs are just as shit-or-piss (a hilarious "Weird Al" Yankovic-like parody of the term "hit or miss" that I just made up) or the ones on the first one. Enjoyable? Oh hell yeah. Filled with high quality funk metal? Ummm.... well, some of it is high quality. Other of it is just Mike Muir singing in his "funk" voice while the band Chili Peppers it behind him. I prefer the funny tracks -- though I must admit that NO tracks are quite as funny as the ones where they found the squished body of the Mentors' singer! Ha ha ha!!!!

Speaking of tracks, have you rented that documentary Kurt And Courtney? The one that suggests that Courtney Love was behind Kurt Cobain's "suicide"? Well, whether or not it convinces you of that piece of propaganda, I assure you that you will come away from it with absolutely NO respect for either Courtney or the ACLU.

What did that have to do with tracks? Check Courtney's arms.

Reader Comments

danzig9@hotmail.com (Daniel Lawrence)
Actually, I did see the documentary Kurt and Courtney about a year and a half ago. I watched it a couple times and all I have to say about it is that Courtney Love is a bitch. Bitch? Bitch!! Speaking of that, I live in Seattle now which is very near Aberdeen--home of Nirvana and the Melvins!! The other day I was talking to this security guard at my university who ended up revealing to me he was once roomed with Chris Novaselic. Well, then we got on to talking about Nirvana since they were always one of my favorite bands since my angst ridden youth. Turns out, the guy grew up with Kurt and Chris and knew all the Melvins! So then we talked about King Buzzo, and he told me this story about how they always used to blindfold Dale Crover and watch him go nuts on his drum set. So then I asked him how he felt about the whole Courtney thing and he said Kurt was already big and famous and out of the picture when that happened. However, he followed that up with saying Kurt and Chris were real shy and quiet guys as opposed to the dominate overbearing bitch presence of Courtney. He said Dale Crover was the kind of guy that would tell someone to their face if he thought they were full of shit and he knows he would have basically told Courtney to shove it when she showed up. Too bad he wasn't Nirvana's drummer or things might be completely different now! Not only might Kurt not be dead and still rocking on and past his depression, but Courtney would be some no name making someone else miserable and would have never even been in any movies at all! But she is. The bitch. Remember in the documentary those nasty recordings she left? What a bitch.

toga2002@hotmail.com
The guitar riffs on this album are great. Yes most of the tracks are 'Sarsippius' talking to you but the latter part of the album is really excellent. i Love the new songs.

devastate@gmx.de
ok so i searched the internets to find out who did that sarsippius character on this record and stumbled upon your site. now i still dont know who the hell did that voice, but i DO now know who writes the funniest music reviews. me! but you're a close second. actually i also read your review for napalm death's harmony corruption, and in order to not corrupt the harmony i admit that i was just joking up there: it's your reviews that are the funniest! please continue! forever!

btw: im german, so if my english sucks and you make fun of me in any way shape or form i'm sending a bunch of german goth chicks dressed in trenchcoats over to give you a good ass-whupping to really loud RRammstein tunes.

ps: i'm in no way affiliated with any _good-looking_ german goth chicks, so don't even hit me up on it. especially since i never check my email anyways.

btw3: after readin that one dude's mail i guess you were right about the polish people after all. hahaha!

oh yeah: you should do a review of "japanische kampfhörspiele" they are the best german band of all times and everybody here loves them and they're all over the charts and they play grindcore. ok that was bending the truth a lil. they play metal.

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Groove Family Cyco - Epic 1994.
Rating = 8

By this point, Mike's "real" band Suicidal Tendencies were not only a full-fledged funk metal band themselves, but also pretty much broken up. So this WASN'T a side project. These are real songs by a real band. Sarsippius and his brand of hilarious stupid comedy that you'd have to be a fuckin retard like me to laugh at are GONE. These are serious, VERY heavy funkish metal songs. And most of them are really great. The riffs are awesome -- right up there with Suicidal's coolest chord sequences. Plus there's nice diversity - some high speed punk, bouncity funk, angry cold metal - a really good record. It's also the first time that it sounds like they actually put a lot of effort into creating a strong collection of songs, rather than just acting like an occasionally impressive novelty act. Heck, they even put a band photo on the inside, instead of just a drawing of the silly lizard characters that they "portray." A few of the lyrics are great too - one completely bashes Rage Against The Machine and another is a sickening, apparently true story about a mentally defective cousin of Mike Muir's. Creepy. If you like Suicidal For Life, consider this its companion piece. Al frankenly, that record is *funkier* in the traditional sense than this is!!!! And this is some funky smelly sickass booyah piss dicks!

I don't understand what that means - I'm just speaking like a "homeboy." And by "homeboy," I of course mean a white guy enamored with black culture. DON'T THINK FOR A SECOND THAT THIS IS A NEW PHENOMENON. The Rolling Stones and Animals wanted to be black blues musicians - and acted like they were. Later in the 60s, Led Zeppelin and Cream did the same thing. Acted black when they were white. '70s? Disco. White people pretending to be black. Early 80s? Beastie Boys introduced billions of young white kids to black culture. So there's really no use making fun of white people who try to act black. Regardless of how hilarious and insulting they appear to normal folks of all creeds like youse and me, they've always existed and they always will. Absolutely no respect for culture.

On a related note, isn't it about time that teenage white kids became fascinated with Polish culture? And went around taking two people to screw in light bulbs, shouting "shit!" when they fall off of the magical cliff and falling out of the tree while raking leaves? Ha ha!!! FUCK YOU THE POLISH!!!!! YOU'RE ALL STUPID ASSHOLES!!!!!

Reader Comments

dexter1966@btinternet.com(Edd)
Hey, its me...again..

Just reading the Infectious Grooves review...all nice, except for the polish insults. One side of my family is polish, I am half-polish and polish people happen to be the nicest, helpful and most hospitable people I know. I know you dumbass americans have developed a strange hating for polish people, for some unknown reason... but comments like:

"Ha ha!!! FUCK YOU THE POLISH!!!!! YOU'RE ALL STUPID ASSHOLES!!!!! "

I'm not sure if its a joke, but next time stick to blonde jokes or...i dunno...how about americans for a change? You seemed a cool guy, interviewing loads of cool people and such...but reading that kinda changed my view. grow up...

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Mas Borracho - Suicidal 2000.
Rating = 8

At this point, with Rocky George and the Chinese dude having gone the way of the passenger pigeon, Suicidal Tendencies and Infectious Grooves are essentially the same exact band except that the great guitarist/songwriter Mike Clark is in Suicidal Tendencies, so don't be surprised that both of their new albums (this and ST's Free Your Soul And Save My Mind) are funky, metally, complex, difficult, neat, hard, impressive offerings. This one starts off a tad disappointing, but kicks in the awesome melodies really quickly (by track three, as a matter of fact!). This bass player is one of the best in the biz and the riffs are supercool tough too. Either that or just fun, milder and funky -- to be honest, this IS the least metallic of the Infectious Grooves releases, but only because there's less distortion in the mix. One of the songs is even a funny country-western song! I like to eat gum. The singer is good. Guitars go "wicka wicka weeeow." It feels good when any liquid at all comes out of your penis so sometimes I inject mine with lighter fluid. This band are good songwriters is. I like it when the bass player and guitar player play squiggly, complicated bits together, as they do in their best material. I don't have a car but if I did, it would have an engine. The album cover is ugly. I wish I could get a great manly body just by eating pizza. The only reason I reviewed Infectious Grooves is because there were no "I" bands reviewed on my site and it was either them or Ice-T. There are also no O's or Q's. I'm trying to complete my Obituary collection, but fuck you if you think I'm going to buy up the Queensryche catalog just to satisfy your sick need to see a complete alphabet on my site. You scare me with your obsessive thought patterns. Go away or I'll call the police.

The DICK police!

No, I don't know what I meant by that either.

Reader Comments

lance_smith58@yahoo.com
This was a cd i once borrowed from someone about 8 years ago.can't find it anywhere.Ever hear of it.Starts off with Miko narrating, and talking about it being a cd sampler.

Thought it was some of the best stuff done by the Grooves.Kind of like a best of for me.Know where i can find a copy of this?

john@icmag.net
Yeah. I've listened to these guys, really, for a reason. I remember going to Sam Ash music in south Charlotte, and there was this fucking faggot there who came in and insulted my friend and I as we were demoing basses. Todd Clark was his name.

Anyways, he kept trying to sell this poor black lady this really shitty Ibanez bass for her son for Christmas. However, when he walked away we got her to look at the Squier All-in-one back with a shitty bass AND shitty amp, with cords, etc, whatever. They should have fired him, and hired us.

How does this tie in? Well, he went on and on about playing with Infectuous Grooves.

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Yo, 'sup? You can buy some Infectious Grooves CDs at this link, knowimsayin'?


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