Mugwump
From The Secret History of the Cedar Valley
Contents |
History
Originally called Bout Haddit, which was formed in 1991-92 with drummer Jeff Duneman. In 1992 changed name to Mugwump and added drummer Ari Bloom.
Actually, our first drummer was Nic Durnin, who drummed for seemingly every band in cedar falls at the time. I only remember one show with Nic, which was cleverly staged on the balcony of a house down the street from the stein. Jeff Eastman lent us a bunch of equipment so we could be loud and stupid. there may have been stebs shows with Nic, but i just don't know.
Jeff Duneman came next for quite a while....then.... we had seen Ari in Reality Unknown for a while, and felt he was going to be the drummer for us. Mugwump, in the later days, continued on without Amy after Kevin, who really was the songwriter, felt he wanted to put his own voice to the lyrics he wrote.
Band Members
- Amy Gustafson – Vocals
- Kevin Jass – Guitar
- Steve Engel – guitar
- John Farrell – Bass
- Ari Bloom – Drums
Stuff
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Discography
 7" Single North Cedar Records 1993 |
Media
- Clipper Gore (circa 1995)
"Tight progressive punk in an SST vein."
- Tom Gilbert, Host of "Third Stream" on KUNI
"A five-piece outfit from Cedar Falls, Mugwump delivers hard-hitting guitar rock that'll knock you back in your chair. Their unique sound takes cues from the Velvet Underground and Black Sabbath and gives them a psychedelic workout. This is no one horse band, however, their sets contain everything from mournful melodies to power punk, changing at will.
The twin guitar attack of Steve and Kevin are backed with a rhythm section that refuses to fall into the typical roles of bass and drums. Amy floats above it all with an entrancing vocal style, occasionally diving in and wreaking havoc with biting lyrics and vicious undertones.
Mugwump will stomp in the swamp water muck that comes oozing out of their instruments and splatter you, drawing you in and blowing you away."
Anecdotes / Memories
"I saw them at some show being put on in the middle of the day in the Union ballroom at UNI once. After their name change, their sound got seriously noisy and psychedelic on the guitar end, and Amy has always been a powerful vocalist. Their existing recordings don't even begin to do justice to the live performances I saw of them. I remember Kevin Jass worked at Pour Richards, and I went there once to show off that I was wearing a Mugwump t-shirt that I had bought at CoOp Records. One of my favorite CF bands ever."
just for the record, i worked at pour dick's, and Kevin worked at stebs later on. i loved it when chuck and leah came to dick's, because they were the only other people that played 'slanted & enchanted' on the jukebox besides me....
