POP MUSIC REVIEW : Mudhoney’s Roar of Confusion

If you took the tortured, bewildered-teen rock of Soundgarden and revved it up from its primordial plod to a breakneck beat, you’d have something like Mudhoney, another Seattle band that’s making threatening noises over on the edge.

So instead of Soundgarden’s fearsome struggle with inertia, Mudhoney’s show at Hollywood Live on Sunday offered the exuberant roar of confusion--an extension of the howls of the Who in the ‘60s and the Stooges in the ‘70s and assorted punks in the ‘80s, all of it charged up with a Yardbirds-inspired sense of anything-goes experimentation.

In that sense, the foursome is more conventional than some of the other horses in the same, celebrated Sub Pop Records stable, triggering slam-pit turmoil with its furious, headlong tempos and grafting in a heavy-metal riff-consciousness. With fine dynamic control, Mudhoney made its central riffs seem even more awe-inspiring than they actually are.

Sporting a newly shorn, student-body-president look but still giving off the anti-authority vibe (they banished the black-shirted security guards from the front of the stage, to great response), Mudhoney created and controlled a fine chaos, staking a claim on stardom with something close to nonchalance.

The Melvins, which seems like another Sub Pop band but isn’t, opened the show with some loud, raw and slow riffing. You couldn’t slam to it, you couldn’t tap your feet to it. If you just submitted to it it you were halfway there.