Malfunkshun… man, those guys were the wild ones.
I first heard them a couple years after I moved to Seattle. Someone at the record store handed me the Return to Olympus compilation that came out in ’95 and said, “If you want to hear where Mother Love Bone really started, this is it.” I took it home and put it on, and it was like nothing else I’d heard from around here. Andy Wood was this crazy, theatrical kid singing like he was part rock star and part cartoon character. The band was all over the place — glam, punk, funk, whatever they felt like that day — but it worked.
They were around way before the whole grunge thing blew up. Started back in 1980, when Andy and his brother Kevin were just teenagers. They played these wild shows in small clubs, wearing makeup and costumes and just going for it. A lot of the older Seattle guys I met always talked about Malfunkshun like they were the band that showed everyone it was okay to be weird and over-the-top.
I never got to see them live — they broke up in ’88 when Andy started Mother Love Bone, and by the time I got here in ’92 they were already gone. But that record still gets played at the store sometimes, and every time I hear it I think about how different the early scene must have been. Andy was only 24 when he died, and listening to Malfunkshun now it feels like you’re hearing this bright, chaotic energy that got cut short way too soon.
These days in 2002 they’re mostly remembered as this legendary pre-grunge band. They never put out a proper album while they were together, just demos and live tapes, but that compilation keeps their stuff alive. I still pull it out once in a while when I want to remember that the Seattle sound wasn’t always dark and serious — sometimes it was fun, ridiculous, and full of life.
Malfunkshun didn’t last long, but they left their mark. They were the kind of band that made the early days feel electric.