Mike Dillon’s Go-Go Jungle: Battery Milk

By Dennis Cook

There’s fierce intelligence behind percussion maestro Mike Dillon‘s new ensemble. There’s also moist, luxurious body to their undulating exertions, the very thing to shake us out of our constrictions. Call it jazz or jam or post-boogie or whatever the hell you want. The music speaks for itself, moving with heartfelt skill and bohemian swagger. It is ‘knowing’ in every sense of the word – a sophisticate’s cartoon, a jazzman’s psilocybin holiday, a mood enhancer for mind alteration. It’s also about as fun as a monkey with a BB gun in a roomful of businessmen.

Dillon, a longtime member of Les Claypool‘s posse, has been involved in myriad hard-to-define bands over the years (Hairy Apes BMX, Critters Buggin, Malachy Papers). Go-Go Jungle continues his peculiar narrative thread with harder swing and a subdued lysergic sheen. His creative foils this time are Ron Johnson (bass), J.J. “Jungle” Richards (bass, vocals), Mark Southerland (sax), GoGo Ray (drums), and Dillon’s tabla and vibraphone work have never been more freakily free.

There’s an undeniable physicality to their playing. Put another way, these guys delight in poking at you. The moment things grow too smooth someone will throw a crazy left jab and you’re left wondering what just happened.

Though largely instrumental, the vocal cuts have the rambling wisdom of men who’ve clawed their way through a few doors of perception. Truths reveal themselves in simple, direct ways like “Bad Man,” which juxtaposes soundbites of George W. Bush against a creamy refrain of, “He’s a bad man. He’s a cruel man.” Not entirely sure what’s being implied by “Your Mother Was My Teacher” but it feels unwholesome. Dillon also mutters something that sounds like “Amoeba Drama” but that may just be a blown speaker.

“Lunatic Express” has the nastiest electric vibe crunch since Gary Burton’s immortal “Vibrafinger,” a staple of funk DJs, who would be wise to turn an ear towards Go-Go Jungle. Both “Lunatic Express” and “GoGo’s Theme” make me want to hijack strip club sound systems just to see what these rollicking ass-shakers would unleash.

Mike D. is a national treasure with madman’s eyes. Who else has the bing-bongin’ huevos to combine Benny Goodman’s hard, small group swing with aquaboogie funk, dirt floor blues, gamelan, ’50s easy listening exoticism, and Raymond Scott mayhem? There’s great inspiration and musical possibility inside his delicious hodgepodge, which has rarely been as well realized as Battery Milk.

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