Mondo Bungle

Ah yes, you're here. Welcome and come in. Please, sit down. Can I interest you in a smoke? Perhaps a drink? I knew you couldn't resist. Here you are. Now, make yourself comfortable, we have lots to discuss.
Allow me tell you all about myself. Let's just hope you are eager to know. I won't limit this to just music related entries, but I won't bore you either.
But alas, it is late. Entries pending.

__________________

Trollheart

Hey, I was just enjoying that drink! Yes, as it happens, since you're so concerned, I DO have a home to go to... mutter mutter putting coat on only here a few minutes mutter bloody licencing laws....

Watching this space...

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Mondo Bungle

Christ, computer woes. Here's hoping I get it going tomorrow. But for now, here's this:



Been listening to this on repeat the past few hours. Just goes to show you that despair isn't eliminated by sex. At least that's the message I get, who knows what songs are really about.

__________________

Mondo Bungle

I'm starting this off with a simple album review.



While only existing quite briefly, Orchid are considered by many to be the quintessential screamo band. In their five years of existence, they have managed to put out 4 legendary albums, including this one here.
DT!RT! is more defined, both musically and lyrically, than its predecessor, Chaos Is Me. With references to Anna Karina, Friedrich Nietzsche, and more, we see some very well conceived lyrics. Upon first listen, one might assume Jayson Green is simply screaming about killing himself and others, but they would be quite mistaken.
Musically, this album’s zenith is Jeffrey Salane’s drumming, which combines Keith Moon-esque flailing with extremely melodic tendencies. The others do a extraordinary job supporting him, bringing a uniquely harmonious sound you wouldn’t expect to find in a genre with “violence” in its title. But of course, you can’t forget about the final track, “…And the Cat Turns to Smoke”. The entire band’s musical prowess comes together, with the help of a snippet of modern classical music; courtesy of a perfectly placed violin piece, for an epic finale.
Clocking in at a little over fifteen minutes, this album never ceases to blow my mind. Each track has its own blockbuster qualities, that should leave the listener craving for more. Take the first track, “Destination: Blood!” , for example. This song is only a minute long, but listening to it places me right in the middle of a bloodthirsty crusade, especially the second half, which has to be the audio personification of victory. “To Praise Prosthesis” is the aftermath of this crusade, where we loot our fallen enemies, and honor our fallen bretheren. “Lights Out” is another standout track, starting out calmly, with some clean singing. It is perhaps the heaviest song on the album, if we take into account the definition of the word. After a short burst of brutality, we have another marathon track, and my personal favorite in “I Am Nietzsche”. Another track with a slow guitar intro, before the rupturing of your mind begins. Tremolo picked riffs are very prominent in this song. Towards the end, you should feel inclined to scream the tracks title at the top your lungs. “Victory is Ours” brings that triumphant feeling back to you, along with the track after the next, “Black Hills”. I’m not sure how to explain it, but these songs are filled with memorable hooks that give me that feeling. Since I can’t, let the songs speak for themselves.


After “Snow Delay at the Frankfurt School”, we have this album’s larger than life ending track. Once again, an unhurried intro, but this time, it doesn’t just explode into the song. Instead, more instrumentation helps build this up to introduce which I believe is the best vocal performance here. Breaking down into a slow bass interlude is always fantastic. Is there any way it could get more epic? Yes, with the addition of violin. The final seconds are as climatic a finish as anyone could ask for.


I reccomend this to any hardcore/emo fans who haven't already heard it it, but I doubt there are any.

__________________

Mondo Bungle

I haven't had any time to type any entries for this for a while, but I need to start making some time, seeing as I've turned my life around, and have so many more albums and artists to cover. Don't worry, they'll be better than my Orchid one, that was just a quick and basic album summary to get things started. I feel like you guys don't know me well enough, so I'll try to add more to this, and maybe let you into my distorted life.

__________________

Mondo Bungle

Actually, I probably won't have internet foor a good 6-8 months, guess I spoke to soon.

__________________

Mondo Bungle

Hey bro, that Orchid review blew, talk more about the music then your own opinion, don't you know how to review music? Oh no, that was me? Couldn't be, yeah, suckssssssssss.

I have regular internet access now, and I'm gonna start writing cool stuff in here, probably some non-cool stuff too. My life is still not on track, but its somewhat better. No more cursing the universe for bringing humans into existence, no more crying myself to sleep, no more mental breakdowns.

I'd like to start with a little segment I like to call --Spotlight On ______!--, where I write a short article or passage on figures (most of which will be musical) that I admire greatly/have inspired me/are genuinely awesome. First off is one of my personal heroes, never afraid to push the boundaries of music and just never giving a ****, Mike Patton.


Both of us are from Eureka, Ca, and my dad used to be roommates with Mike back when he was a long haired hooligan. My dad tells me Mike would drink glasses of vodka before noon, until the whole gallon was gone. Next thing you know, he's peeing out the window. I'd like to think he's more mature now, with a wife and such. If I had to take a guess, I'd say he, along with John Zorn (coming in a later article), have explored every genre of music imaginable. From the early thrash/death metal of The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny, to the Italian pop of Mondo Cane, to the Native-American chant rock of Anonymous to the spastic avant-vocals of Adult Themes for the Voice. These sounds just brew in his brain. I sometimes will play some of the weirder Patton stuff for my friends (some Disco Volante mostly) and they call it insane, or just a bunch of wacky noises. He's a genius to me, though, most definitely, and I'm sure many others as well. I call him a genius in the sense that he doesn't simply write a top 40 hit to make money. He basically does whatever he wants, and it entertains. A genius to me is somewhat that can do just that. If you can get up on stage, scream erratic incoherence for a bit, and get an applause, you're a genius.“I’M NOT A POET. I’M NOT UP ONSTAGE TO GET SOMETHING OFF MY CHEST. I’M MAKING MUSICAL STATEMENTS, OR, MOST OF THE TIME, MUSICAL QUESTIONS FOR PEOPLE TO FIGURE OUT, AND I’M NOT GOING TO GET IN THE WAY OF THAT.”. Feel how you want about his songs, but Patton is an incredible singer. He can do everything from death growls to opera croons, even in fluent Italian, if he feels the need. He's done soundtracks for the films Crank: High Voltage, The Place Beyond the Pines, A Perfect Place, as well as starring in the movie Firecracker, and has done numerous voice roles. He owns the record label, Ipecac, which produces all kinds of good bands. He's the real deal, and he never even practices singing.

I'm gonna wait to do another one of these until I can write better biographical pieces. Not to sound egotistic, but I am a good writer, but it comes in more personal forms.

__________________

Mondo Bungle

So I'm spending this month, and perhaps the next, eight miles along the highway between Cannon Beach and Seaside in Oregon. I must say, it's beautiful, at least compared to living in Reno. I'm staying in a sort of cottage right on the highway, and my backyard is a deep, green forest, ripe with life. I've been here for only four days, but it's given me time to think about things. Back home, (well, it's not so much a home anymore, since I won't be returning to Reno to take up residence) I had so much stacked on my plate, yet at the same time, nothing at all. It was an abundance of general teenage angst that made everything seem like so much more than it was. During my last month there, I went through a mental breakdown, several episodes of severe hopelessness and anxiety, being without a place to go or sleep, (as a product of the move) and my outlook was all too bleak. I might (most likely) get into more of that later. I can relax here, calm down and take walks in the woods, along the river, or even at the beach. I can separate myself from life for a moment. A while ago I would worry that my own friends didn't appreciate me, which was a factor leading to the aforementioned mental breakdown, but I don't have to worry about anything here. And it feels good that I left on a positive note, with my friends throwing me a small soiree. That gave me a real nice feeling, being with all them before I left, and right after my troubles. I really didn't have anything to worry about at all, they were all working while I wasn't, it's understandable that they didn't have much free time. It's just my mind (I seriously think I have some kind of disorder, I don't know what though) that made me believe that no one was there, that there was no one to turn to. It's always been like that for me, for as long as I can remember I've had depression and anxiety problems. But like I said, here on the coast, I don't have to worry about anything like that. I've been passing the time exploring, picking wild raspberries and blackberries, (they grow like weeds) writing songs, reading, and basically relaxing. I don't think it's even reached ninety degrees since I got here, the day I took the greyhound I was in Redding, and it got up to 115. I think this should be good for my mental health, I'll keep you posted on life up here.

Anyway........
I can't get enough of this erratic, spacey, and downright crazy stuff.




Gigantic Brain has liquefied mine. I'd say the craziest cybergrind band there is, and don't get me wrong, I love Agoraphobic Nosebleed and Wadge to death, but this goes above and beyond. A wild mixture of grind, ambient, video game music, and spacey new age type stuff, it's sure to concuss.

__________________

Mondo Bungle

If you appreciate psychedelia, then you should appreciate this group, and this entry.


Shpongle are great at seemingly recreating hallucinations. The sounds and melodies they incorporate into their music is very reminiscent of your audio experience while under the influence of psychedelics, at least I think so. The splashes, buzzes, and flanges, the pulsating bass lines, the extra-terrestrial beeps and whirs, I know I've been there. The echoes, the bizarre vocal calls, strange whistles and sparks.

"Shpongle", according to the duo, is an umbrella term. I take it to mean: "A strong blanket of transcending euphoria" or something or other. Being "shpongled" is being wrapped in that blanket. I'd like to share a trip report I wrote not too long ago, a day after a true shpongling. It's really the only word I can use to describe that night. I titled it "A Kaleidoscopic Haze of Pleasant Confusion"

School had been out for a week now, summer was in full swing. I had purchased my ticket to see Starf*cker, (indie pop/electronic group) and my friends would get their's at the door. The mention of LSD had only been made to me that very day. Our fat friend, to whom we convinced the show was sold out so he wouldn't go, (it was a terrible move, but for the best, he would have hated it anyway) said that our friend N was interested in getting some. Apparently the acid connection that was iffy weeks before, had now turned legitimate. I was excited from that moment on. After breaking the false news, we left to my friend E's house. Trying to eliminate some confusion here, it was now myself, E, N, and another friend, A, at E's house. A had been conversing with the acid connect, and we came to the conclusion that we would buy twelve hits. Fast forwarding through the waiting period, we get the acid, and A trades a chocolate bar containing an eighth of mushrooms for two more hits. In total, we have fourteen, and we were off to meet A's girlfriend and her friends at the show.
It was hipster mania in there. I remember saying to my friends "there is an immeasurable amount of non-prescription glasses in here." The first act, one man, drunk as the dickens, playing under the moniker 'Feelings.' It was horrid. The "music" was uninspired and dull, and otherwise very rudimentary, like some if little kid found a mixing board in the basement and started fiddling around with it. And his vocals were even worse, cracky moans and mumbling, I was not enjoying myself. The second act, Wampire, was somewhat better. A full band, actual songs, but still blew. It was worth the wait, because Starf*cker was fantastic. Great sound, good visuals, crowd surfing horses and astronauts, and balloons falling from above. They put on a great show.
We returned to E's house at around midnight, and after some gathering of things and ourselves, we took the acid. I think everyone else took two to start with, someone might have even only taken one, but went right ahead and did all three of mine to the dome. It was bitter and numbing. Hopefully, we were in for a wild ride. We stayed inside while the tabs dissolved. I was drinking a cherry coke, I couldn't feel a thing on the spot of my tongue where the acid lie, so the fluid was weird. We also wanted to decide on a movie to watch beforehand, and get it all queued up, because I'm sure we would be too confused to later. We shuffled through the movie selection, and The Animal with Rob Schneider was jokingly brought up. A hadn't seen it, and we've all seen all these other movies dozens of times, so as dumb as it is, that's what we decided on. It had been about twenty minutes or so since we did the acid, and already I feel that shiver, that slight tingle, that lightness. At this point, we went outside to smoke a bowl on the porch.
Sitting outside, I could tell I just did acid. The plants were so bright and prominent. I was shivering erratically, but I don't think anyone noticed. After a bit, we moved into the garage, and continued the bowl. All the seats were taken, I leaned up against the truck. We started talking about how we felt, everyone had started their come up, we all had that same tingle. They began talking about visuals, and I guess no one had any yet. I took the most, though, and was experiencing some very minor hallucinations. I was spacing in and out of the conversation, looking at different surfaces. The markings on a wood cabinet separated themselves from each other. The floor began to spiral, but stopped quickly. Parts of it seemed closer to me than others, like it was warped. A had noticed my confusion. The longer I looked at his face, the tighter his skin grew. He had a very skeletal look about him. I was always the quiet one, and I was even more quiet now. We sat around in the garage for a while, shooting the sh*t and whatnot. According to them, my pupils were extremely large, while everyone else's weren't. I guess I was high.
We finished the bowl, and went back inside. We stopped in the kitchen to wash the X's off of our hands from the show, plus my hands were genuinely dirty. We noticed a carpenter ant crawling along the edge of the counter. It first struck me as bizarre, all these legs and segments, but I shook that feeling away. As we made our way to the living room, N had stopped, and started making slow body motions, he was doing tai-chi, I guess. He was embracing the acid, which we all felt strongly now. We made ourselves comfortable and turned on the movie, and I'll tell ya, it was weird. Never had a movie seemed so strange, and all the dumb jokes combined with the LSD made it uncomfortably hilarious. The characters looked as if they were made of clay. The first person cut scenes of him prowling around at night were almost jarring, we were all astounded after each one. At one point towards the end of the movie, there was a shadow of window blinds cast on the TV screen. Each segment of the screen grew away from each other and melded back. E's dachshund crawled into someone's lap, and we shared a gaze that seemed to last forever. The dog's face implanted itself in the center of my vision, while everything surrounding spiraled into a fractal mess. I almost believe we shared thoughts at that moment, he was a being on a higher level than me, guiding me through this haze. In reality, that moment only lasted like two seconds, but it was significant. The movie was over. E and N wanted to go smoke another bowl, but A and myself stayed inside. We turned off the lamp and sat in silence. I reached the peak of an intense acid trip.
I sat there on the couch, looking around. Everything breathed, nothing was still. Things would blow up like a balloon, and then pop. There was an endless loop of shadows gliding across the floor. I would close my eyes for a minute, and a neon outline of the furniture would remain. But the lines would melt into a puddle, and begin to boil. I opened my eyes with a loud pop, and confetti sprinkled downward from my sight. It was like on of those fireworks, 'BANG! shshshshshshshshshshshs". A turned his head to me and said: "Are you enjoying this as much as I am?". I simply looked at him and nodded. I had to go to the bathroom, I drank like three cherry cokes. Walking was definitely peculiar. My body felt so light. The hallway before the bathroom stretched further and further. I heard the raucous laughter of E and N through the door to the garage. Bathrooms have always been hard to navigate for me while on psychedelics. This was no different. I stood in front of the toilet, and watched it hover around, it would contort itself so much, that urination had become a difficult task. I literally couldn't do it, as I didn't want to, you know, get it everywhere. In hindsight, it would've been easier to just go outside. On my way out, I stopped and looked in the mirror. My entire iris was black, and this frightened me a tad, the look on my face. I walked back to the living room, the hallway that had stretched out before, now shrunk on my way back. I went to lie down on the couch, and zone out some more. It was still silent. A had asked me if I was having crazy auditory hallucinations. I said "like what?". I don't know why. But I was. Mainly that popping and crackling. If I closed my eyes, there would be a loud whir. I was looking upward now. A hallucination of a colorful compass-like object etched circles out of the ceiling. Each one would then descend to me, and evaporate. Occasionally, one of the circles would drift away, leaving an empty space where it used to be. I sat up, watching the ceiling the whole time as it shifted. All the circles were gone, and for a moment, there was nothing, not even myself. This split second dragged for a bit, this was the best example of time dilation from that night. I was thinking, "What's happened? Everything has ceased." It wasn't even just black, but a truly empty void, inhabited only by my ego, which had momentarily separated itself from my body. Surreal thoughts and phrases bolted through the emptiness. I heard loud thunder, and odd skittering. Random, miscellaneous words strung together to form sentences, looking back, they were nonsense, but I understood them at the time. The edge of the void began wrinkling inward, and another circle appeared in the center, the ceiling shone through. And just like that, the void had been wiped away. It was like a play, I had reached the end of an act, and some strange, omnipresent deity closed the curtain, and opened it once again. I was back on the couch, and for a second, I wasn't even hallucinating, everything was normal. For a moment I was thinking how weird my body felt, and how weird the body is. I am just a conscious, trapped inside a shell, all these thoughts and ideas compressed inside. While in that void, my conscious was free, and everything in my mind escaped, and began roaming free.
A had gotten up, blanket wrapped around him, "I'm going upstairs," he said. I guess he was ready to crash. He asked to me to hand him the vial on the table next to me, and I did, I was functioning easily. It was xanax for when we wanted to go to sleep. I was alone now. I decide to try to use the bathroom again. This time it wasn't as hard, and I finally relieved myself. I looked in the mirror again, still black. My skin had turned a weird orange color. The reflection of the wall behind me was a blur, and every feature on my body morphed slowly. The whites of my eyes had disappeared, and it was just two black dots, darting around my face. I walked back through this accordion of a hallway, and turned to the living room. It was completely different. Everything was growing all over everything else. It all amplified itself greatly, everything was a hundred times brighter, and I could see every color and every shade imaginable throughout the room. I was awestruck. The floor spun rapidly as I walked across it. I turned my attention to E's shoes, a pair of black and white Converse high tops. They lifted off the ground, just barely, about a centimeter, and began rotating. One went clockwise, the other counter-clockwise. I was fascinated, and continued watching. They landed, and then began vibrating. You know those wind up shoe toys that walk around? Well, they had wound themselves up. The right shoe would take a step, and the left would wait until it was down, and take it's own step. They walked all across the floor, leaving a sparkling black and white checkerboard trail behind them. Even when I turned my head, they would make their way into my peripheral and across the floor again. I looked up, and they continued walking, across the center of my vision, up walls, on the ceiling. I was dumbfounded. They walked with me into the kitchen, by that time, the entire living room floor was a glowing checkerboard. I was in the kitchen, and once they stepped onto the white kitchen floor, they disappeared. I looked back, and they were sitting there on the floor, which had returned to normal.
I went into the garage to join E and N, but N was just on his way back inside. E and I then shared a bowl. Every time I reached for it, my arms would move in slow motion, and even slower when I went to light it. After it was done, we went back inside, I was in front. Walking back to the living room I saw N sitting on the couch, staring at me. I couldn't see his face, but my mind improvised, painting one on, with a wide smile. I said, "What's up?" He just laughed and hopped up and toward me. When E came in, he asked where A had gone. I said he went upstairs. After a moment of frustration on his part, we all decided to migrate. I grabbed a glass from the cupboard to get some water from the fridge. I pushed the button in on the dispenser, and a red liquid filled my glass. An intense red. Bubbles rose from the water like it was carbonated. We went upstairs. The stairway seemed so high from the bottom. When we opened the door to E's room, it was pitch black. I shuffled in slowly as my vision was overtaken by kaleidoscope. E turned on the light, and the shards all fell away. A was lying in the bed. Someone had asked if he was having a bad trip, he said no and he was just tired. I think his trip was over by the time we got there, if not soon after. We all got situated, E in his chair, N sat at the end of the bed, and I sat up against the wall on the right side of the bed. The Simpsons had been turned on. While the opening sequence ran, I looked at my hands, I would wave them back and forth. The tracers were so prominent, that an image would still be in the place where I began to move it. I believe N had taken a fourth hit of acid by now, and he looked considerably high and confused. He was waving his hands around too.
I was still peaking, I could tell. The show had no meaning to me. I understood the words being said, and recognized them as language, but they didn't process in my mind. They were speaking English, but that lost all it's meaning to me. I wasn't even thinking in English, thoughts formed as vivid images in my mind's eye. Everything happening on the show was so miscellaneous, it was just a huge jumble of oddness, yet we were all cracking up. E would laugh hysterically and turn to us and say "I didn't understand any of that." If I focused on a single character, everything around their face would mold together, and they would be a head, floating in a sea of psychedelia. I would also notice characters aging, right before my eyes. Hair would grow long and gray, wrinkles would form around their face, until they died. I would see the skin rot off, until they were nothing but a skeleton. I was seeing characters getting hurt on TV, and it started occurring to me that I didn't understand basic concepts of life anymore, such as pain. I didn't understand feelings and physical sensations, emotions, language, etc. I would even pinch myself, I couldn't feel anything. Everything I knew about life had gone. I almost felt like I wasn't supposed to be alive. I felt that if I died that instant, nothing would change. The world would continue, and I would stay in this state. Like there was no border between life and death. I wasn't worried at all, just a little shocked that I had reached ego-death. This lasted for a while. I was already dead. If my heart stopped, I would remain in that bed, in the same state of confusion and state of mind, and nothing would change at all. Once I had reached that stage, that feeling would remain for the rest of the night. That feeling of acceptance.
I was coming down now. I had no idea what time it was, but we ended up watching four-ish episodes of the Simpsons. N was still very high. Earlier he had smacked the bed, A jerked up and asked "what was that?' N said he didn't know, or something, I'm not entirely sure how he replied. A said he was almost finally asleep before that, and he hadn't gotten any sleep the rest of the night. Language made more sense now, I could piece words together and understand what they meant. An odd hallucination, I remember, occurred while the show was on. I was looking straight ahead, towards the TV, and had my legs outstretched in front of me. The only way I could describe it was as a cliff side drive-in. With the bed as the cliff, and the TV Suspended out over the edge of the cliff. There was more to it than that, but you know, sometimes you just can't explain it. It's all personal, only you understand what you're trying to say. Sometimes it's like "Whoa, that plant is growing up the wall," and everyone will say yeah man. Sometimes you try to put it into words but you can't, and what does come out is jumbled and confusing.
I don't remember much of what else happened while the sun was down, but it soon rose, much to all of our surprise. We tried to smoke another bowl in the room, but that confusion kept setting in. Someone would hold it forever, stuff like that. If I recall correctly, we didn't finish it for at least two hours. That morning was riddled with bewilderment. A and E had been trying to go to sleep earlier, so they did a lot of xanax, but it only got them high. We were trudging around the room, throwing ourselves all over the furniture. N was still pretty on acid, but I think he started coming down. I was almost all the way down, there were still mild tracers and confusion, of course. We would start looking for things, but forget what and continue looking. "I have no idea what I'm looking for." We discussed taking a morning walk, and smoking the bowl outside, (which was still going around, apparently) but we never made it. It was around eight o'clock, and we were still shuffling around, falling everywhere on purpose. Nobody had any idea about anything. We were fried. A bottle of Gatorade suddenly came into existence, I don't know where it came from, and someone took a drink and remarked that it was the greatest thing he had ever drank. We all took long, very long, satisfying gulps, and whole-heartedly agreed. I myself was parched, and this Gatorade quenched like no other.
We wandered around some more, then E's dad went off to work. We took that as the queue to go downstairs and outside. Most of the confusion was gone. We sat outside, which was incredibly bright and vibrant. Everything was calm. We smoked about 600 bowls and reminisced about the night. It was rejuvenating, to say the least. I felt like I had just been born. I was shpongled out of my mind.

Tl:dr got real high on acid, didn't know what the f*ck.

__________________

Mondo Bungle

I did one one Mike Patton, it's only natural to do John Zorn. Another prolific musician not afraid to push the boundaries of music. His discography is quite extensive, as I'm sure you know already, he's credited on over 400 albums as a performer or producer, and he's still going.
He was introduced to a whole mess of different music as a kid, his parents and brother all listened to an assortment of genres. The avant-garde part came after buying a Mauricio Kagel record at fifteen, pretty sweet kid. As a teenager he taught himself a lot about classical music by transcribing scores. He started playing the saxophone at sixteen and incorporated all the music he was listening to and all things he had learned into his first recordings from 1973. He dropped out of college and moved to Manahatten and established himself as a part of the downtown music scene through concerts at his apartment.

Punk-jazz-grind band Naked City was formed in 1988, and played "soundtrack themes, bluesy hard bop, speedy hardcore rock, squealing free jazz and metallic funk". They were extremeley diverse, obviously, with tons of blasting hardcore tracks, free-jazz, and performances of many classic compositions.

Painkiller was formed in 1991, with Mick Harris of Napalm Death fame on drums. Albums like Execution Ground started to incorporate long, dub-ambient tracks.

With Mike Patton, Hemophiliac was released in 2002. A double album of all around oddness and avant-noise.

In 2006 he joined forces with Patton again, this time with Trevor Dunn and Joey Baron, creating the Moonchild Trio, who would go on to release a number of recordings.

Those are his main groups, but that's only about half of his works, if that. And let's not forget the hundreds of klezmer styled jazz compositions from the Masada songbooks.
One of my favorite Zorn related........things, is the improvisational music "game", Cobra. Many talented musicians have joined in on the fun, Mike Patton, Marc Ribot, Fred Frith, among others. Someone holds up a card, people play, stuff and crap. I dunno, check it out



I haven't listened to every single album yet, but some of my favorites are Elegy, The Big Gundown, The Gift, Cartoon S/M, Naked City's Radio, and so many other good ones. If you've never delved into the Zorn world (:O), I would honestly suggest listening to Naked City. Their albums draw on all kinds of different subjects, and you could get a good Zorn experience from it. If you don't like noisey, squealy, and weird jazz, then listen to The Gift, it's pretty laid back surf-persian funky stuff.

John Zorn and Mike Patton are two of my musical heroes not only for all their kick-ass music, but also the fact that they're just doing whatever the f*ck they want. Some people are in it for the money, some people want to pour their brains out through music and have a good time.

__________________