Malfunkshun

The Andrew Wood Story (Hip-O Select)

Pre-Pearl Jam, longhairs Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament backed glam Dallas Cowboys fan Andrew Wood in Mother Love Bone. Before that, Wood (1966-1990) and his fellow Kiss-loving brother Kevin fronted Malfunkshun. Disc one: messy, 100-minute DVD doc on the Wood family’s dysfunkshun and proto-grunge. Malfunkshun: Return to Olympus follows with Gossard’s posthumous 1995 album of the group, demo-quality garage dreams too stoned for their own good, though halfway through, on a faux stadium tear through Ted Nugent’s “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang” into white-cake piano ballad “Until the Ocean” (Wood’s specialty), Mother Love Bone’s metallic melancholy is born. More notably, with “Winter Bites” and “Make Sweet Love,” Seattle’s early Sabbath sound begins dispensing opiates. A second CD of Wood’s previously unreleased home recordings uncovers at least one potential gem (“My Star”) plus roommate Chris Cornell, but proves forgettable in the face of bonus DVD footage with Mother Love Bone’s “baby shoot.” Spinal Tap ’89.

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This article appears in August 26 • 2011.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.