Buttkickin' Halloween Songs: "Mr. Krinkle" - Primus (1993)

Say there Mr. Krinkle let’s cruise the Bastard boat
Damn then sonsabitches with their gill-nets set afloat
I flip on my tele and I watch the waters die
C’mon Mr. Krinkle tell me why…

Oh good, more creepy pig imagery…

Primus is a band that will always make you leap out of your skin and go BWAHHHH!! just from the sheer oddity of it all, and I really can’t think of a better compliment for any band carving out a niche in an industry dominated by what Larry Fine called “a philistine paradigm of poo-poo’ery”. I may or may not have just made that last bit up. Whatever.

I first heard the absolutely demented and disturbing Mr. Krinkle in the summer of 1993, where your host was a very young dude getting all sorts of happy with his buds while visiting Des Plaines, Illinois. Later on during that trip I’d end up getting arrested, but that’s a rhubarb for another pie. Anyway, there we were, all sorts of wobbly, when the video for Mr. Krinkle came on MTV. Make your snide remark about how “MTV used to play music” on your own time.

Anyway: the Mr. Krinkle video. I. Was. Riveted. And mindblown. And disturbed. And what the what the WHAT WAS THAT?

That creepy riff. Those freakish vocals. That nightmarish tone. What the hell…?

And the video itself was no picnic either. I needed a long talk with no one afterward.

So anyway… it has long since earned its spot on our Buttkickin’ Halloween Songs playlist, and the fact that it hasn’t shown up until now is grossly unfortunate. So let’s rectify that right now, shall we?