The perversely talented Melvins start their residency for Spaceland Productions at The Satellite with a performance of some of their most challenging works. For their Friday, Jan. 7, show, Buzzo & Co. have programmed their last indie album before the explosion of grunge (Lysol, including Flipper and Alice Cooper covers), an anti-Xmas EP (Eggnog) and, strangest of all, their weirdly experimental Colossus of Destiny, a polarizing 2001 album that pays titular homage to one of Los Angeles' greatest literary chronicles. How so?

Colossus of Destiny is the ridiculously ambitious masterpiece the antihero of John Fante's underrated novel The Road to Los Angeles dreams of unleashing on the world. Lesser bands might namecheck Fante's Ask the Dust, but leave it to the Melvins to point their brainy fans to the far more obscure prequel, written in the 1930s but only released posthumously in 1985.

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