LMD Premier: Mungion Debut Live Cut “Basketball”

by Caleb Calhoun

Over the last several years Chicago rockers Mungion have established themselves as one of the hottest young bands on the scene. Still, for a band that is known for explosive performances their fans have been missing one key component – access to those live shows in a high quality format. All of that changes this weekend as Mungion is all set to release their first live album.

“Some bands have the resources to put out every live show,” guitarist and lead singer Justin Reckamp tells me from the comfort of his bed. “That isn’t the case for us,” he continues. “the music that we put out we want to be of a certain standard and quality. This past tour was our first headlining tour and we thought that would make it great to put out this record… to give our fans the tip of the iceberg of our first tour.”

Having listened to the record myself I have to say, if this is “just the tip” then these guys must be packing some monster “yams”.

Not that everything has to be some twenty minute jam to Mungion, the truth is they refuse to be pigeonholed into any one style or genre of music.

“A big part of our demeanor is that we love every style of music,” Reckamp discusses. “There is great stuff to pull from all of it. We believe that be it bluegrass or jazz or funk we love all of that stuff and want to cherry pick from all of those different vernaculars and package them nicely to write a song that speaks.”

The track they will be premiering today on Live Music Daily couldn’t be a better demonstration of their versatility. Bookended on the album by a 15-minute Myrtle and a 32-minute Herbert the tune Basketball stands just 4:25 long. Still, even in that short time you can hear influences from swing to hip-hop to jazz to jam.

“Writing a short song is just a whole ‘nother animal then writing a long song,” Reckamp explains. “We have been trying to write more focused, shorter songs to kind of balance out some of the other stuff we do, yin and yang.

“I mean, it’s funny,” he continues, “when we first wrote the tune it was a straight ahead swing tune, we decided to make it a little funky with a back beat and thought that might make it work better in a live situation.”

Eventually they would decide to keep the swinging jazz guitar solo in the middle, but, on the fly, to add the rap at the end.

“That little middle rap or whatever you wanna call it was written by Sean (Carolan, Mungion’s Bassist). We had a rehearsal and he just showed up and spit mad fire and we were like yeah that’s awesome.”

Goofy as usual, with lyrics like “Rex Chapman with a bad acid habit” the lighthearted approach to the song (and to their songwriting in general) does nothing to take away from the enjoyment of the storytelling. Listening to this track made me feel like a little kid, dozing off as my dad told me stories of his high school glory days.

Honestly, listening to the entire album made me feel like a little kid, start to finish. I’ve never seen Mungion live but have heard they always have a great time. Judging by the live album I would have to say that is a safe bet. Check out their new single Basketball right here and their entire live album May 18th on your favorite music provider.