Mindless Self Indulgence (thing) by duckjustaduck

Self-described industrial-jungle-pussy-punk, MSI is the only band I know of that truly deserves their own classification: they just don't sound like anyone else.
Mindless Self Indulgence is essentially the creation of James Euringer, or Little Jimmy Urine to his fans, the cute lead singer who writes all the songs and programs the beats and Atari sound-effects. According to Jimmy, "I was sitting around sucking some dick and I thought to myself, How can I use this skill to my advantage? And I realized-- the music business ! The rest is, as they say, history." ¹
He's not big on straight answers.

So back in '97 or so, Jimmy released a CD called "Mindless Self-Indulgence", which was more or less a solo attempt to sound like Nine Inch Nails. The angsty and (relatively) long songs are:

All things considered though, a damn good album, although virtually impossible to find now. In my opinion, the man's a musical genius. Anyway.
Jimmy decides to form a band, but he ostensibly hates musicians, so he recruits his friends instead; Steve Righ? on the 4-stringed guitar, Vanessa YT on bass, and Kitty on a cute li'l drum kit. With their debut album "Tight" (released April 20, 1999 on Uppity Cracker, their own record label) they achieve the manic, ADD, tempo-hopping genre-blurring tongue-in-cheek style that is characteristic of their sound. It's, well, tight.
According to the band, "Tight" is "the sloppy, slapped-together, "actual" debut record. Rejected by roadrunner, discontinued cuz it's funny, hard to find cuz people hate us." ² ("Tight" is now out of print and selling for exorbitant amounts of money on ebay) And the track listing IS:

MSI was signed to Elektra at some point, and released their second album Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy under that label February 22, 2000. FGWSSS features 30 tracks in under an hour in alphabetical order. The artwork was done by Jamie Hewlett, the creator of Tank Girl. The warning in the liner notes is worth reprinting here:

You must listen to this album with your tongue planted firmly in your cheek. If you don't have a sense of irony, or you are a piece of shit bigot, or a fundamentalist anything, return this album immediately, don't come to our shows, don't wear our t-shirts. Fuck off. If you're a parent who neglects, beats, or doesn't show your child love, know that we don't condone violence so don't waste our time in court while you try to explain to a jury how our music made your "happy & normal" child into a deranged lunatic.
Thank You

In FGWSS, MSI's often silly and often acidic sense of humor is further revealed. It's doubly ironic that the plethora of Hot Topic punks in the audience don't realize that their favorite band is making fun of them. The track list is:

MSI has developed a solid base of insane fans in part by touring with acts such as KoRn, Rammstein, Lords of Acid, ICP, and System of a Down. Jimmy has said "It's like the evil Grateful Dead. They follow us from state to state. I see the same motherfuckers in the front row every fucking night. They might as well be part of the band."³
MSI is infamous for their wild live act, which tends to feature gratuitous nudity (mostly Jimmy's) and outrageous antics, projectiles of cornflakes, twinkies, and bodily fluids, and humping of stuffed animals, audience members, and each other, punctuated by Jimmy's penchant for drinking his own urine and making out with the audience. Yes, in that order.
In 2001, Vanessa YT left the band, supposedly to become an astronaut, and was replaced by LynZ. Around that time as well, they got sick of being fucked over by Elektra, and extricated themselves from their contract.
Back on the Uppity Cracker label, MSI released "Alienating our Audience" in 2002 and launched their very first headlining tour of the same name. AoA is a live CD consisting of half new songs and half old crap:

At the same time, Urine and Righ? released The Left Rights, a joke side-project which frankly sounds like it took half an hour to make. At any rate, the tour was a big success, selling-out venues across the country--to the shock of the band members, who are extremely fan-friendly and often spend hours after the show signing autographs and chatting with groupies.
They've been getting quite a bit of press lately, in spite (or perhaps because) of their refusal to actually answer questions or tell the truth. (For example, they told Alternative Press, Feb 2003, that LynZ is Jimmy's little sister. Most of the kids think this is bullshit.)
Mindless Self Indulgence is supposedly back in the studio now, working on their fabled new album. Or maybe just setting stuff on fire.

1. Stillman, Brian. "Mindless Self Indulgence" Revolver Mar/Apr 2003, pp72-76.
2. www.mindlessselfindulgence.com
3. Moose. "Mindless Self Indulgence" Outburn Apr 2003 (source of direct quote, although he said something similar to me in person months before this)

Clarissa Explains It All	Bring The Pain	Propagandhi	Until today, it really pissed me off that I'd become this totally centered Zen Master and nobody had noticed
Jimmy Page	IIRC	The things we always thought, yet never had the courage to speak	Modest Mouse
tornado	La Blue Girl	Tank Girl	Bed of Roses
Rammstein	Depression and the leaf	Tight	Everything But the Girl
self interview	The Last Song I Will Ever Write About a Girl	Gorillaz	My menage a trois
Crystal Pepsi