Introduction
Jim Kimball is an American punk drummer. His virtual menagerie of former bands includes Laughing Hyenas, Mule, and The Jesus Lizard, as well as The Denison/Kimball Trio (which contains only Kimball and fellow ex-Jesus Lizard Duane Denison). The Laughing Hyenas were a seminal punk/rock/noise outfit. Kimball and Kevin Munro (a.k.a. Kevin Strickland or Keb) left to form Mule with Wig's P.W. Long in the early 1990s.
Mule
Mule is best described as sounding like a backwoods clamor, and their debut is one of the more distinctive offerings of the 90s. Taking field hollers and other basic Americana-based lyrical content (with plentiful helpings of cursing and lewd rhyming, such as "My dick's as hard as Chinese arthimetic"), Mule tied them to the stripped-down, but loud and noisy guitar of P.W. and the thundering rhythm section of Kimball and Munro. Munro also sang, and some of the more memorable Mule songs (Pent, Mama's Reason to Cry, Rope and the Cuckold) are call-and-response numbers between the two singers. Kimball was the driving force behind the first album, and the EP Wrung.