My rip-roaring revue of the entire catalogue of The Dead Milkmen proceeds according to plan, now entering the last era when I paid any real attention to their new releases.

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Not Richard, But Dick (1993)

This one came out when I was in high school, and I even remember my first girlfriendesque situationship acknowledging its existence, tho I don’t remember her opinion, which is another point illustrating I did not yet know how to fully regard women as human.  No bueno.  Back on topic, the only single from this that I was aware of getting any radio play – and only on college stations – was “I Dream of Jesus.”  There are songs on this album that are so much better than that.  A real shame.

Overall it’s kind of an interesting album.  I think the previous albums were a lot more unified musically, but this one has some more successful genre experimentation – especially in “easy listening” territory, which it shares with parts of They Might Be Giants’ excellent album Factory Showroom.  As I tried to categorize these tracks, I realized I feel a lot more conflicted about most of this album than the others.  Few songs get an unequivocal rating.

Classics

***** “Jason’s Head” is an unequivocal classic.  What is this song even about?  Seems like some weird guy was feeling jealous of his easy-going girlfriend who had to kill him in self defense, and the narrator is joining a group of friends on their way to see the body?  This song is so musically good.  I can’t say why.  One of their best, and my husband agrees.  It’s one of his two faves by the band.  He says it has more of a post-punk vibe than anything else they’ve done.

***** I love “The Infant of Prague Customized My Van” an awful lot, but was very conflicted as to if it should be Classic or just Good Stuff.  Musically, this is very old school DMM, by this album’s standards, seeming like it could be sung by the redneck storytime guy on Metaphysical Graffiti.  And yet?  It’s so clever and funny, it is way better than most of their older songs.  Short and sweet too.  But here’s the question – would other people regard this as well as I do?  By the way, I always misremembered the title as “The Infant of Prague Customized My Minivan” for some reason.  The title is a reference to The Butthole Surfers’s “Some Dispute Over T-Shirt Sales.”  Wait.  Ministry’s “Jesus Built My Hotrod.”  That’s the one.

***** “The Woman Who Was Also a Mongoose” is also an unequivocal classic.  So great.  They played it at the concert I went to and the band kinda forgot to play the last verse, which the audience felt bad about.  We had to suck eggs on that deal.  At least we could go home afterward and listen to our CDs.  One of their songs that mentions brothers, so bonus points from me, a brother-haver.  My husband rates it as his second favorite DMM song and says it is the ultimate furry ally song.  “Chasin’ after field mice running thru the high grass, that’s what she loves to do, And if she’s happy as a mongoose, it shouldn’t bother me or you.”

Good Stuff

*** I almost rated “I Dream of Jesus” as Filler, but I admit it has a sort of iconic quality and isn’t as obnoxious as their worst stuff.  Pretty good.

*** Again, I almost rated “I’m Not Crazy” as Filler, this time because it’s just another of the “imma crazzy guy lol” songs that are nearly as common as paranoia songs in their oeuvre, and it’s more mellow than I prefer.  But I like the music, and the yuks amused me.

**** “Let’s Get the Baby High” has me more conflicted than most of the album.  It’s tasteless and gross and musically obnoxious, so I’m tempted to rate it as Garbage, but I do find it very amusing.  On a bad day I will skip it tho.  The obnoxion is sans pareil.

*** “Nobody Falls Like” I almost rated as filler for the same reason as “I’m Not Crazy.”  It’s their four hundredth song about being paranoid.  But I’m amused and don’t hate the music and it’s short.

*** “I Started to Hate You” is very repetitive, as a basic concept, but I do like the lyrics.

Filler

** I almost rated “Leggo My Ego” as Good Stuff but the title is too obvious and some of the lyrics are too annoying.  Good music, generally.  You might like it a lot.

Garbage

– I almost rated “Little Volcano” a bit higher, as Filler, but it feels twee in a way that does not work for me.  Yeah, “Woman Who is Also a Mongoose” is more twee than that, but the music on it is way better, the story as well.  Something about this feels more repetitive than it is.  I just don’t like it at all.  The music isn’t as bad as my personal rating suggests.

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Chaos Rules: Live at the Trocadero (1994)

This album could be a greatest hits album.  Decent recording quality, great track list.  At the show Rodney was cranky about anti-abortion protesters including a guy named Steven Friend (Stephen? it’s a very common name actually), working references to the dude into a few songs, some talky bits between songs.  It’s alright.

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Stoney’s Extra Stout Pig (1995)

This was right about the time the band first called it quits, over a combination of industry frustration and the severe tendinitis of their bassist Dave Blood.  The three non-tendinitis-having members of the band played in other musical projects in the interim.  This would have been their last album.  Later, when I’ve listened properly to all their reboot tracks, I’ll be asking myself the question – Should they have quit at Pig?  SESP was less musically experimental than NRBD, but carried forward that album’s glossier production – just applying it to a more old school Milkmen style.  There’s paranoia, crazy™ narrators, and songs ranging from dope to highly obnoxious.  Welcome back Kotters.

Classics

**** “When I Get to Heaven” is about the afterlife or lack thereof, alternately about how The Shags were underrated and you should really go out and buy “My Pal Foot Foot” at your earliest convenience.  I dinged it a star for that, but it’s pretty iconic.

***** “Chaos Theory.”  Hey, I’ve talked about this song before.  I don’t like working.  That makes this song my jam.  Y tu?

Good Stuff

*** “Peter Bazooka” is the main conspiracy song here, and leads off the album with a bang.  Kind of a hoot.  Velvet Underground reference on the refrain.

***** “Train I Ride” is a pretty excellent song about the crappy crap we’re living with every day.  Within the context this train is literally that, but also metaphorical for the runaway nature of shit, the inexorable progress of evil.  Darkly hilarious.

*** “I’m Flying Away” is a twee song about flying to see your lover, with woodwind like that on “Woman Who is Also a Mongoose.”  Might be too much sugar for the average mood.

*** “The Blues Song” is just a cynical fake blues song with a lot of rude jokes about the subject.  Pretty funny ones tho.

** I think my brother liked “The Man Who Rides the Bus” better than I do.  Another Joe Jack Talcum theory about god.

*** “Don’t Deny Your Inner Child” is a paranoia / crazy™ song, but not a bad one.

**** In a way “Big Deal” is a reprise of “Life is Shit,” but less doomed.  Like the narrator of “Life is Shit” turned forty while dating a very nice sad sack and feels resigned to being alive now in a way they hadn’t before, but still not loving it one bit.  Good way to end the album and could have been the last song we ever heard from them.  Could have been.

Filler

* “The Girl With the Strong Arm” and “Helicopter Interiors” are random Rodney psychedelia and not especially entertaining, nor redeemed by great music.

** “I Can’t Stay Awake” is a song about a maddening circumstance that is well done, but in a way that can itself be maddening.

** “Like to Be Alone” can be kind of decent if you’re moving the right speed, or it can be as charming as “I Like Traffic Lights” by Monty Python.

Garbage

* “Crystalline” and “Khrissy” are musically fine, I don’t usually skip them if I’m letting the album run, but why do they sound like back to back songs about crystal meth?  Did we need this?  Was this expressing your heart’s condition circa 1995, Joe Jack?

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Death Rides a Pale Cow (The Ultimate Collection) (1997)

With the band broken up, the label had to get a few more bucks.  Pretty good compilation, but the selection might say some things.  Why not a single track from Soul Rotation?  And what the hell is “The Brown Nose” doing here?

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Cream of the Crop (1998)

This compilation is shorter and sweeter, more fan faves by fraction of the whole, but a few headscratchers.

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Now We are 20 (2003)

Wait.  This is just that earlier compilation with the R-slur song, and a few bonus tracks?  MotherFUCKER.

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To be continued…

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I’m reviewing the whole discography of The Dead Milkmen.  I know, I know.  You’re not interested.  Tough titty!  This is my happening, baby, and it freaks me out!

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Beelzebubba (1988)

I don’t know whether I’d seen the video for “Punk Rock Girl” on MTV first, or heard my Tech Support Guy play this on tape when I was hanging out at his house.  “Punk Rock Girl” is immortal, beloved, but we must look at the album as a whole.  This would be the high point of their career, as far as record sales were concerned, but I also feel it captured the essence of who they had become as artists.  They had achieved their true form.

What is that form?  Punk rockers, they just threw a bunch of short snot-nosed songs at the wall to see if anything stuck.  Unlike 99% of other punk bands, they had a unique style combining elements of folk music, ethnic folk music, surf guitar, and country – with a lot of genre dabbling besides.  They were low brow poets, the two singers also having their own personal writing styles that helped build a world of suburban decay, of lumpen-ass proletariat believing strange things and swimming in strange events.  Everything is a bad joke.  Doesn’t matter if you live or die, it’ll probably be sad and weird.  Maybe violent too.

I review tracks, this time putting classics at the top, because they deserve first place.

Classics

*** “You know what Stuart?  I like you.  You’re not like the other people, here at the trailer park.  Don’t get me wrong, they’re fine people, good Americans, but they don’t know What The Queers Are Doing to The Soil…”  “Stuart” is not very musical because the lyrics are overpowering and spoken word, not sung, but both the instrumentation and the Rodney-flavored poetry are considered by fans to be essential listening.  They probably play it at most concerts.  I don’t remember if they played it at the one I went to.  I do remember them covering Gary Numan’s “Cars.”

***** “Punk Rock Girl” absolutely deserves its place as their most well-known song.  Great music, great lyrics.  Love it, as I have always loved counter-cultural girls and boys, be they punk or goth or grunge etc…  I remember when belly button rings and nose rings blew up at my high school.  So cool.  Take that, society stiffs!  Anyway, now I live up to the line, “We’ll dress like Minnie Pearl,” so everything is hunkydory.

***** “Bleach Boys” is a very strong contender for best song on the album.  It’s the only Dead Milkmen song where you can hear them smiling as they sing it, hear them trying to stifle laughter.  It’s black humor, for sure, but it’s pretty fuckin’ funny.  The music is very fun, and the song doesn’t overstay its welcome.  I’d say it’s about 10% novelty song tho, more about the jokey lyrics than the musical whole.  Potentially offensive to welders and people of short stature.  “I’ve got some buddies and we all drink bleach; you know we practice what we preach…”

**** I used to dislike “Life is Shit,” back when I was new to the world, and death and suicidal ideation were more disturbing and hateful to me.  I gotta admit tho, it is an absolute anthem.  I know most fans love it, but not sure if they play it in concerts as much as the other big tracks.

Good Stuff

**** “Brat in the Frat” has this high speed Eastern folk music thing, maybe Greek is the main influence?  Short and sweet, or short and snotty at least.  Expresses some weaksauce political moderate stance and a high disdain for being alive, but well done, I’ll take it.

***** “Sri Lanka Sex Hotel” is one of their edgiest songs.  Are there even sex hotels in Sri Lanka, or are they mixing it up in their imagination with Thailand?  I don’t know much.  The titular sex hotel isn’t the point of the song though.  It’s about fucking up and dying on purpose, and it rocks.  But yes, don’t do anything the song talks about.

**** “The Guitar Song,” if you don’t particularly like the band’s sound, is an instrument of torture.  I think it’s cute, but I think my brother likes it more.

**** This album has more songs about conspiracies and paranoia than any before it, cementing that as a central theme of their art.  “I Against Osbourne,” by merit of aggressive tempo and short length, is the least worst of the ones on display here.

Filler

** “I Walk the Thinnest Line” is too repetitive and has some pretty dubious lyrics, like the title that references Charlie Manson.  Decades after I first heard this song, I randomly found out what My Little Fish is, which gets referenced here, and … don’t look it up.  It’s nightmare fuel.  Song is about being a crazy™ guy.  Musically kinda alright, not too long.

*** “Bad Party” is about going to a bad party and giving the partygoers punk attitude.  Tasteless reference to eccentric real-life murderer Ricky Kasso.

*** Personally I’m kinda amused by “My Many Smells,” which is about possessing abominable effluvia.  “Sometimes smell just like death itself, a sickening sweet smell, I could really make you ill.  Smell meee…”

*** “Smokin’ Banana Peels” is alright.  More funk-punk, with jokey surreal imagery for your inner acid fiend.  “Take Elvis for a walk and shut up.”

** “Everybody’s Got Nice Stuff But Me” is kinda funny but not very musically satisfying, and too repetitive.

** “Howard Beware” is another song about a paranoid guy.

* “Ringo Buys a Rifle” is another song about a paranoid guy, this one Beatle-themed.

Garbage

– “RC’s Mom” is a James Brown style parody about doing domestic violence, and got a lil too offensive for my ass, especially the last few seconds, which feel like Charlie Hebdo humor – that is to say, like it wouldn’t be out of place in the propaganda of neo-nazis.  Punk rock, ladies and germtlemen.

– You know what sucks?  When people give money to scholarly pursuits they find interesting, instead of giving everything to charities making up for the half-assed nature of america’s social safety net.  Let’s make a very repetitive and maudlin song about it called “Born to Love Volcanos.”  Shit literally has violins in it.  That’ll show ’em.

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Smokin’ Banana Peels EP (1989)

“Smokin’ Banana Peels” was alright, but I don’t know if it needed a maxi-single with multiple remixes.  Nonetheless, the B sides on this are so fucking good I consider it a must-have.  YMMV.  My husband mostly hates them.

Classics

***** “Depression Day Dinner” is about being poor enough to eat your dog, and ironically exulting in it.  The devoured dog has the same name as one in the saccharine jesus-friendly comic strip The Family Circus.  This is funny as balls.  Works in a reference to the Stones’s “Brown Sugar.”

***** I like “The Puking Song” even more than “Depression Day Dinner.”  Maybe I’d like it less if, like my sickly Victorian husband, I’d had more occasion to vomit in the course of my life.  At this point, I’d rate this as their funniest song.  Joe Jack sings lead, music has a brief reggae / dub interlude.

Good Stuff

**** “I Hate Myself” is a rather obvious entrant to a certain genre of punk rock song, but in their own style.  These songs seemed apiece with the musical motifs of Beelzebubba and it would have been a better album with them on it.  Suicidal ideation for laffs, u kno.

*** “Girl Hunt” is a “personal ad” song, like “Float On.”  It feels like the writing of an asshole who knows he’s an asshole but isn’t trying to improve.  Kinda fun tho.

***** Another fave of mine is “Death’s Alright With Me,” which is alright with me, but I recognize not as good as the Classics on this album.  Also slight ding for being more terrible cheerleading for suicide.

Filler/Garbage

**? “Smokin’ Banana Peels” has five fuckin’ remixes on this album.  Even for this review, I have not worked up the gumption to listen to them.

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Metaphysical Graffiti (1990)

It’s weird rating albums track by track.  I didn’t realize I regarded this album as well as I did.  A lot of tracks made “Good Stuff” and I liked the “Filler” well.  Only complaint is that the worst tracks were pretty bad and I felt like I was reaching to pick a “Classic.”  A very moderate experience, but on the positive side of that.

Classics

**** “Methodist Coloring Book” is an atheist anthem.  It’s a lil obnoxious tho.

Good Stuff

**** “Beige Sunshine” is the lead off track, which kicks ass, but loses points for opening with an obnoxious kiddie chorus.  Instrumentally, it has more influence of church music I don’t quite have the terms for.  Maybe it’s an instrument where I’ve never connected the sound to the name.  Lyrically, it’s more Milkmen psychedelia, with a sort of mental health framing device.

**** “Part 3 (I Saw You Naked)” uses CSA for yuks, but might not be as bad as that sounds.  Kinkshaming.  I could see associating this source of humor with homophobia or transphobia, but I’m feeling generous.  I like uptempo music and zany nonsense.

*** “I Tripped Over The Ottoman” features Dick Van Dyke going crazy™.  “Maury Amsterdam can make a sane man crazy, Maury Amsterdam can make a nice guy kill.”  The music works real well with the joke.  Dr. Demento surely played this one.  Surely.

*** “The Big Sleazy” is a fun tune about hating your local radio station.  Quality haterade.

*** “If You Love Somebody, Set Them On Fire” is a doors joke gone too far.  “I went to your house last night, your dad called me the Human Torch, got a little pissed at him, so I burned down your front porch.  Now I’m feelin’ a little better, and throwin’ gas on your dad, but you know it’s hard to quit, and besides he started it.”

** “Dollar Signs In Her Eyes” is not my kinda jam.  Like I said, I prefer uptempo.  But I recognize the quality, and I imagine some of you might like it more than most of their songs.  Mellow song about how crapitalism makes one live in a dream.

**** I almost rated “I Hate You, I Love You” a classic because I like it a lot.  Might be a little long for how obnoxious it is tho.

*** “Now Everybody’s Me” reiterates the theme of “City of Mud.”  The world is become a slovenly curmudgeon’s paradise through a conformity of nonconformists.

*** “Little Man In My Head” is another reggae / dub influenced track, about having funny little ideas one does not believe are native to one’s domepiece, like leading cults or doing terrorisms and such.  Not bad.

Filler

*** Recurring Redneck Storytime tracks have some low key Milkmen musicking while Rodney talks, playing the character of a gossiping redneck on his porch.  There’s one about how Billy Bohiggus got caught in some perverse chicanery and subsequently lynched, one about how his sister is dating a guy named Professor Griff, one about how Sarah Jane is a left-handed lesbian eskimo midget albino, and lastly the tale of Cousin Earl’s egregious family of mutants who live on a maggot farm.  This stuff is the very definition of filler, like comedy skits on a rap album.

* “Epic Tales Of Adventure” is a stock Milkmen jam about paranoia and poor people problems.  One of at least three songs that mention laundromats, I think.  I’m more likely to skip it these days.  Doesn’t hold up to repeat listens, past a point.

*** I almost rated musical outro “Anderson, Walkman, Buttholes And How!” as Good Stuff.  It features Gibby Hanes of The Butthole Surfers, and after they once joked about ripping those guys off.  It’s a pretty decent time, but yeah, it’s filler.

Garbage

* “Do The Brown Nose” is … what would you call this, lounge funk? weirdly reiterating some musical elements from Beige Sunshine.  y’know, i think it’s electric organ.  that’s the sound.  It’s a yuk, but I can’t help but feel like a song about brown-nosing is a little boring for these guys.

* “In Praise Of Sha Na Na” again has some yuks, but extremely repetitive, kind of obnoxious, and the negatives definitively outweigh the positives.

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Soul Rotation (1992)

As much as Metaphysical Graffiti (yes i got the zepp ref) led off with a few songs about religion and spiritual vibez, this album was very focused on those themes.  Again, I was surprised how much I liked this album on relisten, though overall I never vibed with it in the past.  Still, and also like Metaphysical Graffiti, I didn’t think the standout tracks really rose to the level of being Classics, mostly.  But amazingly, nothing I rated as garbage!  I can’t believe it.

Classics

***** “If I Had a Gun” is fuckin’ perfect.  If you want a song that reflects the mentally tortured USian white man experience, this is your dog.  It gets me on the level of actually relating to it, while preferring I didnt?, but still loving it.  “Would I wear it in a holster, would I keep it concealed?  Would I put it on the table every time that I’m misdealed?  When I hear a nearby gunshot when I’m up at night alone, would I feel a little safer, here in my urban home?”  I don’t know how well it fits the album.  I guess thematically I can see it existing in the same world as “Big Scary Place” and “Here Comes Mr. X.”

Good Stuff

**** “At The Moment” leadoff track, pretty dope.  I like it a lot, but it’s low key.

*** “The Secret Of Life” is less annoying than I remembered and it’s 4:20 long so maybe that’s the actual secret.

**** “Big Scary Place” is about feeling overwhelmed, of course.  Might be a good track to represent the album as a whole, the feeling here is of having an expanded awareness of the world and that awareness scaring you back into the Platonic cave.

*** “The Conspiracy Song” – motherfucking which one, amirite?  If you’re gonna go with one Dead Milkmen song about conspiracies, this one sure beats “Epic Tales of Adventure,” “Howard Beware,” and “Peter Bazooka.”  I like ’em fast.

*** “Wonderfully Colored Plastic War Toys” is a throbbing word salad that bounces up and down hitting top and bottom of your skull in rapid succession.  Pretty good.

**** “God’s Kid Brother” is a straightforwardly presented theory of Creation.  AiG take note.  I’d call it a novelty song because it’s more about the lyrics and idea than the music, but in generosity to its quality, I’ll call it a folk song instead.

*** “Here Comes Mr. X” is an aggressive track about a right-wing shithead fucking up one’s neighborhood.  It has some really funny lines.

Filler

** “Belafonte’s Inferno” is one of those tracks that just gets too mellow for me, which may be the essence of why I didn’t vibe with this album before.  Still not working for me on this one.

** “How It’s Gonna Be” might be their funkiest funk song, but why so many funk songs?  Leave that to the experts.  This is a reflection on the aggressive banality of life, which in its negative way, points to the theme of spirituality on this album.  Just kind of obnoxious tho.

** “All Around the World” is not an RHCP cover (somehow the first state mentioned in that is PA where the Milkmen are from, and not California).  It’s a mellow tune about… wait for it… a conspiracy guy!  I like the musicality of the phrase “I know some things I know I shouldn’t know,” but there’s not much here.

*** “Silly Dreams” I almost rated as Good Stuff.  The tune is mild-mannered good times, there are some yuks, it’s kind of a mood.  But maybe too mellow.

** It’s far from their main genre influence, but the Dead Milkmen sure like returning to the well of funk, as they did for “Shaft in Greenland.”  There’s still probably more of reggae in the rhythm.  Or ska.  Shit, I don’t know jack about Afro-Caribbea.  White punks sure seem to know it well, lol.  Anyway, kinda chuckleworthy, but very novelty.  Also the second song where they rhyme ghetto and stiletto.

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If I Had a Gun EP (1992)

Nothing of note here, but recognition of that song’s greatness, I suppose.

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Now We Are 10 (1993)

Remember when I said if I found out they put the R-slur song on compilations I’d reevaluate my opinion of them?  By the track list I thought this was a standard collection of repackaged stuff plus bonus material, but it was more like concert recordings and other terribly lo-fi versions.  Unremarkable, and the bonus tracks were nothing to write home about.  “Don’t Abort That Baby” was alright, if barely discernible through the recording quality.  It’s more anti-anti-abortion than pro-abortion, which is the weaksauce position, but it’s aggressively rude and terrible about it, which gets some points back.

Then again, that irredeemable slur song is on the album.  The re-evaluation:  This is 1993 and even as a seventeen year old I wasn’t as ableist as this song.  But I was close, and I was using variations on that slur for conservatives in the comments on Pharyngula during the Sci blogs era well past the time I should’ve known better.  The Deep Rifts and feminist / social justice conversation of the time around 2010 really changed how I feel about ableism a lot.

Still, the song isn’t ableist because of insensitive language.  It’s literally nazi shit.  “I hate cognitively impaired people and want them to die” the funny fun song.  Again, who am I to stand in judgment, when our atheo-skeptic movement is also not ableist just because of the language we use.  We fundamentally hate “stupid” people.  Personally, I think that’s a problem, but I’m still hanging out in the building.

Even in 1993 I’d have thought this sucked, but from thirty-two years in the future, loving as much as I do love of the band’s catalogue, I’m going to give 1993 DMM a pass.  For now.  We’ll see the next time it comes up.

Incidentally, if I really wanted to know how shitty Rodney Anonymous and Joe Jack Talcum are to this very day, I understand they’re vlogging a lot on yewchoob now.  I don’t wanna find out.  Not right now.

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To be continued!

I was thinkin’ of callin’ this series “Musicular Disctrophy” but that’s in bad taste and I half feel like I’m ripping it off from somewhere.  Discolology will join Dreamposting and Life List in the alternating day slots at random, with my other content being on the alternating– whatever, it makes sense to me.  I’m gonna comment on all the noteworthy things about the discographies of a few artists.  I won’t have an endless supply of these either, like the birds, but each band or artist can generate multiple posts.  I’m not going to break it down by one album per post, will do some lumping.  Depends on how much I feel like saying about them.

The Dead Milkmen!  Because I’m a motherfucking gen X dorkwad.  Most people who remember thing one about them remember “Punk Rock Girl.”  Well.  If that’s you, you don’t know much.  They have a reasonably long discography with a lot of excellent songs.  And a few horrible indefensible ones.  And a lot of ho-hum filler, bad in the ways that novelty music often is.  One joke, quirky lyrics at the expense of tunesmithing.  I don’t think I’m spoiling things to say there were a few early albums that ruled, followed by some OK stuff, and then I lost track of them for a long long time.  This is the path of most bands, which supports the idea creative vitality is for the young.  Being middle-aged, I hope that isn’t true…  Is their newest stuff any good?  I’ll find out before this series is done.

The Dead Milkmen self-released their first tape when I was three years old. I saw them in concert at El Corazon in Seattle back in May 2012, making my husband the youngest person in the audience, making them like how old at the time?  Rodney was forty-nine?  One year older than I am now?  Rodney was just sixteen years old when they released their first tape?  I guess that lines up with the punks I knew in high school.  Ambitious lil’ guys.

Point tho, I am not familiar with any of the music from before they got college radio famous in 1984-ish, and am not ambitious enough to listen to it all.  I skimmed it, and as one might predict, the closer they got to being properly produced, the more familiar the songs became.

Before I get into talking about their discography, I want to offer an escape hatch.  Of course, if you aren’t interested in folk/surf/country-influenced punk rock, or my longer writing in general, I’d be surprised if you’re still reading this sentence.  But for the rest of you, a word of caution.  When I say these guys wrote some horrible indefensible songs, I mean it’s the kind of stuff that might put you off paying any attention to them whatsoever.  Cancellation-worthy, for those of you who participate in that culture.

Punk rock is not about being progressive or leftist at all.  Anti-authority maybe, but there is a fascist sub-genre, and who’s to say they aren’t real punks?  If the music sounds the same and that’s the definition, nazi punks can fuck off, but still be punks.  In the song “Nazi Punks Fuck Off,” Jello Biafra said “punk means thinking for yourself.”  That’s some no true scotsman biz.  I’ve heard it said that the main driver of the original punk was causing offense.  If so, congrats, I’m offended.  Must be punk.

The Dead Milkmen have a very hateful little song called “Taking R(slur)s to the Zoo,” about finding cognitively disabled people disgusting and wanting them to die.  But in a funny way, haha!  Don’t think in any way that it’s taking the stance of a person they disagree with, like they’re playing the character of a horrible nazi in the song.  It’s just the ableism prevalent in our society turned up to eleven.  Why would I give this band the time of day, the cost of admission to their concert?

It’s one song, not the underpinning of the entire oeuvre.  It’s crap and I’d understand anybody wanting to kick this band into the garbage for it.  But as far as I know they don’t usually play this one?  Certainly didn’t at the concert I went to.  Is that kinda shit in the past for them?  The other thing is that this ableism is a crime I’ve been guilty of as well, in my less public and less overtly offensive way, and for me it is in the past.  I’ll reevaluate where I am on them if I find out they still play this at shows or include it on compilations.  What I get out of their best music is strong enough for me to ignore something that can be ignored – by me, not saying anybody should draw those lines in the same places.

There are other instances of ableism and (internalized?) classism, fatphobia, misogyny, and the usual snot-nosed punk fare.  There’s a jeering regard for low-brow culture that can seem by parts condescending and perversely loving, like the works of John Waters.  But I think for most of you, the worst recurring theme of their music is hating life, not caring if you die.  Do they live that philosophy?  One of their members committed suicide in 2004 and they were appropriately sad about it, raising some money for mental health charities and for a church that guy supported.  Alright then, it’s attitude and a show – an exultation in the concept of death as a blasphemy against the sometimes oppressive idea we should be enjoying life.  I’ve mentioned before that’s something I’m into, and probably something that kept me coming back to the band over the years.

Last word, before I get into looking at the music, on the subject of their offensiveness: they are politically left, feminist, everything you might expect for counter-cultural figures in this country.  Like so many others, in expressing their spleen lyrically, they are prone to the same biases that inform their political opposites.  Foolish, disappointing.  I don’t even keep their most offensive songs in my mp3s.  Still on CDs in a cardboard box somewhere tho…

Probably off local success of their self-released cassette Somebody Shot Sunshine, they were signed to Restless Records and began the studio album part of their career.  This is where I start getting into the albums…

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Big Lizard in My Backyard (1985)

This was basically a re-recording of Somebody Shot Sunshine with additional tracks.  While most of it benefits from a modicum of production lacking in all their self-released tapes, there are some intentionally low fi tracks, that sound like they were performed in a bathtub or barn.  When The Dead Milkmen were established, it was with the idea of being a folk-punk band.  By the time they were being recorded in the studio, that had worked out to something more like standard punk rock, with influences of surf and country, and other genre dabbling.

This should be familiar, right?  A lot of American punk draws on surf guitar influence, and via psychobilly veers into country.  I just can’t think of anybody doing anything quite like this, like how they expressed that math.  You wouldn’t mistake them for The Cramps.  Back when I was a kid, I’d listen to all of these albums front to back.  I like the album experience, am frustrated by choosing what I’ll listen to next with singles.  By now tho, I’m a lil more choosy.  Judgmental.  Observe.

Good Stuff

*** The album leads off with “Tiny Town,” which is badly ableist in the usual way when making fun of rednecks (incest, chromosomal abnormality), but it does rip shit up.  They play the character of small town villains out to persecute nonconformists and minorities, but, y’know, funny.  Yee-haw.  This is a type of song they return to many times in years to come.  If you’re wondering what my husband thinks of the band, he finds this and most of the rest of the album annoyingly repetitive, earwormish, and says the rhymes have a nauseating quality.

**** Next comes “Beach Song” which includes a low key fatphobic joke and the usual snide antisocial punk attitude, but the music is very fun and the punchline might be the one of the best in their discography.  Simple but effective.  My husband says this song sounds like the perspective of a five-year-old.

*** “Plum Dumb.”  Perv drives around the highway seducing women with the ecstasy-like power of plums?  It’s all about the sound of the music and the words, which makes it one of the tracks that saves them from just being a novelty band.  This is the one my husband finds the most nauseating tho.  There are certain rhymes such as “Leggo my Eggo™” that he thinks of when he’s throwing up.  I haven’t thrown up often enough to have jams for it, but my queasy mood go-to is “Going to a Go-go” by The Miracles.

** “Swordfish.”  Similar quality to “Plum Dumb,” which is that it feels much more about the music than the lyrics.  The lyrics are more meaningful however, this being the first of many many songs in their catalogue about conspiracy, religious, and quasi-religious belief.  My favorite line, “Up from the ghetto with the help of my stiletto, every day I’d hear the people groan, why should we buy postage stamps? we can make our own.”

*** “Lucky” is about how there are interesting ways to die, and then there’s whatever’s going to happen to you and I.  Almost a punk rock anthem.  Not quite.

**** “Spit Sink” is about ingesting dubious chemicals because the world is disgusting, another recurring theme for them.  My husband hates this one, but it’s a big mood for me.  A few lines from it pop unbidden into my head at least a few times a month for the last thirty years, but I don’t resent it, so it must be decent.

*** “Violent School” comes closer to being a punk rock anthem than “Lucky,” but still not quite that great.  “Violence rules, guns are cool, and we’ve got guns in our schools!”  One of the most aggressive songs on the album.  Get thee to the mosh pit.  My husband thinks it’s too repetitive.

**** They’re just some “Right Wing Pigeons” from outer space, sent here to destroy the human race.  In one of the lines he says, “A lady in Detroit owns a can of mace, got pissed at my brother so she sprayed it in his face.”  I used to listen to these albums all the time with my brother, and for some reason the songs that mention the existence of brothers get a bonus point.  Just this and “The Woman Who is Also a Mongoose” from a much later album, but that’s two.

***** “Dean’s Dream” is very nearly in Classics range for me, but not quite there.  The music is too generic, as goes the sound of the album.  But this is a song about dreams, which as you know do interest me.  It successfully evokes that romantic feeling one can have for a figment of their imagination, plus other compelling aspects of those experiences.  This one is all about the lyrics, which in fairness to the Milkmen, is true of 99% of folk music.  My husband says this song suggests a possible influence of Jonathan Richman’s Modern Lovers.

Classics

**** “V.F.W. (Veterans of a Fucked Up World).”  There’s a line in here that will absolutely remind you of incels, but this is a classic punk rock anthem, no doubt.  For those of you unfamiliar with USian crap, VFW normally stands for “Veterans of Foreign Wars,” which I think is a prestige club for people in the armed forces who saw combat?  I know they have a meeting hall near the small airport in north Auburn.  Of the standout tracks, this is my least favorite musically, but the attitude is hard to deny.  Extremely teenage white boy, but I’ve been there.

***** “Serrated Edge.”  Another one about religion.  “Up on the hilltop where the vultures perch, that’s where I’m gonna build my church.  Ain’t gonna be a priest, ain’t gonna be no boss, just Charles Nelson Reilly nailed to a cross.  I don’t piss I don’t shit I’m getting no relief, people shake their heads in disbelief.”  My favorite on the album, the music more than the words.  But I do like the lyrics.

***** “Big Lizard in My Backyard” pulls its weight as a title track.  One of the best songs on the album.  Melancholy but it has enough tempo to not depress, neatly illustrates the world of their whole catalogue.  It’s got recognizable real life absurdities, escalated to an unreal level.  Guy has a big pet lizard.  The army decides to use it as a weapon to fight in dubious wars.  Goodbye, lizard.  My husband says it pairs well with “Concrete Animals” by Shonen Knife.

**** “Bitchin’ Camaro” is the most well remembered song on the album, not for the song proper, but for the punk rock vaudeville act at the beginning.  Legendary.

***** “Nutrition” is a strong contender for best song on the album, a true punk rock anthem, covered by other bands years after this came out.  “My folks say I gotta get myself a job, or they ain’t gonna support me.  Well if all I am to them is just some lazy slob, why didn’t they abort me?  I guess I’ll just hang out on Broad and South living by my intuition.  At least I give a shit what I put into my mouth, yeah I care about nutrition.”

Filler

**** “Rastabilly” puts on the redneck joke style again, in a less offensive way.  I think rednecks would love it, honestly.  But why “rasta?”  I don’t hear it.  I actually like it a lot but I have to admit it’s a filler track, because it’s just a one-note joke and is very very short.

**** “Gorilla Girl” is another one I have to admit is a filler track because it’s short and has one basic joke to it.  The song title is probably(?) a reference to the feminist art movement that formed the year the album was released, but in practice it’s about having a girlfriend who is a weird hairy monster that amuses little girls and eats golfers.  The most reggae influenced track on the album.  Again, I like it a lot.

** “Tugena” is just a musical outro with some goofy samples that may annoy you badly, or may not.  I’m neutral to it, my husband deleted it.

Garbage

* “Filet of Sole,” your mileage may vary.  My brother likes it, I find it mildly annoying.  There’s a recurring musical motif on this album, this bouncy guitar rhythm, which to an uncharitable ear could make most of the songs sound the same.  This one is the epitomy of that, and the lyrics aren’t all that amusing.

– “Takin’ R(slur)s to the Zoo”  The beat and rhythm are aggressive in a way that is more punk rock, more moshable than most of the album.  But why agree so comfortably with Henry Ford and Josef Mengele, even as a joke?  Fuck this one a lot.

* “Junkie” makes my husband say “shut the fuck up, kid.”  Repetitive, misogynistic, nihilistic, and repetitive.  Rhythm is a little interesting.

– “Laundromat Song” is generic for this album, and lyrically having sleazy daydreams about a kid at the laundromat.  Yeck.

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Eat Your Paisley! (1986)

The first album conceived in the studio era, less of a grab bag than Big Lizard.  Might still have featured a lot of recycled material, for all I know.  This one had more of the two singers, Rodney Anonymous and Joe Jack Talcum, playing off each other.  They went off the rails sometimes, like they were divas of snotty punk singing.  I feel that harmed some songs that were otherwise excellent.  I do like them singing together, just not when the last part of the song is them bellowing the chorus enough to blow out your eardrums.  These two first albums were less rangey with genre, more conventionally punk rock.  That made them less likely to resort to novelty songs.

Novelty Songs

I kid, I kid.  These could all be in the category of “Good Stuff.”  I just think they’re gimmicky enough in concept that they would fit too well on The Dr. Demento Show.

*** “Air Crash Museum” is about finding all the celebs that died in plane crashes and making them into a taxidermy museum.

**** “Beach Party Vietnam” is about Frankie Avalon being drafted.  Sample lyric, “Hey Frankie, aren’t you gonna give me your class ring?”  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Annette.”  “Why not?”  “Because I don’t have any arms.  AAAAUGH!”

*** “The Thing That Only Eats Hippies” is Exhibit A for the idea punk rockers hate hippies.  It was the single for this album.  Kinda fun, but I don’t feel the thesis much.

Good Stuff

**** “Where the Tarantula Lives” is the lead-off track, almost a novelty song, but I cut it some slack in that regard because it’s an exemplar of their personal genre.  Conspiracy foolery, low brow culture, country-influenced punk, emphasis on good music over lyrical wit.  Other fans might rank it a Classic, I don’t quite.

**** “Happy Is” a song about hating the nonconformist.  This has to be a “villain” point-of-view song, right?  But the laid back delivery makes it feel more relatable than it probably should be.  Anyway, it’s a fun little song.

***** I fucking love “Six Days” but can’t quite rate it a Classic.  That category is a rough amalgam of my personal bestiests plus the ones I’m pretty sure fans regard the most highly, emphasis on the latter.  This is a shout-out song, like the country standard “I’ve Been Everywhere,” Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Jump On It,” or Old Dirty Bastard’s “I Can’t Wait.”  I just think it’s fun, puts a punk attitude on that genre.

**** “Take Me Apart” is just a good solid song.  I don’t have much to say about it.  Relatable feelings presented, and when they reach their most maudlin, delivered like a self-effacing joke.  Good humor, and the two singers don’t wear out their welcome on this one.

Classics

***** “Fifty Things” is one of my faves on the album, painting the picture of a bunch of punk youths sharing a flophouse.  Frenzied, relatable, very amusing.

**** I like “Swampland of Desire” a lot.  Just really good music, a funny theme.  Love as a mucky slime situation.

***** “Earwig” is my favorite track on the album.  Not musically, tho it’s cool.  The lyrics are the best on the album.  I think the reason I like The Dead Milkmen so much is that the world they describe is a mockery of the one I live in, the world I know, that is seldom depicted in TV and movies.  This ain’t Friends or Leave it to Beaver.  This is Black Hole or Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, but funny.

Filler

** “KKSuck2” is just a random instrumental bit.

*** “I Hear Your Name” is alright, but if you don’t like the band?  You will find it maddening as hell.  The pace, the monotone singing, combines with the sentimental words to make something a little queasy and dull.  I listen to it when I’m listening to the album, but not the best.

** “The Fez” is a slow instrumental jam, psychedelic noodling with a menacing vibe.  The slow pace basically lets them do improv lyrics.  This is a song where I could legit freestyle to it, and maybe that’s what they did?  I wouldn’t know.  I just know it is non-essential.  There’s a “haha men got raped” joke, like, wotta wacky reversal.  There’s an interesting confession: “There’s a time for takin’ and a time for givin’, but rippin’ off The Butthole Surfers is how we make our livin’.”  Do they?  I think BHS basically ripped off Frank Zappa while high on inhalants and PCP.  Snotty as the Milkmen were, they seemed a lot less willing to make unremittingly officious music.  It’s punk, it’s funny, but it ain’t the same as The Butthole Surfers.

** “Vince Lombardi Service Center” is an instrumental outro that is fine.

Garbage

** I rate the Garbage on this album more highly than the first because I think they’re better musically and less offensive.  However, this song is just about ruined by the last part, where the singers are fucking shit up.  “Two Feet Off the Ground” also does not offer much in the lyrics, just a kind of banal pyschedelia.  Less LSD than kids asphyxiating themselves with the choking game.  I saw my home boy Try-Anything-Once Todd do that once.  Cleared out his sinuses.

** “Moron” is ableist of course, and has some uninspired rhymes and very unpleasant singing.  Weird pathos granted to the unlovable Depeche Mode fan with day-glow gloves in this song.  I like the music, I don’t usually skip it, but again, if you don’t like the band you will hate this one.

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Bucky Fellini (1987)

One album a year at this point, Bucky Fellini goes farther into genre experimentation on a few tracks, and much farther into country than the previous albums.  Is the ill-tempered redneck character of their albums actually meant to be a malign figure, or somebody to be related to?  While the style is getting more bizarre, the recurring themes of their catalogue are taking over on this album. They were closer now to achieving their final form…

Rednecklery

** “Watching Scotty Die” is a country song that wobbles along like a wheezy old dog, lamenting the pollution caused by corporate greed.  I could imagine a serious version of this song working, but it’s in the uncanny valley between zany and maudlin.  I usually don’t skip it?

*** “Big Time Operator” isn’t very musically creative, but it’s alright, kinda funny. Story of a troubadour who is very full of himself.

** “Tacoland” is about a grotty restaurant in San Antonio which the twangy narrator regards as some kind of elysium.

Good Stuff

*** “Take Me to the Specialist” is a foolhardy depiction of mental illness, but the music is fun and it’s worth a chuckle.

**** “City of Mud” displays the strange line these guys ride between mocking ignorant rednecks and suburban bums, and just expressing their shared point of view.  While it does sound like Rodney is doing a character here, it’s hard to imagine he doesn’t feel at least a little like the dude he’s playing.  “We’re gonna drag Bruce Springsteen by his ankles through the streets.  By the time we’re done the Boss will look like a side of Beef.”  Indeed.

**** I had no damn idea “Rocketship” was a Daniel Johnston cover.  These dudes were too hip for the year “Never Gonna Give You Up” charted.  It’s a nice song, for punk rock.  If you don’t like them you’ll hate it, if you’re me you’ll be quite fond.

*** “(Theme from) Blood Orgy of the Atomic Fern” is what it says on the box.  Repetitive and a thin joke, but hey, it’s a blood orgy of an atomic fern, so it gets a point back.

**** “Jellyfish Heaven” is probably racist and probably uses a song you like for a joke lyric.  But it’s one of the better tracks on this album, I feel.

Classics

***** “The Pit” is the opening track and it’s so fucking fun.  I love it.  Also big relate because I’ve lived in fucked up slimy circumstances too many times, and not caring about it, while far from a solution, is a way to adapt.  The beginning is a reference to Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz.”

Wow, I only rated one song on the album this highly and it was very short, the first track.  Bad sign.

Filler

** “I Am the Walrus” is a cousin to the redneck from their other tracks, a boomer and a bircher.  Probably the same dude from the more well-regarded track “Stuart,” on their later album Beelzebubba.  He’s angry, he’s intoxicated, he’s suburban, and he’s hung up on pop culture.  It just seems kinda obvious for these guys.  Got old for me.

** “Going to Graceland” isn’t very good, but it isn’t very bad, and I don’t bother to skip it.  I’ll say that it feels so much like this is what the guys are like in real life.  I can imagine the whole band going on the tour at Graceland and acting like jokers while trying not to get kicked out.

*** “Nitro Burning Funny Cars” is just here, doing its thing.  Doesn’t have a point.  Is very Dead Milkmen.  It’s alright.

*** “Surfin’ Cow” brings back their surf influence for a mostly instrumental track, still unmistakably theirs.  I’m getting the impression as I look at all of these, however, that I did not like this album as much as I thought I did.

** “(Untitled Instrumental)” is a hidden track / reprise of the album’s musical motifs.  It’s non-essential.

Garbage

* “Instant Club Hit (You’ll Dance to Anything)” is pure novelty song, ditches their musical chops to just make punk rock complaints about more successful musicians.  Prejudiced against bisexual goths.  Unforgivable.  I used to think this was funny when I was a child, but it actually figured into a moment when I was unintentionally homophobic at somebody who was very important to me, might have fucked up that relationship forever.  Not Milkmen fault, but they were being a bad influence on an impressionable young asshole.  Like, literally I’ve always been attracted to goths and been slow roll discovering my pants sectionality.  I’m the one this song hates.  But it is a joke, why so serious batman?  I played myself.

* “The Badger Song.”  Did I say something like “They aren’t as committed to making officious music as The Butthole Surfers”?  This album has some obnoxious ones.

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To be continued!

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