SOUNDTRACK: THE DEAD MILKMEN-Beelzebubba (1988).
Why the hell do you think they call it a burrow owl anyway?
Beelzebubba is pretty close to the pinnacle of The Dead Milkmen’s career. Of the 17 songs, there’s only one or two that fall flat. But there are so many that rise to greatness. The wholly un-PC James Brown-mocking song “RC’s Mom” which is pretty much all about beating your wife is in hugely questionable taste, but the funk is quite funky.
The brilliant “Stuart” is the culmination of all of the white trash mocking/spoken word nonsense songs. And then there’s the outstanding single “Punk Rock Girl.” It is simultaneously catchy as all hell and yet whiny and kind of off-key. It’s really magnificent and was suitably lauded.
The strange thing to me is that the actual released “single” was for “Smokin’ Banana Peels” (an EP with that title was released with an absurd number of dance remixes).
“Sri Lanka Sex Hotel” is an angry rant that references The Killer Inside Me and talks about having sex with everything. It’s pretty bizarre, but is musically fantastic.
True, the back half of the disc suffers somewhat (“Howard Beware” and “Ringo Buys a Rifle” are just okay), but the disc ends with the sublimely vulgar “Life is Shit” a gospel-tinged song that matches Monty Python’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” for faux uplift.
Future DM discs would feature some good songs, but the band pretty much peaked with this one. I’m so bored I’m drinking bleach.
[READ: Week of April 5, 2010] 2666 [pg 637-701]
What a difference a week makes. The style and writing of Part 5 is markedly different from Part 4. It is far more laid back and focuses primarily on one individual, Hans Reiter (who we know from Part One is Archimboldi).
The Part opens with information about his parents: his father had one leg (he lost the other in WW1) and his mother was blind in one eye.
Hans’ father, after losing his leg, was in the hospital, expounding on the greatness of smoking. (He even gives a smoke to a man wrapped head to toe in bandages–and smoke pours out from all the cracks). When he left the hospital, he walked home–for three weeks. And when he arrived back home he sought the one-eyed girl in the village and asked for her hand in marriage.
Hans Reiter was born in 1920. He proved to be unreasonably tall: (At 3 he was taller than all the 5 year olds etc). And he was most interested in the seabed. There is much information from his childhood of his love of the sea (when his mother bathed him, he would slip under the water until rescued). At six he stole a book, Animals and Plants of the European Coastal Region, which he more or less memorized and was the only book he read. And then he began diving, investigating the shoreline.
His father evidently hates everyone and thinks all nations are full of swine (except the Prussians).
Hans also enjoyed walking and he would often walk to the surrounding towns: The Village of Red Men (where they sold peat), The Village of Blue Women , The Town of the Fat (animals and butcher shops); or in the other direction, he went to Egg Village or Pig Village. Or even further along was the Town of Chattering Girls (who went to parties and dances).
He almost drowned twice. The first time he was initially mistaken for seaweed as he was floating in the water. (After he had discovered laminaria digitata). He also began to draw seaweed in his book. (The seaweed connection is pretty thorough as he was described as looking like seaweed when he was born). The tourist who saved him was named Vogel. He believed in the general goodness of humanity, but he felt that he was a bad person for initially mistaking Hans for seaweed. Vogel also talked endlessly about the virtues of masturbation (citing Kant as an example). (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: THE DEAD MILKMEN-Bucky Fellini (1987).
C’mon, I’m the walrus, damnit.
SOUNDTRACK: Philadelphia Radio Stations (circa 1990 and 2010)
There’s a Dead Milkmen song called “The Big Sleazy” in which the chorus is
I’ve always been amused by the song, especially when I travel to Philly and hear these stations. That song is from 1990, so 20 years later I’m not sure what the band would think of their new playlists.
Now, I have no idea what XPN was like before, but, yea, I can see that he folk Nazis are in charge. Of course, I rather like that. However, XPN also plays a bunch of artists who are broader than the folk label, so I wonder if they have changed even more since 1990.
SOUNDTRACK: THE DEAD MILKMEN-Eat Your Paisley (1986).
Who has angered the volcano gods?
SOUNDTRACK: THE DEAD MILKMEN-Big Lizard in My Backyard (1985).
My friend Alison said the other day that she had “Bitchin’ Camaro” stuck in her head. And soon thereafter, so did I. So Philadelphia’s Dead Milkmen are a bratty punk band. They skewer all kinds of things: pop culture, racists, right wing pigeons, junkies and, quite possibly, music itself.
SOUNDTRACK: VIC CHESNUTT-At the Cut [CST060] (2009).
Vic Chesnutt 
SOUNDTRACK: RUSH-Permanent Waves (1979).
When my friend Doug and I were hanging out back in the 80s, we both were getting into Rush at the same time. And because this album was in black and white this was the last Rush LP we bought. Imagine our surprise when it turned out to contain “The Spirit of Radio” one of the best hard rock anthems ever.
Sarah and I watched a bit of the third or fourth episode of this show when it aired on CBC. But jumping into the middle of this show is difficult. The characters are established pretty quickly, their quirks are all explained in the first episode, and it’s a bit hard to care about them without knowing their whole story.
And it has now given me a new favorite actor of the month: Sherry Miller who plays Mrs Jarlewski is just fantastic. She’s like an older, subtler version of perennial favorite Portia de Rossi.
SOUNDTRACK: BLUE ÖYSTER CULT-Imaginos (1988).
I think of this as the last BOC album (although they have released two since this one) because it was the last one that I was really aware of when it came out. My roommate Glen was super excited about it and we listened to it all the time. And even though I’ve said that Fire of Unknown Origin is my favorite BOC disc, I think this one may be better.
SOUNDTRACK: BLUE ÖYSTER CULT-compilations and live releases (1978-2010).
For a band that had basically two hits (“Don’t Fear the Reaper” and “Burnin’ for You”) and maybe a half a dozen other songs that people might have heard of, BOC has an astonishing number of “greatest hits” collections.
This doesn’t include any of the “budget price” collections: E.T.I. Revisited, Tattoo Vampire, Super Hits, Then and Now, The Essential, Are You Ready To Rock?, Shooting Shark, Best of, and the 2010 release: Playlist: The Very Best of).
The lesson is that you evidently won’t lose money making a BOC collection.
And, although none of them have “Monsters” for the average person looking for some BOC, any disc is a good one.
Then, in 1994 we got Live 1976 as both CD and DVD (which spares us nothing, including Eric Bloom’s lengthy harangue about the unfairness of…the speed limit). It’s the most raw and unpolished on live sets. 2002 saw the release of A Long Day’s Night, a recording of a 2002 concert (also on DVD) which had Eric Bloom, Buck Dharma an Allan Lanier reunited.
They also have a number of might-be real live releases (fans debate the legitimacy of many of these). Picking a concert disc is tough if only because it depends on the era you like. ETLive is regarded as the best “real” live disc, although the reissued double disc set of Some Enchanted Evening is hard to pass up. Likewise, the 2002 recording is a good overview of their career, and includes some of their more recent work.
If you consider live albums best of’s (which many people do) I think it’s far to say that BOC has more best of’s than original discs. Fascinating. Many BOC fans believe that if they buy all the best of discs, it will convince Columbia to finally reissue the rest of the original discs (and there are a number of worthy contenders!) in deluxe packages. I don’t know if it will work, but I applaud the effort.
I Just Read About That... 
