Dead Milkmen: Metaphysical Graffiti

It feels like I've been loitering in the Dead Milkmen section for a long time now...I think I'm just going to power through a bunch of them today, so hold on tight...





















 

Dead Milkmen: Metaphysical Graffiti

1990

Restless Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Beige Sunshine  2. Do the Brown Nose  3. Methodist Coloring Book  4. Part 3  5. I Tripped Over the Ottoman  6. The Big Sleazy  7. If You Love Somebody, Set Them on Fire  8. Dollar Signs in Her Eyes  9. In Praise of Sha Na Na  10. Epic Tales of Adventure  11. I Hate You, I Love You  12. Now Everybody’s Me  13. Little Man in My Head  14. Anderson, Walkman, Buttholes and How!  15. Cousin Earl



I tend to get into bands via their most inaccessible albums...I think probably has something to do with buying most of my music out of  dollar and cut-out bins...

 I originally picked up"Metaphysical Graffiti" in the K-Mart cut-out bin...It probably cost about a buck or two and it kick-started my life-long Dead Milkmen obsession...I can't tell you how much I used to listen to this tape, cos it's a secret..

It's weird that I can't tell if this is my one of my favorite or one of my least favorite DM album...Depends in the mood I'm in, considering it's so all over the place...Let's start with album opener, "Beige Sunshine"...It starts out with a choir of children singing nonsense like, "You are an ocelot what are you seeking?" over a cheap Casio beat, then suddenly the band kicks in and it becomes dark, psychedelic hard rock...And beige is a fitting description for it...It's just so overwhelmingly, awesomely beige...

I think my favorite thing about the album is Joe Jack Talcum's new vocal style that he really only uses for this record...Much more ragged and growlier. Was he sick? Had he lost his voice? Was he just trying to toughen up his image? Who knows. Whatever the reason, "Methodist Coloring Book" and "I Hate You, I Love You" are two of my all-time favorites Dead Milkmen tracks as a result...I also love Joe and Rodney's duet "In Praise of Sha Na Na," where they make a pretty convincing case for Sha Na Na's placed in rock n' roll history...

"You can move to Montana and listen to Santana
But you still won't be as cool as Sha Na Na..."

I don't know, man...Moving to Montana and listening to Santana sounds pretty cool, if you ask me...

 On the other hand there is quite a bit of skippable stuff on here...Especially once you get near the end.."Anderson, Walkman, Buttholes and How!" has a great title and a guest appearance from Gibby Haynes, but to be honest, I usually end up tuning it out...For some reason it's kinda boring...The "Cousin Earl" monologue at the end kinda grosses me out most of the time (although I am strangely fascinated by the concept of the fungus girl)...."Part 3" has also always struck me as filler-ish too...I usually always forget about the song until I play the album, which is strange because I've probably heard the album a few hundred times (no exaggeration!).

 Whatever you do though, don't mistake "Dollar Signs in Her Eyes" as filler! I used to think the song was dull...Like it was so distant and light I could hardly even hear it...But nowadays I can't get enough of it:

"Dreams are only clouds that form and dissipate,
The sky is a highway for metal birds and land is real estate..."

It was too subtle for me...Do you understand the implications of this?!?! A Dead Milkmen song was too mature and subtle for me!!!

I have to give them a lot of credit...They scored a hit with "Punk Rock Girl" and then had the nerve to turn in an album like this..."Metaphysical Graffiti" probably scared away potential fans with its dense and scatter-shot approach (despite favorites like "If You Love Somebody, Set Them on Fire" and "In Praise of Sha Na Na") but if you have a taste for the Dead Milkmen's twisted world there's new things to discover around every corner here...I guess it drew me in....

Here's "I Hate You, I Love You" by the Dead Milkmen...Enjoy...

 

Dead Milkmen: Soul Rotation

1992

Hollywood Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. At the Moment  2. The Secret of Life  3. Big Scary Place  4. Belafonte's Inferno  5. The Conspiracy Song  6. How It's Gonna Be  7. All Around the World  8. Silly Dreams  9. Wonderfully Coloured Plastic War Toys  10. God's Kid Brother  11. If I Had a Gun  12. Here Comes Mr. X  13. Shaft in Greenland



This album was pretty surprising at the time..First off, they signed to DISNEY!!

But to be fair, back the label wasn't the wasteland of tween pop it is now...



Hollywood Records had quite a few bands I enjoyed like Seaweed, The Suicide Machines, and Fishbone...

Additionally,  Joe takes on the mantle of lead singer on this album! Rodney switches to keyboards with a lead vocal here and there...And to top it all off, it's almost a stretch to call "Soul Rotation" a punk record...It's more like, lush indie pop, which is right up my alley so this wasn't as big a stretch for me as it was for a lot of the group's fan-base...In fact, this is one of my favorite albums by the band...

Sure, it could use a bit more Rodney on the mic, but I think Joe fills the void admirably...He has a much gentler approach...Most of the bitter sarcasm is gone, replaced with UFO travelogues and surreal fantasies with a  little real world harshness seeping around the edges (see the paranoid ska track "If I Had a Gun" and "Here Comes Mr. X," where Joe tells the story of a neighbor from hell who "invites your kids to an Aryan youth Camp").

 I find a lot of the songs on here oddly moving for some reason...When Joe wistfully sings, "There are people who want to kill me, all around the world..." over lonely piano chords, I find myself getting almost choked up..I also find myself bowled over by the child-like cosmic awe of "The Secret of Life"...There really is some beautiful stuff here if you're open to finding beauty in lines like:

"You brought two cats for me to keep,
And told me not to feed them tuna or they'd throw up.
I fed them tuna and they threw up for hours and hours...
I was amazed at all the stuff that came from those little bodies of theirs,
It was puffy like a sponge,
The color of the sidewalk,
And it smelled like the dirty rags beneath the sink..."

-Silly Dreams

Also be sure not to miss "The Conspiracy Song" which is one of the few Rodney-sung tracks on here...It's the most squarely punk songs on the album and Rodney lists off a long, impressive string of conspiracy theories that would give David Icke pause...

"They own the state, they own the church,
They pick the winners on Star Search...

They put the holes in our socks
They put that snake in my mail box..."

Yea, just beginning to end I love this album...The closer "Shaft in Greenland" is a fine send-off, by the way...A duet between Joe and Rodney that sounds like a cross between second wave ska and a James Bond theme song...I'd say it's remarkable for how much Rodney sounds like he's actually happy about the notion of traveling the world and meeting all the people...Not something you hear too often from him...God, I love this era of Dead Milkmen...I honestly can't believe that this wasn't one of the biggest hits of 1992...I mean, what else was going on? Here, I'll look it out...

What?!?!

 

You've got to be kidding me?!?!?!

 

 

Awww, C'mon!!

 

 Dammit, world! How could you let this happen?! It's not too too late, everybody! Run out to your local record store and pick up a copy of "Soul Rotation" immediately! 

Oh, wait...It's out of print? 

Nevermind.

 

Here's "The Meaning of Life" by the Dead Milkmen...Enjoy...

Dead Milkmen: If I Had a Gun EP

1992

Hollywood Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. If I Had a Gun  2. Bitchin’ Camaro (The Best Thanksgiving Ever) (Live)  3. Silly Dreams (Live)  4. The Conspiracy Song (Live)  5. Dolce


This is an EP showcasing the "Soul Rotation" highlight "If I Had a Gun."  But the big draw here would be the three live tracks and one studio track not available elsewhere.

Two of the live tracks are songs from "Soul Rotation" ("Silly Dreams" and "The Consipiracy Song") that sound pretty good...A little distant perhaps but good...The real reason to get this though, is the Best Thanksgiving Ever version of "Bitchin’ Camaro"...It makes me wonder if Rodney always does a different monologue for the be-bop part of the song or if it's a tour by tour thing, or what...The spoken word section in this version in no way resembles the "Big Lizard" take;  instead of "the shore" he tackles diverse subjects such as the Thanksgiving kids table, the Gulf War and Public Enemy....

You also get "Dulce" which is the sort of surfy instrumental you'd find on the first three albums...But yea, if you run across this Ep definitely check it out...It's a pretty good companion to "Soul Rotation." Hey! I just had a great idea!! Why don't someone bundle the two releases together and REISSUE THEM SO NORMAL PEOPLE CAN READILY BU THEM?!?!!

Is this about people not buying music anymore? Is that what this is about? C'mon! You're DISNEY!!! Reissue them as a public service! You guys can take a loss! 

Here's "If I Had a Gun" by the Dead Milkmen...Dig it...