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Rating: It's nice to think that from the "hardcore" civilization not only fury and bitterness arose, but also amusing and improbable combinations, unthought-of revivals, miraculous alchemies, small multi-ethnic encyclopedias, satire, and madness. The Dickies, already at the end of the '70s, reminded us that the punk epic had begun in a way that was anything but angry and disgusted: the Ramones focused on humor, nonsense, the more escapist side of adolescence, the healthy and intelligent idiocy of American schoolboys. But those were different times, different music, hardcore didn't exist yet... shortly after came the Angry Samoans, but theirs was still an "old-school" style, with all the swagger that had already belonged to the Circle Jerks... then at a certain point Camper Van Beethoven started singing "Club Med Sucks" and hardcore discovered it could also be absurd. And here are the Vandals, the Dead Milkmen, and many other funny guys. Who were funny only to a certain extent, because the roots always remained hardcore, marked for life by bitterness, dismay, and above all, awareness... There would also be the Butthole Surfers, but confining the delirious trinity of Haynes/Leary/Coffey in the humble (albeit delightful) dish of absurd hardcore seems to me unfair and reductive.
Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), 1988. We're still there, in the golden decade of independent rock in the stars and stripes. "Beelzebubba" was the fourth album by this extravagant ensemble capable of mixing decades of folk traditions from everywhere into irresistible miniatures, playing any instrument, thereby approaching the most creative mosaics of bands like They Might Be Giants and Young Fresh Fellows (I apologize in advance for the horribly annoying list of obscure bands, but sometimes citationism is a necessary evil: these bands don't appear in standard encyclopedias because no one notices them, even though they've created songs a thousand times more catchy than much more celebrated bands, like Sonic Youth... mysteries of music criticism).
The cover is the first masterpiece of the record. The second is "Punk Rock Girl", one of the most unstoppable quadrilles ever to come out of a punk band's repertoire: offbeat rhythm, cheerful accordions, and Rodney Anonymous doing a Donald Duck impression. It's hard to navigate the multifaceted offering of the "milkmen," because each track is a reserve of extravagances and paradoxes.
The ethnic aromas emerge in the solemn serpentine of "Stuart" and especially in "Bran In The Flat", where hardcore lands on the shores of the Mediterranean and launches into a very tight tarantella, with mandolin strokes. On the purely revival front, the "graffiti" of "Bad Party" and "Bleach Boys" recall the magical '60s.
But the sun doesn’t always shine over Philadelphia. The smiling California of Camper Van Beethoven is far away, and the Milkmen remind us of this in the oppressive "Everybody's Got Nice Stuff But Me", where they dispense venom at will, while "Guitar Song" echoes the Meat Puppets, with its subdued, elegiac, bitter start, until the moment when the singing dissolves into a bitter sob, while an organ in the distance drapes the atmosphere with epic, making it the most heartfelt track of the collection.
Between the anxious tones of "I Walk The Thinnest Line" and the carefree ones of "Howard Beware", the Milkmen find time to resurrect the glorious Big Boys and their outgoing funk-core, with the exuberant trombones adorning "RC's Mom" and the burning tempo changes of "Smokin' Banana Peels", embellished by a tender dreamy interlude... And "I Against Osbourne" seems to have come out of one of the early Minutemen albums, so concise, angry, and unsettling it is. "Born To Love Volcanos", an elegant and frenetic folk-rock number, a pinnacle of elegance, reverie, vitality, lyricism, with precious infusions of strings and mandolin, capable of maintaining an incredible coherence despite numerous upheavals, is the definitive proof of this band's instrumental competence.
Closing this dazzling funfair of "American variety" is the anthem "Life Is Shit", sung in chorus, the ultimate synthesis of the life philosophy of a band that managed to redeem the nihilism of its generation with imagination and ingenuity.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Brat in the Frat (01:04)
Hey!
I do not like you college brat
I do not like you and your frat
I do not like you at the shore
I do not like you drunk on Coors
I do not like your average life
I hope you do not take a wife
I hope you don't decide to breed
Cause that's one thing I do not need
I do not like you radical
I hate you and your fancy school
You're wrong about the working class
I hope they kick your Harvard ass
I do not like you world of ours
I'd rather live on planet Mars
And die from lack of oxygen
Than breathe the air of other men
Hey!
02 RC's Mom (02:25)
I'm gonna beat my wife
I'm gonna beat my wife now
Gonna smack her with a lead pipe
Gonna smack her with a 2x4
Run her over with a Brink's truck
Chase her down with a lawn mower
Gonna beat my wife
Look out!
Wife beatin'
Mistreatin'
Wife slappin'
It happens
Gonna beat my wife
Gonna beat your wife
Gonna beat his wife
Gonna beat her wife
Gonna beat my wife
Gonna slap my wife
Gonna kick my wife
Good God, y'all!
Gonna beat my wife
Gonna beat my wife
At the shelter
Helter skelter
Wife kickin'
Finger lickin'
Wife killin'
It's thrillin'
Oh baby please don't beat me, baby
I promise I'll never sleep with the moon in my face no more!
I'm gonna beat my wife
Heh heh heh
03 Stuart (02:20)
You know what, Stuart, I LIKE YOU. You're not like the other
people, here, in the trailer park.
Oh, don't go get me wrong. They're fine people, they're
good Americans. But they're content to sit back, maybe
watch a little Mork and Mindy on channel 57, maybe kick
back a cool, Coors 16-ouncer. They're good, fine people,
Stuart. But they don't know ... what the queers are doing
to the soil!
You know that Jonny Wurster kid, the kid that delivers papers
in the neighborhood. He's a foreign kid. Some of the neighbors
say he smokes crack, but I don't believe it.
Anyway, for his tenth birthday, all he wanted was a Burrow Owl.
Kept bugging his old man. "Dad, get me a burrow owl. I'll never
ask for anything else as long as I live." So the guy
breaks down and buys him a burrow owl.
Anyway, 10:30, the other night, I go out in my yard, and there's
the Wurster kid, looking up in the tree. I say, "What are
you looking for?" He says "I'm looking for my burrow owl."
I say, "Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick. Everybody knows
the burrow owl lives. In a hole. In the ground. Why the hell do you
think they call it a burrow owl, anyway?" Now Stuart, do you
think a kid like that is going to know what the queers are
doing to the soil?
I first became aware of this about ten years ago, the summer
my oldest boy, Bill Jr. died. You know that carnival comes into
town every year? Well this year they came through with a ride
called The Mixer. The man said, "Keep your head, and arms, inside
the Mixer at all times." But Bill Jr, he was a DAAAREDEVIL, just
like his old man. He was leaning out saying "Hey everybody,
Look at me! Look at me!" Pow! He was decapitated! They found
his head over by the snow cone concession.
A few days after that, I open up the mail. And there's a pamphlet
in there. From Pueblo, Colorado, and it's addressed to Bill, Jr.
And it's entitled, "Do you know what the queers are doing to our
soil?"
Now, Stuart, if you look at the soil around any large US city,
there's a big undeground homosexual population. Des Moines, Iowa,
for an example. Look at the soil around Des Moines, Stuart.
You can't build on it; you can't grow anything in it. The government
says it's due to poor farming. But I know what's really going on,
Stuart. I know it's the queers. They're in it with the aliens.
They're building landing strips for gay Martians, I swear to
God.
You know what, Stuart, I like you. You're not like the other
people, here in this trailer park.
09 My Many Smells (02:19)
Sometimes I smell like a barrel of rotting fruit
Stinking up the jungle under the hot tropical sun
Other times I smell like thick black swamp-water
Backed into your toilet on a warm summer day
These are a few of my many smells
Won't you come and smell me?
Won't you share my stench?
Won't you come and smell me?
Won't you share my stench?
Once I smelled just like the bathroom
After Grandma'd used it and she's been eating prunes
Other times I smell like a city garbage strike
When all the horseflies grow to 3 inches long
These are a few of my many smells
Won't you come and smell me?
Won't you share my stench?
Won't you come and smell me?
Won't you share my stench?
Sometimes I smell just like death itself
A sickening sweet smell
It can really make you ill
Smell me
Smell me
Smell me
Smell me
See me
Hear me
Touch me
Smell me
Smell me
Smell me
Smell me
Smell me
10 Smokin' Banana Peels (03:47)
Burrow owl burrow owl burrow owl
Smokin' banana peels, see how it feels
Living is easy with ice cubes
The world is swimmin' with electric eels
Talk seriously to me brother
Smokin' banana peels, savin' the seals
There are four me's living all together
Got to keep an even keel
You've got to take life serially
Smokin' banana peels in between meals
I was all pumped up about the iron
Let's all pray get down and kneel
Smokin' banana peels sound like this
Mellow, it's so mellow
Mellow, it's so mellow
No! It's too mellow! ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya
No! It's too mellow! ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya
Mellow, it's so mellow oh oh oh-oh oh
Mellow, it's so mellow
No! It's too mellow! ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya
No! It's so mellow! ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya
Smokin' banana peels, nothin' is real
Mites are living in your eyelashes
People are makin' important deals
They're my fingernails and I'm keeping em
Smokin' banana peels, savin' the seals
(???)
Up and down between your heels
Dip your breasts in shimmering lip balm
Talk to me about Elvis
Take Elvis for walk and shut up
13 Everybody's Got Nice Stuff But Me (02:49)
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
Look at that girl she makes me sick
She's got a wad of bills 6 inches thick
Got a brand new stereo a new TV
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
I want a stereo I want a TV
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
People in nice cars how'd they get em?
I close my eyes try to forget em
Went out swimming got hit by a jet-ski
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
I wanna car I wanna jet-ski
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
She's got eyes of deepest blue
He's got hair that's green
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
I wish I had the kind of cash
To make heads turn when I walk past
I wish I could live in luxury
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
I want cash, I want money
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
I want a stereo I want a TV
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
I want a car I want a jet-ski
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
I want hair that's blue or green
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
Everybody's got nice stuff but me
15 Howard Beware (02:28)
Howard beware 'cause we don't wanna hurt you
While the sun is shining, that'd be cruel
Howard beware 'cause we're gonna get you
We know where your kids go to school
Howard Howard beware
Howard Howard beware
Howard Howard beware
Cause you're so easy to scare
You'll hide from the shadows
And everybody knows
Howard beware the Russians they don't like you
Might as well drop the bomb on you
Howard beware the government won't protect you
Like to see you turned into Howard stew
Howard Howard beware
Howard Howard beware
Howard Howard beware
Cause you're so easy to scare
You'll hide from the shadows
And everybody knows
Howard beware the neighbors wanna kill you
Might just all form an angry mob
Howard beware your mother has disowned you
Says that you're a pervert and a slob
Howard Howard beware
Howard Howard beware
Howard Howard beware
Cause you're so easy to scare
You'll hide from the shadows
And everybody knows
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