The Dead Milkmen

After a few self released cassettes, the first official Dead Millkmen album, Big Lizard in my Backyard was released in 1985. Their music received some airplay on college radio stations but was rarely heard on commercial radio. Their best-known song from this record was "Bitchin' Camaro," which became their signature tune. Because of its improvised dialogue intro, it was a favorite at live shows. (Both the album and song were mentioned on the television show Midnight Caller in a scene featuring lead actor Gary Cole and guest star Robert Klein.)

Their next two lp's, Eat Your Paisley (1986) and Bucky Fellini, (1987) saw the band continue to embrace humor. The latter featured a tune that received some radio play, "Instant Club Hit (You'll Dance to Anything)." This song attacked the supposedly shallow listeners of post-punk dance music for their lack of taste in music--done in a stereotypical post-punk dance style. Another track attacking a similar crowd (and mentioning the band Depeche Mode as well), "Moron", was featured on Eat Your Paisley.

Around this time, Jim Walewander, a rookie on the Detroit Tigers baseball team, became notorious for being a huge fan of the band. This fact was even noted on his baseball card, which described the group as "an obscure punk-rock band". Walewander invited the Dead Milkmen to Tiger Stadium to see a game in which he hit his first, and only, major league home run.

In 1988 came Beelzebubba, which featured what would become the Dead Milkmen's biggest commercial hit and best-known song, "Punk Rock Girl."[citation needed] The song's video won rotation on MTV, and was later featured on MTV's Beavis and Butthead show. This album was somewhat more sophisticated, technically and musically, than previous work. Following in this vein is 1990's Metaphysical Graffiti.

Up to this point, the band had been recording for Enigma Records and its subsidiary Restless Records. They signed with Hollywood Records, owned by Disney. Their next two albums, Soul Rotation (1992) and Not Richard, But Dick (1993), saw the further polishing of their production. However, many fans felt the band had lost its humor and vitality in an attempt to be more mainstream.

Soul Rotation featured Anonymous on synthesizers and Talcum taking on more vocal responsibility. The resulting record is much more pop oriented. Hollywood Records, unfortunately, soon went out of business and these two records went out of print not long after their initial releases.

By the time Restless Records released their final studio album in 1995, Stoney's Extra Stout (Pig), the Dead Milkmen had broken up. This was due, in part, to Dave Blood, who was suffering from tendonitis and could not play the bass guitar without intense pain in his hands. Since then, compilations of both hits and rarities have been made available.[4]

The Low Budgets. They are active and touring. I missed the show here because I didn't know. Not happy about that.

The Bigmess Orchastra.
by Andy Bresnan
The first version of what was to become the Big Mess Orchestra played music for a production of The Bogus Bride in 1987, and consisted of Karen Schmidt, John Razler, and myself. By 1991, when we produced the first cabaret Three on a Meathook, One on the Floor, we were joined by Wendy Buckwalter, Rob Winfelder, and Joe Quigley. We only played four or five songs in between the performance art that weekend, but a few cabaret trademarks were already established: the hostessing of the show by mistress of ceremonies Carlota Ttendant, the "Off Our Backs and Onto Yours Cabaret Strip Show Auction," and the practice of chewing up any genre of music that crosses our path and spitting it out more or (sometimes) less altered.

The next cabaret took us to the Penguin Place, where we stayed for a couple of years during which the cabarets grew into four-hour events with an ever widening circle of singers and performers. By the time we left, the orchestra also included Thomas Razler, Myk-Syd, Randy "Cookie" Rudolph, Dean Sabatino, Chris Unrath, and Alan Hewitt.

Since then our home has been the Trocadero where the band (with Topher in place of Alan on bass), the show, and the audience all had a bit more room to grow. The number of people who have crossed our stage in the years since then is huge. There is a bit of a revolving door of guest musicians, singers, and performers. So much so that there literally isn't room to list everyone who has worked with us. With the production crew, each show involves forty or fifty people. As the shows went on, with all those people and all those hours of performance, it began to seem too bad not to have a record of some of it. So, a brisk three years later, here it is.

Rodney Anonymous Tells you How to Live. Bascially telling you what to listen to, read, and do.