WHADDAYA MEAN, I'M TRYING TOO HARD??!??!?!??!
After Simon and Garfunkel split up, guitarist Joe Genaro decided to that's no what The? Adse FTHIS is rilNOOO! Dcmo ne t; you're NOT A REAL COP lgge th'at s not what NO styio pati!!!
(six months later)
After the Dead Milkmen split up, guitarist Joe Genaro combined two of his pseudonyms from that band - Joe Jack Talcum and Butterfly Fairweather - into the phrase "Butterfly Joe." He then grabbed the drummer from The Dead Milkmen, a man named Dean "Clean" Sabatino (I don't know whether or not he's related to Jennifer Disabitino, who just got let go from ComputerWorld -- my guess would be that they're not related, since they have different last names), bassist Joe Quigley and a guy named Andy Bresnan who as far as I can tell plays every single musical instrument ever built, including those in your very own home! Watch your chimneys! Here comes Bresnan again! He provides this disc with fantastic amounts of ukuleles, accordions, ocarinas, horns, tubas, synths, strings and potfors.
He: What's a potfor?
She: To cook with,
silly!
If you like the melodicism of the Dead Milkmen but tire of the sophomoric humor that you find here on www.markprindle.com (FAAAAART!), this CD might be right up your alley. Joe Genaro was the guy in the Dead Milkmen who actually *sang* (Rodney Anonymous was the one who *talked*). You probably know him from "Punk Rock Girl" or perhaps "Methodist Coloring Book." He has kind of a bratty but lovable voice, and he is so obviously genuine in such gorgeous little tunes as "San Francisco" and "Fancy Walls" that it would be pretty hard to fault him for his occasional over-cutesy delivery.
The music is melodic but acoustic. Acoustic with all those neat instruments I mentioned played over it. And I mean acoustic BASS, not just acoustic guitar. Even the DRUMS are acoustic! No studio trickery here! They didn't even use mics or tape! You buy this CD, they come to your house!
Okay, a few songs use electric instruments. Like the surf-spy "Seventeen"! It's surf-spy!
And diverse? YES! From the jaunty to the melancholic, from the fast and bouncy to the lushly, beautifully orchestrated, from the marching band to the 4-part vocal harmony intro, from the psychedelic backward guitar noises to the Pachelbel's Canon ripoff. It's all here, and - aside from the not too good "Don't Do This To Me Baby" - any humorous lyricism you find is of the bouncy goodtime Vaudeville "What did her autopsy reveal? Nothing! Nothing! She died of a broken heart!" variety rather than the "Oh Dear God Please Laugh At My Bob Hope-Style Jokes" lyrics that marred some of the Mead Dilkmen's output (like "Beach Party Vietnam," "I Dream Of Jesus" and of course the WORST offender, "Tugena," an instrumental b-side with no lyrics.).
I lost my place in all the wordiness. I mentioned that the album is very poppy and light-sounding, right? Like a Camper Van Beethoven/early Violent Femmes young vegetarian hippy high school kid lightness, right? But the hooks are PURE Dead Milkmen. This guy Joe has music runnin' `round his brain, just like The Easybeats of Australia! I bet you Friday's On His Mind! He Made His Bed, Now He's Gonna Lie In It! He's Sorry! He's Women (Gonna Make You Feel Alright)!