The guy on the left is UkeBox and on the right is Joe Jack Talcum. UkeBox plays sort of acoustic punk on the ukelele. Joe Jack was a member of The Dead Milkmen. Both were excellent. I almost got teary when Joe Jack played "Life Is Shit". It was the anthem of my halcyon days at an oppressive Adventist boarding school.I remember the day I found that Dead Milkmen tape. It was called "Beelzebubba". On the cover was a photograph of a blue-collar everyman, standing with pride aside that noble steed of the suburbs, a red lawn tractor.
At my place of academic incarceration, radios, tape & CD players were considered contraband. Rock and/or Roll was considered the Devil's music. (I remember one time hiding outside a Bible class, and listening through the door just to hear part of an AC/DC song playing on one of those "all-enjoyable-music-is-evil-and-played-by-sexual-deviants-who-worship-
Satan-and-if-you-like-it-you-are-going-to-burn-in-eternal-hellfire-praise-
Jesus-amen" videos)
I noticed the tape in a trash can as I looked for discarded treasure. One of the deans must have confiscated it, and then, instead of disposing it in his fireplace in the usual method, must have realized how much pollution was being created by the incineration of so many plastic-cased audio cassettes. Little did he know that a greater destruction was being wrought, the pollution of my innocent little mind. This album was like a wake-up call. (Like harpy screech of your mother when you are late for school, not the pleasant phone-call from the lady at the Day's Inn) To this day I have heart-warming memories of my friend Chris and I singing that song, our cracking and out-of-tune voices causing the paint to peel from he cinder block walls of our cells... I mean rooms.
P.S.-This is the most links I have ever put in a single post. It also my longest post. Call the people at Guinness (the book of world records people, not the beer people, although that would be nice , too). Woo Hoo!
No comments:
Post a Comment