I was first introduced to the sounds of the Dead Milkmen by a local band called X=X. Among the songs in their setlist was a groovy and fun song called “The Thing That Only Eats Hippies”, and when I asked the bassist about the song one evening, he informed me that the song was in fact a cover of a group with the zany name of the Dead Milkmen!
Dead milkmen? Well, that was a sillier name than I could have imagined, but when you consider that this is a band who sings lyrics like:
“What Do they Taste Like?
Some Kind Of Treat?
How Many Hippies Can This Monster Eat?
It Ate Stills and Nash Before they Could Shout
And then it chewed on David Crosby- But it spit him out!”
I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any less!!! HAHAHAHA
That weekend I made my way to the local record store in an attempt to find the Dead Milkmen album with The Thing That Only Eats Hippies. This wasn’t too hard a feat seeing as how the Milkmen only had a couple of albums out, the other one being “Big Lizard in My Backyard”. The Hippies song was on their latest album, a crayon-drawn cover with the curious title “Eat Your Paisley”!
Well, the title alone indicated that the album would be as much fun as the Hippies song, and not only did it not disappoint, it blew us away! Every song was SOOOO MUCH FUN! Listening to EAT YOUR PAISLEY was like watching a marathon of “The Kids In The Hall”, it was so zany! And Catchy! Man, that album became the soundtrack for me and my friends that summer!
Days were spent on campus singing the lyrics to “Where the Tarantula Lives”, and nights were spent driving around town loudly singing along to deliciously warped tunes like “Beach Party Vietnam” “Air-Crash Museum”, and the acidic poseur-bashing tune “Moron”, and a favorite to all was blasting the epic album closing song “The Fez”!
Of course, in later years, the Dead Milkmen would gain a larger audience with their peppy song “Punk-Rock Girl (probably the song they’re most known for nowadays), but Man, nothing can top those college days of Eat Your Paisley!
