Mid-'80s cult-classic college-radio novelty quirkpop idiotrock

swamp zombies "creeps" ftw

i'm an adult now by the pursuit of happiness

Ben Vaughn - "Jerry Lewis In France" from the classic LP Beautiful Thing.

i'm an adult now by the pursuit of happiness

omg yes.

Julie Brown's "Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun"?

I think some of this kind of stuff came out of new wave and making oddball videos which if they were weird or funny enough would get onto MTV. IRS or Enigma records put out tons of this kind of stuff (especially IRS).

Wall of Voodoo - Mexican Radio
Timbuk3- The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades (an actual hit record)

Even stuff like the Butthole Surfers or the Dead Kennedys would tap into similar type of oddball musical comedy, albeit with a whole lot more edge to the sound. If you were doing a mix tape something like "Moving to Florida" or "Jock-O-Rama" would probably fit in with this stuff, even though they were way different type of bands.

There was also a real self-referential nature to quite a bit of this music like this in songs such as They Might Be Giants "Hi We're the Replacements" or something like the Dead Milkmen's "You'll Dance to Anything".

Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians - "The Man With the Lightbulb Head"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQGAEY9uXc8

I think Vampire Weekend would have fit in nicely with this crowd, but that's an argument I picked with scottpl in the VW thread and then never exactly finished.

Hoodoo Gurus - "Miss Freelove '69"

I blame 2008 indie on this shit. Of course, as a 25 year old in North Brooklyn, my parents were these people.

it's a bit later (and a bit more lo fi) than all the other songs mentioned, but "don't want to be grant mclennan" by smudge otherwise fits the bill

Longshoremen - "Canning Factory"
Boiled in Lead - "The Microorganism"

Christmas - "Big Plans"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW55n1JLBUQ

i like to think all those early lemonheads covers fit in here, i.e. luka, different drum, get along without you now..

Timbuk3- The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades (an actual hit record)

First thing I thought of when I read the thread title.

scatterbrain - don't call me dude

Hahaha, yes. Also "I'm Not Going Down With the Ship"

Now I understand where the movie "The Big Picture" was coming from

Extras, "Circular Impression"

(Ode to a condom in his wallet that the singer can't wait to use)

Colorblind James Experience - Considering a Move to Memphis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PmwFwcMxTU

xpost

actually he's got a condom in his wallet and can't wait to install it...

Toby Swann's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"

Well yes, that's what he sings.

xpost

barnes & barnes - fishheads

how did we go from things like this to things like "Peaches"

Faith No More - We Care a Lot

Great Plains' 'Letter to a Fanzine' - "Why do punk rock guys go out with New Wave girls?" and all that

Ween, Push The Little Daisies.

They Might Be Giants invented this genre, apportion credit and/or blame as appropriate.

Blotto predates everything else mentioned by enough that maybe they should count as new wave?

yeah I was gonna mention The Waitresses and Inflatable Boy Clams but those are a few years before the mid-80's.

anyone up in this bitch down with Mental As Anything?

Dig "Let's Cook"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM_XyNfcyMg

and "If You Leave Me Can I Come Too"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhzDz981TUY

The Nails: 88 Lines About 44 Women

i was just about to post The Nails... and how about The Violent Femmes?

Martini Ranch - "Hot Dog"
Oingo Boingo - "Entire Recorded Output"

Was (Not Was) - "Zaz Turned Blue"

Jazz Butcher - "Human Jungle"

Young Fresh Fellows - "Amy Grant"

Do Stump fit the bill? Or King Kurt?

Jazz Butcher - "Human Jungle"

a LOT of Jazz Butcher songs fall into this category... "Death Dentist", "Water", "Domestic Animal", "Red Pets", etc.

Yeah, Blotto was prolly novelty new wave w/ Waitresses and Nails. Probably could have it's own thread!

beastie boys- cookie puss song

"Mexican Radio" was my first thought. I'm not sure if "Video Killed the Radio Star" fits.

Devo?

You missed Blotto's "(I Want to Be a Heavy) Metalhead." I saw Blotto. They were actually bar band pros who stumbled into the shtick of doing novelty songs. Nothing New Wave about them. Christ on a pointed stick, they were intolerable.

The Fools' "Psycho Chicken." They were crap, too, by the point of that song but at least they tried to be straight on their first album.

"Do the Dutch" by Steve Brosky. Christgau made him famous for a minute but it never helped him get out of Allentown. Singing a novelty song about being Pennsy Dutch apparently didn't travel well.

Hey, the prime Minneapolis contribution to this thread, Something Fierce, is still together.

"(I Want to Be a Heavy) Metalhead."

How did Blotto manage to get Buck Dharma to appear in the (crap) video for that track? Did he maybe play on the recording?

Guadalcanal Diary "Watusi Rodeo"

xpost re "Metalhead" and Buck Dharma.

Yeah, as I recall. Buck was not available for the bar gigs, though. Sadly. Boy, "My Baby's the Star of a Driver-Ed Movie" -- what a howler.

As for being a hit on college radio, Blotto actually made the most mileage from getting these songs onto regional classic rock FM. If they'd been only played on college radio (and they certainly weren't played on college radio in the Lehigh Valley much, if at all) they wouldn't have been a draw or been booked into the local cover band bars/wateringholes in the tri-state area.

And one can never overlook the benefit of being a favorite of Dr. Demento and his legion of listeners. So that puts them in the same territory as Weird Al only not nearly as successful.

xhuxk to thread. Blotto's old catalog available on CD Baby!

Jazz Butcher, yeah...and also...Stump and Beastie Boys Fight for Your RIGHT to party etc
omg

I already told you I pulled out Jane's Addiction "Jane Says" late 80's gem but yeah I mean oh shit we're already talking about Dr. Demento. This is good news. Dr. Demento is better than Frank Zappa, I'm serious.

Science...

Science!!

"Beat Her with a Rake" -- The Weasels. Technically, late Seventies, though and more of a pleasingly offensive and idiot metal tune than college rock.

In same vein: "I'm Going Through Your Purse" -- The Mentors.

The Ophelias - "Mr. Rabbit" I'd say. That was just huge for a while on college radio, at least where I was.

Maybe also (coming from a very different direction) "John Somebody" by Scott Johnson

At the time there were one or two bands I kind of liked from that double city in Minnesota .

I kept a close eye on what was coming out of there.

I remember a quirky little album by the Baby Astronauts called 'All the Pancakes You Can Eat'. I only ever had a copy of it on cassette but it had a couple of laugh out louds. One song- i think it was called 'The Fishing Song'- the singer was on about writing to his congressman about some issue or other, but he author didn't know who that was and anyway 'he'd rather be fishing and drinking beer'. I guess you had to be there...

They invented slackerdom

Joe Dolce, "Shaddup You Face"

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sFacWGBJ_cs

I actually have a few Fools LPs I don't hate on my shelf. The Commericals, too. (The Fools were actually better doing non-novelty betwixt hard rock and new wave stuff, not all that far from Kix, say. "Psycho Chicken" is far from their best tune.)
Could've sworn I had a Blotto LP too, but I'm not finding it, so maybe not. Unless I misfiled the thing.

Not finding any Pop-O-Pies, Fiends, or Exude ("Boys Just Want To Have Sex") videos on youtube, unfortunately.

I liked The Fools' "Sold Out" which I seem to recall was also the name of the album. They were one of the opening bands on The Knack's first national tour after "My Sharona" sold a bajillion.

The Beat Farmers - "Happy Boy"

Really, though, we're obviously talking a few different eras and maybe even genres here; Weiny concentrating on later '80s college radio crap (which I mostly hated at the time -- even wrote a snide Dead Milkmen vs Thelonious Monster battle of the bands in Spin), and George and I opting more toward commercial radio novelties from a few years earlier. There was also "Punk Rock Christmas" by the Ravers from that time period (one of the first punk rock songs to get commercial rock airplay in Detroit.) And really, around '79/'80 lots of new wave semi-hits (like "Mirror Stars" by the Fabulous Poodles and "Love on the Phone" by Suzanne Fellini say) seemed like novelty songs even if they weren't supposed to. (Though given that "Whip It," "Rock Lobster," etc, were so huge, in a lot of ways, new wave was often novelty rock from the start.)

Jump N The Saddle, "Curly Shuffle," 1983 (predating by Cherry Poppin Daddies etc by more than a decade); kinda doubt this was the actual video for it though:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FKAfXdb5LsA

Also thought Screaming Blue Messiahs' Flintstone song (a rewrite of an earlier Flintstone song they'd made a lot more rocking when they called themselves Motor Boys Motor) was a real letdown after their great but way less self-consciously stoopid first album, just like I thought Was (Not Was)'s dinosaur novelty song (and their jail song for that matter) were big letdowns after their earliest stuff. (And I say that as a pretty big caveman/dinosaur fan btw.)

Also, Angry Samoans obviously a precedent for lots of later joke-punk stuff (and really, duh, Ramones and Dictators and Cramps etc before the Samoans).

"Institionalized" and "TV Party" belong here, too obv. (Did either of them get commercial rock aiplay in any markets at the time, except on say Sunday night speciality new wave shows? They're so well known by now, it's weird to think they didn't, but I doubt they did.* See also: "Blister in the Sun.")

* -- Well, maybe in L.A., who knows. (Come to think of it, didn't Rodney on the ROQ -- which I never heard -- completely thrive on punk novelty toons?)

arguably will powers, tho different type of enterprise with actual celebrities. and i guess in uk they had an actual hit

Again at the hardcore/noise end of novelty, No Trend's "Teen Love".

Really, really obscure, but it got a lot of airplay on WRCT: this upstate NY Chapman-stick and drums duo called Animal Time, who did these proggy-spazzy hardcore songs, like "(I'm going to find me an) Insecure Girl" and "I was only trying to help"

Who did "Tiki God", was that Nip Drivers?

didn't Rodney on the ROQ -- which I never heard -- completely thrive on punk novelty toons?

Yeah, to an extent. Some of it memorialized through the Poshboy Rodney on the ROQ comps. Remember "Are You Ready for the Sex Girls?" by the Gleaming Spires.

Really, really obscure, but it got a lot of airplay on WRCT: this upstate NY Chapman-stick and drums duo called Animal Time, who did these proggy-spazzy hardcore songs, like "(I'm going to find me an) Insecure Girl" and "I was only trying to help"

Yeah, there must have been a ton of local bands that fit the bill. In my area we had the great Pajama Slave Dancers and Dogzilla, among many. And Big Dipper who I'm listening to now, did they have any hits outside Massachusetts?

All these artists put the cleverness front and center, the jokes are part of what makes the songs catchy, but most of them deliver the non-joke musical goods too. But when the jokes fail to work, like on the Coolies' album of Simon and Garfunkel covers, they're excruciating, so much worse than just some average band trying and failing to be cool. Anyhow this genre has a lot to answer for, isn't it the progenitor of Bare Naked Ladies and about 100000 ironic cover songs?

isn't it the progenitor of Bare Naked Ladies

I was thinking this exact thing earlier today.

The Embarrassment "Sex Drive" came to mind, but that record came out in 1980.

Car Bomb by Negativland certainly fits the "cult-classic novelty college-radio quirkpop" criteria.

"Do the Dutch" by Steve Brosky. Christgau made him famous for a minute but it never helped him get out of Allentown

Ha ha -- Though I think he may have mixed up Marsh with Xgau?

http://www.itsaboutmusic.com/stevebrosky.html

Hits From Allentown
In 1983 Billy Joel's "ALLENTOWN" hits big , so Steve and the boys, along with Paul Willistein, write thier own little song about Allentown, "DO THE DUTCH". The song pokes gentle fun at Billy Joel's "ALLENTOWN" and at the local Pennsylvania Dutch culture and becomes a regional hit, garnering critical praise. Dave Marsh of TheVillage Voice names the record one of the top ten albums of the year in 1983. Both Steve and Billy Joel are given the key to the city of Allentown. ( Some folks are still pissed that they even gave it to Billy.) The 1985 release of "15th ST. BLUES" and GET OUT" gets airplay on the coattails of "DO THE DUTCH".

Play 15th Street Bridge
Play Fever
Play Samples of the entire album

Songs on this album are:
1. Do the Dutch
2. 15the Street Bridge
3. Dutch Rap
4. Dutch Hotel
5. Too Too Hot
6. Wild and Dutch
7. Get Out
8. Fever
9. Funky Hunky King
10. Get Together

From 1983. The BBC was Steve Brosky and company, although I remember the record as having his name on it.

http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?id=1758&name=The+BBC

Actually, Marsh liked them too!

From The First Rock & Roll Confidential Report, 1984:

"The Allentown band gently mocks Billy Joel and MTV while playing dance rock that doesn't sound like it came from a machine."

Address listed is a PO Box in Chester Valley, PA.

i had a radio show in the wyoming valley in the 80's and i didn't play blotto either.

i only played music that flowed like the mighty susquehanna river.

i did, however, go see psycho nurse perform in scranton once. they may have been the worst band i have ever seen.

http://psychonursetheband.blogspot.com/

Brosky was old Lehigh Valley. Song was co-written by Paul Willistein, the features editor of the Morning Call newspaper. If you lived in the place, anyone could do a fairly good to excellent PA Dutch accent, so when a song was done with it... Anyway, it took off in A-B-E and kept Brosky in gigs for years and years. Still does, I bet.

Technically, Willistein might have been working at the Bethlehem Globe Times, which folded in the mid-Eighties. Quite a few of its people wound up at the Call.

Anyway, it was always my impression that the people who grabbed onto "Do the Dutch" did so primarily because they thought it celebrated the local Pennsy Dutch. It hit the same nostalgic note that the old Professor Schnitzel records did. Both sold a heap -- but -only- in the region.

The most successful area band, by far, was Daddy Licks. And their "I Got Wheels" EP, which was also indie and released around 82-83, was truly a phenom. Still hasn't made it to digital, far as I know. Brosky was, basically, the opening act for Daddy Licks. However, they had no novelty tunes.

Is "Dog Police" part of this? I only know it from post-YouTube Big Bear Doin Thangs-type hacky blogger lols. But it got legitimate MTV play, right?

"Girl Next Door" by the Woofing Cookies (on some Midnight compilation).

One of my early music video memories:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQZegdcTHfc