Story #14 "Punk Rock Girl"-- The Dead Milkmen
The Dead Milkmen were my first live show. Depeche mode was my second. I don't think you could get more diametrically opposed. One is a pretentious British electronic band (I mean that in the best sense of the word) and the other was comprised of bratty kids who sang songs about Charles Nelson Reilly, racist hillbillies, trailer park hillbillies, TV, Bitchin' Camaros and of course, a punk rock girl. Really, the only thing the two bands share are the same initials D and M.
Some of those Milkmen songs stand the test of time, despite (or perhaps because of) their juvenile attitude. Like another Pennsylvania band, Ween, The Dead Milkmen's subject matter deceptively hide some great song craft and musical chops.
The other thing the two bands share is the inability to fix one particular label on them. For every fist-pumping teenage anthem like "V.F.W." you get withering social commentary like "Born To Love Volcanos"."Punk Rock Girl," is on another level all together.
This song shares the same madcap DNA as Camper Van Beethoven's "Take The Skinheads Bowling." in that both slowly descend into lyrical chaos. "I wanted to lick your knees," being a good example in Camper's case.
"Punk Rock Girl," is a marvel of silly-smart. It gets corrupted by a (maybe?) purposeful lyrical blunder. "Someone played a Beach Boys song on the juke box, it was California Dreamin' so we started screamin' on such a winter's day." Obviously this is incorrect, but it works within the meter and structure. Saying "Someone played a Mamas and The Papa's song..." would have sucked. Poetic license.
My favorite lyric and rhyme scheme ever: "I tapped her on the shoulder and said do you have a beau? She looked at me and smiled and said she did not know."
Weird pop-culture references abound, like that old doo-wop song "The Duke of Earl," Hee-Haw's Minnie Pearl and Mojo Nixon. And of course it ends with them driving off into the sunset, in a stolen car. No other song captures teenage rebellion in quite the same way.
There's a lot packed into this song including a fun little guitar solo as well as an accordion which is so not punk it's positively punk.
Ironic then that the story "Punk Rock Girl," which closes my short story collection A-Sides and B-Sides, isn't punk at all, but is the most straightforward story in the collection. I wanted to capture the awkwardness of what it's like being a thirteen year-old who is trying hard to be cool and failing at it, while at the same time, being accepted for who they are. While I could call this autobiographical, "Punk Rock Girl," is more of a composite of a lot of events that happened in my early teens and not an "as it happened," account, except for one specific instance. Someone actually did sign a five dollar bill by adding a bunch of zeros and added "spend it in one place," too.
That someone was Joseph Genaro, otherwise known as Joe Jack Talcum, the guitarist of The Dead Milkmen and lead vocalist on "Punk Rock Girl."
A-Sides and B-Sides is available on iBook as well as Amazon and also Kobo and Nook. You can preview the first story, or most of it anyway. Hope you'll consider buying if you like what you see.
Here's what the cover looks like.
Where the hell did they film this?