The Dead Milkmen -- Big Lizard in My Backyard

(image presumably copyrighted by the Dead Milkmen)

Before my exposure to this album my musical tastes, such as they were, in elementary and early junior high school were, predictably, spread between the merely lame and the very lame, Duran Duran and the Miami Vice soundtrack being good examples from either end of that continuum. Thomas Dolby's 1982 masterwork The Golden Age of Wireless was the only vaguely odd album I'd ever owned. Given all that, the importance of The Dead Milkmen's debut album to me cannot be overstated. I'm not embarrassed to say that it--in nearly simultaneous conjunction with one other album; post forthcoming--opened my eyes.

One thing that comes to mind when listening to this album is what a truly fantastic bassist Dave Blood (R.I.P.) was. Another thing is that the Milkmen were surprisingly smart and cutting satirists when they wanted to be. This is not some throwaway novelty album: it is a true 1980s classic.

Best Song
"Serrated Edge", probably. "I don't piss/I don't shit/I'm gettin' no relief/people shake their heads in disbelief/go!" Awesome. Other standouts include "V.F.W." and "Dean's Dream".

Released
1985

Acquired
Summer 1987

Next Closest
Mojo Nixon, I guess. Camper van Beethoven, maybe kind of?

Brush with greatness (note: may include name-dropping)
I saw the Dead Milkmen once, while a freshman at UN-L in October 1992. (If you count their in-store acoustic appearance at Twisters on South 48th where I'd seen them earlier that day, I saw them twice.) The opening act was local favorite Such Sweet Thunder, and there may have been an opener before them but I don't remember. I spent most of the concert wedged at the front among four very cute girls, none of whom could've been older than 16. Afterwards I met up with a friend and we both went to an older (she was probably 23) friend's house and drank beer and listened to the Beatles.