This classic banger was released as a single in 1982. It shot to #1 in the UK and stayed in the charts for months. The song is a combination of fairground vaudeville, ska, and radio pop. Below is an image of the paper sleeve on the 7 inch 45 RPM UK release.
The classic video was reissued in 4K about 8 years ago. How did we miss that? It looks better than ever. It was filmed in North London. The band members are seen acting out their coming-of-age tales in true Madness style.
U.S. Bowling League Day is recognized every year on September 3rd. Why not celebrate this grand occasion by actually going to a bowling alley? Take it up a notch and shave your heads before you head out.
Bowling is a lot of fun and it is healthy exercise. Pop this track in the car stereo on your way to the bowling alley to really get in the mood.
“Take The Skinheads Bowling” by Camper Van Beethoven was released both as a single and on the album Telephone Free Landslide Victory in 1985. It enjoyed significant airplay in the UK and was featured on the Dr Demento Show here in the USA.
The song was written by band member David Lowery. In his blog he writes,
“The Skinheads Bowling as just a weird nonsensical song. The lyrics were purposely structured so that it would be devoid of meaning. Each subsequent line would undermine any sort of meaning established by the last line. It was the early 80′s and all our peers were writing songs that were full of meaning. It was our way of rebelling.”
We found lyrics on genius.com, but cannot verify that they are 100% correct.
[Verse 1]
Every day, I get up and pray to Jah
And he increases the number of clocks by exactly one
Everybody’s comin’ home for lunch these days
Last night there were skinheads on my lawn
[Chorus]
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
[Verse 2]
Some people say that bowling alleys got big lanes
(Got big lanes, got big lanes)
Some people say that bowling alleys all look the same
(Look the same, look the same)
There’s not a line that goes here that rhymes with anything
(Anything, anything)
Had a dream last night but I forget what it was
(What it was, what it was)
[Chorus]
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
[Verse 3]
Had a dream last night about you, my friend
Had a dream–I wanted to sleep next to plastic
Had a dream–I wanted to lick your knees
Had a dream–it was about nothing
[Chorus/Outro]
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
Before I end this blog, I wanted to remember a cool drone video that was shot at a bowling alley in Minneapolis. The place is called Bryant Lake Bow and I’ve had great times there back in the 2000s.
Get out there and go bowling folks! It’s a great time!
The Peppers are releasing their second album this year with returning guitarist John Frusciante. Beavis & Butthead are back with a recent movie and new episodes on Paramount Plus. Both of these GenX favorites are hot again. I love it!
Fans will remember that the movie Beavis & Butthead Do America features a song performed The Red Hot Chili Peppers. It was 1996 and Dave Navarro was the lead guitarist in the band.
In the film, the boys find themselves at a Las Vegas casino dancing to the music of a cover band. The band is dressed in look-alike blue suits. They look nothing like Red Hot Chili Peppers.
It cracks me up that The Peppers played a cover band in the movie. They could have just covered any RHCP hit but it’s a lot funnier having the band play a cover as a cover band. RHCP also made an animated video for it, but it’s just not as entertaining as the scene from the movie.
Decades before Beavis and Butthead were seen dancing to this song as performed by the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1996, it first made famous by The Ohio Players in the 1970s. Here is footage of them playing live-to-tape on Midnight Special as introduced by Wolfman Jack.
The RHCP version was released in North America and Spain as a CD single that also functioned as a promo for FM radio. It included three mixes of the song. Today it’s a collector’s item.
The song was released as a single on cassette as well as CD in the UK. The UK release was different than the North American one. The UK version featured only one mix of the song but also included Engleberth Humerdinck’s version of “Lesbian Seagull”.
Believe it or not, “Lesbian Seagull” was not written for the movie. The song was first released in 1979 by an obscure folk singer called Tom Wilson on his album Gay Name Game. That makes it a cover version also.
If you want to jam out to the album version, here you go!
First off let me just say that today is National Potato Day. Personally I love potatoes. I like them prepared any which way. If it has potato in it, I’ll eat it. I’ll probably like it too. When I was a kid my Grandma made me the best potato pancakes on earth.
Yes I love the tuber but I am not ready to admit it. I am NOT “Addicted to Spuds”.
This track first appeared on Weird Al’s 1986 release, Polka Party. There is no official music video for it but Al did perform the song live many times. His 1980s performances featured a back up band of giant Mr Potato Heads.
There are a few instances of this on YouTube. All of them are low quality recordings. The audio on this is terrible but the performance is keen. Luckily someone found this on a VHS tape and uploaded it.
Las Vegas, Nevada is facing a water crisis. Things are not looking good. I think this shows that efforts to terraform other planets in the future may prove successful at first but ultimately fail.
The song “Viva Las Vegas” was written by Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman for Elvis Presley to record as well as for the Movie of the same name featuring Elvis.
In the early days of Punk Rock, a lot of bands actually did cover versions of pop and rock songs from prior decades. They would dare to “punk-up” a song almost as a gag. Sometimes they were just out to piss on the concept of pop music itself.
The problem is that most of these cover versions never made it to release. The band may play the song live but it never appeared on an album or 7 inch record. The reason was because of the licensing fees required to keep it legal. These fees were partly due up-front. This made it a risky investment for a working class band to afford.
We got lucky with Dead Kennedys. They included “Viva Las Vegas” on their 1980 debut LP, Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables.
The song had been a part of their live set almost since the band’s inception. Their version strips the musical arrangement down and uses a slightly faster tempo, yet maintains the song’s melodic structure. It features satirical lyric changes by Jello Biafra, the lead singer at the time. It was later featured in Terry Gilliam’s film adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
The band exists today but without Jello. There is bad blood there. A new remaster of the album was just released. The problem here is that Biafra was not consulted and he has been vocal about his dissatisfaction with the results.
I have listened to the new mixes and I concur totally. Stick to the OG mixes. Good luck to Las Vegas with that predicable global warming water crisis thing. I hope that all rich people in charge are properly compensated for their losses when they file with the IRS.
Unless you are Generation X or older you are not likely to understand the humor in this skit from classic Sesame Street featuring Frank Oz and Jim Henson as Muppet characters: The Salesman and Ernie, respectively.
In the 20th century, there really were people in long coats walking around trying to sell items hidden under their coats. They could be found in any American downtown, market, densely populated neighborhoods, bus stops, college campus and anywhere people might be walking around. They usually sold wristwatches and jewellery.
It was “buyer beware” if you were going to make a purchase from one of these often shady characters. People became annoyed with them and came to see them as a public nuisance. The practice was eventually made illegal In most jurisdictions. “Coat-commerce” was in decline by the 90s. The advent of online shopping dealt the final death-blow to the custom.
This track appeared on at least 80 releases in different countries and different formats. It first appeared on The Muppet’s Alphabet Album in 1971.
As a kid, I had an LP called Ernie’s Hits that I ordered from a school book club catalog. I found a photo of the 8-track version that was published the same year that I was born. This 8 track has the Spanish version of “Rubber Ducky” which did not appear on the LP. I still have the LP but it’s no longer playable.
Hell yeah! It’s National Chili Dog Day. What most people call a “Detroit-style” chili dog, is called a “Coney-Dog”, “Coney” or even “Coney Island” by Detroiters themselves.
This style of hot dog was actually created by Greek immigrants that were living in Detroit after having spent a a little while in New York City and visiting the amusement park called Coney Island. They borrowed the name from New York but invented the now ubiquitous chili dog in downtown Detroit.
A proper Detroit-style chili dog uses a ground beef based chili with no beans. It’s really just spiced up ground beef to be honest. Then you add chopped raw onions and mustard. That’s it. That’s a chili dog. FunHouse Radio hopes you get to suck on one today. And if you are ever in Detroit try the American Coney Island restaurant. I’d say they have the last word on the subject.
This goofy parody song has been done by a number of people. A guy named Tom McGovern got a lot of press about his version. The one embedded on this page appears to be the original but it is not the original upload. The original upload may have been taken down because of copyright issues. At this point the creator is unknown.
If you would like to try to make these or yourself, here is a recipe.
This is basically the title track to an amazing album Big Lizard in My Backyard. Of course it contains their big hit “Bitchin’ Camero”. I also love “Swordfish”, “Right Wing Pigeons”, & “Nutrition”. It’s a blast to just listen to the album straight through.
The story behind the song reminds me of Little Shop of Horrors. Rather than a plant that grows too large and gets out of control, it’s a big lizard.
Back in the early 90s my best friend had the album on cassette. I have it on CD now but I would love to find the LP in good condition.
I got to see The Dead Milkmen perform at the Phoenix Amphitheater in Pontiac. They were great and lived up to their zany reputation.
The image above is of the cassette release. It’s sideways or “landscape” rather than the typical “portrait” orientation.
FunHouse Radio 