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“Take The Skinheads Bowling” by Camper Van Beethoven

Posted on 2022-09-03 by Wacky Alex

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!

“Dad, I’m in Jail” by Was (Not Was) – Animated for MTV’s Liquid Television October 1992

Posted on 2022-08-27 by Wacky Alex

Imagine that it’s the 90s and you’ve just arrived home. The first thing you do is press PLAY on your answering machine. Then you find out that your son is currently in jail. Not only that but he’s gone nuts. He claims to love it there.

Was (Not Was) wrote a song about it. The track features a mix of acoustic and electronic instruments. I would classify it as experimental jazz. It’s weird as hell and certainly not a traditional pop song. “Dad, I’m in Jail” was the final track on their 1988 album What Up, Dog?.

I got my first CD player in 1989 or 1990. I quickly joined both Columbia House and BMG music services. I got What Up, Dog? on CD from one of those two. I checked to see if I still have it in my collection and sadly I do not.

The video here is not the official video for the song. The band itself never made one. This is actually an animation piece made for MTV’s Liquid Television. It first aired on October 1, 1992, part of season two.

At the time animation was not as ubiquitous as it is today. The technology to create animation was nothing like what we have now. Liquid Television was one of the only places that a casual viewer could see animated works of art. It also is where future popular shows like Beavis and Butthead were first tested out on an audience.

This upload looks like a VHS recording from live TV. As a result it is in mono and does not sound very good, so for your reference, I found a better sounding recording of the track here.

“Love Rollercoaster” by Red Hot Chili Peppers As seen in Beavis & Butthead Do America

Posted on 2022-08-22 by Wacky Alex

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!

“Addicted To Spuds” by Weird Al Yankovic – LIVE on MTV’s New Year’s Eve Party 1987 – A Parody of “Addicted To Love” by Robert Palmer

Posted on 2022-08-19 by Wacky Alex

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.

“Big Lizard” by The Dead Milkmen

Posted on 2022-07-27 by Wacky Alex

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.

“Tight Pants / Body Rolls” by Leslie Hall

Posted on 2022-07-22 by Wacky Alex

This Leslie character has no shame. I like it. Let me go slip into my spandex for the day. Watch out for my no-ass and huge gut. I hope Lizzo invites Ms Hall to collaborate soon! Maybe do a remix of this? That would kick ass.

The video is not embedable so watch it on youtube proper.

“Fraggle Metal” by Leo Moracchioli – A Heavy Metal Version of The Fraggle Rock Theme

Posted on 2022-07-17 by Wacky Alex

You need this if you are old enough to remember Fraggle Rock. Either way it’s great. PLUS it’s METAL! YEAH!

We’ve been following Leo Moracchioli and his Frog Leap Studios YouTube Channel for years now. This guy is the best. We play a few tracks on our station. This is his latest effort.

The Biggest Ball Of Twine in Minnesota is REAL & Here’s The Backstory

Posted on 2022-07-16 by Wacky Alex

The first time I ever heard of ball of twine was in a song by Weird Al Yankovic. It appears on his soundtrack album for the movie UHF. The film bombed at the box office, has since become a cult classic.

I always assumed it was a fictional story. I had no idea that the ball of twine was a real thing that anyone can see for themselves. It’s really located in Minnesota. The name of city is Darwin, which seems ironically appropriate.

Francis A. Johnson began constructing a ball out of leftover twine from his family’s farm when he was 45 years old. A reporter from the Minneapolis Tribune asked why it had gotten so large.

Johnson replied, “My mother taught me not to waste anything.”

Francis was a thrifty man, but he was also a collector. He once had 7,000 pencils. The ball of twine was just one of his many, though it became the most important.

Francis pulled in leftover twine from nearby farms, square-knotted the pieces, and added them to the enormous sphere in his yard. To spin the ball and maintain the roundness, he used a railroad jack. For a while he hung the ball from a tree.

From 1950 until 1979, Francis wrapped his twine ball strand by strand. He only stopped because he developed emphysema. He then died in 1989. His family believes that because he didn’t smoke, his ailment was caused by twine ball dust.

After his passing in 1989, the ball was trucked into Darwin’s downtown, where it is still located today. Now it’s a major tourist attraction. The nearly two-ton twine ball averages 150 visitors a day during the summer months. It now lives inside a glass-walled gazebo in a museum. If you ask nicely, they’ll unlock the gazebo to let you get within sniffing distance of Francis’s creation.

Maybe it’s time to plan a trip! It’s not that far from the Twin Cities Metro.

source: RoadsideAmerica