Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Punk Rock Girl (1988)
It's weird to think about how much power MTV had in its prime to create hits. I've written about other bands like Duran Duran and Big Country who became stars because of their videos, but one of the most unlikely success stories was that of the Dead Milkmen and "Punk Rock Girl."
The band actually got its start in 1979 when Joe Genaro and a high school friend created an imaginary band called the Dead Milkmen with a fake back story; they would record homemade cassettes as their fictional characters. In 1981, Gennaro was attending Temple University in Philadelphia when he started jamming with bassist Dave Schulthise and drummer Dean Sabatino, using the name Dead Milkmen. Rodney Linderman joined as lead vocalist in 1983 and the group started playing on Philly's punk rock circuit and then nationally.
The Milkmen made some self-released cassettes before recording their 1985 debut album, Big Lizard in My Backyard, on Restless Records. The album started getting played on college radio, especially the song "Bitchin' Camaro." The following year, they released Eat Your Paisley, from which the single "The Thing That Only Eats Hippies" became a hit in Australia. The band released Bucky Fellini in 1987.
They were getting some attention, including in 1987 from Detroit Tigers rookie Jim Walewander, who invited them to see the game in which he hit his only major league home run. The attention grew in 1988 when the Milkmen released Beelzebubba, which featured the single "Punk Rock Girl."
Sung by Genaro, the song featured a very un-punk and prominent accordion as the protagonist dreams about having a wild punk rock girlfriend. He wrote it years earlier after he graduated from Temple after a musician talked about wanting to write a punk rock nursery rhyme.
"One Saturday I took a walk to Zipperhead/I met a girl there/And she almost knocked me dead/(Punk rock girl) please, look at me/(Punk rock girl) what do you see?/Let's travel round the world/Just you and me, punk rock girl."
The song drops many pop culture references as well as locations in Philadelphia, where the low-budget video was filmed; some of the filming took place at the abandoned Eastern State Penitentiary.
"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/(Punk rock girl) give me a chance/(Punk rock girl) let's go slam dance/We'll dress like Minnie Pearl/Just you and me, punk rock girl/We went to the Philly Pizza Company/And ordered some hot tea/The waitress said, 'Well, no/We only have it iced'/So we jumped up on the table/And shouted, 'Anarchy!'/And someone played a Beach Boys song/On the jukebox/It was 'California Dreamin''/So we started screamin'/'On such a winter's day.'"
The song got as much credit for being "comedy rock" as for being pop-punk, but whatever it was, the video was immediately popular, getting up to #1 on the Dial MTV request list. It peaked at #11 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart in February 1989. One of the band's promotional appearances was on Club MTV, a dance music show hosted by Downtown Julie "Wubba Wubba Wubba" Brown. The Milkmen were supposed to lip sync their performance, but to do so, the band got MTV to agree to some conditions: a tuba for Lindeman (instead of keyboards) and an oversized drum kit for Sabatino. After clowning their way through the performance while the kids in the studio replicated a mosh pit, the guys were interviewed by Brown and managed to handcuff her to the tuba (see the grainy video below). According to the excellent book I Want My MTV, Brown was not thrilled and threw a tantrum backstage.
"She took me to her parents/For a Sunday meal/Her father took one look at me/And he began to squeal/(Punk rock girl) it makes no sense/(Punk rock girl) your dad is the vice president/Rich as the Duke of Earl/Yeah, you're for me, punk rock girl/We went to a shopping mall/And laughed at the shoppers/And security guards trailed us/To a record shop/We asked for Mojo Nixon/They said, 'He don't work here'/We said, 'If you don't got Mojo Nixon/Then your store could use some fixin'.'"
The song is fun and infectious and kinda reminds me of Camper Van Beethoven's "Take the Skinheads Bowling" from a few years earlier. Of course, the band's label wanted Genaro to sing more songs on the next album, but the Milkmen resisted. The album, 1990's Metaphysical Graffiti, didn't perform as well. The next year, the band left Restless and signed with Disney-owned Hollywood Records. The first Hollywood album, Soul Rotation, was poppier and featured more Genaro lead vocals, but it didn't do well. Another album also flopped and the Milkmen broke up in 1994.
The Milkmen got a boost in the early '90s when Beavis and Butt-Head featured "Punk Rock Girl."
Linderman played with the Celtic punk act Burn Witch Burn while Genaro played with several bands, including Butterfly Joe and the Low Budgets. Schulthise went to Indiana University to study Serbo-Croatian language and culture, and Sabatino played with a few bands, including Butterfly Joe.
The Milkmen began discussing a reunion after releasing a compilation and DVD in 2003, but ended after Schulthise died by suicide in 2004. The surviving members played two tribute shows to Schulthise in November 2004 with Dan Stevens on bass. That lineup reunited in 2008 to play a few shows, including the Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin. They've released three albums over the last 13 years, including 2023's Quaker City Quiet Pills.
"Punk Rock Girl" has been covered by many artists, including Ben Gibbard, MxPx, Diesel Boy and Streetlight Manifesto. In 2022, a stage musical called Punk Rock Girl premiered in Long Island, New York.
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