THX1123
Tele-Afflicted
I've always liked the band. I got a copy of Big Lizard in My Backyard LP from my brother in 1985. I really REALLY liked it. My first college band was even called Serrated Edge after a Milkmen song. Between Joe Jack's clean SG sound, The Smithereens use of SGs and Ricks, and Evan Dando's clean & dirty SG sounds (as well as Ian MacKaye's) I was influenced to buy an SG in 1990. I really liked the clean sounds, and Joe-Jack pointed me in the right way. Seeing Dando play an SG through both a clean Marshall halfstack and a Dirty Marshall halfstack, switching between them and sometimes having them both on at the same time was revelatory. The SG seemed to have a good top-end character whether crunchy or not.
I managed to get a copy of Eat Your Paisley on 12" vinyl in Toronto before seeing the Milkmen at Buffalo State in summer 1986 (I think). The Goo Goo Dolls opened. It was one of the Goo's first shows. They set up in the corner of the gym and played before the Milkmen. The early crowd watched them from a distance, and with trepidation. I liked their punk-pop Replacements-ish Husker-Du-ish sound, but they looked a little like poison, but wearing rags. The Goo Goo Dolls were an outright loud and sloppy punk-pop experience back then. We'd later get to know the Goos as our bands came up, and we opened for them several times. The bass player Robbie also produced some of our recordings.
At that first Milkmen show there was a good pit going. The band were all very short people, and they were all physically dirty. Joe's SG tone live confirmed to me that I wanted an SG. At the time I had a Rickenbacker as my main guitar, which was awesome - but Ricks sound like Ricks.
The Buffalo Stat Gym was hot and sweaty. A kid's thumb got hooked on my chain in the mosh pit and he ripped it off my neck. I almost pummeled him; he was scared. He found the chain on the ground and handed it to me. We went our own ways. Years later I would work with him at a hardware store. We laughed about it. He had become much larger and tougher by then.
Fast forward to the early 1990s. My band is doing well. We made good money gigging around and we'd saved enough to record in real studios four times, and put out a couple cassettes and a CD (which was a big deal in 1991, by the way). The local college station, WBNY played our songs a lot - possibly because we had good recordings, pretty good songs, and now a CD. We had a good relationship with the station, and I knew all the folks down there. I ended up "winning" tickets to an Enigma Records event in Syracuse, NY. It included concert tickets and a chartered bus ride round trip for all the winners to and from Buf State. The lineup was amazing - Mojo Nixon, The Cave Dogs, and The Dead Milkmen.
Between Mojo Nixon and The Cave Dogs (both bands were amazing - I was a Cave Dogs Fan from that moment on) I was hanging around the front of the stage. I'd had some beers and some short guy (He had to be short, I am only 5' 6") and his girlfriend were in front of me leaning on the security fence. I tripped and spilled my whole beer down the guy's back. The beer flowed in seemingly slow motion, completely soaking his jacket and pants and boots. He turned around and it was the Dead Milkmen's original bass player Dave. He and his girlfriend stared at me impassively. I just stood there impassively, holding a 3/4 empty beer cup, a slow smirk involuntarily building on my face. This odd, silent standoff went of for far too long. I might have mumbled sorry while trying to suppress the smirk - I don't remember.
It was odd because my bass playing had been heavily influenced by this man. I had a trio at the time where I played bass. I had a handful of Mike Watt, Skip Batten, and Dave from the Milkmen in my style. I should be apologizing to him and talking bass, not standing there smirking like a some yob or hick bully.
Eventually they just walked away like nothing happened, and so did I. The Milkmen came on after the Cave Dogs, who blew the roof off. Joe Jack was now playing a Les Paul that said "Killdozer" on it instead of an SG, but Dave had the same trusty Music Man bass. He was also wearing the same clothes I had soaked with beer about an hour before then.
That bass player, Dave, died a few years later. Too bad I didn't take the chance to say sorry and to thank him for the excellent music...but that wouldn't be as good a story, no?
I managed to get a copy of Eat Your Paisley on 12" vinyl in Toronto before seeing the Milkmen at Buffalo State in summer 1986 (I think). The Goo Goo Dolls opened. It was one of the Goo's first shows. They set up in the corner of the gym and played before the Milkmen. The early crowd watched them from a distance, and with trepidation. I liked their punk-pop Replacements-ish Husker-Du-ish sound, but they looked a little like poison, but wearing rags. The Goo Goo Dolls were an outright loud and sloppy punk-pop experience back then. We'd later get to know the Goos as our bands came up, and we opened for them several times. The bass player Robbie also produced some of our recordings.
At that first Milkmen show there was a good pit going. The band were all very short people, and they were all physically dirty. Joe's SG tone live confirmed to me that I wanted an SG. At the time I had a Rickenbacker as my main guitar, which was awesome - but Ricks sound like Ricks.
The Buffalo Stat Gym was hot and sweaty. A kid's thumb got hooked on my chain in the mosh pit and he ripped it off my neck. I almost pummeled him; he was scared. He found the chain on the ground and handed it to me. We went our own ways. Years later I would work with him at a hardware store. We laughed about it. He had become much larger and tougher by then.
Fast forward to the early 1990s. My band is doing well. We made good money gigging around and we'd saved enough to record in real studios four times, and put out a couple cassettes and a CD (which was a big deal in 1991, by the way). The local college station, WBNY played our songs a lot - possibly because we had good recordings, pretty good songs, and now a CD. We had a good relationship with the station, and I knew all the folks down there. I ended up "winning" tickets to an Enigma Records event in Syracuse, NY. It included concert tickets and a chartered bus ride round trip for all the winners to and from Buf State. The lineup was amazing - Mojo Nixon, The Cave Dogs, and The Dead Milkmen.
Between Mojo Nixon and The Cave Dogs (both bands were amazing - I was a Cave Dogs Fan from that moment on) I was hanging around the front of the stage. I'd had some beers and some short guy (He had to be short, I am only 5' 6") and his girlfriend were in front of me leaning on the security fence. I tripped and spilled my whole beer down the guy's back. The beer flowed in seemingly slow motion, completely soaking his jacket and pants and boots. He turned around and it was the Dead Milkmen's original bass player Dave. He and his girlfriend stared at me impassively. I just stood there impassively, holding a 3/4 empty beer cup, a slow smirk involuntarily building on my face. This odd, silent standoff went of for far too long. I might have mumbled sorry while trying to suppress the smirk - I don't remember.
It was odd because my bass playing had been heavily influenced by this man. I had a trio at the time where I played bass. I had a handful of Mike Watt, Skip Batten, and Dave from the Milkmen in my style. I should be apologizing to him and talking bass, not standing there smirking like a some yob or hick bully.
Eventually they just walked away like nothing happened, and so did I. The Milkmen came on after the Cave Dogs, who blew the roof off. Joe Jack was now playing a Les Paul that said "Killdozer" on it instead of an SG, but Dave had the same trusty Music Man bass. He was also wearing the same clothes I had soaked with beer about an hour before then.
That bass player, Dave, died a few years later. Too bad I didn't take the chance to say sorry and to thank him for the excellent music...but that wouldn't be as good a story, no?
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