Butterfly Joe

Album Review

Formed by Dead Milkmen members Joe Genaro and Dean "Clean" Sabatino, this is an unusual amalgam of sound. Seventeen tracks opening with "Happy Imbecile Song," which clocks in at 2:34, to the one minute and fifty-five seconds of "Whale in the Sea." The vocals can get downright annoying: think of Jonathan Richman on heavy cough syrup AND morphine and you get the ode to San Francisco, which is one of the more serious and fun tracks. On their 1989 "Smokin' Banana Peels," the Dead Milkmen album copped the cover of the first VU LP, The Velvet Underground & Nico, and "San Francisco" on the Butterfly Joe disc sounds like it is right out of Lou Reed's "Sunday Mornin'" meets Kris Kristofferson's "Sunday Mornin' Coming Down." The parody that Andy Bresnan's ukulele, accordion, tuba, ocarina, and trumpet add, well, just look at those instruments and imagine the sounds they can conjure up for a band with shifts from post-loud Modern Lovers to a whacked-out Ventures on the minute and forty second "17," which has cool backing vocals. "Life Is Better in the Movies" is a standout, as is Fancy Walls with its John Cale-like backing vocals and xylophone. Zappa sensibilities without his musicianship. Song brevity à la Elvis Costello but they aren't about to challenge Elton John and his string of hit singles. This is a tough one: there's enough stuff to like, but it's almost like listening to the Ramones in reverse at the wrong speed. Drunken bar-room pop songs.