FECES AND PSYCHOPATHS
As far as I can tell, they only ever took one photograph of the Gynecologists; it is immediately identifiable from the stovepipe hat worn and the electric guitar held by the namesake of the real John Wilkes Booth who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. Its first appearance was on the back cover of their debut release, Feces and Psychopaths, where the bandleader Tommy Afterbirth had the appellation “M.D.”.
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Mostly, the Gynecologists mined pop culture – “Aunt Bee” (a character on The Andy Griffith Show), “M.A.S.H.E.R” (based on the long-running sitcom, M*A*S*H), “Love and Haight” (a reference to the center of hippiedom in the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco) – news stories – “McMartin Preschool”, “Kent State” – and bodily functions – “Bloody Kotex”, “Gotta Piss”, “Peanut Butter Prophylactic” – as the subjects of their songs. The “Psychopaths” side of their first release, an EP called Feces and Psychopaths (1981) includes songs about Rev. Jim Jones (who was also from Indiana) called “Jimmy Jones” and the child-killing mass murderer John Wayne Gacy, “John Wayne Gacy”. Another song, “Dahmer’s Diner” refers to the cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
(June 2016)
