SEX ORGY WITH THE BRADEE BUNCH
The Under Appreciated Rock Band of the Month for June 2016 is the Gynecologists, a truly wild, truly outrageous punk rock band from Indiana whose bandleader Tommy Afterbirth “came up with the idea of recording and pressing the vilest gross-out novelty record EVER”. Which of their 30-some songs he meant is difficult to know for certain – probably it was the one about The Brady Bunch that he was already working on, “Sex Orgy with the Bradee Bunch” (the misspelled name was probably used to avoid potential lawsuits). The boys used the record label name Vomit Productions for their first release, where the front cover included a photo of Tommy Afterbirth’s own dog’s poop.
The best info on the band comes from the voluminous liner notes written by John Barge for the compilation CD, Hoosier Psychopaths (2007); Barge had been in a punk rock band called the Panics. The original version of the liner notes – including the quote given above – appears on a website on Indiana music called www.musicalfamilytree.net .
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The Gynecologists are probably best known for “Sex Orgy with the Bradee Bunch”; I have a vague recollection of having heard the song previously, though I have no idea where. The Brady Bunch has an unusual premise for a sitcom: A man with three sons marries a woman with three daughters. I don’t know whether this was intended originally, but the males and females are not related to each other, so it wouldn’t really be incest for any of them to have sex with each other – not even within the context of the show, never mind in real life. Wikipedia never brings it up, but this was a definite undercurrent in the show that was on a lot of (dirty) minds. As notoriously randy as actors and actresses are, it is not surprising that plenty of rumors and scandals have seen the light of day.
Suffice it to say that everyone in the sitcom seems to put in an appearance – even the family dog. One girl’s best friend is her vibrator, one of the boys is a chronic masturbator; that’ll give you an idea of how the song goes. The song starts with a flushing toilet to boot.
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Song lyrics are hard to come by on the Internet for songs by the Gynecologists, and what is being sung is usually hard to understand. John Barge quotes some of the song lyrics in his liner notes. For instance, “Ron and Nancy” imagines sexual antics not far removed from those envisioned in “Sex Orgy with the Bradee Bunch”: “Even Ed Meese got a piece!” In “Kent State”, Tommy Afterbirth sings: “Those traitors don’t even deserve a decent burial.” As Barge puts it: “Those who seek succor from politically correct song lyrics will find little sustenance here.”
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There are songs by the Gynecologists on albums in two long-running punk-rock compilation album series: Killed by Death #18 (“Sex Orgy with the Bradee Bunch”) and Bloodstains Across the Midwest (“Gym Gerard”, based on a TV personality), with the cover of the latter album having a crude drawing of the famous photograph from the 1970 Kent State University shootings.
(June 2016)
