JOHN BARGE
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 .
Even by punk rock standards, the bandmembers’ names in the Gynecologists were inventive: bandleader and chief songwriter Tommy Afterbirth (lead vocals), John Wilkes Booth (keyboard player turned guitarist), Simon Scrotum (bass guitar – he was also an insurance salesman), and Milburn Drysdale (drums). Milburn Drysdale (played by Raymond Bailey) was the banker who lived next door to The Beverly Hillbillies family; in this classic sitcom that was filled to the brim with colorful characters, he was probably my favorite of them all. By the time that their 1984 release, A Goat . . . You Geek came out, the new bass guitarist named Kid Death (who is from Oregon) had improved their sound as a “a much more straight forward kick ass punk rock band”, as John Barge put it.
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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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As taken from the John Barge liner notes about the Gynecologists: “The story begins in a small unnamed redneck town south of Indianapolis where Tommy [Afterbirth] grew up. Tommy’s gateway drug to punk rock was his father’s drive-in movie theater, which, along with such prosaic family fare like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, thrilled the local yahoos with garish horror films and cheap psychedelic biker flicks during the sixties. From this Tommy learned to love the seedy underbelly of pop culture with a fixation that bordered on compulsive.”
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The most comprehensive compilation album of the Gynecologists, a CD called Hoosier Psychopaths on Gulcher Records, has 30 songs, including each of their recordings in order; besides the two I have already discussed, they include two cassette-only releases, A Goat . . . You Geek (1984) and Auto-Erotica Asphyxia & Various Moldy Turds (1994). According to John Barge, their latter album included a host of other guest musicians and characters: Dave Death, Bob Tangleweed, Lumpy Repellant, Kevin Drake, Buster Hyman, and Frankie Camaro. (The Bukkake Hit Parade liner notes have several other “special guests” in their list: Ricky Retardo, Mrs. Food, Bejhan Mirhadi, and Tina Chang). There are also a half-dozen unreleased rarities on Hoosier Psychopaths; three show two titles, so there might be nine actually.
(June 2016)
