What, you’ve never seen a squirrel jump into a portal before?
It’s Monday, that day where The Nest always makes you stand up and face the muzak. That means digging up another tune (or two!) out of that party grab bag of good times we like to call the Dusty Vinyl Archive! DJ Scratchy’s ready to send the year out with a bang, while the Sponkies sip champagne that we secretly replaced with Diet Sprite. This won’t be the same old Auld Lang Syne…
The Violent Femmes isn’t the name of an all girls fight club (could you keep a girl from talking about Fight Club?), they’re a Milwaukee based trio that was one of the foremost acts of the college rock movement of the 80’s. They’ve been featured on The Nest once before, and not in a very flattering way. Their best known song, 1983’s “Blister in the Sun,” is a horrific earworm that has come to define the band and is beloved by all the 80’s hipsters who, like me, had no clue the fucking song even existed until it was featured in Gross Pointe Blank in 1997.
These are 80’s hipsters. They have ruined my favorite decade.
On that same debut album that gave us the blistered sun was a much more fun sounding song. It’s got really weird lyrics, like most of the songs Gordon Gano wrote for the group, but you gotta love any song that features a real, honest to goodness xylophone!
“Gone Daddy Gone” is an excellent song, and one that definitely deserves to be propped up above the shitty “Blister” that has made them famous. And you know what sounds almost as good as this 1983 hidden classic? The 2006 cover version by the duo Gnarls Barkley! Plus, it has a hilariously disturbing video…
Both versions of “Gone Daddy Gone” are just as awesome as they were completely ignored by the Billboard charts. Neither song ranked at all, on any countdown. Well, as Gnarls lead singer Cee lo Green once so eloquently said, “Fuck you!” I’m a lost hit hipster, and would gladly rank both versions of “Gone Daddy Gone” above much of the other dreck that makes the countdown! And if they got a problem with my taste in fine muzak, I’m sending Flea lo Green to bite their asses…
Oh yeah, you’ll be sleeping with the lights on tonight…
My stash in the DVA is hardly gone daddy gone. I’ll return with another lost hit next year…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
That video is hilarious and disturbing but still fun…..the critters are great musicians – never knew fleas and ticks had so much talent for something other than torture! LOL Thanks for the peppy ear worm.
Pam
I’ll bet they used to perform with the flea circus… maybe as the bearded lady. Of course, that job got taken away by Miss D…
Miss D trains fleas too in addition to being the bearded lady…..don’t stare at the poppyseeds too long or you’ll see what we mean…….
I remember Blister in the Sun and kinda like it. This one I’d not heard, but it’s pretty good, too. Crazy videos – both of them, but that strobe effect was getting to me! 🙂
Yeah, that strobe in the VF version was annoying and almost gave me a headache. Some poor soul back in the day probably got a seizure from it watching MTV…
I think I prefer the Gnarls Barkley version. I checked out “Blister in the Sun” again as I assumed I would like it if you didn’t, but from my comment I didn’t like it then and I still don’t like it now.
I’m reporting Violent Femmes to the Trading Standards people as there aren’t any femmes and none of them look particularly violent…
I had to check out your comment and am happy we at least agree on something besides chocolate chip cookies. If anyone is going to start up a band named The Violent Femmes, it should be Zeeba. I guess these guys wanted to call themselves The Nice Guys, but it was Opposite Day…
An interesting selection this last Monday of the year. Already looking forward to new 2021 earworms. Happy New Year.
With the DVA, it’s out with the old, in with the oldER…
Turn the lights on, Shoko. I see huge flea monsters!!
Tyebe
Need more Raid…
I’m loving both versions! Thanks ES. Awesome way to end out 2020.
They are both good, probably because they sound a lot alike. Only one with slightly fewer fleas…