The Dead Milkmen return

Longtime Dead Milkmen fans associate keyboardist and vocalist Rodney Linderman, aka Rodney Anonymous, with absurd ramblings disguised as punk songs. For more on this look no further than “Stuart,” the standout diatribe from the Dead Milkmen’s 1988 magnum opus Beelzebubba. It turns out that Linderman really does rant at the drop of a dime, about topics more serious than “what the queers are doing to the soil.” Nowadays, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, vinyl reissues, and massive music festivals are among the targets Linderman deems worthy of his verbal venom.

The satirical Philadelphia punks have had spurts of activity since reuniting in 2007, but the band hasn’t been to Atlanta since its original 12-year run ended in 1995. That changes when the Dead Milkmen take the stage in Hell at the Masquerade as part of this year’s Shaky Knees Festival. The group’s addition to the lineup brings a welcome dose of punk and new wave humor to the modern indie rock weekend. But Linderman isn’t sure it’s such a good idea. “They asked us, and I’m the only one who voted against it, so I was the odd man out,” Linderman says.

“I don’t like festivals because they are never the sort of bands I listen to,” he says. “I like little, subversive shows where I can play with friends who are in underground bands.”

Despite Linderman’s apprehension, the Dead Milkmen’s addition makes sense. After all, the band has gone through the whole American punk gamut: starting as singer and guitarist Joe Jack Talcum’s bedroom recording project in the late ’70s; building momentum through college radio play in the mid-’80s; flirting with mainstream exposure after the “Punk Rock Girl” video entered MTV’s rotation; signing with Walt Disney-owned Hollywood Records in 1991 amid Nirvana’s reshaping of mainstream music; and reuniting, first as a 2004 one-off show in honor of deceased bassist Dave Blood, and permanently three years later.

Following last month’s West Coast tour, the group is spending two nights in the Deep South. The Masquerade show goes down May 8. The next night the group is in Birmingham, Ala. “I wanted to play Birmingham so I can repeatedly call Judge Roy Moore a pig fucker from stage,” Linderman says. “That’s the only goal I have on that little tour. I’m amazed no one does that. I’d imagine every band that comes through there would write a song about what a pig fucker he is.”

Though the band has recorded four 7-inches and two albums since reuniting, its most publicized records to hit the shelves in recent memory were the Record Store Day Black Friday reissue of 1985’s Big Lizard in My Backyard, and last month’s RSD repress of Beelzebubba. This is another recent development opposed by Linderman. “I don’t like the whole re-release thing,” he says. “I think it keeps people from buying music from new bands. The people who did the record did a great job, don’t get me wrong. I just think it’s bad for music.”

To Linderman, new music is often overlooked by those seeking out exclusive represses of classic releases. “Record Store Day has become about making sure you buy a re-release of a Fleetwood Mac album and not discovering a new band that’s better than Fleetwood Mac,” he says. “It’s not about getting you this rare album for your collection. It’s about keeping you from discovering a band that might be better. And trust me, nearly every band in the history of the world is better than Fleetwood Mac.”

While Linderman thinks some record collectors fail to seek out new music often enough, he suspects that certain other benefactors of the vinyl re-issue craze avoid fresh sounds altogether. “Joe and I were talking the other day about how every interview should begin with what’s the last album you bought, and what’s the last concert you went to see,” he says. “It’d eliminate a lot of bullshit. No one would ever interview Bob Dylan again, because Bob Dylan isn’t going to new concerts or buying new music.”

There’s a silver lining to Linderman’s doom and gloom, as it connects him with all of the faces in the crowd. “I’m horribly miserable,” he says. “I think that’s why I relate to our audience — our audience is filled with miserable people. I know you people have terrible jobs, you don’t have a trust fund ... If you have a trust fund, you’re not going to come see us. You’re going to go see some trust fund band you can relate to.”

Linderman’s target audience is, as he so affectionately couched it in “Stuart” so many years ago, “Not like the other people, here in the trailer park.”