Green Jellÿ: Garbage Band Kids – released: June 11, 2021
The band Green Jellÿ has consistently been a group that can launch my broken spirits up away and around the moon, like Alice Kramden eating a PCP infused caramel apple. Their ability to parody the zeitgeist of overly typified hard rock from many eras, spanning many styles is, disgustingly exquisite. The band’s staying power is woefully underrated and overlooked.
Green Jelly’s music was brought to the forefront around 1993. There was a great youthful nation of Beavis and Buttheads wannabes slackin’ around many hometowns. They were us and we were they, the idiots drawn to the music video for the song Three Little Pigs. It was a cheap and silly Claymation rock-and-roll re-telling and re-vision of the timeless children’s tale with three different pigs in a similar scenario.
“And the moral of the story is, a band with no talent can easily amuse Idiots, with a stupid, puppet show.”
It was a time before widespread internet coverage. You couldn’t just hit up Amazon. There were no streaming services. If you wanted something like a book or a CD or record you had to go out into the world to find it and then confront that mythical creature called a cashier. It made life feel more like an adventure.
I found my copy of the Cereal Killer Soundtrack one hundred miles from home at the Tape World store in St. Clair, Illinois. It was music that made my parents complain, and that was good enough for me. So, it played in heavy rotation at my house for a while, alongside Eazy-E’s Eazy-Duz-It.
The utter nonsense spoke to my goofy young soul. The cassette that I bought still said “Green Jellö,” — pre-Kraft Foods lawsuit. Kraft Foods, the large faceless, keepers of the tangy zip of a Miracle Whip decided to “unsubscribe” from its association with the band.
All copies following that madness were labeled “Green Jellÿ.” The spelling changed but both derivations are pronounced the same way. A wonderfully constructed joke, damn the man! Like many of those quirky bands that happened to be in the right place at the right time in popular music history, Green Jellÿ pulled forward and created a cult of comedic fan rockers.
Then as the years ticked by rock just became a comedy. I cite the examples of the bands Creed and Sugar Ray. One of these bands was sued by fans for putting on a shitty concert. First time ever! Let’s have some fun and everyone research it on the Göögles OR you can guess now!
We hear it now, some of us say it now just like this, the advancing geezers that we are becoming:
“Well, goddammit! Back in the days of the smoky eye-shadowed remains of the L.A. metal scene and into the angst propelled sounds of the Seattle Invasion, when your dad was still learning which end of your mama smelled the worse, we had real rock-and-roll bands with real rock-and-roll hair dos and rock-and-roll boots and suddenly there was an Anarchy in Bedrock!”
Green Jellÿ has occupied its own corner of hard rock, in the same neighborhood of the band GWAR. Incorporating over-the-top wacky stage antics and self-belittling humor. Green Jellÿ mocks their own “shitty talent” and everyone else’s as well. However, their aesthetic is minorly contradictory, to profess being the “world’s worst band” but at the same time emitting such brilliant comedic jive and top-notch musical prowess.
Bill Manspeaker, the lead singer (AKA Moronic Dictator, Shitman, Marshall “Duh” Staxxx) for the group through its entire existence, has claimed that at least 250 people have come and gone from the band over the years. Notable members of the band include Maynard James Keenan and Danny Carey of the band Tool.
Even their musical theme of “Green Jellÿ sucks!” is incongruous. Their most loyal fans will happily sing about how much the band sucks. They get the joke, they are the joke. They know they don’t suck; their fans know that they don’t suck and if you are not a complete dick, you will also realize that after reading this article and consulting the listening examples that I provide, that they do not suck at all, but they do suck for real. A listener must open their 3rd, 4th, and 5th eye (it’s found in the back) to the reality of shitheaded brilliance.
You might as well say it now. Say it! Do It now! Go to your disgusting, little oval-shaped bathroom mirror, scrape off the dried zits and boogers and affirm this very notion to yourself!
“I accept shitheaded brilliance” – is now your new mantra.
Throughout the band’s many configurations they have never been lightweights in dexterous rocking out, they are also cham-PEENS in the “getting your attention department.” Forty years after the original band formed, it now bursts forth and emerges from the wall, a little cut and beat up and yes, slightly aged, covered in plaster and dust then continues directly into your face with their latest bit of work.
Green Jellÿ returns after thirteen years with their fifth album Garbage Band Kids, and it proves to be another satire driven triumph. A few surprises include guest appearances from Wink Martindale and the Trailer Park Boys. Can you even imagine?
A record so important that timeless broadcasting legend Wink Martindale is more or less compelled to participate! I mean, that is pretty important. This carnival ride starts in the gear of heavy duty and keeps a large foot firmly pressing the pedal to the floor.
The fun begins on side A with the opening throes of “Pukebox.” It is an important opener. A self-acknowledged and self-indulgent reassurance that they, Green Jellÿ, are the undisputed top doggies when it comes to musical parody.
“Pukebox, Pukebox, we hate you and if you got a brain, you say fuck you too.”
The refrain is sung forth with the ferocity of a tiger and the amazing unique humor of Bill Manspeaker. While you listen, you feel the scene get dramatic when Manspeaker throws down the gauntlet on legendary Weird Al Yankovic, demanding him to take part in a “parody smackdown.” It is cartoonish, it is colorful, it is foam rubber costumes – Green Jellÿ still quiets that angst ridden part of my soul. Life is short. Crank up the tunes! Stop taking everything so seriously.
“Puppet head partying every day! Punk’s not dead, it just smells that way!
Garbage Band Kids continues with a repertoire of tunes dripping with the humor and musical aptitude of Green Jellÿ. There is the “Silence of The Squarepants” an embellishment of the original “Squarepants Theme” that suggests those famous Krabby patties aren’t what they seem.
The album carries a formidable stank of punk rock and the attitude is carefree. Especially in a song like “Fuxt It!”
“Now your world’s upside down and it’s got you screwed! But life’s a bitch, fuck it, I mean what can you do?”
Altogether, Green Jellÿ have returned and have proved once again to be brilliant shitheads and punk veterans who still rock out as they did back in the day. This writer found the record to be rather refreshing, especially considering the other options out there these days. Blechhh! Life is currently engulfed in so much seriousness and bad music. Garbage Band Kids gives the finger and lifts a mirror to a society acting out in the name of significant chronic dumbassery by engaging themselves in significant chronic dumbassery. Life is finite. Embrace the chaos but lead the dance. There are no clocks in the ready room. Green Jellÿ sucks… – Doc