The Frogs. (Edit -- Dennis Flemion RIP)

"Who is righteous
What is bold...
Because I'm BALD!"

01 Cherub Rock

02 Rhinoceros/Hey Joe

03 Disarm/Gylcerine

04 I Am One/Immigrant Song/L.A. Woman/Fame/Pets

05 Luna/Jane Says

06 Silverfuck/Violet/Smells Like Teen Spirit/Today/Baba O'Riley/Yer Blues

07 (Cobain's Killer -> Courtney)

08 Sleep On The Street

09 Raped/Weird On the Avenue

10 The Longing Goes Away

11 Fuck Off

12 Whisper

13 Bad Daddy

14 Adam & Steve (with Steve Albini references)

Not defending assholes being assholes. Just in the Frogs' case, it helps to know a bit about their history.

M@tt, was Dennis mean to you after the yoga thing?

...anyway i prolly should just shut up, maybe they are great dudes or something, i just got a sort of assholey "pro" vibe from them, might be an abberation or just me being over-sensitive...carry on!

I just found It's Only Right & Natural on vinyl at my store. Worth getting?

um , YES!!

seriously, grab it before someone else does..

Alright, thanks! The store-owner's ignorance is paying off. Its only within 5 - 8 dollars (forget exactly). Unless thats similar to what it goes for online... Its too early I can't remember much.

You sleazy prostitute!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Frogs-Its-Only-Right-and-Natural-LP-/300462655268?pt=Music_on_Vinyl&hash=item45f4f84724#ht_500wt_1154

i only have Hopscotch.. "The Longing Goes Away" sounds like it could have been a huge song really, is it actually deadpan serious?

Unprompted, my sister is playing Bananimals. "I'm EVIL Jack!"

My Daughter the Broad rather. It's all good.

WHERE'S JERRY LEWIS
WHEN YOU NEED THE MAN?

La da da da
La da da dee
La da da dum dum

wtf this alb is amazn.. i never knew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7LS_x_px48

Here comes the watermelon seed up my snoot snout
And that's yr asshole, your snoot snout

What the! Dennis Flemion died over the weekend!

http://www.fox11online.com/dpp/news/wisconsin/divers-continue-their-search-for-missing-swimmer-in-a-racine-county-lake

awful news!!

From Gerard Cosloy:

http://www.matadorrecords.com/matablog/2012/07/09/dennis-flemion/

this sucks.

the news, not the frogs.

So I never told this story here but -- upthread I talk about randomly seeing them in San Diego. A few days later I was in Seattle and so donut bitch/Mackro and I went to see them again, part of the same tour. So they get to the "Hot Cock Annie" performance, which of course is the cue for them to invite an audience member onstage to sing the song if they feel so bold. First guy up is drunk as hell and nothing really happens, he just semi sings things and all. Dennis, without a missing a beat (neither did anyone else on stage, just playing along), dares the guy to drop his pants if he's not going to do anything else. So the dude turns to face him and does so. Again, without missing a beat, Dennis turns his head and scrunches up his face/sticks out his tongue in a classic "EURGH!" look, then turns back and says "That looks like something that should be at the county fair!"

I emailed Dennis in about 1999 (I THINK it was him and not Jimmy) just to see if he'd write back and he said something like "Write back? Send me $10 and I'll send you a live tape that will make your ass stand on end". I think I was asking them if they were ever going to come to the UK.

The first time my future wife and I exchanged emails in 2003, she attached an mp3 of 'Hot Cock Annie'.

RIP.

I spoke to one of em on the phone once. Never cared for the records.

or the 'hilarious' gay shtick

wow, terrible news. i've actually been to that lake. RIP dude :(

There was certainly a stretch of my life in the late 1980′s in which you were not leaving my apartment if you hadn’t heard “I’ve Done Drugs (Out Of The Mist)” at least once. I suspect there’s others who have similar stories.

give or take two decades I hear GC loud and clear right here

RIP

Fuck RIP Dennis

I'm very sad to hear this news. I've always enjoyed The Frogs a lot since my copy of the Smashing Pumpkins Vieuphoria VHS led me to their twisted genius in my formative years. I was obsessed with their short segment.

I didn't quite understand what was going on in those three short minutes, but I loved it!

I am listening to the Frogs from a rehearsal tape they did for a show opening up for the Smashing Pumpkins in 1997...doing Smashing Pumpkins songs, very much in their style.

Is this findable? That sounds incredible.

I saw them only once, at a pretty weird show at that old place The Cooler in the meatpacking district. The Rapture were opening, which made for a pretty oddly mixed crowd in the heady days of 2001 or whatever

Now that I think about it, I think maybe Evan Dando came up and played as well. I can't find any record of this show online anywhere. It was really fun.

This is terrible news. I never saw them live.

(Two separate observations, obv., just had no Frogs stories to share)

After owning It's Only Right & Natural on LP for 10 years now I can officially say I don't understand the appeal beyond being a silly novelty record. The way people talk about it I always assumed it was supposed to transcend that. I suppose at this point I need it explained to me.

Hm, well, maybe this'll help? I posted it on FB just now along with some photos I took:

So the other night, I saw the Frogs, or rather the current version -- Jimmy Flemion plus, on about half the tracks either on guitar or drums, Evan Dando. Honestly didn't know what to expect, or even how to feel about them these days, though I'd seen them a couple of times back in the 2000s, wrote a number of AMG reviews, etc. My sis, however, is a massive fan, and I thought, well, why not? Just the other day a thread was revived on ILX wondering if it was all just cheap novelty in the end, and I've been pondering more with time and the years about jokes, their goals, who gets to tell whose story and more. And none of those thoughts have gone away.

Still, I gotta say this -- it was really good. Often great. Jimmy came out with a feathery headpiece for the first song -- a cover of Three Dog Night's "One," which, sung as early video of Jimmy and Dennis played behind him, really did feel poignant in new ways. He switched to a hat for the next song -- Evan joined in at that point -- but otherwise appeared for the rest of the set as is, no wings, head shaven, simply dressed nattily enough. And he was in very fine voice throughout -- years ago I called his approach that of a 'sweetly vile troubadour' and I'll stand by that, positively. But it makes the heartfelt songs when they appear -- and they did -- all that much more so. (Near the end he did a number about Dennis and his death and the damn thing was really lovely.)

The cover choices were especially intriguing -- doing Bowie's "Starman" made perfect sense, there was always something about them that was _Hunky Dory_-into-Ziggy and Jimmy is absolutely no slouch on guitar in that vein, plus T. Rex's "Cat Black (The Wizard's Hat)" and in the encore a stellar "Sometimes It Snows in April" by Prince. Of course, plenty of _It's Only Right and Natural_ cuts and more besides, and I got a clear sense that any number of older gay couples (and I'm guessing singles) in the crowd loved it all without irony. Who can say?

And it's gotta be said -- Dando's aged very well. (My sister was even more vocal on the matter.) He seemed to have a little frustration with his drumkit and I'm not sure if he normally sits out half the show, but he was great when he was onstage and I was mildly surprised when at one point he sang "It's a Shame About Ray" with backing from Jimmy. I've only ever seen the Lemonheads the once, back on a KROQ summer radio fest bill in 1993, but they did that then, and him doing it now was strange but affecting nostalgia I didn't expect.

So anyway, I bring all this up because per a Twitter post by Jake Fogelnest earlier this afternoon -- I'll link it in comments -- there's apparently a Frogs documentary in the works. I'll be especially interested in seeing that.

(Said Tweet:

Hi, Dennis. We spoke after this tweet (which sadly was your last before you passed away). Wanted to let you and everyone know, OF COURSE they're making a documentary about The Frogs. I just filmed my interview. I'm sure you're pissed it's not done and hasn't already won an Oscar. https://t.co/BJazF5xznp

— Jake Fogelnest (@jakefogelnest) February 21, 2020

Etc.)

So it turns out there's a new Frogs album as such, which apparently had been in the works for a while

https://thefrogs.hearnow.com/

Hi everyone. The Spiritual album is here.
Damaged Goods / Sinned in Reverse.
Out now! Finally. Our album that has been talked about in interviews & the works for the last 30 years. Today digitally available everywhere.

— Jimmy Flemion (@JimmyFlemion) July 7, 2021

It amuses the shit out of me that my "successful fiasco" line about one Frogs concert I attended in Milwaukee is still quoted on Wikipedia for some reason with a cite back to ILM. My proudest moment as a college DJ was getting to play their single "Have a Merry Christmas" over the air across Houston. For some reason at KTRU we had no restrictions on profanity after a certain hour of night, which is weird because our signal covered all of Harris County as far as I was aware. Their music makes me so happy.

that's just FCC broadcast regulations, i believe. when i did radio we were "allowed" to play uncensored music after a certain time of day per the law but they just asked for the station's legal sanity to avoid doing it.

Copy/pasting it would take forever but Jimmy's FB story about the newly expanded digital reissue of It's Only Right and Natural is a read and a half.

Thanks for dropping the post earlier about Damaged Goods/Sinned in Reverse, Ned. I had no idea about its release and bought it immediately when I saw that when I thought of posting in this thread. I've found it pretty rewarding so far although its length means I gave it one thorough listen and since then have been content to have tracks show up on shuffle as they play from my computer and phone playlists.