It’s one thing to wonder if a band like Milwaukee’s The Frogs could exist today—they couldn’t—but it’s another thing to wonder how a band like The Frogs existed at all. Brothers Jimmy and Dennis Flemion formed the aggressively lo-fi and gleefully offensive alt-rock band in 1980. The Frogs’ proper recording career began in 1988 with a self-titled album, and it wasn’t long before they garnered the adoration of ’90s icons like Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder, Billy Corgan, and Beck. National attention and success followed. All this from a band that boasted 10-second improv songs like “Who’s Sucking On Grandpa’s Balls Since Grandma Ain’t Home Tonight?”
Speaking of that ditty, the album from whence it came, 1996’s My Daughter The Broad, is being treated to a 30th anniversary vinyl reissue. The album was originally released by Matador Records; Milwaukee-based “micro-indie” label Foreign Leisure Records will unleash the double LP—complete with eight bonus tracks—on September 11. You can preorder it NOW.
Finally, The Frogs’ full “Grandma” suite—including “Grandma Sitting In The Corner With A Penis In Her Hand Going ‘No, No, No, No, No,'”—will get a chance to shine on limited-edition colored vinyl.
The Frogs soldiered on after their ’90s brush with fame, releasing records like 2000’s controversial Racially Yours, and 2001’s (relatively) more conventional Hopscotch Lollipop Sunday Surprise. Dennis Flemion died in 2012, and Jimmy Flemion has sporadicly played shows and performed new and old material on YouTube in the years since. A long-in-the-works documentary on the band is expected in the future.
“What do you do when one day your brother is here one day and the next day, he’s not?” Jimmy says in advance of My Daughter The Broad‘s reissue. “You honor him and yourself by always holding yourself to the high standards that he wanted for us and you give thanks for the blessings that have happened in our careers.”
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