(from http://www.allmusic.com/artist/MN0000140891/biography)
During their heyday in the late '80s, the Dead Milkmen led a crop of college-radio jokesters that also included Mojo Nixon, King Missile, and Too Much Joy, among others. Playing a basic, happily amateurish brand of punk-pop, the Milkmen skewered popular culture, indie trend-followers, and the intellectually challenged, while frequently indulging their taste for tastelessness. Critics alternately praised and dismissed the band as geeky, juvenile wiseasses -- virtually every review seemed to contain the word "sophomoric," and either you found them funny or you didn't. But despite the mixed reviews, the Milkmen earned a devoted cult following (which famously included Detroit Tigers utility infielder Jim Walewander), a few novelty hits on college radio, and even an MTV hit with "Punk Rock Girl." As polarizing as their sense of humor was among critics, it was what fans wanted and came to expect, and attempts to move into more genuine, serious territory during the '90s effectively spelled the end of the band. Oddly enough, by that time, they were exerting at least a small measure of influence -- perhaps more than any of their peers, they paved the way for the legion of smart-assed geek-rockers who ruled alternative radio for a brief period in the mid-'90s. . . The Dead Milkmen were formed at Philadelphia's Temple University in 1983. . . Over the next year or two, the Milkmen recorded several live, self-released cassettes, and achieved considerable local notoriety with a live radio performance in 1984. They earned some attention in the punk magazine Maximumrocknroll, and the resulting buzz helped them land a deal with Restless Records subsidiary Fever. In 1985, they issued their debut album, Big Lizard in My Backyard, which consisted mostly of material from their cassette releases. . . Poised for something vaguely resembling a breakthrough, the Milkmen expanded their cult following even further with 1988's Beelzebubba. . . the album received a mixed response from fans, some of whom praised the beefed-up production but others of whom found the material erratic; in any case, it stalled some of the band's momentum. . . Dead Milkmen found themselves hunting for a new label after Metaphysical Graffiti. They wound up on the Disney-run Hollywood Records, and in an even more bizarre twist, elected to play things mostly straight -- with no pressure from the company to do so -- on their 1992 label debut, Soul Rotation. . . The Milkmen did celebrate their tenth anniversary in 1993 by self-releasing Now We Are 10, a CD compilation of some of their early cassette-only recordings. They returned to Restless Records for 1994's Chaos Rules: Live at the Trocadero, a run through some of their best-known songs, and offered the new studio set Stoney's Extra Stout (Pig) in 1995. It was virtually ignored, and the Milkmen elected to disband. All the members got day jobs, and most continued in music on a local basis in Philadelphia. . . Restless issued the career retrospective Death Rides a Pale Cow (titled after one of their early cassettes) in 1997, and 2003 brought Now We Are 20, an expanded reissue of Now We Are 10 given wider release by Restless. . ."
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