Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#49: King Missile “Detachable Penis”
King Missile’s brand of smartass, laconic folk fit a small population of dorm-room stoners like a glove. Speak-singing frontman John S. Hall was just the kind of New York City weirdo that most of America feared and loathed, full of songs like “The Boy Who Ate Lasagna And Flew Over A Church” and “Double Fucked By 2 Black Studs.” Hall was aided and abetted by producer/musician Kramer, the proprietor of Shimmy Disc, the only label deranged and desperate enough to release King Missile’s jackpots of filth—at least until the band signed to Atlantic in 1991. We prefer pointed art-fag critique “Sensitive Artist” to 1992’s “Detachable Penis” (there’s something just a little too Bloodhound Gang about dick songs), but it’s the dick video that survives on YouTube. Go figure.
