NerfLesson #1: a Rush t-shirt won't get you laid

It’s been over a year since Nerf Herder released “How To Meet Girls” on Honest Don’s Records, and in that time the desire for more of my favorite nerd rockers has only been satisfied in scarce NerfMorsels. I saw them live three times, found some rare songs floating around the Internet, and knew the back way to get into their website while it was down. Then the comfort of Napster was gone, the guys toured Europe, the website became defunct (who knows what the hell is going on), and My E.P. was delayed for almost two months past its release date (what’s new?).

But now I can sleep easy since I have my very own copy of the hard-to-find “My E.P.” (on Joey Cape’s My Records label – www.myrecords.com ). It was well worth the wait from the release of the last album, but of course a full-length album is in order soon for all my pain and suffering (note to Parry).

“My E.P.” features six listed tracks plus one bonus track (of which I don’t know the name). I can’t say that all of them pack the same kind of punch that “Pantera Fans In Love” or “Golf Shirt” do, but there are a couple of songs that really stand out on this EP. I have to list my favorite song first, which is a classic just for the title alone:


Track 6 - I’ve Got a Boner For Christmas
Any time a song pokes fun at this absurd holiday, I get happy (see my review of the Vandals’ “Oi To the World”). Nerf Herder came out with a bunch of Xmas songs a while ago on mp3.com under the name Nerf Christmas Rockers, but I missed that era and therefore only have access to whatever songs float around through peer-to-peer. So far, all I have managed to download is “Santa’s Got a Mullet”, so I was ecstatic that Boner for Xmas was on this new ep. Here, Nerf Herder shows us how the holidays SHOULD be celebrated:

All year we’ve been in a rut,
This time let’s do it in the butt,
I’ve got a boner for Christmas


Track 2 - Love Sandwich
I actually saw them perform this song live in Mesa, AZ at the Nile Theatre. This is what started my craving for new Nerf Herder material – the funky love sandwich trip. This song comes close to the lewd perfection of the earlier songs on their self-titled debut album in 1996. It’s rockin’, it’s got a dirty bass rhythm, it’s funky. Check the fly Parry Gripp lyrics:

Let me tell you ‘bout the
funky love sandwich
Me and Steve are the bread,
And you’re the meat b!tch!


Some of my other favorite songs on this ep are Hotel California, which plays a little bit on the chorus from the popular Eagles song, and High School which is a slow ode about those tough lessons learned in high school (like not jerking off behind the backstop). I found The Sportsman Bar to be the She’s a Sleestak of “My E.P.” (in other words, I skip past it when listening to the cd) and would have rather seen Siegfried and Roy make it onto this album (a funny track taken off “How To Meet Girls”). But the Bonus Track could possibly be worth the purchase price of this cd alone. It’s a sad acoustic song about a girl caught up in the Hollywood lifestyle, yet it has the true mark of Parry Gripp’s wit in the lyrics:

Celebrities, they come and they go
One minute you’re Carey Grant
The next you’re Scott Baio

I once made the mistake of putting a Nerf Herder cd into my mom’s car stereo. She said, “these are dumbest lyrics I’ve ever heard, they’re so negative.”

Exactly. Which is why I love Nerf Herder and recommend them to everyone I know. They take that which is regarded with seriousness and turn it into a huge joke, but they do it so cleverly that one can’t help but laugh at the absurdity.

Unless you have no sense of humor, in which case you should just pick up a Jackson Browne album on your way home from work.