The Frogs Reboot; Evan Dando Hopping On

The Frogs were one of the more curious footnotes of the late ’80s alt-rock scene – hetero brothers from Milwaukee who dressed like Elton John raiding a thrift store and who caused a mini-kerfuffle with It’s Only Right and Natural, a concept album touting gay supremacy. Inexplicably they won fans and opening slots from the likes of Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins, but when they tried to dress in blackface for follow-up album Racially Yours even their champions flinched.

The fun seemed to end when Dennis Flemion drowned while swimming on a Wisconsin lake in 2012, but brother Jimmy has given the Frogs new legs. 1st, an unreleased 1986 album predating their existing catalog, hits the streets on April 3. With titles like “Swamp Broad” and “I Killed ‘Em White Guy” it seems the Flemions’ lyrical sophistication had already blossomed. And the Evan Dando of Frogs contemporaries the Lemonheads has signed on to support Jimmy on drums for a week of February west coast live dates. No word on whether those ridiculous silver angel wings have survived the past 30 years in the closet.