Off-Ramp's Song of the Week celebrates The Muffs' Saturday concert at the Whiskey a Go Go, with the Bangles. (The Bangles play with The Pandoras Thursday, and The Las on Friday.)

The Muffs -- Kim Shattuck, Roy McDonald, and Ronnie Barnett -- formed in LA in 1991 and have so far made six albums. "The Muffs came up in the ‘90s," Chris Conaton writes on  popmatters.com, "where Shattuck’s sugary pop hooks and punky attitude nestled right in with the pop-punk explosion. That explosion never really translated into major success for the band, whose only mainstream claim to fame was their cover of 'Kids in America' for the soundtrack to the movie 'Clueless.'"

You play follow the leader
And I don't understand
Why you want to spend your life
With that awful man

He only wants you for one thing
He'll have some more if he can
And now you want to spend your life
With that awful man

And he doesn't mean it when he says he loves you so
Dedicated to himself as if you didn't know

And he doesn't mean it when he says he loves you so
Dedicated to himself as if you didn't know

You play follow the leader
And I don't understand
Why you want to spend your life with that awful man
Why you want to spend your life with that awful man
Why you want to spend your life with that awful man

Your father left you
And no one loves you
And you'll take it

                                        -- The Muffs, "That Awful Man"

"That Awful Man" -- which is basically every good friend's response to the wedding they don't want to stand up in -- is from 1997's "Happy Birthday to Me."

The Real "That Awful Man"

I have a warm spot for the song because it's one of the songs I performed with my friend Greg Holmbeck when we had a band called Belt in The Twin Cities in the late 1990s.

John plays "That Awful Man" by: The Muffs from Off-Ramp KPCC on Vimeo.

The Bangles and The Muffs perform Dec. 10 at the Whiskey a Go Go.

Rabe videography by Taylor Orci