Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
#352
By Tom Mott
Dead Kennedys
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
Genre: CA Political Punk
Allen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Tom’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Allen’s Highlights:
All of Tom’s plus “Kill the Poor”, the punk pop single that never was.
Tom’s Highlights:
When Ya Get Drafted
Let's Lynch the Landlord
Chemical Warfare
California Uber Alles
Stealing People's Mail
Funland at the Beach
Holiday in Cambodia
An imagined scene:
Jello: "We'll hide the good stuff three tracks in, so the 'suits' don't censor it.”
The band: "But Jello, it's our record company.”
This gets a 4.5 IN SPITE OF JELLO BIAFRA. I get it. You can't have The Police without Sting. But he's still fucking annoying. I don't mean viscerally. I like his warbly vibrato voice. But it's like that Onion article about being stuck sitting next to him on a cross-country plane flight for five hours while he explains ... everything. He's too on the nose. "Kill The Poor." Get it? Get it? Ha ha. But sometimes you gotta be. Nazi Punks Fuck Off! Full stop. Who thought that would be timely in 2020? So there's that tension.
The band is KILLER. AWESOME. Meth-fueled Sex Pistols garage surf mosh pit madness. And I cannot overstate how jaw-dropping it was to simply be called the Dead Kennedys in 1980. Or 1984 even. Mad Magazine caliber mind-blowing-ness. And the band cranks like Motorhead, just ripping through the tracks. But then we have to contend with Jello's excesses.
Christgau compared Biafra to Tiny Tim, if Tiny Tim were an out of work actor. Aww, now I feel bad.
Track by track:
It starts oddly weak. Who knows. I was underwhelmed by the first two tracks. And then it kicks in. When Ya Get Drafted is a 1:24 slab of thrash. With 60s spy shit.
Let's Lynch the Landlord: a greasy garage rock stomper. fantastic.
Drug Me: A meth-overdose in the Haunted Mansion.
Your Emotions: A generic, but fun, mosher
Chemical Warfare: Yaaaaaaaaaaaah! One of the longest songs on the album but it feels like one of the shortest.Until 1:55 and then it jumps the shark and I remember why I really don't want Jello Biafra to be in my wedding party. And then at 2:13 they salvage it. But fuhhhhhhh. Those 18 seconds nearly destroy the album. Does the rest of the band hate him?
California Uber Alles: ❤ Such a great song. Even though I like Jerry Brown!
I Kill Children: exciting old school punk clanging with shouted jibbar-jabber. Not a bad thing.
Stealing People's Mail: I do no approve of this message! But super fun mosh-pit fuck-you-up music.
Funland at the Beach: mosh pit! Ill in the Head: theatrical most pit! smash the thespians!
Holiday in Cambodia: twice as long as any other song on the album. And yes! A standout. Weird. Beyond punk.
Viva Las Vegas: Here you go. The band loves James Lee Burton and just wants to kick ass. This is psycho billy. And Jello doesn't know how to play it except oozingly ironic -- like Mick doing his country thang -- and he just fucking ruins it. My 13-year-old self would've lapped it up. Don't forget the other SF punks! The Avengers! The Weirdos!
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