The 1982 Listening Post - Dead Kennedys - Plastic Surgery Disasters

 Reviewed by Allen Lulu

Released: November 1982 Dead Kennedys Plastic Surgery Disasters Genre: Punk Rating: 5 out of 5 Highlights: Terminal Preppie Well Paid Scientist Buzzbomb Halloween Riot Moon Over Marin On the Frankenchrist review I wrote about how my friend had this record. He bought it on the same day that I bought the 12 inch maxi single of “Beat My Goes” by Adam and the Ants. We loaned each to each other and I have no idea what we were thinking because he lived in Connecticut and I lived in New Jersey. In any case, this was in my possession for months. And I played the shit out of it. The one thing about Jello and the rest is that they were … funny. Sardonic, yes. Caustic, absolutely. But they had a real snide sense of humor. And they had command of the English language. On “Government Flu”, they sing that the “Government flu, flew through you.” And, while they understood the adulation of John Belushi among the upwardly mobile prep set, I still loved the song in spite of my love for John. And not being a prep in any shape or form. Anyway, I’m not going to write a memoir, although I could about this album. I was late to the DK game. In God We Trust, Inc was my first foray and it was a doozy. A focused, acerbic, angry, sarcastic EP that would eventually be bundled with this. So I was prepared for the relentless freight train of Side One. One blistering punk screed after another, attacking suburbans who vacation in mobile homes, bloated yuppies who love gross out humor, a cynical attack on the auto mechanic industry, the golden handcuffs of corporate scientists, the whole thing is comprehensive and intelligent in the same way that most punk wasn’t. But that’s because the band was actually good. Surf punk good. Disciples of The Beach Boys on so much Red Bull they would fall apart if they weren’t all in perfect sync. Take that break on “Buzzbom” where everything stops and Jello blurts, “Buzzbomb cornered at the 7-11.” That’s the entire ethos of every song I’ve ever written. It can be found on that break. The retro-garage fake out that is the intro to “Forest Fire” actually portends what will come on Side Two. Which is … wider. More … like a punk Opus. “Riot” is a breathless anthem for, well, a riot. And it’s … 5 minutes long and it totally works. When Jello whispers “Shit!” At the end of that cinematic guitar break, you feel it. You feel the character he is singing as and about. And then, they all run out of energy cuz the riot is over. It’s a masterwork. And it follows with more paranoia and horror than they had ever achieved before. Side Two ends with the closest they ever came to matching the radio friendly pop craft of “Kill the Poor” on the sad reflection on ocean pollution, “Moon Over Marin”. It’s truly bizarre to hear Jello approximate a melody, but, it works. It’s a masterpiece.

The 1980 Listening Post - Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables

 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!

https://open.spotify.com/album/5cADwrInLLhrjsXSmEPE3E?si=HfTIWDpHTviJq2ncLrHUmw

The 1986 Listening Post - Dead Kennedys - Bedtime for Democracy

Dead Kennedys - Bedtime for Democracy

#515

November 1986

Dead Kennedys

Bedtime for Democracy

Genre: Hardcore

3.25 out of 5

Highlights:

Dear Abby

I Spy

Requisite 80s cover: “Take This Job and Shove It”. Opening with this, instead of ending it the way they did with “Viva Las Vegas” just a few years before, suggests they don’t have a lot of faith in this thing. 

I was never really into “punk” but I adored Dead Kennedys. In God We Trust, Inc. Plastic Surgery Disasters. Even Frankenchrist. For some reason it took me over 2 decades to get to Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables.  I think it’s the combination surf punk mania and sardonic wit + Jello’s delivery…it all works for me.

Bedtime didn’t the first time around. I don’t know what I was expecting. 

When I lived in the valley, around 1992, my wife and I were clearing out our rental as we bought a ranch in Lancaster and, on the last days there my neighbor in the back came in to have a beer and hang out. he was with his pals. They drank, we talked. I didn’t have a lot of time. I don’t know who the neighbor was. I mean, I can’t recall his name. He was a musician and he might have turned out to be someone of renown but I have no idea. For all I know it was Art Alexakis. It looked like him, in retrospect. 

I was sitting on the empty floor where our pot bellied pigs used to roam (I had a pig selling business for a few years. More stuff to know about Allen!) talking with a guy named Darren. We shared some stuff about music that we liked. Toward the end he mentioned that he played with Red Hot Chili Peppers for a spell but I wasn’t an RHCP fan. 

That was DH Peligro. 

We didn’t talk about DKs. I wish I did. 

This record is fine. But, it’s one record too much. The bloom is off these guys and its time for us all to grow up. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/bedtime-for-democracy/41659995

The 1985 Listening Post - Dead Kennedys - Frankenchrist

Dead Kennedys - Frankenchrist

#379/1015

October 1 1985

Dead Kennedys

Frankenchrist

Genre: Punk

4.75 out of 5

Highlights:

Chicken Farm

Jock-O-Rama

MTV Get Off the Air

At My Job

I wrote about the PMRC in the Purple Rain review. (You can search it) So I won’t go over it again. But this was a record that was at the forefront.

Now, here’s the thing: My first Dead Kennedys record was In God We Trust, Inc. Which was PERFECT for me. Short, assertive, smart and anti-corporate religion. Boy was that in my wheelhouse. 

My friend, Peter, bought Plastic Surgery Disasters during a record store trip and I borrowed it for months. (I got Adam Ant’s Prince Charming the same day and did the same thing).

I eventually owned that record myself. 

It took me a couple decades to get Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables which I bought at a record store on melrose on an evening that I was heading down to Long Beach to visit my 10 year old daughter in a hospital stay. So…16 years ago. I was slow to that. Why? I mean, I was SUCH a DKs fan. 

Because of Frankenchrist. I bought this almost immediately and it was a fucking challenge to like. (I did eventually get Bedtime for Democracy but I listened to it once and never tried it again).

It was Frankenchrist that put Jello and the guys in my rearview. 

And I haven’t listened to it since 1985 in my dorm.

Until now. 

And…?

You know what? It’s a pretty devilish album. It’s hauntingly angry. It’s pedantic and didactic and, sure. By this time Jello must have fallen more and more in love with his pontificating. By the this came out I was probably done with my angry-wannabe hardcore punk phase. I mean, how long could that last, really? You gotta outgrow that shit, son. 

As an adult…I don’t gravitate to it, musically, although it’s still the most surf-punk melodic of all the punks this side of Dee Dee Ramone. “A Growing Boy Needs His Lunch” is what you get when The Cramps decide to go on an actual murder spree. 

But, boy howdy do we need a Dead Kennedy’s type of musical insurrection at this time, no?

As we live in fear of AI taking over and Robots replacing all of us, I think it’s time we reflect on “Soup is Good Food”, which is a 34 year old song that sings about this exact problem. 

At the time I thought “MTV Get Off the Air” was an attack at low hanging fruit, and also, I liked MTV. Now I realize, after listening to 1000+ albums from this era just how insidiously bad the influence of MTV was. The kind of middling MOR shit that they foisted up on us was deserving of this kind of attack. And DKs take on it is hilarious and spot on. 

This is the most diverse collection from the guys so far and, in retrospected, it was one of their most dynamic. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/frankenchrist/41374482