When looking back at Middle School, I find a treasure trove of moments that were either formative, regretful, or both. It’s one of those periods where you begin to discover yourself and it comes with experimenting in such ways that qualify as “annoying kids.” It’s the moment where you assume Jackass is high art and the allure of an R-Rated movie still felt special. So much of that period was compensating, though it was formative for the music I would come to love in high school, inspiring the bands that I would see at random clubs around Southern California. With that said, there’s really only two particular albums that I bought from the now nonexistent Borders Bookstore that resonated: The Clash’s “London Calling” and Dead Kennedys’ “Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables.”
One day I will discuss how formative “London Calling” still is for me, but for now, I will focus on the one record I bought almost like a juvenile sense of protest. We had free-dress one day and my father thought it would be funny if I wore a Dead Kennedys shirt as some empty gesture towards teacher Mrs. Kennedy, who to my knowledge I never actually spent much time with. Nothing happened, though there was a suggestion that Mrs. Kennedy actually liked the band. Thankfully the record has lasted a lot better than this.
Then again, that’s exactly the best way to consume the record. There is a part of me that always knew it was satire. I kind of gravitated to punk because it was loud, aggressive, and pointlessly mean. I would never see myself in a mosh-pit, but it was a great way to get energy out. While I’ve listened to this particular record dozens of times, I think preparing for this column was the first time that I realized its impact as satire. There was something more going on during songs like “Kill the Poor” and “I Kill Children.” Singer Jello Biafra was raising his eyebrows and poking you in the ribs. He wasn’t a murderer, just a subversive commentator.
At the time, there was one thing, in particular, that was exciting about the band, especially in relation to every other punk band that I was listening to. Whereas most stuck to the fast and loud formula, the thing that made them appealing was the effort to make everything sound nastier. They didn’t do this with distortion and melodies that blurred the notes together. Every song felt like it was formulated like a parody of a pop song, including the funniest guitar solos imaginable from East Bay Ray. I’ve spent many evenings with the solo from “Let’s Lynch the Landlord” stuck in my head because it managed to feel like a sarcastic surf riff. What makes it funnier is the idea of imagining Biafra as a surfer complaining while playing a stoned-out surfer dude. The level of kitsch is infectious, and you don’t realize it when you’re young.
One thing that has become interesting this time around was analyzing it from the perspective of contemporary politics. “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables” came out in 1980, near the tail-end of the original wave of punk. The Sex Pistols had burned out and the rise of west coast nihilism was about to rise with bands like X and Germs. Still, I never thought to think of this as a parody of The Jimmy Carter Administration, an era that many would see as starting with a promise to break free of Post-Watergate controversy only to end with its own form of malaise and stagflation. So much of the media from this time makes sense as the final waves of Nixon and Ford colliding with a changing tide, and nobody was happy. While I love Carter, I get where Dead Kennedys were coming from.
In fact, I think that I finally got what their name actually means. They were satirists who made music like the warped corpses of The John F. Kennedy Administration. By heightening the politically incorrect lyrics, they were able to make better comments on the social issues of the day. It’s the type of energy that only young people can really pull off, and thankfully they did so with a strong backing band. The guitar is polished. Biafra sounds like a rockabilly singer on a melted disc. Everything sounds so much fun, which feels like a strange antithesis when you realize how gleeful “When Ya Get Drafted” sounds in its brevity, plowing through with penchant sarcasm that may keep some from getting the point.
That is of course something to consider. While punk was about being loud and opinionated, the best of bands were often kindhearted deep down. They understood the music as escapism, even if I watch footage from old concerts and feel like there are people being buried under crowds. What’s impressive is that because their humor went over some people’s heads (not uncommon for the genre), they would later release a definitive track against hatred. You may have seen it recently in Green Room (2015). “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” feels like a song that still resonates, if just because otherwise, you’re opening yourself up to negative associations.
The thing that is great is how “Kill the Poor” starts with the sound of a military march before breaking into some chintzy R&B repetition of the title that makes it sound like a love song. It’s the idea that there are too many people in the world and there’s a need for population control. This was before Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” featured Ozymandias preaching similar genocide, which makes you understand just how much impact The Vietnam War had on people’s perception of violence. It’s a theme that’s all over this album, and yet it somehow continues to feel refreshed every now and then. It’s why it’s still considered one of the best punk albums while I’d argue that The Sex Pistols’ “Nevermind the Bollocks” feels cartoonish and fake.
I think it’s amazing how much of the album worked for me as a teenager even if I was still a decade off from beginning to understand The Vietnam War. I understood the turmoil, but not the reason behind it. Maybe I saw connections to The War on Terrorism, but in all honesty, the band was just that tight. I love every East Bay Ray solo on this album. His riffs are so amusing that Biafra almost doesn’t need to be sarcastic for the point to get across. Everything is done in this fun switch on what we already know.
With that said, there’s an awful lot of songs on here that I’d argue are filler. As I grow older, the hits continue to pop, but then you get songs like “Forward to Death” or “Drug Me” and I’m kind of playing through the motions. I’m sure they hold deeper significance, but I’d rather just get to “Stealing People’s Mail,” which has one of my favorite choruses on the album, just finding a glitching guitar playing underneath Biafra reading off the mail he stole, including the idea that “we’ve got relationships with your friends!” It couldn’t have predicted the era of identity theft, and yet this song feels like driving 40 mph and knocking over mailboxes with a bat. They’re that exhilarating.
Closing out Side One is another standout with “Chemical Warfare.” What I love about Dead Kennedys here is that they sound like they’re telling these personal stories, that they’re anarchists who would build pipe-bombs and celebrate the destruction of their foes. Again, it’s easy to see it as some commentary on war, but I think that’s to ignore what works. Towards the end, the guitar plays a cutesy childlike riff before cutting to silence, hearing a cast of characters comically choking on gas as bassist Klaud Flouride plays the manic line underneath. It’s a fun way for the first half to self-destruct, even with a repetitive chorus that is the most demonic.
On Side Two is really only three songs that I would consider essential of the seven. The rest is good, but it may be too shifting into commentary or jokes that haven’t aged well. There’s of course “Stealing People’s Mail” along with “Holiday in Cambodia” and, a song that I’ve continually thought about for a near two decades now: “California Über Alles.”
There’s a lot to unpack with “California Über Alles,” whether it be this idea of Governor Jerry Brown creating a liberal version of fascism with his “Suede Denim Secret Police” or just the idea of Brown in general. I don’t expect the other 49 states or six other continents to get it, but Brown is a figure who would just not go away. While I’m sure he’s an efficient politician, I’ve been personally annoyed with him most of my life, even propping up for a SECOND run as governor between 2011 and 2019. Otherwise, he’s someone who’s practically run for president in every noteworthy election where Democrats won. He was there for Carter and later Bill Clinton. He felt like the fetch of candidates. He was just not going to happen.
This song may be subliminally why I didn’t really like him. As I read in a Carter campaign book, he was the type of guy who seemed to be about free-love and wore sandals. I know he didn’t do that in office, but it’s a hard image to escape. I love how this is a story about how he “always smiles and never frowns.” It’s easy to see him as an enemy, especially as he runs mad with power. If anything, this was a play on the idea that politicians become over-controlling with their message, and this is the nightmare that conservatives have with liberals. It’s one thing to preach unity, but to enforce it is another manner.
“Holiday in Cambodia” may be their best song in general, becoming an epic about humanity violations under the Pol Pot regime. It’s the one thing that I understood from the beginning as holding some deeper meaning. Underneath the echoing guitar that was prodding with mystery, you can find Biafra shifting his vocals slightly with concern. He begins by saying “Don’t forget to pack a wife!” creating a satire on tourism commercials. By the end, he’s trying to justify inhumanity over the chorus, featuring a breakdown that just finds him slowly repeating “Pol Pot” over and over, building to a marching chorus, likely of his slave camps.
That’s what’s brilliant about “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables.” It’s a satirical take that can be mistaken for a dangerous version of Top 40. These were the protests songs to counterbalance the tamer Creedence Clearwater Revival selections. These were ones that attempted to understand the madness within the corruption, and it works very well here. Even the repurposed closer of “Viva Las Vegas” feels like some commentary on addiction struggles. It’s still funny, but given everything we’ve been through, it’s a delusional piece of escapism.
I’ve only ever heard one other album from them with “Bedtime for Democracy.” I was familiar with their desire to court controversy, constantly making comedic satire that often pushed limits of decency. The only thing that I can say is that by 1986, I feel like they had run their course and they knew it. That album is more of a direct commentary on The Ronald Reagan Administration, and it feels like they’re running out of things to say. They’re playing jazz songs by this point, and it feels like the policy of live fast and die young was rarely truer. I wonder if stopping here is a good idea.
After all, their second album was mostly outtakes. Their days of polished music was coming to a close. They weren’t out of ideas, but they couldn’t stay true to their gimmick for much longer. I have no idea what to expect there, though I recognize their significance to the genre writ large. Biafra hasn’t exactly given up his subversive habits with later bands. He’s even had a decent film career, including a cameo in the great The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019). What I love is that this album will always feel like the merge between a band optimistic about their future while being cynical about the world they live in. It’s something you can only have in your teens and 20s. It may be why this is the only record anyone ever talks about with them. Still, I’m grateful that it exists at all.
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