With the lack of real Punk nowadays I thought I'd go back to the 80's again. I've done the more mainline soundtracks so decided I wanted something else. Probably one of the best punk bands ever and they're not even British, with some of the best bass guitar you will ever hear in any genre, with a style that echoes punk, rock, thrash and jazz, the Dead Kennedy's were the political voice of punk in the 80's.
In 1980 the underground scene was introduced to their acerbic lyrics with the release of Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables. With attacks on everything from US foreign policy to commercialism there was an energy that was rare even in the punk of the 1970's.
My vote for one of the most memorable riffs in punk history? An attack on the US policy of supporting the Cambodian dictator Pol Pot in his war against Vietnam. It could be argued that US policy in the late 70's and 80's caused more death in Asia than during the whole of the Vietnam War. Shame history always seems to repeat itself. Here's Holiday In Cambodia.
Posted on 11/25/2007
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Holy-moley! Yeah! The D. K.'s (disguised as punks) made some incredibly complex and completely insane music. A blistering synthesis of styles that defied catagories, they were lumped into the punk label 'cause the neckties had no idea _what_ they were.
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Yeah, they were one of those bands that didn't quite fit, more hardcore than punk, but with a lot of the political undertones more common to the UK Punk scene with bands like CRASS.
People tend to forget that there was more to punk in the 70's and 80's than songs about masterbation (The Vapors - Turning Japanese) and looking at girls (The Stranglers - Peaches)
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Amen
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Let's all play some Dead Kennedys today.
They had some mad LP packaging, a casuality of the CD and now (even more severely) the mp3 age.
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definitely an excellent song, musically, and for the role it (along with most of the other songs on Fresh Fruit) had in making me pay better attention to the world around me. i just finished driving for three-plus hours and the i-pod saw fit to play "Kill the Poor" and "Chemical Warfare" to help out along the way. the whole Fresh Fruit album is kick ass start to finish, and even if they never released anything else, it alone cements a their place in history.
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Funny, I was just thinking the other day, "I wonder what Jello has to say about the sorry state the Republic is currently in?" You could always count on the DK's to have a deep well of opinion to draw upon for commentary be it political or social. It is a shame that history repeats itself. I guess we'll have to be spelling it Amerika before people finally wake up. Thanks for the post!
My Trusted MOGs
Love Dead Kennedy's. They were a huge part of my high school years and a big influence. Saw them on the Frankenchrist tour in Orlando back in 1985. Great show.