2007.  Les Savy Fav releases Let’s Stay Friends. Not only does Les Savy Fav treat you to sweaty, powerful performances with plenty of partial nudity and plenty of beard, they also treat you to some of the finest songs ever written.

Music History in GIFs is exactly what the title says. The 8-bit animations are by Brooklyn-based guitarist Joshua Carrafa who’s in the band Old Monk.

Below each GIF is a caption written by Carrafa.

1986.  Jello Biafra and Alternative Tentacles are dragged in to court and charged with “distributing harmful matter to minors” over the visual and lyrical content of the Dead Kennedys album Frankenchrist.  After the police raid Biafra’s house and lawyers probe through the album, they remember there is some law or something that says you can’t censor that kind of stuff.

1979.  Frank Zappa releases Sheik Yerbouti. He masters the combination of humor and music, and it becomes his most successful album.  His song titles are dead serious though, like “I Have Been In You,” “Broken Hearts Are for Assholes,” and “Jewish Princess.”

Via Post Punk Tumblr

 
Incendiary pro-shot Dead Kennedys set from the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, 1984. This was the infamous “International Event” concert held on August 10th that ended in a riot (like many hardcore shows in Los Angeles did at that time, especially ones held at the Olympic, once a boxing area, now a church). Note that tickets were just $7.50!

Also on the bill: Italy’s Raw Power, BGK from the UK, Finnish hardcore group Riistetyt, Mexico’s Solución Mortal and Reagan Youth.
 

 
After the jump, Reagan Youth, Raw Power and BGK that same night

 
I posted this video here a few years back of cartoon Beatles singing Dead Kennedys’ California Über Alles. Almost as soon as I did, it was promptly yanked from YouTube for unknown reasons.

Well, here it is again in all of its wacky glory. Enjoy!

Animation by Kota Ezawa.
 

 
The Daily Show’s future host Jon Stewart (then known as William and Mary student Jon Leibowitz) snapped in the mosh pit at a Dead Kennedys/Front Line show in Richmond, Virginia sometime in the early 1980s.

Fantastic!

Via Filthy Pit/Henry Baum!

 
When the Dead Kennedys went into the studio in 1981 to record In God We Trust, Inc., their “tribute” EP to the faster, thrashier “hardcore” musical style associated with the Washington, DC punk scene (think Minor Threat) the first sessions were laid down on defective tape stock, so they had to go back to the studio to record it again a few months later.

In 2003, videotapes of the band working out the arrangements and recording the songs during that initial session (taped for a documentary on punk rock) were released as The Lost Tapes on DVD. A raw mix was fed directly into the line inputs of the camera, so the audio was immediate and powerful. Using techniques that did not exist in 1981, five of the eight songs recorded during the first In God We Trust, Inc. session were eventually restored.

For In God We Trust, Inc., the group updated their anti-Jerry Brown screed, “California Über Alles” as a cocktail jazz redux inserting-newly inaugurated President Ronald Reagan’s name in for the young governor who had succeeded him. (Brown was re-elected California’s governor in 2010). Jello Biafra and the rest of the band, of course, don’t see eye to eye today, but the band captured during that ill-fated studio session was absolutely raw and on fire. Drummer D.H. Peligro had just joined the band at this time and he brought a lot to the band’s sound.

I bought In God We Trust, Inc. on a music cassette. The b-side was blank and the label bore the words “Home taping is killing record industry profits! We left this side blank so you can help.” LISTEN TO THIS LOUD!
 

 
Thank you kindly, Mr. Clam!

 
Rock snobs, your Christmas present came a few days late, but it did arrive. Have a listen to the perfection that is the multi-tracks for Dead Kennedys’ second single, “Holiday in Cambodia.”

Jello Biafra’s genius as a punk rock vocalist has almost never been displayed better than it is right here. Revel in his voice’s snotty, sneering, naked glory (The satirical lyrics have been slightly sanitized here, probably for the better)
 

 
Simply one of the greatest guitar performances of all time, courtesy of East Bay Ray. It’s merciless
 

 
Klaus Fluoride and “Ted” (Bruce Slesinger) on bass and drums. What a crack rhythm section. Jesus, these guys were tight!
 

 
Killer live performance of “Holiday in Cambodia,” Don’t listen to this song behind the wheel of a car. Nothing good could come of it!
 

Via Studio Multitracks

(Germs from left to right: Pat Smear, Lorna Doom, Darby Crash and Don Bolles)
 
Back in 2000, I vaguely remember the documentary Rage: 20 Years of Punk Rock, West Coast Style coming out, but never caught up with it—my gut told me it wasn’t gonna be no Decline!  (plus, doesn’t the math seem off?  2000 - 20 only equals, like,  what…1980?)  Anyhoo, thanks to YouTube, I can now present to you a few of its highlights.

First up, here’s Germs drummer Don Bolles discussing singer Darby Crash’s well known fascination with both Nietzsche and Scientology:

 
Next up, here’s Dead Kennedy‘s frontman Jello Biafra discussing how it felt to be first a witness then a player in San Francisco’s exploding punk scene:

 
Bonus clips: The Circle Jerks’ Keith Morris, T.S.O.L.‘s Jack Grisham

Bonus Germs: Lexicon Devil, live @ The Whisky, 1979