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Jello Biafra drumming in a punk band, 1979
09.14.2018
06:35 am
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Jello Biafra came to the aid of fellow punks at a show in 1979. For one song, captured on videotape, he manned the 4 Skins’ drum kit.

As will be immediately apparent, these are not the 4-Skins of Oi! fame, but an unrelated outfit from Portland, Oregon. Everything I know about these 4 Skins and their performance with Jello comes from the notes provided by the person who posted this on YouTube: Eddie Morgan, whose copy editor must be on vacation.

1979 the 4 skins opened for the dead kennedys,but there drummer at the time never showed up so jello biafra played the drums,,,,4 skins where a crazy young punk band from portland oregon ,with mark bar,Phil meanie and eddie jetson and the great sam henry on drums….sam played with the wipers,eddie started a band in san francisco called condemned to death,phil moved to new york ,,,and mark bar stayed in portland and played in many great bands…..video by Mike Lastra.

Given the striking resemblance of the backdrop and Biafra’s outfit in this clip to those in the widely bootlegged video of the Dead Kennedys’ Earth Tavern show in Portland on November 19, 1979—also directed by Mike Lastra of Smegma—I think we know when and where this was shot. It would also be a shocking coincidence if the Eddie Morgan who posted this on YouTube turned out to be a different person than the Eddie Morgan who sang in a Portland punk band under the name Eddie Jetson.

Incidentally, have you ever heard David Thomas of Pere Ubu play guitar on the Pagans’ “Boy Can I Dance Good”?
 

Posted by Oliver Hall
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09.14.2018
06:35 am
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Jello Biafra and his father interviewed at the ‘Frankenchrist’ obscenity trial
06.22.2018
08:54 am
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Jello Biafra in court, 1987 (via Heather Harris Photography)
 
In December 1985, a Southern Californian teenager named Tammy Scharwath bought the Dead Kennedys’ latest album, Frankenchrist, from the Wherehouse at the Northridge shopping mall. Then her mother saw the poster of H. R. Giger’s “Penis Landscape” included with the record and lodged a complaint with the Los Angeles city attorney, setting in motion a series of events that culminated in the breakup of the Dead Kennedys and a 1987 obscenity trial for singer Jello Biafra.

The hysteria that surrounded rap and rock music 30 years ago is hard to imagine today, now that the anti-smut crusaders have elevated Mr. Obscenity himself to the White House, but the incoherent language of the reactionary right hasn’t changed much: at one point during the trial, in an ecstasy of outrage, the prosecutor compared H. R. Giger to the Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez. (Biafra discusses the PMRC “porn rock” panic and recounts the whole ugly Frankenchrist mess from his point of view on his second spoken word release, High Priest of Harmful Matter.)

During the trial, the Canadian TV show The NewMusic sent correspondent Erica Ehm to Los Angeles, where she interviewed Jello and his father at the courthouse. How cool was Jello’s dad?
 

Posted by Oliver Hall
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06.22.2018
08:54 am
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What if all the great American punk heroes had their own classic comic book titles?


 
Not long ago a Brazilian artist going by the name W. Loud cooked up some excellent punk rock/Marvel mashup covers. W. Loud’s graffiti-style signature cleverly transforms that “W” into a little crown on top of the word “LOUD.”)

Loud dedicated one image each to covers for the Descendents, Black Flag, the Misfits, the Dead Kennedys, and Minor Threat (whom we’ll count as “punk” for the purposes of this exercise). Loud appears to favor the U.S. variety of punk rocker, there ain’t a Brit in the bunch. For the most part, the covers are freely invented, not 1:1 homages,  but Loud was sure to sprinkle in lots of clues to transmit his enthusiasm for both Marvel lore and the bands. He made sure to work in the familiar band logos and slogans (“EVERYTHING SUCKS TODAY!”) as well as the pivotal first year of the band’s existence.

So you have Milo popping up on the outfits of two members of the Descendents, the familiar Alternative Tentacles logo occupying a corner of the Dead Kennedys cover, and devilock’d Jerry Only and crew backing up Danzig as was their lot in real life.

You can get prints and T-shirts of these images at the Touts website.
 

Henry Rollins with the chest logo and fiery paw of Iron Fist
 
Much more after the jump…....
 

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Posted by Martin Schneider
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03.30.2018
09:35 am
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Jello Biafra stripped nude by rowdy punks in mega-early Dead Kennedys footage
12.29.2017
07:19 am
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What we have here is some of the earliest Dead Kennedys video footage I’ve ever seen. The only clip older than this I’m sure I’ve seen was one of their first shows from August 20th at Sproul Plaza. This footage is from the following month at the Mabuhay Gardens.

There are only four songs and the sound quality is less than ideal but the set is interesting because, in addition to DK standards like “Man With the Dogs,” “Holiday in Cambodia,” and “I Kill Children,” we get to hear a rare recording of the “lost” song “Kidnap”—a song which appears only on their first demo and on a couple of live recordings. 

What’s really interesting about this footage, however, is the end of “I Kill Children” in which Biafra dives into the audience and comes back with less pants than he originally had on. His trousers are eventually totally ripped off and he proceeds to rock out with his cock out, completing the song and the set.

This wasn’t the last time Biafra finished a set after having his pants removed by the audience. Famously, a year later, supporting The Clash at Kezar Pavillion, Jello lost his pants which infuriated promoter Bill Graham to the point of needing to be physically restrained from “beating the crap out of” Biafra.

If you want to skip to the sexy part, go to about ten and a half minutes:
 

 

Posted by Christopher Bickel
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12.29.2017
07:19 am
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‘Yes that’s right, punk is DEAD’: Crass and other punk AF fidget spinners
06.16.2017
09:50 am
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Do they owe us a spinning? Of course they fucking do! Crass logo fidget spinner. The final death knell of capital P, capital R, Punk Rock?

As fidget spinners are the latest inexplicable toy fad, the popularity of which most adults find absolutely confounding, I posted a couple of weeks ago about low-rent knock-offs in the style of “Nightmare Feddy,” “Robert Cop,” and “Anna Montana.”


PornHub recently revealed that in a May data sampling, during just a ten day stretch in that month, there were 2.5 million “fidget spinner” searches on their popular porn site, making it the top trending term and 5th most popular search for that month (ON A FUCKING PORN SITE!).

Clearly, these things have taken a place on the cultural zeitgeist mantle.

That brings us to this stupid thing which presented itself in my feed today: a Crass logo fidget spinner.

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume this isn’t “licensed” merchandise, but nonetheless, you can buy it for $6.89 on Amazon. If that’s not anarchy, then WHAT IS?

Crass’ 1978 declaration that “Punk Is Dead,” may or may not have been a true fact, but here we have a prime indicator—something Crass themselves would have called “another cheap product for the consumer’s head.”

The Crass logo fidget spinner was not the only punk rock spinner I found in a casual search, but it’s certainly the most ridiculous. Of course, you may wanna pick one up to give to the next spanging Oogle you see. It’ll give them something to keep them occupied back at the squat. I’ve paired purchase links with a fitting song by the artist, starting with the aforementioned “Punk is Dead” by Crass:
 

 

 
More of these damned things, after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Christopher Bickel
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06.16.2017
09:50 am
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‘Night of the Living Rednecks’: Dead Kennedys live in Portland, 1979
02.01.2017
09:40 am
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While it is still legal to select your own music and video entertainment, why not seize the day? Come join me in YouTube’s deep Dead Kennedys hole. After you’ve exhausted the band’s slender official home video catalog, there’s more than enough not-so-official footage to absorb all the sleepless hours after curfew.

This video of the DKs at Portland’s Earth Tavern on November 19, 1979 captures them in between their first single, “California Über Alles,” and their second, “Holiday in Cambodia”: pre-Peligro (the drummer is Bruce Slesinger, a/k/a “Ted”), but post-6025.
 

via Division Leap
 
It’s the second set of the night (and substantially different from the first, to the DKs’ credit), which explains Biafra’s hoarseness. Portland-area YouTube user MikeBrainfollies claims the video is his work, but doesn’t say more; in any case, it’s a two-camera job with the kind of video mixing you just can’t get these days.

If you’re a fan of the Dead Kennedys’ compilation album Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death, “Night of the Living Rednecks,” Biafra’s spoken-word rant about getting hassled by rich dickheads on a previous visit to Portland, comes from this show. After “Chemical Warfare,” East Bay Ray exits the stage holding his guitar—a sunburst Strat?—by the neck; “Ray’s guitar broke,” Biafra complains. Klaus and Ted blow some jazz.

It’s very strange to see a performance you’ve heard on record hundreds of times. When Jello says “His fists didn’t go up so quickly this time,” you can see the person in the audience he’s talking about. You also see Jello using a cigarette as a prop, a strange sight to behold. After Ray finally returns to the stage, Jello asks the audience for a cowboy hat in which to sing “Rawhide,” but has to settle for a beanie that makes him look at once like Mike Nesmith, Bruce Springsteen, and Dumb Donald of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. I appreciate what he says about “clowndominiums.”

More after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Oliver Hall
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02.01.2017
09:40 am
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There’s an accordion cover version of ‘Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables’ by Dead Kennedys
05.17.2016
01:00 pm
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It doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes—or should I say Dorlock Homes, which is what Daffy Duck calls himself when he pretends to be Sherlock Holmes?—to realize that an album called Fresh Duck for Rotting Accordionists might have something to do with the Dead Kennedys’ album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. Sure enough, Fresh Duck for Rotting Accordionists is a track-by-track reworking of the DKs’ 1980 classic album that was released in 2008 by Duckmandu!—complete with exclamation point.

Duckmandu! is a San Francisco-based accordionist named Aaron Seeman, whose repertoire includes “70’s rock, Broadway, klezmer, classical, country, Sousa marches, punk rock, and even a polka or two.” According to Duckmandu!’s website, Klaus Fluoride, the bassist for the Dead Kennedys, reproduces his vocal parts on five of the tracks. Also, Duckmandu! persuaded Winston Smith to do his own duck-centric version of his cover art for the DKs’ In God We Trust, Inc.
 

Aaron Seeman, a.k.a. Duckmandu!
 
After warming up to Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra—you know, the majestic music from 2001: A Space OdysseyFresh Duck for Rotting Accordionists then settles into the project of presenting every song on Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables in order, although it unaccountably leaves out the DKs’ reworking of Elvis’ “Viva Las Vegas,” which closes out the album—maybe there was a legal issue with the rights?

To make up for that, Duckmandu! adds a few other classics from the heady days of the early 1980s, like DEVO’s “Girl U Want,” Black Flag’s “Police Story,” and Minutemen’s “Jesus and Tequila.”

Duckmandu! is justifiably proud of a writeup that appeared in Maximum Rock ‘n Roll, in which Henry Yu wrote that “Duck did a vocal performance that was a warble-for-warble spot-on Jello.”
   
In 2011 Duckmandu! came out with Quack Rock, which purported to present “five duckades of accordion mega-hits,” ranging from “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to “Highway to Hell” and beyond.

“Holiday in Cambodia”:

 
After the jump, hear “Girl U Want” played on the accordion…

READ ON
Posted by Martin Schneider
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05.17.2016
01:00 pm
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Hollywood Über Alles: Jello Biafra’s acting demo reel
12.02.2015
09:43 am
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In addition to having been the frontperson of one of the greatest American punk bands, Dead Kennedys, Jello Biafra is known as a spoken word performer, record label executive, activist, and prankster. He’s also sometimes an actor—his first major role was playing “Mr. President” in the 1986 David Markey film Lovedolls Superstar.
 

 
Recently Biafra’s label, Alternative Tentacles, uploaded his “acting demo reel” or “showreel” as they’re called in “the business.”

This reel is typical of the sort of six-ish minute long compilations that actors use to get work in the film industry.

Biafra’s reel contains exceprts from his work in Portlandia, The Hipster Games: Blowing Smoke, Death and Texas, I Love You… I Am the Porn Queen, Skulhedface, Virtue, The Widower, and Tapeheads among others. In Tapeheads Biafra plays an FBI agent who gets to (gleefully, I’m sure) deliver the line, “Remember what we did to Jello Biafra?”—referencing his own raking over the coals in a 1985 obscenity trial over the H.R. Giger poster that was included with the Dead Kennedys’ album Frankenchrist.
 

Biafra as an FBI agent in “Tapeheads”
 
If you happen to know any bigshot Hollywood casting directors, forward this reel.

Biafra needs more screentime!
 

 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Jello Biafra meets the UFO cult: The Lost Footage found!
Jello Biafra for Mayor of San Francisco, 1979: ‘If he doesn’t win, I’ll kill myself!’

Posted by Christopher Bickel
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12.02.2015
09:43 am
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Jello Biafra for Mayor of San Francisco, 1979: ‘If he doesn’t win, I’ll kill myself!’


 
Jello Biafra, the sardonic front-man for the Dead Kennedys, both in his writing and live performances, was an expert at assuming villainous roles to reveal greater truths about society—whether it be as a serial murderer (as in the song “I Kill Children”) or as a military advisor (as in the song “Kill the Poor”) or as a stumping politician (as in his failed 1979 bid for Mayor of San Francisco).

In what might have been equal parts prank, publicity stunt, and actual desire to force social change, Biafra threw his hat into the mayoral ring in 1979, running against Dianne Feinstein, Quentin Copp, and David Scott, among others.
 

 
Writing in the 33 1/3 series book, Dead Kennedys’ Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, Michael Stewart Foley describes the anarchic DIY nature of Biafra’s campaign:

Dirk Dirksen hosted a “Biafra for Mayor” benefit on September 3, and raised the necessary $1,125 in filing fees. Consistent with the punk ethos, the volunteers who made up the campaign staff ran it as an entirely DIY affair. Dirk Dirksen, Brad Lapin, Ginger Coyote, Mickey Creep, Joe Target Rees, Klaus Flouride and plenty of others held meetings at Target Studios on South Van Ness to plot strategy.

The actual campaign events were few, but got plenty of media attention. A “whistle-stop tour,” for example, started with a rally at City Hall, followed by stops along the BART line down Market Street. Kathy “Chi Chi” Penick, Dead Kennedys’ new manager, carried a sign that said “If He Doesn’t Win, I’ll Kill Myself.” Other inspiring placard slogans included “Apocalypse Now,” and “What if He Wins?” Biafra, led the procession, “kissing hands and shaking babies.”

 

 
Using the slogan “There’s always room for Jello,” Biafra got onto the ballot In San Francisco. Any individual could legally run for mayor if a petition was signed by 1500 people or if $1500 was paid. Biafra paid $900 and got enough signatures to become a legal candidate, meaning his statements would be put in voters’ pamphlets and he would receive equal news coverage.
 

Original art for Biafra campaign buttons from Flickr user “Wackystuff”
 
This past Monday, Joe Rees of Target Video, the de facto documentarian of the San Francisco punk scene, uploaded an edit of eleven minutes worth of TV clips from this news coverage. Being somewhat of a Jellophile myself, I had previously seen a few of these clips which had been included on old Target Video VHS compilations back in the day, but some of this stuff is brand new to me—and I suspect also unseen by many of our readers. It’s a treat that Rees is still opening up his archives to the public like this.
 

 
It’s remarkable how serious young Biafra appears in some of these snippets, while at the same time completely mocking the political process. Pay particular attention to Biafra’s campaign platform, which is utterly absurd, but probably resonated with many 1979 San Francisco voters.
 

 
Biafra finished an incredible fourth out of a field of ten, receiving 3.79% of the vote (6,591 votes).  His participation in the election caused a runoff between Dianne Feinstein and Quentin Kopp which resulted in Feinstein’s election.
 

 
Here it is. One of the great punk rock pranks of all time:

 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Hear the Dead Kennedys as a five-piece with KEYBOARDS, play a Rolling Stones cover

Posted by Christopher Bickel
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09.23.2015
10:34 am
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Hear the Dead Kennedys as a five-piece with KEYBOARDS, play a Rolling Stones cover
07.30.2015
09:25 am
Topics:
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I recently finished reading Michael Stewart Foley’s excellent 33 1/3 series book on the Dead Kennedys’ Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables album. 

Rather than merely analyzing recording minutae or picking apart lyrical content song-by-song, the book documents the socio-political climate of late ‘70s San Francisco, exploring the environment that existed which precipitated the need for a Dead Kennedys. It’s incidentally got me on a personal kick of revisiting a lot of DK music, particularly from that early, formative era—when Jello Biafra was writing songs instead of diatribes.

When I’m not wasting my time obsessively A/B-ing different pressings of Fresh Fruit to detect subtle differences in the mastering quality, I’m double checking to see what blessings the gods of the Internet have offered up as gap fillers in the Kennedys’ historical record. A few months ago I wrote here about an incredible 1982 live video from Vienna. Although the recording I’m presenting today is audio-only, it’s a far more interesting historical artifact than even that Vienna show (which totally blew me away). Today we’re going to listen to Terry Hammer’s recording of Dead Kennedys from Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco from June 14, 1980.
 

Dead Kennedys played with Paul Roessler’s band, Bent, and the Subhumans from Canada.
 
Terry Hammer was an audio engineer during the heyday of first wave punk in San Francisco. He maintains a mind-blowing YouTube channel upon which he has graciously decided to share dozens of live recordings he engineered for Bay Area radio stations KALX, KTIM, KSAN, KSJO, KUSF, and KSFS. The channel features no less than five different (crucial) Dead Kennedys recordings—all worth investigating.

I’ve previously gushed all over Dangerous Minds about Hammer’s recordings of DEVO and Husker Du. The quality of this recording exists somewhere in between those two, preserving, with remarkable clarity, this point in the Kennedys’ history where they were feeling more comfortable in their arrangements and picking up the tempos (but before going full hardcore with the replacement of original drummer, “Ted,” with D.H. Peligro).

But what’s really, truly astounding about this recording is the inclusion of Paul Roessler on keyboard for the final five songs of the gig. At twenty-eight and a half minutes in, Jello sardonically introduces Roessler (brother of Black Flag’s Kira Roessler) as the “Remora of Rock and Roll.” Roessler was known up to that point for his work with the Screamers, Nervous Gender, Mommymen, Bent, and Silver Chalice. Bent had opened for Dead Kennedys on that night’s bill.

“Torture those keys,” directs Biafra, and Roessler does, with distorted organ sounds blaring even more raw, jagged and cutting than East Bay Ray’s bright surf-overdrive guitar damage. Roessler performs on “Stealing People’s Mail,” “Drug Me,” “Holiday in Cambodia,” “Too Drunk to Fuck,” and a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “The Last Time.”

The keys are particularly effective on “Too Drunk To Fuck,” changing the entire vibe of the song, giving it a campy horror sound, not far from the early death rock of bands like 45 Grave (whom Roessler was also a member of).

Roessler had previously worked with Dead Kennedys, in the studio, where he played keyboard tracks on “Drug Me” and “Stealing People’s Mail” for the Fresh Fruit LP. According to Alex Ogg’s book Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables: The Early Years, “Stealing People’s Mail” was musically influenced by Roessler’s group the Screamers.

Continues after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Christopher Bickel
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07.30.2015
09:25 am
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Dead Kennedys edition: The world will never run out of ‘newly uncovered’ (insert name here) videos
03.27.2015
11:41 am
Topics:
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Last week here at Dangerous Minds, we had a post discussing the fact that we’ll never “run out of stuff” to feature. That post, “The world will never run out of “newly uncovered” David Bowie videos,” pointed out that the Internet is constantly making new discoveries, or rediscoveries, and eventually everything bubbles to the surface. There’s just so much to be unearthed and always some fan out there who makes it a labor of love to share “the good shit” with the rest of the world.

In today’s edition of “the world will never run out of ‘newly uncovered’ _____ videos,” we’ll be taking a look at some incredible, recently uploaded, Dead Kennedys footage. I thought I’d seen everything out there on the Dead Kennedys, one of my life-long favorite bands, having done decades worth of tape trading in the pre-Internet, pre-DVD era, but nope: the Internet provides and, as we’ve said, “the world will never run out…”

Man, this fucking video. Captured at the height of their musical intensity, this 1982 show was recorded in Austria between the releases of In God We Trust, Inc. and Plastic Surgery Disasters. Arguably the group’s creative peak, they were still writing excellent songs, as opposed to diatribes, and pushing the speed envelope to keep up with the punk zeitgeist’s transition to hardcore. The band is absolutely raging here in this Vienna squat. Perhaps it had something to do with the differences between European and American audiences, but Jello’s propensity for edging into goofiness is dialed back and the anger is turned way up. His performance is mesmerizing.

Despite a couple of brief volume drop-outs and interference by crazy Austrian punks grabbing the microphone, this professionally shot and edited document has incredibly clear audio quality. The video is only a little over fifteen minutes long, leaving us wanting so much more, but this is what we’re thrilled to get:

1) Nazi Punks Fuck Off
2) California Uber Alles
3) Police Truck
4) Interview excerpt (Jello & Klaus)
5) Let’s Lynch The Landlord
6) Chemical Warfare
7) Interview excerpt (Jello & Klaus)
 

 

This is a song about fascists.
If you’re a punk, you’re not a fascist.
If you’re a fascist, you’re not a punk.
This is called “Nazi punks fuck off!”

You’ll be the first to go, unless you think!
 

 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
In God We Trust, Inc: Amazing footage of Dead Kennedys in the studio, 1981

Posted by Christopher Bickel
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03.27.2015
11:41 am
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‘Records Collecting Dust’: New doc on collecting vinyl with Jello Biafra and other fanatatics


 
As record collecting’s resurgence continues to grow, so does the sub-industry of proffering opinions about the phenomenon. Annual pro- and anti-Record Store Day think pieces seem to proliferate at a faster pace than vinyl sales themselves, the photo book Dust & Grooves is slated for a third printing this summer, and documentary films on the vinyl collecting hobby are growing in number, as well. That micro-genre’s 21st Century godfather is 2000’s Vinyl, noteworthy for predating the vinyl renaissance by several years, also noteworthy for painting a dismal picture of record collectors as sad old men who, having failed to connect with human beings in their pitiable lives, turn to hoarding media to fill an emotional gap or grasp at a sense of purpose. I frankly and flatly reject the implication that a love of collecting music lumps one in with doleful and socially isolated alterkakers who need suicide watch more than they need turntables. In mitigation, Atom Egoyan and Harvey Pekar are among the collectors interviewed, and that’s damn cool. Watch it here, if you like.

A more recent offering, 2008’s I Need That Record! offers a view of the obsession from a different sociological perspective, looking at the thinning of ranks in indie record stores (that retail niche has obviously rebounded since), seeking input from indie-famous crate diggers like Ian MacKaye and Thurston Moore, with a helping of righteous corporation-slapping from Noam Chomsky. And it offers a much more upbeat view of the collector.

And there is a new contender: Riot House has released musician Jason Blackmore’s (Sirhan Sirhan, Molly McGuire) hour-long Records Collecting Dust, which asks a laundry list of punk and indie luminaries questions like “what was the first record you bought?” “What was the last record you bought?” “If there was a gun to your head and you had to pare your collection down to five albums, what would they be?” It’s a really fun watch, and not just for the trainspotting. It’s a gas to see Keith Morris extol the virtues of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, to see Jello Biafra wax rhapsodic about Space Ritual, Mike Watt raving about American Woman, and David Yow talking about baffling his teacher and fellow schoolkids when he brought the Beatles’ trippy, bluesy b-side “For You Blue” to show and tell. One truly wonderful sequence joins Rocket From the Crypt/Drive Like Jehu/Hot Snakes guitarist John “Speedo” Reis in showing off his favorite children’s LPs on a toy turntable, and there’s even a segment with Dangerous Minds’ own Howie Pyro. I always enjoy tales of musical discovery, all the more so when they’re told by people who’ve made the music that warped me, and Records Collecting Dust is FULL of that, plus live performances by Jello Biafra & the Guantanamo School of Medicine, the Locust, and Big Business.
 

 
Though enjoyable, the film has its imperfections. It suffers from an abiding and ultimately irritating L.A.-centrism. I’d love to hear more tales of life-changing finds from people who hail from more culturally isolated areas, and so couldn’t just go to someplace like Wherehouse or Licorice Pizza whenever they felt like it, and had to really work for their scores. One other thing screamed out at me, though it’s not a flaw in the film as such, but more a consequence of the hobby’s demographic: the levels of vinyl-stockpiling depicted seem overwhelmingly to be a male phenomenon, so out of 36 interviewees listed in the credits, exactly two women appear, namely former Black Flag bassist Kira Roessler, and Frontier Records’ Lisa Fancher. Roessler makes one of the funniest observations in the whole doc when she describes how record stores magically cause men to shop in a manner stereotypically associated with women.

Another of the film’s truly brilliant moments is this fabulous sermon from Jello Biafra, which I’ve taken the liberty of transcribing in its entirety, because I 100% agree with every damn word of it:

I think part of the magic that vinyl, and records, and blundering into cool music you never knew existed still holds for me. I’m still a fan, and keep in mind “fan” comes from the word “fanatic.” I love to keep exploring, and even though I’ve got way too many records, I never buy one unless I intend to listen to it when I get home—I don’t always have time to listen to ‘em all now, but that’s the idea. I don’t buy it to scam or speculate, I buy it to listen to it. And there, that way, I never run out of cool music to listen to. I have no patience for these people who say “Oh, the whole scene died when Darby Crash died,” or “yeah, there’s no good bands anymore.” WROOOOOONG. Good sounds are where you find it so start looking, OK? Don’t be afraid to blunder into something cool. You never know what it might do to your life, or even your own music, or your band may finally start sounding different from all the other bands you like.

Records Collecting Dust began screening in California this month. Remaining showings though March are listed on its web page . If you’re on the fence about checking it out, perhaps these trailers will help nudge you one way or the other.
 

 
More after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Ron Kretsch
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01.26.2015
11:54 am
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Dead Kennedys’ ‘International’ punk event, 1984
12.10.2014
12:47 pm
Topics:
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Recognize this guy?

Incendiary pro-shot video 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 arena, now a church). Note that tickets were just $7.50!
 

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

Dig Biafra’s boss Carl Jr.‘s tee-shirt. Now THIS is a front man!


 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.10.2014
12:47 pm
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The roots of San Francisco punk: The Deaf Club, 1978-1980
10.22.2014
02:38 pm
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When punk hit San Francisco in the late 1970s, it needed a venue. Typically, the S.F. venues generally gave punk the cold shoulder, so a more creative solution proved necessary. Robert Hanrahan, manager of The Offs, was able to take over what had actually been a club for the deaf that had existed in that location (16th and Valencia) since the 1930s and turned it into a vital, scorching venue for bands like Dead Kennedys, D.O.A., The Subhumans, Tuxedomoon, X, Flipper, and The Germs. It didn’t last long, but while it was open it provided the Bay Area punk scene with its first legendary venue. It opened on December 9, 1978 and closed in the mid- to late 1980. As Jello Biafra himself said, “The magic of the Deaf Club was its intimate sweaty atmosphere, kind of like a great big house party.”
 

 
Robert Hanrahan remembered finding the place: “I bought a burrito at La Cumbre and noticed a sign on the fire escape across the street. It said ‘Hall for Rent.’ I went up the flights of stairs and saw two guys watching TV with the sound off. After a very short while, I realized we weren’t going to communicate, so I wrote on a piece of paper that I wanted to rent the place. Bill—I never knew his last name—was a mustachioed, lascivious, cigar-chewing character who apparently was in charge. He wrote ‘OK & $250,’ so I wrote ‘OK.’”

On Found S.F., there is an invaluable page describing some of the history of the Deaf Club. The first show featured The Offs, The Mutants, and On the Rag. The show was “dark & very crowded.” Sensing a fracas, the cops showed up but didn’t stick around. My favorite bit from account of the first night: “Lots of hand signals between old & young club members.”
 

 
A possibly unique aspect of the club was the constant presence of actual deaf people in the hall, who didn’t know what to make of their unruly musical cohorts—but counterintuitively, they did seem to enjoy the music. Indeed, punk music might be tailor-made for deaf people to enjoy, because of the constant frenetic thudding of the 4/4 beat that can be sensed as vibrations. As Penelope Houston of The Avengers said, “It was kind of amazing. I think they were dancing to the vibrations. The deaf people were amused that all these punks wanted to come in and rent their room and have these shows.” According to artist Winston Smith, “They put their hands on the table and they could hear the music. It was music they could appreciate because it was so loud.”
 

 
Nothing was easy for a venue like the Deaf Club, whose main strategy for staying open was to keep a low profile. Essentially it was scarcely known outside the punk community. The cops, however, frequently instigated temporary closures due to complaints about the noise from neighbors. The Chicano community in the vicinity “resented what they considered a “punk invasion” of their territory — like one night 3 young machos gangbusted up the stairs & immediately started slugging men & women alike until they were finally forced out by sheer numbers of a surprised/rallied crowd just drinking & dancing.”

In 1980 Gammon Records released Can You Hear Me? Music from the Deaf Club, a compilation featuring many of the club’s mainstays, including the Offs, the Mutants, Pink Section, Dead Kennedys, and so forth. In 2004 the Dead Kennedys released Live at the Deaf Club. Interesting aspects of the show include the purportedly “disco version” of “Kill the Poor” as well as their closing covers—the Beatles’ “Back in the U.S.S.R.” and Elvis’ “Viva Las Vegas.”
 
Some terrific full-length concerts from the Deaf Club after the jump…...
 

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Posted by Martin Schneider
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10.22.2014
02:38 pm
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5th grade girl discovers Dead Kennedys CD at school library; writes diary entry about it
09.19.2014
03:23 pm
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Dead Kennedys photo by ©Laura Levine
 
Okay, so this adorable letter supposedly written by a 5th grade girl has been making the rounds on the Internet the past few days. I hesitated posting it because there was no real information about its provenance. Is it too good to be true? I don’t know.


 
Click here to read larger image.
 
Here’s what Vanyaland has to say about it:

A 20-year-old from Indianapolis named Taylor-Ruth has a much cooler story — discovering Dead Kennedys at the library when she was in 5th grade, and on September 26 of that year she sat down to write pretty much the best grade-school letter anyone has ever written. Though the note was posted to her tumblr last year, it was recently retweeted by Jason Isbell, and the other day Devin Faraci of Badass Digest did some sleuthing to piece it all together.

Now some folks are calling shenanigans on the letter because they say there’s no way a librarian is going believe a 5th grader is a 15-year-old teen. I’m not too sure about that, I got a tattoo when I was 12 years old. The tattooist asked me if I was 18 years old, I said “Yep!” and she then said, “Hop in the chair then, and let’s do this.” When I got home, let’s just say… my parents were not pleased. But what were they going to do about it at that point. Besides that, my father had gotten one when he was just ten…

Below, “The Beatles” perform “California Über Alles”:

Posted by Tara McGinley
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09.19.2014
03:23 pm
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