DEAD KENNEDYS – PLASTIC SURGERY DISASTERS (VINYL):
Dead Kennedys' second full-length album. 10/10
What do you get when you combine two gigs, 44 units of alcohol, 2 burgers, 1 kebab and about 14 hours sleep? You got it… the last four days of my life! In celebration of surviving the week without developing scurvy and/or hepatitis/a lapse of sanity, I’m going to be reviewing one of the most ludicrously-good punk albums to date: the Dead Kennedys’ Plastic Surgery Disasters. It’s chaotic, it’s brimming with sound and pace and riffs writhing around in every direction… yet against all the odds, it still works. Sounds a bit like me on a Monday morning!
As inappropriate as the metaphor may be (considering Dead Kennedys’ previous release In God We Trust Inc. which sort of lambasted Christianity), I think Plastic Surgery Disasters’ Side A is a big fat holy DK bible full of punk truths. It sure sucks to be you if you’re a student, a mechanic, a scientist, hippie or a Yankee with a giant caravan, because Jello Biafra fits a lot of ‘fuck yous’ onto just 12 inches of plastic.
Government Flu‘s preamble, and the album’s introductory track, is a scary fairytale warped by steel-wool chaos. Advice From Christmas Past is the neat and sweet American Dream disfigured by social reality, and the Dead Kennedys will take the next forty minutes to tell you all about it. Government Flu lets us know they’re not hanging about when it launches off in every direction at once, practically foaming at the mouth. Ray’s bright and sinister riffs, Biafra’s drawls, and Peligro’s muscular drumming in Government Flu sets the tone for the rest of Side A, because it sure as fuck doesn’t get much slower. It doesn’t seem like there’s much respite from the rabid intensity of the next three tracks, what with Terminal Preppie‘s hypnotic chanting and babbling, Trust Your Mechanic‘s voodoo-like toms driving their way through you skull, Well Paid Scientist‘s burbling bass and Peligro’s incessant tom rolls layering up and overwhelming the senses
when
will
you
crack?
Even if you think, like me, that the first five tracks on this album sort of blend into one big amphetamine rush enough to kill a horse, you should still notice that Side A’s sixth track Buzzbomb does not wane into the unremarkable uproar. Buzzbomb pulls up and Peligro’s snare rears and rattles like the engine of a Mustang, building up all the primal excitement from the last few tracks but channelling and guiding it into a recognisable and more substantial sense of structure. Flouride’s thick and burly bass hook, set against all the haste and acridity, hikes up the adrenaline levels without knocking the breath out of you. Both Buzzbomb and Winnebago Warrior carry this great Western twang, making it seem that the Dead Kennedys are one of the few bands that can pull of something so tense and muscular at such a punky pace. Just like fast-forwarding through a Spaghetti Western, it’s all action, and straight to the point. No one gives a fuck about your childhood Clint Eastwood!
Once you’ve wiped the sweat off your forehead, you can get up and turn the record over to Side B. The tracks on this side are lengthier and that works well with their fullness, compared to some of the less developed fragments on the other side. It’s like Side A’s tracks and their lyrics are spelt out quickly and bluntly, but DK take their time with Side B to build up those ideas into something you can really sink your teeth into.
The first six minutes of Side B is a Biafra-narrated thriller, that manages to distil all of the adrenaline in the world into one mighty track. Riot is calm then thunderous: at one moment, its bass heartbeat is building up stealthily and the ride ticks along, and at another, electric riffs siren and spiral and the cymbals crash and explode. It’s like the entire track is twisting and turning and grinding to halts and releasing again right before your ears, and it’s fucking mesmerising. Even though Riot is one of DK’s most iconic tracks, I think Bleed For Me steals the show. Just as textured and vital as Riot, Bleed For Me is loud and quiet and fast and steady all in the right places, and its riffs, torturously sweet, plummet and climax in a way that’s slick and methodical, without sounding too cinematic. Both of these songs together take up almost ten minutes of the album, meaning the band had finally lent themselves enough space to fully develop two stunning tracks. Never thought I’d be yearning for a song longer than a minute and a half – maybe I really am growing up!
I regularly think about the last two tracks on Side B. Unlike the rest of the album, Dead End‘s lyrics are written by East Bay Ray and you can sort of tell, because Biafra pronounces the words like they’re not his own. It’s one of the only DK songs I’ve ever heard Biafra sound so expressive yet reigned in and focused, and I think it’s because East Bay Ray’s simple, sour and sad words are unsettling and different. Dead End is like a tense, bass-heavy, bitter black-and-white movie; it’s off-kilter, volatile, and it has me hooked. Beside Moon Over Marin‘s bittersweet, sun-sick riffs and Biafra’s, parody-bright vocals cheering on the beginnings of our environmental Armageddon brought on by pollution, Plastic Surgery Disasters’ final two tracks feel perverse, and their words and sounds hang in the air even after the record’s finished. A suitable end to the best half an album the Dead Kennedys have ever released.
DEAD KENNEDYS – IN GOD WE TRUST, INC. (VINYL)
Psychotropic hardcore-punk EP by the Dead Kennedys. 10/10
There’s isn’t much to it. I just had to, had to, have Nazi Punks Fuck Off on vinyl. And everything that came with it turned out to be a blessing.
If you thought the Dead Kennedys were fast without hearing this EP, then get ready for your definition of speed to change: In God We Trust, Inc. is an immaculate riot.
Religious Vomit begins as subtly and moderate as a blast of dynamite, riffs leaping hot as D.H. Peligro pelts the drums flat out. If you didn’t catch any of the not-so-implicit lyrics (‘all religions makes me wanna throw up, all religions make me sick’), Jello gives us a cleaner taste in the latter section of the track, preaching bare-faced heresy to a honey-sweet gospel choir. If you think the profanity ends there then think again, because Kepone Factory is toxic with thick, callous satire, and is just as fast as the raucous Hyperactive Child – Jello’s tantrum of shrieks and chants merged with the booming of fallen toms in Moral Majority feeling like an uproar, but one that, as always for DK, is executed flawlessly.
Dog Bite is rabid, wild, untamed (please stop) – it’s a surging, one-minute concentrate of brilliantly, stupidly quick drumming, narcotic surf riffs and Jello + Klaus’ barking (literally) vocals, burning luminous and virulent and quick – it’s got to be at the top of my favourite DK tracks.
So, I sat down with my pen and notebook after finishing Side A, just as Side B’s first track begins to crackle. Then the first track finished. I hadn’t written a single word for Nazi Punks Fuck Off. I was too busy headbanging, sorry. Its ferocity is utterly immortal, and no amount of replays can wear away at its power. Best punk song (alongside Chaos U.K.’s No Security, I haven’t forgotten about saying that) ever written.
Like the Dead Kennedys’ cover of I Fought The Law, Rawhide is done so well you almost forget it isn’t a Dead Kennedys song (although Jello’s piss-take redneck drawling helps to remind us). Snares stampeding, bass big and meaty and So Co riffs rising, Rawhide is swift, sandy and injected with taurine.
Forming almost half the length of the thirteen-minute EP, We’ve Got A Bigger Problem Now sneaks into a slinky, jazzy lounge instrumental, murmuring and ticking along as Jello narrates with snide derision “I am Emperor Ronald Reagan, born again with fascist cravings, still you made me president”…
“human rights will soon go away” “join the army or you will pay” “Ku Klux Klan will control you” “I’ll make sure they’re Christian too”
…And then we’re launched into a fully-fledged California Uber Alles. Yes, laying off Jerry Brown for now, because two years on in 1981, we definitely have a bigger problem now – and you can sense that truth in their playing because everything feels even more rugged and vicious and riled and real. I think 2018 calls for a We’ve Got An Even Bigger Problem Now, please.
DEAD KENNEDYS – GIVE ME CONVENIENCE OR GIVE ME DEATH (VINYL):
Collection of live and studio tracks from the most accomplished band in punk.
Before I even begin attempting to spell out to you the Dead Kennedys’ colossal, highly-pigmented energy, I figured it’d be best for everyone for me to quote someone much more eloquently spoken. Oliver DiCicco, record engineer, described working with the Dead Kennedys as “cram[ming] ten pounds of sound on a five pound disc” – and if this is five pounds, ten would blow my head off.
As the electric riffs strike in tracks like Police Truck and Too Drunk To Fuck and the bass rolls along you can certainly see DiCicco’s point: each musician of the Dead Kennedys plays with such acidic animation you can hear it spilling off the edge of the vinyl. From East Bay Ray’s surf guitar, Klaus’ meandering basslines and D.H Peligro’s whirlwind drumming; each instrument is a world of its own, slotting together against the rules of physics into a single universe. Rapid tracks like A Child And His Lawnmover and In Sight in no way curb each element’s voltage in spite of their speed, and Life Sentence (my first DK favourite) proves its worth in its thundering toms and Jello’s wry jeers, blasting into its catchy, acerbic chorus.
So, last week I reviewed the Misfits’ Walk Among Us and boldly stated that nothing in this world sounds like Glenn Danzig. Well, nothing sounds like Jello Biafra either, and his brilliant, sardonic drawl in California Uber Alles to firm toms and the warbling bass confirms his vocals as one of a kind. As well as The Man With The Dogs being probably the hardest song in the world to sing (thanks Jello), it has this particularly vivid, saturated sound that’s so gripping. The instrumentals can never be accused of falling short of the frontman’s vibrancy, and that’s definitely a feat in itself.
And of course, Holiday In Cambodia is fucking masterful. We’re introduced to its trademark bassline as the hi-hat ticks, electric guitar piercing the rumbling quiet then collecting together up until the snare guns. The Dead Kennedys play with such spark you can hear the life in the bass and guitar as they drift around and cross each other, building up and releasing like a lucid current, Jello’s vocals coursing with piss-taking disdain. Imagine me, a year ago, on the smoking balcony of my favourite bar (I think after seeing GBH?), hearing Holiday In Cambodia for the first time faintly playing from inside – I remember that I stopped what I was doing and just listened, because it truly felt like something big. I couldn’t believe I’d lived 18 years without someone telling me about it.
Side B launches into what I’ve defined as the ‘perfect cover’: I Fought The Law shifted seamlessly into Dead Kennedys colours, the pace quickened and guitar sound sandy and bright. Tracks like Short Songs and Straight A’s show a more jagged sound at a stomping, almost cartoon-y pace, and I would very happily listen to an entire album of it.
Pull My Strings is an anarchic musical that shits all over the pop music industry, with sneering lyrics like “I ain’t no artist I’m a businessman, no ideas of my own” . Even as an obvious, massive piss-take, the Dead Kennedys pulls off the style so well I’m convinced they could easily make it big as a new wave band, but there’s just one problem…
“is my cock big enough, is my brain small enough, for you to make me a star?”