Dead Kennedys' Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (33 1/3)

"That’s right, the country’s turning. If there’s a new chapter of punk as we move from 1979 to 1980, the country is also turning the page to a new chapter and moving to the right with the successful election of Ronald Reagan and the defeat of Jimmy Carter. Michael Foley’s book about the Dead Kennedys does a really good job of teasing out the kind of political and social criticism that was quite serious on the part of the Dead Kennedys, with an element of shock and surprise, but also with humour. One of the things that’s important to keep in mind is that punk wasn’t just dire seriousness, whether it was criticising the Queen of England or criticising America as it existed under the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Punk was a movement with a lot of humour at heart. Much of it dark humour, gallows humour, but equally a humour tempered by an understanding of theory or a political earnestness or seriousness of someone like the Dead Kennedys’ lead singer, Jello Biafra. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter It is significant. The Sex Pistols’ final act in San Francisco was witnessed by many people who were in bands or went on to create bands. The Dead Kennedys crystallised out of that as well. On the West Coast, an earlier generation of musicians, numerous bands formed in the 1970s, basically call it quits in the last 70s, most famously the Avengers. This opened up a path for new bands like the Dead Kennedys to become even more dominant – although they would probably balk at the term – within the San Francisco scene. I’ve noted that one of the things that Jello Biafra gets very, very excited about is when he started seeing the composition of the audience changing toward an ever younger crowd coming in as we move into the 1980s. It’s not quite generational, because I don’t think it’s that big of an age difference, but it had the feeling of being something different. There’s new blood coming onto the scene that hadn’t been there before, perhaps as they were only just coming of age. It lends the scene a new energy. Whenever he performed in theatres in San Francisco or as the Kennedys started to tour the United States, Jello Biafra would always make it a point to say things to the audience like, ‘Go out and read a book!’. Don’t stop here, when the concert ends. We the Kennedys are gonna pummel you with political criticism, but don’t take our word for it, think for yourself, go to a library and read some political theory! The other thing that I really enjoyed discovering was another of the most pioneering bands for this generation of teeny punks, the Minutemen . They were notorious when they toured. But not for the reason that the Sex Pistols were notorious. They would hit the tour circuit, going what they called ‘jam econo’ by doing it all as cheaply as possible – driving a van, crashing on people’s couches, doing their performance and moving on to the next town. On the way, they are said to have gotten into these huge arguments. Typically, it was the lead singer D. Boon versus their bass player Mike Watt in epic arguments about things like the finer points of British history. They would literally head into a town, stop the van and go to a library to resolve their debates. That’s so punk rock! It’s just a marvellous story. “It was about disagreements concerning the way we look at the world” This anecdote maybe also illustrates why this sort of movement could never be successful ever again. The Internet has changed that sort of autodidactic experience that I believe a lot of the people involved in that scene were dedicated to. It also shows up the typical stereotype for being much more than just a kind of violent thug culture. Read the lyrics of Dead Kennedys songs and they are brimming with biting, well-informed social and political satire. There’s a great volume called Double Nickels on the Dime , the title of the Minutemen’s double album that was released in 1984. It’s an excellent book which explores the ideas and historic background of the movement. One thing to keep in mind was that my official training in graduate school was American intellectual history. I’m probably being audacious in saying so, but I actually believe that punk zeroed in on powerful ideas. This was intellectual life. It was young and riotous, but it was an intellectual life. Perhaps it wasn’t as well informed or articulated as we would expect intellectual life to be, but it was about ideas, it was about debates. It was about disagreements concerning the way we look at the world. This perhaps is the most forgotten or misunderstood aspect of punk rock, if indeed it was ever understood in the first place. Or my insanity more like…!"