DEAD KENNEDYS – Original Story
In certain circles at least, Dead Kennedys are as well known as the Grateful Dead. They are the founders of hardcore punk in the San Francisco Bay area, though most of that action was in Los Angeles. Their 1980 debut album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables is one of the landmark punk rock albums of all time and includes most of their well-known songs, such as “California Über Alles”, “Holiday in Cambodia”, “Kill the Poor”, and a cover of “Viva Las Vegas”.
As is common in the punk rock community, many of the bandmembers picked their own names; the name of front man Jello Biafra still has a certain ring to it I suppose, though hardly anyone remembers the breakaway African state Biafra (1967-1970), the once and future province of Nigeria. Other bandmembers were East Bay Ray, Klaus Fluoride and 6025; the latter gentleman left the band in 1979, perhaps because they weren’t hardcore enough: One song of his that is included on their debut album is “Forward to Death” (as in: “I’m looking . . .”) and features the lyric: “I don’t need this f--king world”.
Dead Kennedys is certainly among the most outrageous band names of all time, though Jello Biafra insists that they were not trying to insult the Kennedy family but were trying “to bring attention to the end of the American Dream”.
Even at the time, the brand name “Jell-O” didn’t seem cool enough for a punk rock artiste, though the name turned up once again in the comic-punk band Green Jellö.
I was first exposed unknowingly to Dead Kennedys when someone scrawled the lyrics to one of their songs, “Let’s Lynch the Landlord” in the basement of the apartment building where our real estate office in Raleigh was located for many years. Until I got my own copy of Fresh Fruit several years later, I didn’t realize where those lyrics came from, but they did seem too professional for just anyone to have come up with.
(July 2012)
