#jello biafra means the world to me

[sacrificethelamb]

“Give me a toot, I’ll sell you my soul.

Pull my strings and I’ll go far”

-Dead Kennedys

(Tied by @ropesbypatricia <3)

#things have been rough lately #so all i have for you is dk & angst #jello biafra means the world to me #self serving string pulling ahoy >>> #shibari suspension #partial suspension #rope bottom #ropebunny #ropes by patricia columnbind #my pics

[aufenticimagination]

"The Jello Wars of San Francisco: Jello Biafra's Punk Rock Baptism"

“It was the summer of ’81, and we were on tour in the Midwest, playing to packed crowds every night. We were on fire – the Dead Kennedys were the hottest thing in the scene, and we were changing the world, one show at a time.” “Then it happened. Some idiot in the audience decided it would be funny to throw an ice cube at me during our set. It hit me right in the face, and I saw red. I mean, who…

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#Dead Kennedys #Jello Biafra

[c-40]

A-T-3 133 Butthole Surfers - Bar-B-Q Brecht

Before Dinosaur Jr. Lou Barlow and J. Mascis had been in the hardcore band Deep Wound, Lou on guitar and J. on Drums. Deep Wound's self-titled EP comes out in 1983 but it wasn't until 2006 and the Almost Complete compilation that you could easily get your hands on this material in the UK. I love Dinosaur Jr. but I've never picked up the Deep Wound records, check out the 1983 EP here https://youtu.be/5rPO3hJw814

Something easier to find was...

Butthole Surfers debut EP put the ass back into Texas. Dead Kennedy's Jello Biafra was instrumental in the early career of Butthole Surfers (Hüsker Dü also, who I wrote about yesterday) and getting them onto record. Primarily a live band the Buttholes put on gigs that are written about as performance art, with projected films and onstage antics equal to the music, an inverse of stadium rock shows by bands they idolise. Haynes and Leary shy away from talking about the band in interviews, there are a lot of made up stories, but according to a reliable source (wikipedia) the debut EP began as a promise from Biafra (who ran Alternative Tentacles for DK's,) if the Buttholes could get someone to loan them studio time Alternative Tentacles would reimburse the studio when the EP was done. The Buttholes got Bob O'Neill, a studio owner in San Antonio, Texas to agree to provide the band with the time they needed to make the EP, the studio's engineer Joe Pugliese helping with production

"Sometimes it’s hard for me to even think of our music as music . . . It has been more of a platform to express ourselves, even though we don’t know what we are trying to express. I was pretty mad at the world for a while." - Paul Leary, guitar and occasional lead vocals

The result is chaotic, confrontational and adolescent (the record labels says it plays at 69 RPM). Bar-B-Q Pope begins like a Blue Öyster Cult record then has it's mood ruined by Leary squawking like a rooster, the effect is a kind of dissonance Brecht might even have approved of. The song is political, there's a saying "It’s the bigots prerogative to not use language seriously" here that is being flipped on its head to intentionally upset conservatives. Here 'the pope' is the catholic church, which stands in for all organised religion. In 1981 label mates Dead Kennedy's released In God We Trust, Inc which presents conservative christian political organisations, including think tanks, astroturf organisations, and lobby groups as criminal enterprises, a racket... today we might call it a grift. Check out Moral Majority on the In God We Trust, Inc EP, the difference between Moral Majority and Bar-B-Q Pope is Jello Biafra is holding up a black mirror and trying to use reason and argument where the Buttholes don't bother. The Butthole Surfers debut EP is sometimes called Brown Reason to Live. If this is the intended title or not is ambiguous and a whole book has been written about what 'brown' might mean (Merdre! as Ubu Roi would say) - Ween flew with the whole 'brown' thing, didn't they? - it's a tactic the tories are employing right now as they stir up hate against desperate people fleeing harm to find refuge in the UK. Facts, truth, reason get in the way of the tories objective. Braverman and Robert Jenrick have as much respect for meaning as they do the law when it gets in the way

Something that punk and hip hop share is cartoon violence intended to provoke pearl clutching conservative christians and liberals who are disgusted by cartoon violence more than they are people in rich countries living in poverty. It's argued just by being called Butthole Surfers the band will never sell out (I was saddened when Crazy Penis changed their name to Crazy P) but this underestimates the porousness of capitalism. I like this quote 'Haynes was asked whether, if given the chance to do it all over again, he would rewind the clock and make his career trajectory somewhat smoother by giving the band a more palatable moniker. "Yes," he replied, "I would name the band: I’m Going to Shit in Your Mother’s Vagina."'

Does this shake folk out of their stupor, probably not. Does it radicalise the youth, not enough

Butthole Surfers debut EP reached 21 on the UK indie singles chart. I found it around 1990/91, Piouhgd comes out on Rough Trade in 1991

#1983 #butthole surfers #punk #punk rock #texas #usa #80s music

[randomvarious]

The Avengers - “We Are the One” Dangerhouse, Volume One Song released in 1979. Compilation released in 1991. Punk Rock

Sometimes you write the band summary yourself and sometimes you find a bio so good that you decide to quote it instead because you can’t think of a way to outdo it. This post contains the latter. But before I start quoting from Jonathan Buckley’s Rough Guide to Rock, 3rd Edition, let me just make one point. When punk rock started springing up on the west coast in the late 70s, it wasn’t just a rebellious dude’s domain. Women were involved in the scenes, too. But none of the west coast girls during the genre’s first wave shined as brightly as Penelope Houston did. She fronted one of San Francisco’s first punk bands, The Avengers, who were the unanimous top-ranked group in a tiny scene. And Robert Christgau, who is perhaps the most highly feted critic to ever review music, rated The Avengers’ debut release as the best indie single of 1977, which means that they weren’t just the best in San Fran, but they were one of the best punk bands in the world.

Now Buckley:

The Avengers were one of the greatest American punk bands ever. They were one of the first on the West Coast. And they were one of the first to release their music independently. It all started when lead singer Penelope Houston met up with guitarist Greg Ingraham at a San Fran art school. They quickly decided to form a band with bassist Jimmy Wilsey and drummer Danny Furious. They called themselves The Avengers – not borrowing from the brilliant Marvel comic or equally fab 60s TV show of the same name, but from a local artistic collective called The Art Avengers who they were to tour with and open for their ‘art’ happenings.

They soon fell out with the Art Avengers and started touring California on their own. Their sound was ferocious to say the least. Ingraham’s speedy, heavy cannonball riffing, along with Furious and Wilsey’s bulldozer rhythm section and Penelope’s intelligent, searing lyrics were quite a sound and [sight] to behold. Later in 1977 they became the first West Coast punk act to release their own music on [an] independent label when “We Are The One”/”Car Crash”/I Believe In Me” was issued by the Dangerhouse label. All three cuts were defiant anthems of self-realization. They recorded more vinyl sides while touring, and without help from any US or UK punk labels. Soon they’d attracted the attention of the biggest act of the time – The Sex Pistols.

The Pistols offered them the opening slot on what was to be their final gig ever in San Francisco. Rumour has it that The Avengers blew The Pistols off the stage. After The Pistols broke up Steve Jones stayed behind and offered to produce The Avengers. He worked on a four-song self-titled EP for them; before long Penelope and co. had returned to touring.

In late 1979, however, they stopped touring and disbanded completely.

Let’s fill in a really important detail here. That Sex Pistols show was the last Sex Pistols show, ever. And that was both a good thing and a bad thing for The Avengers. The good thing is that it got Steve Jones, the Sex Pistols’ suddenly former guitarist, to produce The Avengers’ first and only EP. But the bad thing, as Mark Deming points out in AllMusic, was that the dissolution of the Pistols kind of made the music industry pass on punk rock as a whole, viewing it as a fad that was on its last legs. This would ultimately largely halt punk rock from ascending into a stratospheric American mainstream, and with this gate suddenly closed, and with tensions rising within The Avengers, and with the band’s chemistry gone thanks to a crucial personnel change, they would break up the following year, before their famous EP would even hit the shelves.

But it’s that 1979 EP that most people claim as the band’s best release. Its title track, “We Are the One,” is a more polished, better mixed version than the one off of their debut 1977 single. 

If you’ve ever asked yourself, “I wonder what the punk rock-equivalent of Kim Wilde’s ‘Kids in America’ is,” “We Are the One” is probably it; a great, rousing, anthemic tune that manages to not proclaim much of anything other than the fact that the youth will replace the generation that came before it and will be the ones to rule (duh!). The only difference is that “We Are the One” appears to be self-aware of its own platitudinous emptiness. It plainly states what it’s not (Christian, fascist, capitalist, communist), but it also takes great pains to not explicitly state what it is, which comes off as wryly deliberate. And if you get that, then you can really appreciate the song.

The 1977 version, while definitely also tremendous, was the first song that Penelope Houston ever sung on, and it shows. You can sense a bit of timidity from her on it. But the 1979 recording is way different. The words and notes don’t change, but Houston has much more confidence and command, and thanks to the mixing, her vocals aren’t muddied by the guitars. And the guitars sound much sharper clearer, like a motoring chainsaw, whereas on the 1977 recording, the guitars sound much fuzzier. The 1979 version is just plainly superior. 

To close out, let me quote from Jonathan Buckley again, regarding The Avengers’ overall impact and influence:

The Avengers’ presence is still a mighty one. They’ve influenced many a US punk band. Jello Biafra claimed to have started The Dead Kennedys directly because of their work. Many bands in the Riot Grrl movement also cited them as an influence.

Can you imagine punk rock without the Dead Kennedys? Can you imagine a world without riot grrl? Do you want to live in a world that never had those things? I don’t think so.

One of the greatest songs from California’s first punk wave, courtesy of this legendary, yet unfortunately quickly fleeting, female-fronted San Francisco band.

#punk rock #punk #punk music #rock #rock music #music #70s #70s music #70's #70's music #70s punk rock #70's punk rock #70s punk #70's punk #70s rock #70's rock

[dotzines]

Artist Spotlights!

🎤 J.Kim 🥁 Jack Jones-Tella 🎷 Jackal

🎺 jenny peng 🎸 Kamon 🎻 Karen

Interview below the cut!

Introduce yourself

🎤 Hi! I'm an animation/illustration major with an interest in LGBT asian history/ historical fiction ^^  I'm @jkimdraws on instagram, twitter, and tumblr! 🥁 I'm a 21-year-old agender artist from Nigeria. I like rugby, horror and playing fun survival games. I can wiggle both my ears by just thinking about it. I make both digital and traditional art, but I prefer traditional because of the feeling in my hand.My twitter: https://twitter.com/bi_jackass My insta: https://www.instagram.com/abami.eda/ My tumblr: https://jack-of-all-bullshit.tumblr.com/ My website: https://sites.google.com/view/jackjonesnga/home 🎷 I’m an animation major based in Australia, focusing more on illustration, character design, storyboarding, and animatics! I’m super into cryptids, paranormal events, and ethereal entities, as well as the joys of space and the great beyond. I’m currently super into a few musicals, as well as Good Omens, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, and Dungeons and Dragons, and like to dabble in writing in the wee hours of the morning when I should be asleep.I’m also on pretty much every social media so there’s no escaping! JK, but you can find my usernames below Instagram: paranormaljackal Twitter: paranrmljackal Tumblr: paranormaljackal 🎺 Jenny Peng is a New York City based designer and illustrator. Graduated from Fashion Institute of Technology in Illustration, she spends her time designing characters and the worlds that they live in. 🎻 Hello! My name's Karen and I'm a mexican concept art student that loves CCS and Naruto.

Do you do commissions post? Where can we find the info?

🎤 https://www.instagram.com/p/B4-decoAyp_/ 🎷 https://sites.google.com/view/paranormal-jackal/commission-info

Do you listen to music (or tv shows/films/anything else) when drawing?

🥁 I watch Game Grumps videos sometimes and listen to horror podcasts like The Magnus Archives. For music choices, I bounce around between Owl City, Fela Kuti, Dead Kennedys, Asha, Queen, Green Day,  P!ATD, Brockhampton and Fall Out boy. So a majority of rock/rap/electronic stuff 🎷 I have about fifty different character playlists that I cycle through, as well as Game Grumps compilations as background noise. 🎺 I'm always listening to music when I'm working on a creative piece. I find it motivating and helps me put more "soul" in my pictures. 🎻 Yes! I've been listening to the Black Eyed Peas latest record a lot as well as my favorite telenovela, Bety La Fea. I also listen to one of my favorite movies, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a lot and Arrested Development.

What’s your favorite music artist/band? If you could ask your favorite band/music artist one question, what would it be?

🎤 Probably Tatsuro Yamashita! 🥁 My current favorite is Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys/Guantanomo School of Medicine and if I could ask him one question it would be  "How do you write your songs in such a simple but powerful way?" 🎷 I really love Queen, especially since the CD would always be on repeat when I was a kid growing up. I think if I could ever ask them a question, I think it would be where the inspiration from their songs all sparked from, what the underlying backstory or meaning behind them were. 🎺 It's always changing so its hard to say. Currently it's Brockbeats 🎻 My favorite band would be Last Dinosaurs, I really like the soft and dance sound they've got. I'm not much of a music fangirl so I wouldn't know what to ask lol

Do you play an instrument? If not would you like to play one? Which one?

🎤 Nope! 🥁 I can play the guitar and currently trying to figure out playing the drums 🎷 Like a lot of folks, I was forced to learn the infernal recorder that parents always regret. However, I would love to learn how to play the piano! 🎺 I don't anymore but I used to play the piano and would love to pick it up again. 🎻 No ): I've always wanted to play the violin but never got to take classes.

Which song(s) are you going to draw?

🎤 159cm by Tenny 🥁 "Bullet With Butterfly Wings - Smashing Pumpkins Coming Clean - Green Day" 🎷 I’m going to be drawing Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene by Hozier, as well as Spring and a Storm (Demo) by Tally Hall 🎺 I'm mostly into Alternative. 🎻 Running Up that Hill- Kate Bush

What do you expect from this zine?

🎤 I hope to be able to find some new tunes to listen to and follow some more cool artists! 🥁 To make some friends, make good art and have fun 🎷 I expect to push myself into finishing a larger piece than I have in the past, whilst also challenging myself to try new methods and improve in areas. 🎺 I'm usually creating artwork with music in the background. It's a good change of pace to draw music, one of my muses, actually paying attention to the sounds and lyrics and making something out of it. The background becomes the foreground, and I'm excited to see what I'll create with that in my mind. 🎻 I'm really excited to see the different interpretations of songs. I tend to be very literal so abstract interpretations baffle me!

Anything else you want to add?

🎷 Have fun out there, and stay hydrated!!

#J.Kim #Jack Jones-Tella #Jackal #jenny peng #Kamon #Karen #artist spotlight #loop #loop artists

[the-blomster]

Jello Biafra VS the Forces of Corruption 31

Update: Sorry I’ve been gone for so long. Life has hit me like a brick wall. You know. School and stuff. Anyway, I’ve begun to fall into something of a rhythm again and I think I’ll be able to fit writing this thing into my schedule again, so stay tuned!

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and all relation to real individuals is done purely for parody purposes. I am not associated with any of the people named in this work of fiction and this is not intended to reflect negatively upon anyone.

Chapter 31: The Punk Rock Tournament Showdown Part 8: Fuck it’s been so long that I can’t remember what I was planning on writing Part 1 or Jello gets amnesia Part 1

We find Jello in a tumult; lost in an endless dream. The contents of his dreams; unspeakable, unimaginable even, not because I just didn’t feel like writing what his dreams were, but because they were unspeakable, just believe me. And when Jello awoke from this unimaginable, unspeakable dream, he found himself lying prostrate on the battlefield.

The announcer spoke, “Jello fucking lost, what a bitch. Anyway, 6025 wins!”

It would appear that Jello had been thoroughly whooped. And not just whooped, but whooped. You know the kind whooped you pronounce hwooped. And the audience was absolutely eating it up. They kept shouting mean mean words like, “Jello’s a bitch!”, and “Jello fucking lost!” How uncouth of them. 

Jello was terrified. He sweated profusely. He curled up in a ball and hoped that the pain from hearing those mean mean words as well as the pain from being thoroughly whooped would go away. Was this another part of his dream, nay a part of his nightmare? Or was this a cruel joke? Or could it be… reality?

Yep, it was reality. Jello confirmed this fact by pinching himself really hard. Upon realizing that this was, in fact, not a dream, Jello took a few moments to look upon this new reality and hopefully not cry. Standing across Jello on the battlefield was what appeared to be a mexican bandito. He looked sort of like the picture below, only even cooler, and wearing a cape. Could that be… 6025? Who was 6025 anyway? And why was he so cool? Suddenly, the extremely cool man who was supposedly 6025 swept his cape up in front of his and disappeared without a trace. 6025 was gone. This left Jello in quite the predicament. Jello was left with no memories of the day’s events. He didn’t even know what he had for breakfast, but judging by the lingering flavor in his mouth, it was something… vile.

Jello, however, did know one thing. He had to find Klaus. Jello stumbled through the halls in a state of delirium. To his legs, the hallways seemed to stretch an infinite distance, and yet to his eyes the back walls seemed within arms reach. Jello brushed his forehead and widened his eyes in a futile effort to regain control, but to no avail. He stumbled and crashed into walls. Sometimes Jello even fell to the ground. And still Jello murmured on, and eventually his efforts paid off, and he found himself barely standing at his friend’s doorstep.

Jello rung the doorbell, only to hear a friendly voice that was hopeless nonetheless. “Go away Jello. I told you I wasn’t going to help you anymore!” And suddenly it seemed that Jello had found himself alone in this cruel, cruel world yet again.

However, just as it would have appeared that all hope was lost for Jello, 6025 , or at least a vision of 6025, appeared before him, looking as cool as ever. 

“Wh… who are you?” Muttered Jello under crippled breath.

“My name,” replied 6025, “I will tell you my name… But only because I know that I can trust you, and trust you I must, for you Jello, are the only hope this planet has.”

“Why, why me?”

“All will be revealed in the near future. But first, I have some questions of my own. Remember, think clearly, and answer honestly. Now allow me to ask, who are you?”

“I am Jello.”

“While it is true that society perceives you as Jello, is that really who you are? Are you a mere perception? Where does your identity lie, within society, or within yourself?”

“Within… myself?”

“Yes, that is correct Jello, now allow me to ask you again, who are you?”

“I don’t know…”

“And why is that Jello? Why do you not know who you are?”

“Because I have amnesia?”

“Wrong! It is because you have not found yourself Jello. You have hardly even begun to look for yourself. Your perception of the self only comes outwardly, from society, but now you have lost. I have defeated you. The people no longer look upon you as a bastion of strength. The people have forgotten about you. Your ties to your only true friend have been severed. And because you define yourself outwardly rather than inwardly, you too have lost yourself. You are lost. Lost within the labyrinth of your own mind. Now think Jello. Not for others, but for yourself. But to find yourself, you first must lose yourself, so go, lose yourself in the depths of your own mind, and emerge a stronger individual.”

“But what…” Jello began to lose consciousness. “What is your name?”

“Ah yes, I believe I promised that to you. My name.” 6025 hesitated. “My name is Carlos. Carlos Cadona.” 

And with the speaking of those words, and a whisk of his cape, Carlos was gone, along with Jello’s consciousness.

And now, as Jello finds himself in a struggle with his own self identity, what awaits him in the depths of his own mind? Will Jello successfully escape the labyrinth of his thoughts? And most of all, will Jello be able to overcome his most powerful enemy yet… himself? Find out in the next chapter of Jello Biafra VS The Forces of Corruption!

#Jello Biafra #Dead Kennedys #punk #music #writing #creative writing #fanfiction

[madcapmoon]

Highway to Hell: My Life on the Road with the Dead Kennedys

by Amy Linden

In 1981 I moved back to New York City after spending four years in San Francisco. I was 22, and a childhood friend and I shared a two bedroom apartment—rent $300 and change—on East 4th Street, just off Avenue A, kitty-corner to the building where Madonna lived back before she actually was Madonna.

One day, I got a phone call from my friend Klaus Fluoride, the bass player for the seminal punk group the Dead Kennedys. During my last 18 months in SF, Klaus, his girlfriend, three other roommates, my boyfriend/we-got married-for-his-green-card husband, and I shared a huge flat in the Mission District. I wasn’t as close to the other members as I was to Klaus; I had spent a decent amount of time with Darren, (a.k.a. DH Peligro), East Bay Ray, and the inimitable Jello Biafra. It was great to hear from Klaus, especially since he had good news—the Dead Kennedys were embarking on their first East Coast tour.

“We’re coming to New York!” Klaus exclaimed. “You should come out on the road with us!” And why not? I could drink all the band’s beer! I could go backstage. And most of all, I could meet cute punk rock boys! Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about giving my boss notice because I barely had a job.

After arriving in NYC, the band took the Amtrak down to Washington, D.C., where the mini-tour was going to kick off. On the ride down, Klaus raised the possibility of my helping out in some way. Maybe I could write up setlists, maybe arrange the guest list, maybe help move equipment, or maybe I could get up on stage and do “security,” which consisted of grabbing the mic back whenever singer Jello Biafra propelled himself into the audience, keeping the flow of stage divers moving at a brisk pace, and tossing—or more specifically shoving—anyone who climbed up on stage and showed little inclination to move.

That I was totally ill-suited to do security for anyone at anytime, least of all for a high-energy aggressive band with high-energy aggressive fans, should have been obvious. Clearly, none of this mattered. Just like that, I was on stage at the legendary 9:30 Club, wearing a short kilt, beat up cowboy boots, and bandanas wrapped around my wrists, looking out at a packed house of pumped up fans, and trying my best to look butch. Pushing sweat-soaked twenty-year-olds off the stage was not my idea of meeting cute punk rock guys.

Arguably, punk rock’s birthplace was New York. However in 1981, D.C. was the epicenter of the East Coast hardcore scene, with much of the momentum coming from a tight knit, committed crew—many just out of their teens or still living at home—who adhered to a DIY philosophy/lifestyle known as “straight edge.” Being down with straight edge meant just saying “no” to liquor, cigarettes and drugs, which at the time were three of my four basic food groups.

The leading lights of the straight edge crew were Ian MacKaye and Henry Garfield. Ian’s resume included Teen Idles, Minor Threat, and later Fugazi, in addition to founding the influential indie label Dischord Records. Garfield, who worked at a Häagen-Dazs in Georgetown, was the front man for S.O.A. In time, he would change his surname to Rollins, join Black Flag, and become a heavily tattooed, singer/spoken word artist and actor. Henry and Ian looked a bit scary, but like most of the D.C. crew, were as sweet and courteous as their music was aggressive. When they weren’t following me around like I was Bo Peep and they were lost skinhead sheep, Henry and Ian took it upon themselves to protect me from whatever it was they thought I needed to be protected from.

By the time the Dead Kennedys finished up the first of two D.C. shows, I was a cross between big sister and mascot, the affection strictly platonic. There may have been lots of unity, but not many of the D.C. kids were coupled up. All of the passion was directed at the “cause.” It was as though sex, like drugs and alcohol, indicated a lack of discipline.

I remember an odd but telling conversation with Henry. He had invited his friends, the DKs, and me to his small apartment in Alexandria, Virginia. He asked me to come to the kitchen. With utmost sincerity Henry, who was at most  two years my junior, said that he really didn’t like girls, but he liked me because to him I wasn’t really a girl. If memory serves, it was then that he opened the freezer and showed me a dead rat. Touched as I was by Henry’s attempt to let me into his world, I let him know that I was enough of a girl to find a rat-cicle kind of gross. Bless his heart, but this whole meeting cute punk boys was clearly not in the cards.

Ian on stage 3:28

Ian, Henry, and my new skinhead besties travelled to the Baltimore show where they stood in front of the stage, their arms reaching up towards me and sang, “Amy, dance with us!” I might not have been the best security detail but I sure was the most popular. Such displays of affection only served to make my already rocky relationship with Biafra even worse. It was bad enough that Klaus had brought me along, but to Biafra my being serenaded undermined his punk cred, not to mention that he had no interest in sharing the spotlight, especially with some girl in a miniskirt and cowboy boots.

Oddly enough, Biafra’s ire grew even more pronounced when I developed a nasty cough and took to swilling cheap, high-octane cough syrup. Convinced that I would get him sick and that my fits of coughing somehow made the band look lame, Biafra turned mean. He decided that part of my job description involved looking after the equipment, and therefore I had to sleep in the van parked on the streets of the nation’s then-murder capital. This edict was quickly and angrily squashed by Darren, Klaus and guitarist East Bay Ray, who generally paid me no mind, instead concentrating on picking up women. For the remainder of the tour, Klaus and Darren chipped in for a hotel room and kept Biafra off my case. He was a charismatic front man, but Biafra’s actions further convinced me that he was a dick.

Before heading down to Charm City, we drove out to a farm in Virginia to meet the Bad Brain’s explosive lead singer H.R. The Bad Brains were and remain a sheer force of nature, but H.R. could be, shall we say, strange. His home was a punk rock crash pad/Rasta commune filled with kids, women, the other three-quarters of the Bad Brains and the ever-present smell of weed. The Kennedys were there to finalize plans for the punk pioneers to open up at the first of two upcoming NYC dates. Unbeknownst to us, H.R. was in the midst of a verbal fast, something that he did to cleanse himself of negative energy. Instead of talking, he gestured wildly and occasionally scribbled down notes. The next time we saw H.R. and the Bad Brains, they came “this close” to blowing the Dead Kennedys off stage. In fact, they just might have done so.

We encountered a bit of drama in Boston. The concert tickets and local advertising said “DKs” rather than the “Dead Kennedys.” Was it censorship? Maybe. It wasn’t uncommon to shorten the group’s name, yet it wasn’t lost on anyone that the name change had happened in the home of the actual Kennedys. Looking back, I think that Ray, Klaus, and Darren knew that taking umbrage over the promoter’s decision was not worth the energy. But with his customary lack of concern for anything but his own agenda, Biafra became furious.

Adding insult to perceived injury, Biafra began the set ranting and making snarky comments about imprisoned IRA martyr Bobby Sands, who had either just died or was dying as a result of a prolonged hunger strike. It was not one of Biafra’s most sensitive moments. It was also in Boston that the band picked up Microwave, a good natured, muscley young fan who approached them after the show. Microwave was a far better fit for tossing skinheads and guarding amps than a sleep-deprived and tubercular girl. Much to Biafra’s delight, Microwave took over most of the heavy lifting. Literally.

After six cities in two weeks, the traveling circus ended at NYC’s Irving Plaza. An old Ukrainian theater, Irving Plaza was largest venue, and that night it was packed with hundreds of bodies, including the D.C. Straight Edge Boy’s Choir/Amy Appreciation Society. Even though Microwave was now head punk-in-charge, I was in my customary spot off to the right of the bass amp, poised to help out if needed. The energy level was off the charts and the crowd roared, sang along and danced as the Kennedys tore through songs like “California Über Alles,” “Kill the Poor,” and “Holiday in Cambodia.” 

Ian and Henry Rollins dancing onstage during Too Drunk To Fuck

By now I was so in sync with the band’s rhythm that I could almost predict when Biafra would dive into the crowd. And when he did, I ran to the front of the stage to reel him in. Suddenly an over-eager fan grabbed the mic and refused to loosen up his grip. Biafra was floating on top of a sea of bodies, and I had lost control of the mic. A tug of war ensued, and the next thing I knew, the fan got a hold of the mic stand and clonked me. Unfortunately, I was a little drunk; having hit the end of the already-frayed rope, I lost it and tried to kick the fan in the head. Before I could make shoe-to-forehead contact, my opponent put his hands around my left foot and twisted it.

Microwave sprung into action, secured the stand, got the mic and brought Biafra back to the stage as Klaus pushed me behind an amp. The skirmish took less than a minute. As soon as the show ended and the band headed to the dressing room, I became acutely aware of a nagging, swelling sensation radiating from the side of my foot. The pain was intense, so I kept drinking in the hopes that beer would make it all better. I didn’t want to look like a baby or miss the fun—Saturday Night Live’s John Belushi and Mr. Bill were there!

When I was unable to move my toes, it was clear that something really bad had happened. I needed to get it checked out immediately. Ever the gentlemen, Henry and Ian carried me ten blocks down 14th Street to St. Vincent’s Hospital and stayed in the waiting room while I was examined. By now, my foot was completely swollen, and the only way to take x-rays was to cut the boot off, which I begged the doctor not to do. Turned out that I had a severely broken left toe. I was given something a bit stronger than cough syrup, a pair of crutches, and just like that my road trip was over. The Dead Kennedys went back home. I’d had fun. I was littered with bruises but I’d had fun. I never did meet any cute punk rock boys...

*Both videos seem to be from the same 1981 Irving Plaza show but they are dated wrong*

#dead kennedys #ian mackaye #henry rollins

[vinylexams]

INTERVIEW with Brian Cook of SUMAC, Russian Circles, Botch, These Arms are Snakes, and Roy 

Brian Cook of the MANY gnarly bands listed above took time to answer a bunch of questions that had been burning a hole in my mind for years earlier today. Did you know that aside from playing bass in some of the heaviest bands currently in existence, Brian is also an avid record collector and he also runs a very similar page where he posts all of his records and writes up a bit of history and personal context with each one? A man after my own heart! I’ve dropped a link to his Tumblr below and you’d be a fool not to go check it out and follow his work there.

https://bubblesandgutz.tumblr.com⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

I really appreciated having a chance to talk to a very talented musician who also places a LOT of importance on physical medium and the recording process. All too often I get submissions from bands who either don’t know the in’s and out’s of the vinyl format or they took a lot of shortcuts and deprive their art a chance to really shine in the ways that vinyl allows. I picked Brian’s brain about his approach to creation of physical musical media as well as his history as a collector (and even tried to convince him to get These Arms are Snakes play my big gay wedding reception!). Thanks for taking the time to tell your story to us, Brian!

You've been a member of several incredible bands over the past few decades (Botch, Sumac, Russian Circles, These Arms Are Snakes), all of which have released pretty much everything they've recorded on vinyl. How important is the vinyl medium for you as a musician and creator?

Thanks for the kind words. It's really important to me for my music to have some sort of physical format. I realize that mode of thinking might seem sort of old school or outdated, but i've always been enamored by music as a kind of historical artifact. When I was younger, that meant it was important for me to have an actual Dead Kennedys cassette as opposed to a dubbed version from my friend. It was like the difference between owning a painting versus owning a xerox of a painting. When I became a musician, it was a sign of validation. By having a record with my name on it, I had created something that would potentially outlive me. And now in the digital age we've convinced ourselves that everything lives forever on the internet, but it's not true. Myspace just lost all their music. I've written for a lot of online music outlets that have closed shop or simply deleted old posts. Meanwhile, I have a trunk full of old zines that outlived the supposed permanence of blogs. So while the digital age is great for convenience and scope, creating a physical recording is really the more reliable way to make sure something exists for more than five to ten years, or however long it takes for the newest technological fad to become obsolete. Vinyl seems to be the longest lasting format, so it's my preferred medium. But if my music exists on tape or CD, that's fine too. 

Do you approach your recording and production processes with specific formats like vinyl in mind? If so, what do you do differently? Absolutely. The main concern is that we're dealing with the time constraints of vinyl. For bands like Russian Circles and SUMAC who have really long songs, it means we have to be careful how we sequence our records because we can easily exceed the 22-minutes-per-side rule. We've also been told by pressing plants that it's better to have long drones in the middle of an album side than at the beginning or end because there tends to be more surface noise at the beginning of a side and more warble at the end, and drones don't do much to mask these imperfections. But while one can complain about the limitations of vinyl, there are also issues with digital formats that can alter the way an album is put together. For example, the digital version of Empros has a longer drone at the end of "Batu" than the LP version, partially because of vinyl's limitations, but also because digital outlets like iTunes don't recognize records with long songs as full albums unless at least one track is longer than ten minutes. So we stretched it out on the digital version so that we'd be compensated appropriately for our work, but condensed it on vinyl so that we didn't compromise the sound quality.

Of all of the albums you've contributed to, which one stands out to you as the one you feel most connected to?

Probably Geneva by Russian Circles, if I had to pick one. We wrote that record over the span of several months at a house in rural Wisconsin. It was one of those ideal scenarios I'd always dreamed of---hunkering down in some isolated retreat and just immersing ourselves in the writing process. I've never walked away from an album feeling as accomplished as I did with that one. It just felt like we'd achieved something that had previously been out of my level of expertise. I think we've made better records since then, but I don't think I've ever felt as successful in making the sounds in my head translate to the recording. With regards to my other bands, I feel that way about Botch's We Are The Romans, These Arms Are Snakes' Easter, Roy's Killed John Train, and SUMAC's What One Becomes. But Geneva will always hold a special place.

How did you get into vinyl collecting and how does it play a part in your life?

I started buying vinyl around '92 because it was cheap. My first LP was Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet's Savvy Show Stoppers. I bought it for $2. Then I discovered 7"s, which was the dominant format for hardcore and punk bands at the time. Throughout high school, I mainly bought 7"s because i could buy 3 or 4 a week on my allowance. And let's be honest... most hardcore bands in the '90s had better 7"s than full albums. But vinyl was so dead at the time that you could also go to thrift stores and scoop up the entire Creedence Clearwater Revival discography for the cost of one CD. Even new vinyl was cheaper than their CD counterpart back then. So it's a bit of a drag now considering that vinyl is currently the most expensive format, but I still get a thrill from going to record stores, digging through crates, and coming home with a new LP. I can't say I buy that many 7"s anymore though.

What do you think about the relatively recent resurgence of large-scale vinyl production and collection?

It certainly has its advantages and disadvantages. I buy a lot of reissues just so I can have a clean, good-sounding copy, so I appreciate the resurgence in that regard. At the same time, the vinyl boom has made used record shopping a bit more of a drag. I don't know how many copies of Neil Young's Harvest I saw in used bins throughout the '90s and '00s, and then when I finally decided to buy a copy five years ago, it seemed like they'd all been snagged and the reissue was going for $50. When the Zeppelin discography got reissued a few years back, I mentioned wanting a new copy of Physical Graffiti to my husband. He went to our local indie record store in Brooklyn and asked the owner if they carried it and he totally balked at the question. "Why would we carry a reissue when you can buy a used copy of that in any record store for $5?" he said. My husband was like "every used Zeppelin record you carry is beat to shit and goes for at least $20... what the fuck are you even talking about?"

If you had to pare down your entire collection to no more than three albums, which would you keep?

What's the broader context? Like, are those the only three records I can listen to for the rest of my life? Or is it just a matter of only being allowed to own three records? If it's the former, I'd probably choose Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, Miles Davis' In a Silent Way, and a Can album... either Ege Bamyasi or Soon Over Babaluma. Ask me tomorrow and I'd probably list off a different three. If it's the latter... like, if i'm merely holding onto records because the actual artifact means a lot to me but I can still listen to music in some other capacity, then I'd probably go with the His Hero Is Gone / Union of Uranus split LP, Undertow's At Both Ends, and Sticks & Stones Theme Songs For Nothing, just because those seem like a pain in the ass to replace and they're important records to me. I have records that are worth way more money, but I'm not someone who buys records because they're valuable. 

Do you have a "white whale" record you still haven't found?

Not really. For ages I resisted the urge to buy used records online, but I've since relented. The record that finally broke my ordering embargo was Hack's The Rotten World Around Us. They were a band from Adelaide, South Australia in the late '80/ early '90s who sounded like a grungier version of the first couple Swans records. Super heavy and scary. I got turned onto them through a 7" on Alternative Tentacles, but the LP was never available stateside. The first few times I toured Australia i went to every record store I could find in hopes of finding a copy. No one had ever heard of Hack. The singer was in another band called Grong Grong, and members of that band had gone on to be in King Snake Roost, Lubricated Goat, and Tumor Circus (with Jello Biafra on vocals), but no one had heard of them either. In my mind there was this rich underground of Australian noise rock from that time period that was still vital and valid, but the reality is that it was largely ignored and forgotten. I eventually found a copy online and bought it for $20. A year later i found a used copy in Boise. Oh well. I'd love to find Acme's To Reduce The Choir..., or an original copy of Popol Vuh's second album, or the Neu! 7", or the Greenlandic prog band Sume's Sumut album.

Hypothetically how much money would I need to raise to get These Arms Are Snakes to reunite to play my wedding reception? My family will hate it but my partner and I will be very happy, etc.

We still talk about doing some proper "farewell shows" since we bailed on doing them back in 2009/2010. Granted, now they'd be reunion shows, but in our hearts they'd be our proper goodbye. We're putting together a vinyl release of various odds and ends for next year, so maybe that'll give us an excuse to finally book something.

#vinylexams #vinyl #vinyljunkie #onmyturntable #nowspinning #sumac #botch #thesearmsaresnakes #seattle #taas #roy #russiancircles #briancook

[troutfishinginmusic]

Essay: The problem of character songs during the Grunge era

No one believes Jello Biafra when he joyously sings about killing poor people on The Dead Kennedys’ landmark 1980 album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. Each word drips with contempt for the machinery that grinds down the underclass. The takeaway is easy, American society cares little about poor people.

On the opposite side of the spectrum sits Dire Straits’ 1985 hit “Money for Nothing” a supposed critique of working class ignorance. The song is a character study that echoes sentiments of homophobia, racism and misogyny. There’s something uncomfortable about a cheesy ‘80s song saying these things. It feels like an endorsement of the callousness of the time. 

Making these songs is a high wire act. When using method to criticize worthy targets, Grunge and post-Grunge often struggled. Good intentions can be taken as a consignment to bad behavior. Most people won’t pay attention to the creator’s motivations. Here are three examples of these odd relics:

Nirvana-Polly

All things Kurt Cobain have been dissected in the years following his death. Most people are now aware of his feminism. But when Nirvana’s Nevermind exploded, less was known.

“Polly” is about a 14-year-old girl who was abducted and raped in Aberdeen, Cobain’s hometown. The song is written from the point of view of the abuser: “Polly wants a cracker/Maybe she would like some food/She asks me to untie her/A chase would be nice for a few.”

The song was reportedly sung by two men as they raped a woman. Cobain responded to the event in the liner notes to Incesticide: “Last year, a girl was raped by two wastes of sperm and eggs while they sang the lyrics to our song 'Polly.' I have a hard time carrying on knowing there are plankton like that in our audience.”

The liner notes also went a step further: “If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of different color, or women, please do this one favor for us—leave us the fuck alone! Don't come to our shows and don't buy our records.”

The song wasn’t a hit, but it was on a gigantic album. Millions bought the album and heard it. Some more than likely took it the wrong way. Nirvana had more feminist songs including “Been a Son,” “About a Girl” and “Pennyroyal Tea.” Cobain went a step further and tried to make a song he viewed as even more straightforward. It ended up making things even more complicated.

“Rape Me” is seen as a difficult relic of a progressive band. It’s intentionally uncomfortable. It’s a stark song from the point of view of a survivor essentially saying no matter how much you abuse me you’ll never win. The song is a taunt and a reclaiming of agency from the abused. The song became huge on American radio. It was put on the airwaves during the 1994 Rwandan genocide to encourage abuse against the Tutsi population.

Kurt Cobain was a celebrity with a conscience who had good intentions. He carried feminist ethos into mainstream Rock from the underground. What he underestimated was rape culture’s resilience and ability to repurpose critiques into endorsements.

Stone Temple Pilots- Sex Type Thing

It’s a bit jarring to hear Scott Weiland’s booming Grunge croon sing “I said you shouldn't have worn that dress, worn that dress” in 2020. What sounds like a justification of rape culture is the exact opposite. It’s something strange and complicated. It’s possibly one the bravest and strangest songs in pop music.

The 1993 song was intended to be an anti-rape statement. It’s about the destructive state of mind that led a group of jocks to sexually abuse a woman Weiland dated.

“I just put myself into the mindset of the total macho American male attitude toward women and their sexuality, which I think is something important that needs to be said,” Weiland said on an episode of Headbangers Ball.

The song was more than likely difficult for its creator, even if it wasn’t on a conscious level. Weiland details getting raped by an older student when he was 12 years old in his autobiography Not Dead & Not For Sale. This is an event he was only able to come to terms with after years of therapy. The idea of a survivor reliving their trauma and taking on the viewpoint of an abuser is unthinkable.

And yet the lumbering riffage and earworm chorus made it into a radio staple. It was a song I remember being slotted on local alternative radio stations with less socially conscious material. While some may have followed up and tracked the song’s meaning, others probably saw it as endorsement of bad behavior. The song did some good and more than likely caused harm.

“Hopefully the idea comes across and isn’t misconstrued,” Weiland said in the Headbanger’s Ball interview. “The last thing any of us would want is for the point to be taken literally.”

Cold-Stupid Girl

Cold was more of a Grunge or a post-Grunge band than a Nu Metal band. Yet they were on the same label as Limp Bizkit. They shared stages with Nu Metal bands. The band also had a song to slot in between the casual misogyny of the time.

“Stupid Girl” was the band’s biggest song. The 2003 song from Year of the Spider had a surprising co-writing credit from Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo. It featured lyrics like “Wanna love ya, wanna bug ya/Wanna squeeze ya, stupid girl/Wanna touch ya, wanna take ya/Wanna shut ya, stupid girl.” When I first heard these lyrics as a teenage boy they spoke to angst I felt at the time. When I revisited the song as an adult I was repulsed by the song and the sort of ugliness I thought it fed into.

I was wrong. What I failed to consider were lyrics like “I'm a loner, I'm a loser/I'm a winner in my mind/I'm a bad one, I'm a good one/I'm a sick one with a smile.” The lyrics show how completely unaware the narrator is of his toxic attitude toward woman. He doesn’t realize he might be the problem in a relationship turning sour.

This was singer Scooter Ward’s intention for the song: “You could just be a total piece of trash and at the same time, you don't know that you are. You have this person that's going to leave you and you don't have any idea why. A lot of people are blind to the fact that they are idiots."

Cold had been around since the late ‘80s and were previously called Grundig. The band’s first self-titled 1997 album as Cold is weird. It features bleak, noisy guitars. It shares more musical DNA with Nirvana and Helmet than anything Korn was doing. It featured depressing songs about relationships and serial killers. It wasn’t far removed from Kurt Cobain’s songwriting, although not quite as revolutionary.

Yet the context was different. The explicit feminist politics of many Grunge bands had faded. It was replaced with apolitical bands that were more relatable. Pearl Jam featured politics and musical experimentation that weren’t always relatable. A band like Creed had more relatable bombastic songs about relationships and faith. Record labels snapped up Creed-like bands after Grunge’s first wave. Grunge’s dismantling of ‘80s glam excess was rebuilt in its own image.

Cold became famous during this time. Even if some of the band’s songs railed against things like child abuse, its major hit could be woven into prevailing ideas of the time.

Takeaway

Art’s intent can become inconsequential once it’s released. That’s the unsaid bargain and it can be very frustrating. It can be easy to disregard songs with ugly lyrics. In a world filled with so much hatred and bigotry, there doesn’t seem to be much use for them.

Yet there is a danger of completely turning away from disturbing topics. Art that glosses over inequity and ignorance can allow it to fester in the shadows. Great art can do many things. It can comfort, sooth and entertain. It can also spur activism, awareness and steps toward change.

Grunge and post-Grunge, at their best, tried to do this. They attempted to take the revolutionary politics of the underground and bring them to the masses. The problem was releasing them into a society that hadn’t resolved those issues. While they exposed a lot of people to new ideas, they also could normalize existing inequality.

In 2020 we should look at these songs as a sparks that changed mainstream, male-dominated radio Rock. They did so by subverting norms and slipping in radical politics. They did this imprecisely and left too much room for ambiguity. Current music should look at these songs as examples of what to do and what not to do. Artists have responsibility and if they are tackling injustice should at least try to be clearer.

#grunge #nirvana #cold #stone temple pilots #1990s #scott weiland #kurt cobain

[recordoftheday]

This has been on my wishlist of things to grab for a long time for a lot of reasons and it just so happens my step father got this for me for my birthday. Not because he's painfully cool or anything but because he figured out how to use people's amazon wishlists last year and basically just clicks the first thing he sees on them.  It is just a happy coincidence that this album has more relevance now than it would have a couple a years ago.  Or unhappy I suppose but you get it.

So the song that has brought this record back into the the public consciousness is Nazi Punks Fuck Off.  Which got it's moment in the sun in Green room and then has become more popular with the new Nazi movement in America that becomes increasingly more prevalent.  I remember this song when I was a kid but it wasn't the one that hit us when I was a kid in the late 80's listening to it (it speaks volumes about Jello Biafra's song writing that this was already ancient when I started listening to it but still felt essential and relevant). For us the big stand out at the time was Religious omit and We've Got a Bigger Problem Now but then I went to a Christian School.  Part of it though was in the 80's while Punk did indeed have a Nazi Problem the rest of the US didn't.  Neo Nazi's were largely a punch line.  Walking cartoon villains who marginalized themselves though ludicrous looks and ideology and as far as most of use were concerned existed only on Daytime Talk Shows for us to laugh at.  They weren't real, they did a good job of make sure no person could take them seriously, a lesson sadly white nationalists have learned and moved on from since.  It is probably telling that the single did better in the UK than it did in the US, where they had a serious skinhead problem.  Nazi Punks Fuck Off is a pretty good intro to this album though.  After all it opens with the lines, "Punk ain't no religious cult/Punk means thinking for yourself".  It sums up the entire album with is a punk manifesto played fast and loud.  Punk is anti-authority in all it's forms.  After all We've Got a Bigger Problem Now rails Reagan but is just a rewrite of a song that was against a Democratic Governor in California and basically claims he wants a hippie-fascist state.  Which sounds odd to a lot of people I am sure but it strikes me as the difference and flaw in the modern political landscape.  Not that the Dead Kennedy's were mainstream political discourse in their time but Bernard Crick the famous Political Scientist is famous for arguing that the back room deals of politics are healthy for democracy.  People see them as shady and suspicious but it is what allows the peaceful coexistence of differing beliefs.  A liberal democracy exists in a state where no one gets everything they want but everyone has the freedom to lead the life he or she chooses.  The modern world seems more involved in the idea that your side has to win at all cost.  Compromise and those who engage in it are great evils, to be smote at all cost.  I am not sure that Jello Biafra would have then or would now phrase it in such a way but it was important to stand up to authority, not just pick a side and follow that one.  It's why Nazi Punks Fuck Off existed.  Not because Nazis suck, which they do, but because Nazis were being tolerated in the punk scene and they are the least punk rock thing in the world.  Punk is about a giant fuck you to authority, questioning power, Nazis literally worship it.  This album is fast and loud and owes a huge debt to my beloved HarDCore scene from my home town but what make it truly great is how strongly the Dead Kennedys took a stand how it was so well done that it all resonates today.

#Dead Kennedys #In God We Trust Inc #Music #Record of the Day #Vinyl Records #Punk #hardcore punk

[faramira-sg-blog]

We Need Another "Nazi Punks Fuck Off!"

Dead Kennedys' 1981 single, "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" - as the title suggests - is an order to punk rock fans who align with the far right to get out of the scene. The track is a tightly-coiled blast of harnessed energy, as powerful as a nuclear bomb, as political as anything the band ever did, as brief as it is intense. One minute and it's over. Read Also: Me and Daniel Johnston Released at a time when so-called "white power" bands (Skrewdriver might be the most well-known, or at least most notorious) had developed something of a considerable footing within a relatively small scene, "Nazi Punks" was more a necessity than a piece of art. If you were bothered by its tone and subject matter (rather than disgusted by white supremacy in a counterculture fundamentally opposed to it), either you weren't listening or you were the very thing Jello Biafra and company were railings against. With the current social and political climate, I'd argue we need this song more than ever. With a worldwide resurgence in fascism and white nationalism, it feels more appropriate than when it was first released. The first verse goes: Punk ain't no religious cult Punk means thinking for yourself You ain't hardcore 'cause you spike your hair When a jock still lives inside your head Followed by the chorus: Nazi punks Nazi punks Nazi punks, fuck off! Nazi punks Nazi punks Nazi punks, fuck off! What makes the message work is its simplicity and sincerity. There's no hidden meaning, no message to decode. It's all right there, laid bare like a body on an autopsy table - and just as stark, too. Read Also: The Conflicting Nature of Dave Chappelle’s Recent Netflix Special Unlike much of the protest music coming out of the hippie folk scene, the group doesn't ask you kindly to consider how you can change the world. They don't even ask you to change the world. They do, however, demand that you confront a growing problem. Almost forty years ago, this band and others like them (Reagan Youth is another that comes to mind) were well-aware of a major tactic the fascist underbelly employs to spread its message of racism and hate: inserting themselves, appropriating an image and symbols, and making it more difficult to erase them from whatever they may have infiltrated. It can be downright impossible to do so once this has happened. Much like an insect infestation, they must be stomped out before it gets unbearable. The song continues: You still think swastikas look cool The real Nazis run your schools They're coaches, businessmen and cops In a real fourth Reich, you'll be the first to go This really gets to the heart of the stupidity of the neo-Nazi movement, especially in scenes such as punk rock. Punks are supposed to be opposed to the state and about giving marginalized people and weirdos a space to be themselves, create art, and go against the grain. Being a neo-Nazi goes one-hundred percent against what it means to be punk. These types complain about folks that punk traditionally gives a voice to, except they do it in song. Music and art is the best way to change minds and get your views across in a way people will pay attention to. This is why protest art and music exists in the first place, after all. Bands like Skrewdriver understand this as well as anyone else. By performing music for enraged teenagers to shake their fists to, they can warp young minds who need a community and shape them however they see necessary. It stands to reason this is more harmful than anyone might know or be willing to admit. This may or may not have been another facet of "Nazi Punks." I can't attest to whether or not that went into consideration when writing and recording the single. It's likely it went through their minds, at least. The song concludes with a warning: You'll be the first to go You'll be the first to go You'll be the first to go Unless you think This is a very fitting note to end on, and it's not as negative as one might think on first listen. While stern, there's a forgiving quality at play (or at least a resigned acceptance). Biafra is making a case for leaving your hateful beliefs in the past if only to save yourself. The Nazis would kill you just as they would anyone else, so think for yourself. At the same time, it's obvious he's expressing a blatant hatred for their mindset, and giving a final warning to anyone tuning in that might be one of them, "Your time is up. Get out of here, or you're finished." We need this song more than ever. We need songs like it more than ever. With the rise in white supremacy that we've seen over the past few years (or perhaps merely the surfacing of what was already there), we all know it's impossible to rid ourselves of fascism completely. We can, at least, call attention to it and confront it through art. This article first appeared on Faramira Read the full article

#DeadKennedys #Music

[dapperfvck-arc]

TAGGED BY: @oldhecd

1ST RULE:  tag muses you would like to know better.

@vamptrampbamf, @hittcr, @cellobowsandarrows, @corvidamned 2ND RULE:   BOLD the statements that are true for your muse.

APPEARANCE: i am 5'7" or taller i wear glasses i have at least one tattoo i have at least one piercing i have blonde hair i have brown eyes i have short hair my abs are at least somewhat defined i have or have had braces

PERSONALITY: i love meeting new people people tell me that i’m funny helping others with their problems is a big priority for me i enjoy physical challenges i enjoy mental challenges i’m playfully rude with people i know well i started saying something ironically and now i can’t stop saying it there is something i would change about my personality’

ABILITY: i can sing well (listen there are two kinds of punk singers in the world. There are people like Dave Vanian and Glen Danzig who do have good voices but play up to the aesthetic, and then there’s your John Lydons and Jello Biafras, who are are decidedly not secret talents. John slots into the latter. i can play an instrument (maybe? I like the idea that he can play a guitar, ok) i can do over 30 push-ups without stopping (maybe) i’m a fast runner  i can draw well i have a good memory (head canon with considerable appearance of canon evidence, John has a eidetic memory) i’m good at doing math in my head i can hold my breath underwater for over a minute i have beaten at least 2 people in arm wrestling i know how to cook at least 3 meals from scratch i know how to throw a proper punch

HOBBIES: i enjoy playing sports i’m on a sports team at my school or somewhere else i’m in an orchestra or choir at my school or somewhere else i have learned a new song in the past week i work out at least once a week i’ve gone for runs at least once a week in the warmer months i have drawn something in the past month i enjoy writing i do or have done martial arts

EXPERIENCES: i have had my first kiss i have had alcohol i have scored the winning goal in a sports game i have watched an entire season of a tv show in one sitting i have been at an overnight event i have been in a taxi  i have been in the hospital or er in the past year i have beaten a video game in one day i have visited another country i have been to one of my favorite band’s concerts

RELATIONSHIPS: i’m in a relationship (I’d say verse/continuity dependent, but I think John has at least one ship in each one so I mean...yeah, I guess he is XD;) i have a crush on a celebrity i have a crush on someone I know i have been in at least 3 relationships i have never been in a relationship i have asked someone out or admitted my feelings to them i get crushes easily i have had a crush on someone for over a year i have been in a relationship for at least a year i have had feelings for a friend

MY LIFE: i have at least one person i consider a “best friend” i live close to my school my parents are still together i have at least one sibling i live in the united states (verse/continuity dependent) there is snow right now where i live i have hung out with a friend in the past month i have a smartphone i have at least 15 CD’s i share my room with someone (verse/continuity dependent, mostly only noted due to him being officially Matt Murdock’s live in bf)

RANDOM SHIT: i have breakdanced i know a person named jamie i have had a teacher with a last name that’s hard to pronounce i have dyed my hair i’m listening to one song on repeat right now i have punched someone in the past week i know someone who has gone to jail i have broken a bone i have eaten a waffle today i know what i want to do with my life i speak at least 2 languages i have made a new friend in the past year

#head canon

[surroundedbythesound]

file://AIM/ChrisOsborn/PublicFiles/Music/

Chris Osborn

Nothing I first loved was my own discovery. It was given to me. As a kid, I glommed onto the music of my older brother, our awkward grapplings with hip-hop and alt-rock radio in suburban Oregon mutating into a love of nü-metal, which opened up the floodgates for the Epitaph strain of skate-punk during the early Bush years. He never pushed these things onto me. It was just what was always around and through adolescent osmosis and an untempered desire to grow up more quickly, a means to become cool by association. It never felt completely mine.

When he went to college, I was left stranded without a musical compass. I struggled to adjust. I had just started high school and needed to grow up fast. I watched the punk kids at my school from afar. I found my syllabus emblazoned on their biker jackets, logos hand-painted onto the leather with care and diligence. Every band had flourished and flamed out in the Eighties: Germs, Crass, Black Flag, Subhumans. They signaled their taste, and their status, through these wearable bumper stickers.

I couldn’t dress the part, but I could learn the lines. I consumed every fucked-up story of Darby Crash and GG Allin that Google had to offer. I spent my allowance on back issues of Maximum Rock ‘n Roll and Cometbus. I became quietly radicalized by grainy JPEG scans of Penny Rimbaud and Eve Libertine’s Christ’s Reality Asylum. I strained to understand Jello Biafra’s spoken word albums. I used my family’s desktop to scour dozens of blogs for Rapidshare links containing entire discographies. Even the rare 7-inches. I burned them onto data CDs that, due to the short length of these tracks, encompassed an entire decade of music to study.

Because that’s what this was: an education. It was work. And I had plenty of time and motivation. After all, the friends I made in middle school had been bullying me within an inch of my life. I’d been cast out to the periphery of the cafeteria to eat alone. I had no one. If I could infiltrate these older punks, with the right contextual cues to speak their specific shared language, I might just survive freshmen year.

I had help, of course. My closest friends existed online, met through blogs culled from our daily scribblings of mutual angst. Marcus, a punk from an adjacent suburb to mine whom I’d never met in person, shared folders of music to anyone willing to make a direct connection on AOL Instant Messenger.

These shared folders became a similar marker of taste between me and my online friends. The publicness of this illegal trade allowed us teens to tout our invisible shelves of records, and prove our fealty to some ideal of music geekery, without the expense. Gone from this digital collection were the more embarrassing albums over which we initially bonded: the Pinkertons, the Punk In Drublics, every Warped Tour comp and Dashboard Confessional album, CDs that would otherwise be visible in our bedrooms (and returned to in private). Here, we could prune and tailor the image of ourselves, and only allow a little light in. I’d have fulfilling conversations with strangers about Aus-Rotten without anyone needing to know I was into Finch just last year.

Soon, I had discovered the screennames of my prospective punk friends from school. I added them to my Friends list, despite never speaking to them. I waited in anticipation. I had hoped to see if they had a shared folder of their own, and maybe more than anything, hoped that they would see my shared folder, if I ever took that fateful leap to initiate. Unlike me, they were rarely online. In my head, they were still smoking outside 7-Eleven, like they always did at lunch, or practicing in their band, delightfully called Amber Alert. Never had I thought they were feeling lonely like me, or scared about grades, or sex, or the state of the world, like I was. They seemed untouchable, wise beyond their years, just like the other punk heroes I admired from afar. Perhaps that’s how I wanted to see them at the time. And perhaps that’s exactly how they wanted to be seen.

Punk, like other fringe interests like metal or professional wrestling, lives and dies by exclusivity. It’s never “just about the music.” There are volumes upon volumes of history to unearth, entire mythologies and family trees to memorize, all born from that elemental catharsis the music provides. For all its bald confrontation, punk is surprisingly nerdy and ascetic in practice. It’s a lot like faith. You can’t be in halfway. And you can’t cram for the test.

By adorning myself with the right bands, the right stories, the right information, by mastering the performance of a good punk, I had missed the point entirely. A mohawk and some patches on my backpack probably would have gotten me closer to friendships than all this absurd intellectual preparation. I spun my wheels, and fanned my peacock feathers for the few people peering in on my AIM profile, or reading my blog.

One Friday, from an away message, I saw that Amber Alert was putting on a show at the Java Mama, a comically small coffee shop in a nearby suburban strip mall. I got dropped off by my dad in his Toyota. Those punks I had watched for months put on a hell of a show. I moshed with their friends from other schools. I think they played an Operation Ivy song. Someone smashed a lamp, and they were never invited back. They were ferocious and unruly and powerful. I mustered up the courage to meet them after the show. “That was fucking great!” I said.

“Hey, thanks man! You go to our school, right?” they said, recognizing my face.

#the germs #the libertines #punk in drublics #warped tour #punk #music writing #nonfiction

[kasprsg]

REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE

Published in Studija Magazine 87 (2012 December) following exhibition H at KKC, Riga. 2012

Two threes are rotating around an axis. The longer they are spinning, the less they look like figures, twisting and dissolving as they move. Two threes spin around the axis thirty three times per minute, and along with them there wobbles and ripples one more third and three small letters – RPM (Revolutions per minute). For a Latvian mind like the one I have, the letters standing for revolutions per minute make me first of all think of fundamental changes in power per minute. How many revolutions are there really per minute? To be more exact, how many fundamental changes are supported by a thought or action per minute? Maybe somewhere someone is drawing three lines on squared paper, lines that are later to become an international event, while elsewhere one more breakfast fortifies a personal commitment to do away with cheese with holes in it, once and forever.

Long-playing vinyl records are still played at 33.33 RPM, but their manufacturers will certainly remember the time when a cassette player was part of the stockpile of sound gear in people’s bedrooms, lounge rooms and kitchens. People were able to record music from the radio, copy and share recordings with friends, acquaintances and strangers. With the help of a pencil, you could wind up the time captured in the tape.

In 1980, Annabella Lwin, dressed up as a pop-music pirate, repeated in a strident voice the words written by the godfather of punk music, Malcolm McLaren: “C30, C60, C90, go!” The song in Burundi beat eulogized the most popular cassette formats of the day and at the same time, and to a certain extent, marked a flagging of the initial rapture in the punk revolution, but let us return to that later. C90 meant that a cassette could hold approximately two longplaying records (2x45 minutes), and all of a sudden time was slightly easier to take hold of. Thirty years later it is so difficult to imagine any limits to data carriers that even the Guinness Book of Records no longer thinks it worth maintaining the category of “The World’s Longest Album”. And Nam June Paik, possibly, would be forced to admit that books have ceased to be “the most advanced technology”.

The punk coup in the UK was launched by the word “shit!”, scornfully spat out live on TV. Upon Malcolm McLaren’s solicitous advice, the boutique of his girlfriend, Vivienne Westwood, acquired a new name – ‘SEX’, and a timeless accessory: the band Sex Pistols. The punk revolution had already started, but the expletives the Sex Pistols members uttered on Bill Grundy’s afternoon TV show in 1976 echoed the next day from the front pages of British papers (“The Filth and the Fury!”), and straight away also in the minds of anxious parents, lunch-time conversations and scratchiti on public transport seats.

The word “punk” was, and still is, protected and cared for with pride by its keepers. It was in angry slogans that they found their identity, to be enhanced by squeaky guitars and the rebellion manifested in their clothing. Multicoloured mohawks cut through the crowds like festive banners in the streets of London, Liverpool and Manchester, soon to spread from Paris to Moscow and further on.

When, in the late 1970s, Derek Jarman’s film Jubilee appeared on the screen, Vivienne Westwood offered her customers an open letter of denunciation to the director: “I had been to see it once and thought it the most boring and therefore disgusting film I had ever seen” said the wobbly handwriting of the letter printed on a T-shirt.

It seemed to Westwood that in this work, promoted as the first punk film, the street subculture had been used as stage design, giving the wrong impression about punks. A culture invoking anarchy and freedom was suddenly threatened by a homosexual film director from “artistic circles”, offering his version about a certain time in a certain place. Shortly before his death, Jarman wrote that the film had later turned out to be prophetic. Many of the original anarchists were soon basking on TV in Top of the Pops, while Adam Ant, one of the lead actors in Jubilee, entertained soldiers at a ball celebrating the victory of the British (and Margaret Thatcher) in the Falklands War.

In 1853, Édouard Manet’s painting Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (‘The Luncheon on the Grass’) sparked the displeasure of the Parisian public. The picture features two respectably clad gentlemen who have sat down in rather roughly daubed woods, together with a nude lady gazing serenely at the viewer. The men, lost in conversation, scarcely notice her, just like they ignore the woman clad in a nightdress who is bathing in a nearby river or lake. Manet’s uneven strokes were re-echoed ten years later in the newspaper Le Charivari, with Louis Leroy sarcastically satirising a bunch of – in his opinion – inept Parisian painters. And thus the mocked-at impressionists were drawn into the modernist whirlpool.

More than a hundred years later, The Luncheon on the Grass shocked society once again. This time Annabella Lwin, at the time a 15-year-old girl, joined in the meal, with her mates from the band Bow Wow Wow posing in the roles of the city dandies. The not-too-precise photographic interpretation of Manet’s painting was to be used for the cover of their album See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah. City All Over! Go Ape Crazy. The young singer’s mother, meanwhile, sued Malcolm McLaren for the exploitation of a minor.

Bow Wow Wow was Malcolm McLaren’s next “project” after the punk revolution, a weird attempt to destroy the music industry from the inside, using to this end the underage Annabella, lewd lyrics and a whole load of erotic photographs. Managing the Sex Pistols had finished in massive disagreement, the breakup of the group and – finally – the death of the notorious bassist Sid Vicious. But McLaren’s plan to stir up a nationwide paedophilia scandal by publishing, with financial assistance from the music giant EMI, a kids porn magazine called Chicken, again featuring Annabella Lwin, failed. Punk rock had become too slow.

Lydia Lunch, “the official face” of the New York No Wave movement, was to sneer some time later: “I thought punk was lousy Chuck Berry music amped up to play triple fast. (..) I thought it was really too much orientated towards fashion.” Lunch’s howls, clusters of booming noises and screaming wails of saxophone that tore the air in New York artists’ dives had finally decimated rock music, leaving behind a mutilated carcass.

Although the No Wave overthrow took place mostly on the cover of the No New York vinyl record while its participants maintained obstinate silence, foregoing slogans and grandiose future plans, it rumbled on like a thunderstorm in summer, making many sit up. While Jean-Michel Basquiat was rubbing shoulders with crowds at the concerts of Lydia Lunch and her group, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, in the west, east, south, north and centre of America the hollow rumble reverberated in furious incitements and piercing vibrations of guitar strings. Young and angry, keepers of the punk legacy offered a new version of mutiny and anarchy – hardcore punk, alluding to the term used by the porn industry to denote heavy porn. The hardcore version of punk rock was uncontrollable, like a vein throbbing on one’s neck, with music crashing through clapped-out loudspeakers as fast as the drummer’s extremities would allow.

In the mid-1980s, mutant monsters, named after bebop and rocksteady genres of music, scared the kids from TV screens. Loaded with chains, wearing military style clothes and brightly coloured mohawks, mutant punks fought ninja turtles in the New York City underground. For the most part unsuccessfully. The ninjas, in turn, were being cheered on by one of the 80s mainstream rappers, Vanilla Ice, with a spirited Go ninja, go ninja, go!. The clashes of subcultures had entered into popular culture, thus obtaining many of the stereotypes we know today. In the city slums, aggressive punks wallowed in garbage, the hip-hop culture left behind it defaced walls, while antisocial Goths pined away in basements, messing around with the occult. “A brain, a beauty, a jock, a rebel and a recluse. Before the day was over, they broke the rules (...)”

While Soviet children were being scared by a hippie wolf with a cigarette in its mouth, American television screens were lit up by Ronald Reagan’s smile, but the punk rock in stale cellars and beer-soaked bars had become much faster and more violent. People’s bodies rolled over the edge of the stage and band members sometimes mingled with the crowd in order to have a punch up. Hardcore music embodied young people’s protest against the existing division of roles and became the soundtrack for the mood of a certain strata of society. Amidst the flailing feet, hands and hair, Jello Biafra yelled, with a TV evangelist’s tremor in his voice: I’m your hope dope pusher!”

I remember, round about the time when conductors had just appeared on public transport in Riga, an elderly bus conductor expressed her horror about my friends’ pierced ears, lips, eyebrows and noses. To which somebody replied, with a snigger, that their god was a magnet – the more metal in your body, the closer you are to the almighty.

The number of bands and small independent music publishers grew in proportion to the number of broken jaws. Information travelled from town to town via records, cassettes and home-edited issues, slowly building a definite community where information circulates like well-lubricated conversation. During a longer communication, the words accumulated meaning, to an outside observer they seemed like sentences dropped in a hurry. A commonplace word or simply the geometry of eyebrows allowed a person conversant with the language to continue with a communication in which pieces of clothing, graphic signs and tattoo lines have their place. As in similar subcultures, the language of communication in hardcore communities remained, for as long as possible, as opaque as any ‘insider joke’ that is funny only for those in the know.

Like before, the punks of the 1970s inevitably felt weary – from the shards of glass under their feet, from the incessant brawls, the conflicts with the law, an abstract enemy and the monotonous beat of the music. A community that still nurtured a vision of independence from the state system tried to absorb bloody fists and the owners thereof, fierce individuals for whom a comrade’s shoulder served as a catalyst for violence. Hardcore subculture slowly went through change, with many of its original adherents growing up and getting tired of destruction and roaming around (Seek & Destroy). As they fought unsuccessfully to avert the imminent capitulation through indelible individual promises of their flesh, time inevitably pointed towards new uprisings.

Sitting alone with the rumble of Riga trains, nothing can be stated with any certainty, however, doubt and revelations began to creep into the recordings emerging from the punk community in the mid-1980s. Collectors of music stories will later credit this time with being the starting point for a number of genres, but they too will hardly be able to say that for certain. New events unfolded at every moment. Possibly at some point the punk community had very little left in common with those drunkards who a decade earlier had styled their hair with beer and burnt the flag of their country. The ecstasy of negation is followed by a stage when slogans should be put into practice, and perhaps doing things had left a bitter aftertaste. And all at once the punks were so sad as to tell you everything.

The name emo, from the very first day detested by the ones who were called this, slipped out of somebody’s mouth as inadvertently as that which was once uttered by Louis Leroy. In twenty years’ time, emo was already a global movement with its own language and rules. As a quiet reply to the increasing dominance of hooligans at concerts and the predictable musical algorithms, emo (from the word emotional) punk rock began to drown in longing and visions. Somewhere, the still existent authority sneered menacingly, and emo seemed to say: “It is difficult for me to fight all that on my own.”

After 1991, when the Western world was shaken by Nevermind, a record by Nirvana, the movers and shakers of the music industry seemed to suddenly realise that hysterical yelling and a hatred of yourself and those around you can be sold. The next year saw the screening of the film Wayne’s World, which features two unlucky metalheads unexpectedly ensnared by a greedy media corporation. Although this flirtation turns out to be a failure, and the characters learn the meaning of “selling yourself”, the movie has a happy end: the scruffy rebels come under the care of a “good” corporation and live happily ever after. Wayne, the one whose world is depicted in the film, finally gets his Filipino dream girl, whose looks and musical career in the film strangely resemble the case of Annabella Lwin.

You would have thought that with the weapon lent to Cobain by Dylan Carlson everything should have come to an end, but still that was not the case. By the time those who fought against music piracy had become alarmed by developments in computer technology which allowed time to be grasped even more firmly than on cassette, alternative rock had blown up. Grunge had ceased to be something that young people played somewhere in Seattle – even in the little houses of godforsaken Limbaži, decrepit guitars were being tuned to repeat the magical chords of Come as you are.

The cries of sad losers were burnt into thousands of CDs. It turned out that everybody was having a hard time – both the hooligans and their pretty girlfriends as well as the geeks and the loners. Punk rock had become the soundtrack for a high school get together, where all of the above have gathered to smoke marihuana on the school football grounds, trying to forget about the decade into which they had landed against their will.

In 1895, Swedish writer and painter August Strindberg refused Gauguin’s request that he write a preface to the exhibition catalogue, saying in his letter, among other things: “I cannot understand your art and I cannot like it. I have no grasp of your art, which is now exclusively Tahitian. But I know that this confession will neither astonish nor wound you, for you always seem to me fortified especially by the hatred of others (..) For moment you were approved and ad-mired and had supporters, they would classify you, put in your place and give your art a name which, five years later, the younger generation would be using as a tag for designating a superannuated art, and art they would do everything to render still more out of date.”

#fingers

[the-blomster]

Jello Biafra VS the Forces of Corruption 32

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and all relation to real individuals is done purely for parody purposes. I am not associated with any of the people named in this work of fiction and this is not intended to reflect negatively upon anyone.

Chapter 32: The Punk Rock Tournament Showdown Part 9: Fuck its been so long that I can’t remember what I was planning on writing Part 2 or Shit I took a break from writing again and now I’m really lost Part 1 or Jello Gets Amnesia Part 2

We find Jello lost deep within the dredges of his own consciousness, or at least I think that’s where we left Jello, I didn’t really bother to go back and read the last chapter so your guess is as good as mine. In the abstraction of Jello’s subconscious, we find coherence in the form of a memory, or perhaps it could be a dream?

We find Jello walking down the streets of Portland before a gig at around 10:30 at night, as any respectable young american might do. Suddenly, a blue pick up truck appears above the horizon with a group of unrespectable young americans sitting in the back. As the jocks in the truck drive by they splash all over Jello, which is honestly not the vibe. In retaliation, Jello throws a rock at the truck, leaving behind a sizeable dent and a minor expense for their rich white parents. 

Jello assumes that that is the end of it, but the overpriced hot wheel truck stops in a parking lot up ahead and the jocks got out to pursue Jello. He attempted to outmaneuver the meatheads, but Jello was no match for the group of about six, and Jello soon found himself surrounded. 

The lead jock pointed at Jello in a most intimidating manner. His eyebrow twitched. He was irritated. Now he would have to go home and cry to his rich parents and beg them to fix his truck. Jello had gotten under his skin. “You’re dead meat punk”

“Is that so?” Jello cocked an eyebrow and smirked.

“You won’t be smiling once we’re done kicking your ass,” one of the jock minions exclaimed.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Jello dropped to the ground and performed a sweeping roundhouse kick, knocking all of the meatheads flat on the ground. Jello made a mad dash for it, but he didn’t run fast enough. The lead jock whistled loudly and more jock minions appeared from the bushes. However, Jello easily disposed of the underlings, and the jocks were forced to turn tail and call the police.

Soon a police officer had arrived, donuts in hand. The officer, obese, stepped out of the car, brushing the donut crumbs from his thick, greasy mustache. Without a word from either party, the officer began to speak. “I already understand the situation. Even though there’s about a dozen jocks here who could quite easily be harassing this poor young gentleman, I assume that because you are all rich and white you are incapable of committing any wrongdoing, and I therefore I am assuming this punk is the one at fault.”

The lead jock chimed in. “I couldn’t’ve said it better myself.”

“Welp, that’s all the proof I need!” The officer pulled handcuffs out of his pocket. “Jello you’re under arrest for uh… um… me not liking you, I mean, for ‘public disturbance,’ whatever that means. Anyway, I would read you your rights, but the truth is, you don’t have any.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Jello exclaimed smugly. Then, in one sweeping motion, Jello snatched the donut from the officer’s hand, throwing it to the ground, and subsequently stomping on it with his spikiest cleats.

The police officer fell to his knees, sobbing like a toddler who just had his favorite toy taken away. “NOOOOOOO!!! I WAS GOING TO EAT THAT DONUT!!!” The officer then proceeded to curl into a ball and cry some more.

The lead jock mustered up the last of his courage to sputter out a few noises that could be vaguely construed as words. “Y-y-y-you c-c-can’t d-d-do that! Th-that’s n-n-n-not c-c-c-cool b-b-bro…”

“Oh yeah, what are you gonna do about it, jock?”

The lead jock turned to his minions. “C-c-c-come on g-g-g-guys, let’s f-f-f-forget about this l-l-l-l-loser...” All the jocks turned tail and ran, crying all the way home.

It was that brief, fleeting moment of victory that Jello realized his true purpose; to absolutely dunk on yuppies and jocks. To protect those in unfortunate situations. And most importantly, to play punk rock. Upon receiving this epiphany, Jello awoke from his coma, only to see above him the blurry image of his old friend Klaus.

And now, as Jello awakes a new man into a world he only vaguely remember, what awaits him? Will Jello get back his memories? Will Klaus ever forgive Jello? Will I finally be able to remember to write this story on a regular basis? Find out in the next chapter of Jello Biafra VS The Forces of Corruption!

#Jello Biafra #Dead Kennedys #punk rock #music #writing #creative writing #fanfiction

[the-blomster]

Jello Biafra VS The Forces of Corruption 26

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and all relation to real individuals is done purely for parody purposes. I am not associated with any of the people named in this work of fiction and this is not intended to reflect negatively upon anyone.

Chapter 26: The Punk Rock Tournament Showdown Part 3: The Sonics Part 1

Jello awakens from his long and arduous slumber. Above him; an unfamiliar ceiling. He tried to fall back asleep, but the crisp, golden voice of CNN’s very own Wolf Blitzer muttering in the background kept him awake. Jello observed his surroundings. Some first aid kits here, a defibrillator there. I don’t know. Whatever it is they have in the hospital. But, much to Jello’s surprise, he noticed a figure standing above him. No, not the shadowy figure running this mysterious tournament, but it was…

Jello squinted his eyes vigorously. Eventually the world became clear to him. Standing above him to his left was none other than Klaus Flouride. “Klaus?” Jello questioned. “I thought we were going to be enemies.”

“We aren’t in the arena yet Jello,” replied Klaus.

“Where am I then?”

“We’re in the hospital, can’t you tell by the bandages and the defibrillators and whatever it is they keep in hospitals?”

“Well I did just have my head knocked in by a werewolf.”

Klaus chuckled. “That’s true. Luckily for you; however, you’re making a speedy recovery.”

“That’s fortunate,” said Jello, “But will I be released in time for my next fight?”

“I hope so, if you are unable to fight, it counts as an automatic loss, get three of those, and you’re toast. It would be a shame if I missed out on the opportunity to fight an opponent as great as you.”

Jello laughed. “I knew you weren’t being so kind to me purely out of the kindness of your heart.”

Klaus refused to acknowledge that remark. “How are you feeling, are you well enough to walk?”

“I’m feeling a lot better. I should be able to get up and walk around.”

“Good, then come with me.”

“Wait, shouldn’t I wait for the doctors to release me?”

“Jello,” explained Klaus, “We’re in a tournament where the main goal is to hurt one another, do you really think anyone running a tournament like that would be will to help you? Plus, if the other competitors find out that you’re in a weakened state, they’ll target you like an obese deer sitting perfectly still in a wide open field. That’s not a pretty sight.”

Jello sighed. “Ok, where are we going?”

“We’re going to lunch,” replied Klaus.

“Lunch? The nurses can deliver my lunch here.”

“You don’t get it do you Jello? We’re the little guys. We’re unprotected. Unless you’ve got eyes in the back of your head, there ain’t nobody watching your back. I don’t give a shit about lunch, nobody does, but we gotta scope out the competition before they scope out us. We gotta learn their tactics, we gotta know where in our backs they plan to stab us.”

“Alright alright I get it, I’m going.” Jello stood from his bed. They stepped out into the hallway and began ascending through the building. Aside from his hospital gown, Jello was stark naked. “What are we going to do about this?” Jello grasped his clothing dubiously between his thumb and index finger. They stopped at the elevator’s closed door.

Klaus gave it a cursory glance before dismissing Jello’s clothing situation entirely. He pressed the up button on the elevator. “It’ll be fine. If you show up to lunch like that, you’ll confuse your opponents, and that’s what we want.”

“What? I can’t show up to lunch in nothing but a hospital gown!”

“Who’s gonna stop you Jello? This isn’t the real world, this is the underground scene, there aren’t any police here. If you want to be an exhibitionist, who’s gonna stop you?”

The two stepped onto an elevator. “I’m not an exhibitionist!” Jello shouted. “If anything, you’re one, since you’re the one making me do this.”

“Relax,” Klaus assured Jello, “I’m just messing with you. We’re heading back right now.”

Jello breathed a sigh of relief. Soon they arrived back at Jello’s room. Room 666. Jello entered, and even though it was not his place of permanent residence, experienced the rush of relief one feels when entering one’s home for the first time in awhile. He forced Klaus to wait outside. Once inside, Jello immediately collapsed onto his bed. Jello was exhausted, but for some reason couldn’t bring himself to sleep. He was exhausted but not tired. And worst yet, Jello was now hungry. It seemed that he would be forced to entertain Klaus, and that he couldn’t simply abandon him.

Jello put on some standard jeans along with a belt bearing a star-shaped buckle, but he couldn’t locate his favorite t-shirt, so he instead opted for one that read ‘Nobody Knows I’m a Lesbian.’ He topped it all off with a leopard print vest. He made one last disapproving sigh before opening the door to face Klaus.

“You sure took awhile,” Klaus said, arms crossed.

Jello sputtered a half truth. “I would have gone faster if I hadn’t lost my favorite t-shirt.”

“That’s your favorite t-shirt?”

“No this isn’t my favorite t-shirt! I lost my favorite t-shirt!”

“Oh, well we better get going, lunch is going to be over in a half hour!”

The two hurried up to the lunch room. Upon first inspection, the lunchroom appeared to be a large glass dome suspended high above the city of San Francisco, but upon closer viewing, it could be seen that it was not, in fact, the city of San Francisco, but rather several television screens held close together so as to create the illusion of a wide open space.

Punk rockers of every background were spread out all around. Some were friendly toward one another, others gave one another looks of sheer scorn. It was a turbulent environment to say the least.

Jello stood in line to get his share of the grub. Jello plopped some mac and cheese onto his plate that could hardly be described as food, when trouble came his way. Robbie the Werewolf, the man Jello had just beaten to the ground last chapter, came limping towards Jello. Robbie’s expression was always a bit difficult to place. Was it angry limping, or was it some other variant of limping? Jello gulped. Robbie  was getting closer. His gnarly coat of hair stuck out from beneath his sleeves. Luckily, he wasn’t in his werewolf form right now. Robbie placed his hand on Jello’s shoulder. Jello shook more than California during a particularly bad tectonic plate shift.

“Don’t worry my boy,” Robbie assured, “I am not a vengeful man. I believe fighting should remain in the arena, and that humans should settle their grudges with words. But worry not, I have no grudges with you.”

“Humans should settle their grudges with words?” Jello questioned. “Are you not a werewolf?”

Robbie chuckled. “Don’t read into things too much, all I mean to say is that I have no intention of hurting you, in fact, I’ve come to you with some useful information. I have discovered who you will be fighting next.”

“Really!?” Jello exclaimed. “Who is it?”

Robbie looked around nervously. “Not so loud.” He whispered. “If people find out about our collusion they’ll have me for my head. Your next opponent will be The Sonics.”

“The who?”

“No not The Who, The Sonics. That’s all I can tell you for now, don’t come to me asking any questions, or people will start to get suspicious. I make my leave.” As he himself stated, Robbie the Werewolf did, in fact, make his leave. Jello collected up the rest of his rations of slop they dare to call food, and sat down at a table with Klaus.

“So,” Klaus leaned in towards Jello so as to indicate secrecy. “What did you learn from Robbie?”

“How did you know we were exchanging information?” Jello asked.

“I don’t know,” said Klaus sarcastically, “Maybe it was the part where you shouted ‘Really? Who is it?’”

Jello sighed, though unusually the sigh was not directed at Klaus, but at himself. “Well, if you must know, I’m fighting some band known as The Sonics.”

“Hmmm…” Klaus rubbed his chin. “This may be interesting.”

“Do you know who The Sonics are?”

Without looking behind his back, Klaus nudged his head backward. “Behind me. There should be five of them. Tallest guy on the left. Second tallest in the middle. Shortest guy in the middle left. Second shortest on the far right. The guy that’s right in the middle in terms of height should be on the middle right.”

Jello was impressed. “You’re right. How did you know that?”

“Of course I know,” Klaus explained, “That’s how The Sonics always are.”

“What are they doing? They’re just standing there, menacingly!”

“Yep, that’s The Sonics alright,” Klaus said, still without looking backward, “Rumor has it that The Sonics are just one person, but they move so fast that they look five people.”

Jello gulped. And that is where we leave him. Nervous and vulnerable. What perils will The Sonics wage against Jello? Will Jello be able to make it through the whole tournament without three losses? Find out in the next chapter of Jello Biafra VS The Forces of Corruption!

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