Vinyl Records And the Dead Kennedys in Particular

I started collecting vinyl records back in the day before CDs. As a kid I would get vinyl records for Christmas such as a Billy Joel album from my oldest sister(I can't stand his music now), A Van Halen album from my aunt and uncle and a Stevie Wonder album from my parents.

I did not become a serious collector until age 13, which was 1980, a time of many great punk bands. When I was visiting my cousin David back in the day, he turned me on to Gang of Four, The Stranglers, 999, Wire and other punk bands that just emerged onto the music scene a few years back. He lent me his forty fives which was a really cool collection of music for a 13 year old to listen to.

I remember going with my sister Marie and her friend Leslie to New York City. It was at an independent punk rock record store in the village where I picked up Fresh Fruit for Rotten Vegetables by the Dead Kennedys, since my cousin said "You gotta get this album."

My sister and Leslie were reading the lyrics on the train home. "How does it look?" I asked. They just laughed.

When I got home I listened to it constantly and memorized the lyrics from side A to side B. The album began with Kill the Poor and ended with Viva Los Vegas which of course was them covering the classic Elvis song. Some of the lyrics on the album were on the depressing side such as "Why am I alive. Urban Wonderland. By the fields I stand. In and out of hand." At least those are the lyrics I now recall.

My mother saw the album sitting on the top of my vinyl collection and gasped "The Dead Kennedy's. That is an awful name for a rock band." "It's not rock, mom." I said. "It's punk."
I was so glad that she decided not to investigate any further and read the lyrics, since she would have comfascated the album due to the content.

I do not think that the Dead Kennedy's songwriter Jello Biafri was a Nazi Skinhead since I think he was being sarcastic when he sang such songs as Kill the Poor, in which it could be misconstrued that he was advocating bombing the projects. I do think some people believed this to be so, which is probably why they came out with the song "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" on a later album which I believe was either called In God We Trust or Plastic Surgery Disaster.

Well when I was high and down in the dumps I got pissed off and broke my Radio Shack Stereo and amazingly I lived without music for a few years. I sold all my vinyl records and bought a bag of weed with the money. But in the back of my head I knew I would come back to music someday.

When I was 18 I bought a new stereo.Since Cds had come out by then (It was 1986." I started collecting CDs. I remember that one of the first Cd's I bought was Scary Monsters by David Bowie,who I think is a genius to this day.

Vinyl was still around back then so I would pick up new albums by some of my favorite bands such as the Dead Kennedy's FrankenChrist, which contained a poster that looked like dicks in action. The band was sued by a family who had a young son who's sister purchased the album as a Christmas present.

A lot of the bands from back then are no more. The Dead Kennedy's were touring a few years back but it was without Jello Biafri so I do not think that really counts since he was the singer and the primary songwriter. I believed the band sued him for back royalties. Someone once told me that he would hum the songs and the band would compose the music based on his humming.

Well the neat thing now is that vinyl is making a major comeback. The other day while in Saratoga with a friend I met through my zine, Transcendent Visions, I went to a record store were they sold vinyl records. I bought a new sealed copy of The Dead Boys. (Yes another punk band with dead in their name.) The lead vocalist Stiv Bators was in John Waters Polyester, one of my favorite movies of all time. (At least I believe it was him.)

While I was in the store a younger person around my nephews age (mid to late 20's) was buying Pink Floyd's Animals. I said to him "I got that on vinyl also. Along with The Wall and another one which slips my memory.

Anyway, I think that vinyl actually sounds better then CD's. And obviously so does a lot of people in the younger generation. The woman at the counter persuaded me to shell out the 15 dollars for the Dead Boys album by saying "This is a classic punk record that all punk lovers should own." I asked her how the vinyl was selling and she said it was 75% of their sales.

So I walked out of there with 7 new records (Well six of them were actually used, but new to me.) for 42 dollars. I was glad I found the Captain Sensible album since I was listening to the Animal Liberation compilation album for a long time, which had one of his songs, What No Meat and I really loved that song.

Well I do not think I will ever stopped buying vinyl since there is just something magical about the vinyl record spinning round on a turntable. And the Dead Kennedy's. Yes I still to this day listen to them from time to time and when I got the Rolling Stone record guide and saw only four stars out of five for Fresh Fruit for Rotten Vegetables I was seriously thinking of writing them and saying Fuck Off. That would be real punk rock of me. Now Wouldn't it???

The Jitterbug--Momma Poem 1

On one rainy May day
Back in the mid nineteen seventies
Momma came to me and said
"It is time for you to learn how to dance.
When you meet a girl and get married
you will be thankful that I taught you
how to dance."
She flipped through her record collection
looking for records to dance to.
"When your father and I were young
we did the Jitterbug," she said.
Jitterbug I thought.
What a crazy name for a dance.
Mother put a record on the phonograph player.
It was Glen Miller,
Tommy Dorsey or some other performer
from her day. The nineteen forties
The years in which my parents met at
high school and courted each other
to high school dances.
She would take me in her arms
and we would dance in the living room.
She moved so gracefully.
I moved so awkwardly.
I was eight years old
and it felt strange dancing with my mother
but I enjoyed the stories she would tell
about when they were growing up
and how the music of their day
was so nice compared to my brother's
acid rock. We'd dance and all the while
my eyes would peer out the window
wondering if someone was watching.
After all who wants to be seen
dancing with their mother.