An important album

When I was going to high school, each person, depending on the letter of the alphabet your name was in, was assigned a counsellor to tell you how you should quick fucking around and plan your career. He put my name into the computer file and he came back “Eric – the computer wants you to be a dental hygiene assistant.” And I never saw him again. This is called Life Sentence.

When I was still in my “Getting into music” phase I heard about a band called the “Dead Kennedys”. I had downloaded a few MP3s from the H2K website while I was in Trinity College and I had access to the holy grail – non-dialup internet access. The keynote was given by the charismatic and energetic Jello Biafra and it was like someone had kicked my head open. It was one of the first times that I had heard a properly dissenting political viewpoint and it struck chords on a few dozen levels. Talk of organised subversive movements, police brutality and the fiasco of the WTO protests of 1999 really blew my already vaguely leftist mind.

At that point I was still listening to a few bands that I would never think of listening to these days and some that I cling on to in an unfashionably nostalgic manner (Spineshank come to mind) but the examples of punk that I had been exposed to at that point were diluted somewhat. The most “authentic” it got was the Offspring’s earlier work (which I maintain are classic albums) until a friend picked up a Dead Kennedys bootleg from a less reputable Dublin record shop. He expressed a degree of scepticism in the recording and I can see why – it was absolutely unlike anything we had heard before. I taped his tape for later listening (high-speed dubbing represent), I wanted to see if it was all this frantic.

I’m gonna put some studs on my jacket! Gel my hair out to here! And be socially acceptable when I rebel!

Over the next few weeks I became increasingly addicted to the tape. I would listen to it once on the way to school (it was the perfect length for the walk) and occasionally on the way home. It replaced my Offspring tapes, even bumping the Quake 2 soundtrack out of the way. I was completely blown away – I had no idea music could be so focused and on-target all the time. Every song dealt with something tangible, not vague “I was/am in a relationship and it sucked/sucks” or “I hate things!” angst- inequality, conformity, religion, corporate influence on day-to-day life. The band seemed so fiercely independent that they even attacked hypocrisies in their own scene, addressing punk uniformity. Nothing had ever sounded like that to me and nothing has since.

I am still a massive fan of the Dead Kennedys (as they were then at least) and an even bigger Jello fan – this album really cemented my love of Jello on top of the H2K keynote. His manner, his unique voice and his lyrics all made him stand out as some kind of militant jester poet. His satyrical lyrics and introductions shone through the poor recording and permanently altered my brain. The disgust in his lyrics and the world of conservativism and corruption that they portrayed were a rude awakening for me, but the satire reinforced my love of the technique and made me realise it was a way to deal with such shocking, unpleasant things.

What a Saturday night – Shitfaced drunk! Passed out on your living room floor. But your children love you so much they’ll still drag you off to bed. But sure, still punctual, wake up 9:30 every day. Turn on the boob tube! And out comes the security blanket! Free drugs! Just turn on the TV! And see…

We are gathered here tonight…. to pay tribute to our lord! And money unto me! Oh lord! Let us pray! You TV viewers, I got your pay!

And still you go right on singing:

M I C! K E Y! M O U S E!

In the end I listened to the tape so much that it ended up wearing through for a bit of the show, the brown polyester tape flaking a little at that point in the tape. I kept listening to it even though around 15 minutes of each side was the other half of the gig, played backwards. I didn’t even need to hear it any more, playing the tape was just to kick off the process of replaying it in my head.

As I explored the Dead Kennedys themselves, I would always hear the little whines of feedback, the screams of the crowd and the occasional line where the microphone was otherwise engaged during the gig in lieu of the original songs. It became impossible to listen to the original version of Riot because it lacked the force and haunting guitar of the live version, the song that would eventually drive me to start playing bass.

By chance I found a torrent of this gig yesterday. I almost didn’t think it would be the same one – the title (Spend July 4th with the Dead Kennedys) was generic enough that it could have been any gig. At the time I didn’t know the gig was recorded in London, which for some reason surprised me. When I finally stuck it on I was stunned, suspended. I was both walking alongside the river that made up a large part of my journey to school and most definitely not. It wasn’t a nostalgic moment, it was much more than that. The album was still there in my head, a carbon copy: The guitar whines, the rants, the fact that the crowd were pushing up at the front too much during the first few songs. And only then did I realise how important the album had been for me, and how important it still was. And there’s something to be said for an album that maintains that pull, 9 years later.