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| Cutting from the Bristol Evening Post supplied by Paul K. (Rovers fan) I thought you punks out there might wanna taste of what the real Dead Kennedys were all about via this 1981 cutting from the Don't Care archives.... |
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| Blood sport for all Dead Kennedys Bad Brains Bonds, New York 1981 BONDS, A former clothing store in the centre of Times Square, is an immense futuristic disco filled with some of the best-looking girls I've seen at a gig in ages. It doesn 't seem like quite the place where the Dead Kennedys belong, but its vast and excellent sight- ines make it a pretty decent place to see a band. This is the final gig in a week of shows the Dead Kennedys have been playing in and around New York City, the biggest, flashiest, and strongest stand of purist punk in NYC to date, bringing out busloads of teenagers weaned on punk as violent spectacle. It's the most dramatic exhibition yet in NY of the LA punk ethos, the recently converted teens, now outfitted with spiked hair and bracelets (or shaved head and jackboots), their jackets and badges paying tribute to Crass, Black Flag, X, Circle Jerks, and others of their ilk, bashing and pogoing each other to sweaty bits on a packed dance floor. Openers the all-black Bad Brains are one of the most magnetic of the American thrash/punk bands. They work well within the format of fast, loud punk rather than letting the genre limit and stereotype them. One of their strongest points is their excellent reggae work, which they distribute liberally throughout their set. Because of their depth, their noted lack of affectations (they're a motley, stringy and ragged looking bunch) and high standard of compositions and musicianship, they without a doubt blow away any of their silly but better known contemporaries from the other side of the country, like DOA, Black Flag, or X. The Dead Kennedys are America's greatest punk band, the only ones that really suit the role of carrying on the torch lit by the Pistols and the Damned. There's the same element of threat and danger, the same element of energy and adeptness, the same idea that you're watching something that pushes limits and crashes beyond set boundaries. From the first one of their short, hollered, sarcastic punk anthems to the last about an hour later, the DK's tear through their set like a speeding train charging through a wall of people. The audience are an integral part of the show, and like the kids diving under the wheels of the speeding train, they sometimes force the DK's to stop mid-song, or take minutes to start up a new one. But the band and the audience feed off each others' energy and willingness to take chances. Kennedy's Klaus (bass). Ray (guitar), and new member DH Peligro (drums) provide the solid and crunching musical base, but it's singer and punk legend Jello Biafra who defines the show. Biafra generally acts like a faggot on speed - lots of it. Like a spastic, childish Iggy, he prances, runs, flips his wrist, frantically waves his arms, play-acts, slithers and exhibits an incredible amount of exertion and risk taking. Biafra is an asshole's asshole, an idiot's idiot, and it all makes for a phenomenal, one-of-a-kind frontman, a champion of lunacy and total abandon who finished top boy in the school that graduated John Otway, Martin Atkins and other lunatic bandleaders. And the audience reacts, replays, and interacts with all of Biafra's carryings on, and the rest of the Kennedy's do their best to complement Biafra. Klaus, who bears a striking reasemblance to the smallest of the Two Ronnies, smokes cigarettes, smiles, thumps his bass, and calmly paces his turf, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings or the antics of the madman to his left. One of the show's highligh is is when Biafra sneaks up behind Klaus and gives the sedate bassist a hefty shove off the six foot high Bonds stage, toppling and smashing a bass amp and sending a panic-stricken Klaus sprawling into the seething and pogoing mob below. It's the kind of great visual gig that you wish you could see every night of the year, the kind that makes for a fantastic video. The show is a circus of anarchy and energy, a mess of flying glasses and beer bottles, water pitchers being dumped continuously on band and audience alike, pogoing and slamming spectators diving off the stage, mike stands soaring through the air, all led and conducted by ringmaster Biafra, who leaps into the audience, gets dragged into the audience, has his clothes ripped off his bnack, etc. There are moments when Biafra and his constant smirk look genuinely evil, more moments when he looks genuinely threatened and in danger. You are sincerely surprised that Biafra survives the gig intact. It's too dangerous to be all mock blood sport, a pantomime of violence and a lot of incredibly energetic silliness with something serious lurking underneath. It's as far as rock can go without becoming some Rollerball-type bloody nightmare. But at this point, it's still entertainment. TIM SOMMER (SOUNDS 1981) |