Along with the Ramones, for Dead Kennedys are for me at least, the most important of America's contributions to the punk genre. To watch a Biafra era DKs gig is like watching a riot developing before your very eyes. Jello Biafra always cranked the intensity up to fever pitch in a spectacle that was part gig, part performance art piece. With songs that directly challenged the attitudes of their audience, shows could be confrontational.
This recording is from the time of the release of their second full album 'Plastic Surgery Disasters'. I first heard this back in '83 at a mate's house, listening as we played to the other new thing of that year, Trivial Pursuit (very punk rock I know!) and from then on I was a convert.
Too young to have seen them in Brighton in 1983, by the time they were next likely to play, the furore around the H.R. Geiger poster that accompanied the 'Frankenchrist' album and the ensuing court case meant that in '86 the band imploded. Since then the band have faced each other again in the courts, so the chances of seeing an original line up (or a 'classic' line up if not the first) is extremely remote.
FLAC: http://we.tl/0yxoNn21o8
