Stars And Stripes Of Corruption

I've been all over the map with my record collecting this year. I haven't been able to focus on a single target and I keep jumping to whatever stupid thing has attracted my attention at the moment. Lately I've been obsessing over Japanese singles, and as much fun as it has been to chase down a bunch of these things, at the end of the day it seems a bit frivolous. Recently, I got tired of just dicking around, and I wanted to get serious. It was time to make a move and fill a big hole in the collection.

I've always been a big fan of Dead Kennedys, and given the political shit show in the White House right now, I find that I'm reaching for the DK stuff more than usual. I tend to be a positive and upbeat person, but lately I've been on edge. I'm done trying to have any meaningful discourse at this point, and believe me, I've tried...right now I'm of the mindset that if you support Trump, you can fuck off. I'm tired of trying to see the gray, and at this point things are black or white...right or wrong...and at the end of the day, I just want to throw up the middle finger and listen to punk.

I forget just how great Frankenchrist is and tend to overlook it for Plastic Surgery Disasters and Fresh Fruit, but this album holds up with the best of them...plus it has one of my favorite DK songs ever with Stars And Stripes Of Corruption.

But what can just one of us do?
Against all that money and power
Trying to crush us into roaches?
We don't destroy society in a day
Until we change ourselves first
From the inside out
We can start by not lying so much
And treating other people like dirt
It's easy not to base our lives
On how much we can scam
And you know
It feels good to lift that monkey off our backs

That song left such an impression on me as a kid, and why I can't understand why people are comfortable being ignorant, selfish pieces of shit these days.

Even though I find the Giger "Penis Landscape" poster to be unpleasant to look at, I still needed a copy of Frankenchrist with it. Funny enough, this copy of the poster has some old tape residue on the back, which indicates that someone liked it enough to hang it on their wall.

I'm very happy to add this classic album to the collection.

Dead Kennedys '78

While I was out for my Black Friday Record Store Day shopping, I was in a record buying mood, so I added one more to the stack before heading to the counter to checkout.

I had seen the vinyl pressing of the Dead Kennedys 1978 rehearsal tape on the list of RSD releases, and filed it away as something that I might grab when I was out trying to track down the new pressing of the Only Living Witness record on Black Friday. I was a bit hesitant to bother with it, as I figured that the recording quality was probably sketchy at best, but when a saw the track list, and it showed a few song titles that I didn't recognize, I figured that I'd roll the dice and take the chance.

Yeah, this recording is raw and rough, and while it was cool to hear some long lost Dead Kennedys songs, it is tough sitting through this entire record. Cool to have, but not necessary.

Kennedys Über Alles

After picking up that 7 inch from The Exploited a couple weeks ago, I was burning for some more punk vinyl. I must have spent a week or so wringing my hands and sweating over what I was going to pick up next. I was bouncing from eBay to discogs...looking at prices for at least a dozen different records, before settling on the first Dead Kennedys record, Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables.

A few years ago, I remember seeing a picture of an orange cover for the Fresh Fruit LP on Vinyl Noize. All I'd ever seen was the black and white cover, so this orange one caught my attention. I don't really know a whole lot about Dead Kennedys pressing info, but after seeing that post on VN, and learning that the orange cover was the first US pressing on IRS Records, I knew that when I finally made a move to buy this album on vinyl, it would be this one...regardless of if Jello despised this pressing or not.

After picking up this copy, I started to dig into all the pressing info. Man, there are so many variations of this record...with the original photo on the back, or the one with the heads missing, or the one with the picture missing and the "Censored" message, or the rest home photo...plus the colored vinyl options. Damn, it all has me thinking of buying multiple copies of this record.

Whoa. Slow down. Maybe I should concentrate on all the other punk records I want, before thinking about chasing variations.

Dead Kennedys records aren't complete without a giant fold out insert!

No Survivors

Growing up as a metalhead in the early 80's, listening to Maiden and Priest, and then gravitating to harder and faster stuff like Metallica and Slayer...I suppose it was inevitable that I was going to discover punk and hardcore. Attracted by band names like Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, Suicidal Tendencies and Dead Kennedys, it seemed like a natural fit with the shock tactics and aggression of thrash.

Given that I've been listening to a ton of metal lately, I guess that it is a natural progression to find myself starting to listen to more and more of those punk bands that I started blasting from the stereo when I was 15 and 16.

Growing up, the big question was always "Who's better...Iron Maiden or Judas Priest"...and then as time went on, the two big names that I'd pit against each other were G.B.H. and The Exploited. It was always a tough call as to which one I liked better. Here we are, 30 years later, and I think I can finally crown G.B.H. as the winner.

I've been listening to those early G.B.H. songs a lot lately. Every day, I'm listening to City Baby Attacked By Rats, City Babys Revenge, or the first Leather Bristles album, and I'm amazed at how well these songs have held up over the years.

So what do I do when I start obsessing about bands? I start checking eBay, of course.

Just like the Raven records I bought at the start of the year, I found myself drawn to the 7 inch records when I was looking at the options to buy. Right off, I found a near mint copy of the Catch 22/Hellhole 7 inch...and it was in the States as well. Sold.

Once I had one G.B.H. 7 inch, I couldn't stop there. I needed more, and a UK seller quickly gave me the fix that I needed with the No Survivors record. It was beat up a little, but it still plays fine, and the one two punch of No Survivors and Self Destruct kicks my ass every time.

While I was buying the G.B.H. record from the UK seller, I noticed that they also had a few other punk classics available for auction, so I went after them as well.

While I still don't find them as strong as G.B.H., the early Exploited stuff is no slouch. It had been a long time since I'd heard these songs, and now that I've listened to this Dead Cities 7 inch, I've had to add The Exploited to my list of current obsessions. This shit is catchy as hell...let the eBay searches continue!

The final 7 inch that I'd won from the UK seller was the Holiday In Cambodia record from Dead Kennedys. My introduction to this band was their Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death CD. At the time I just thought the title was Jello's dig at society, and I had no idea that it was because it was a compilation of their 7 inch and b-side songs. I've always been content with owning just that CD...until now. Seeing this 7 inch lit a fire under me, and in addition to my obsession with the three different covers that are available for the Holiday In Cambodia release, it has got me thinking of putting in some serious work into building up my DK record collection.