Dead Kennedys Relevant As Ever

Adam and Josh discuss the relevance of Dead Kennedys.

Episode Transcript

(00:30):
Oh
Welcome back to another episode
all gas no trash
My name is Josh
His name is Adam. Yes, I'm not to cuss within the first minute. Oh

(00:51):
Oh shit, I was thinking about it. Oh you just said it. It's fucking shit. I did it. No
Well this episode's out. All right. Anyways, what did you have to say today? All right, so
Stop and delete this episode fucking start from ground zero again. So this episode is about

(01:11):
Jello Biafra performing with some band over the weekend or in the past week and
We doing a revision of his own song song called Nazi punks fuck off and
I think we should listen to track
so you can get an idea of it and well like what the message yeah the original and

(01:34):
maybe we'll watch the
Other version the live version if I can find a video of it
Yeah, you know what's funny is I just watched like a mini documentary
Now I wasn't I got that's that's too generous. It was some asshole on tik-tok
talking about
the modern skinhead scene and
It was actually quite fascinating him talking about the differences between the Nazi skinheads and like the regular skinheads and I honestly did

(02:00):
Not know there was a fucking difference. I thought they were all the same shit
But no, there's not and he was talking about it was somebody asked him a question about lace like lace colors
And he was going over like oh how a lot of scenes don't use lace colors anymore
And he's like but he's like some of them do and so if you go like into one like you got to know like okay
He's like I don't fucking care about like we don't we don't do lace colors where I'm at

(02:21):
But you know, he's like and I was like goddamn that is an intricacy that
Could be the difference between you getting your ass beat and not because there are like certain colors that the Nazi ones wear and then like
That everybody else has to wear and I was just like shit
What if you walked into one and you didn't know and you were wearing fucking like red shoelaces and also get your ass beat
Yeah, and I think that's

(02:44):
probably speaking to what Jello Biafra talks about in his music that punk should be
Thinking critically and also not conforming to any idea of anything then
Then you get subcultures of punk where people gatekeep shit and that's not punk like punk should be free thinking free will all that shit

(03:05):
Yeah, is anarchy like yes, it's it's none. There's no rules
How are you gonna have music that's about and not having rules and anarchy and then but you're imposing all these fucking
Arbitrary rules having subcultures or things dedicated to where you're kind of gatekeeping. But anyways
Dead Canada is one of those seminal 80s bands from the Bay Area and they I mean dude I

(03:30):
I think Jello Biafra is one of the most intelligent
Artists that has ever existed because dude he would he used to
at some point
he
And I'm glorifying this but at some point he went to fucking war with Tipper Gore about the censorship during the

(03:51):
90s and he was also featured
Rather I think it was the 80s my mistake, but it was on Oprah
He was featured on Oprah along with a few other
Artists and the dude was like straight
Talenter like, you know adding the explicit content

(04:12):
Label on music is a bad choice. Like we don't need to be censored
What we really should be doing is talking to our children and walk having them walk the music through
Having the music
Explain to us in their own words why they like it why they under
Why they are so drawn to it as opposed to like just telling kids they can't listen to certain things, right?

(04:35):
But dude, he fucking hated I mean he was so vocal about Jerry Brown the governor at the time
He hated Margaret Thatcher from the UK
Just anti
Anti-establishment a real fucking character, but he was very cerebral and he was somebody that could
Stand dude if you if you put it if you put him in front of a

(05:01):
Like a Senate
Committee of like the Senate's or whatever and there was a hearing
I would have full faith that if music needed a face that this dude would still stand the test of time and still be the most
intelligent fucking person in the room
When it comes to artists
Yeah, dude, I think the name of his fucking band

(05:23):
I think the name of his fucking band is hilarious man Jello Biafra in the Guantanamo School of Medicine
Man that is excellent as absurd as his as absurd as his
band sound
The songs are just as strange and the music is even stranger. So yeah, if you want to

(05:47):
I think I think the way we should start this episode is by
Listening to the original song. Yeah. All right, and then well if we can find the proper video of his
rent
newest rendition of the same song then we'll listen to that too and then just kind of talk about the relevancy of
the dead candidates because I

(06:09):
mean
For Jello Biafra to sing a song called Nazi punks fuck off
We're living in those times again, and it's like it's almost like we didn't learn anything
Yeah, it is like we didn't fucking learn anything
That's usually how history works is those that don't learn from it are doomed to repeat it and here we are again
Yeah, anyways, alright

(06:29):
Let's let's take a listen to if you want to fire up your your Apple music or Spotify or whatever machines
You can check out Nazi punks fuck off by the dead Kennedys
And this this song goes by the name of the song
It's like a lot of people might not know this song is
This song goes by rather quickly like it's I think it's like a minute. Yeah, it's like quick

(06:50):
It's really quick. So you might want to pull up the lyrics if you can't catch what he's saying quick enough
Yeah, cuz it's it is rather fast. Yeah. Alright, here we go
Alright, yeah, that was very quick and that's folks fun. I mean, it's true. It's true. It's true shit. What are you saying in there?
You will be the first to fucking go because they yeah as we're seeing in our current political climate

(07:12):
are the first to fucking go.
That's true.
Also, you can't be punk if you're the cops, man.
Like, you can't be the cops.
And you can't be advocating anarchy
and also be the police state.
Like, those are two contradictory ideals
that are not conducive to each other.
So, he's right.
Anyways, all right, let's find the proper

(07:36):
Nazi Trumps fuck-up.
Is that what it's called?
It's just basically the same thing,
except with the exception that he,
for the chorus, he changes.
But, man, maybe we should do two things.
Oh, fuck, wait, what was the time?
Till about seven, well, this was...

(07:57):
The intro?
The intro was like two minutes.
Let's just say to two minutes.
And then two minutes to seven minutes
was the first song, Nazi Trumps fuck-off,
or Nazi punks fuck-off.
Intro and then two minutes, say two, seven?
Yeah.
Seven.
And then seven to whatever's gonna be
Nazi Trumps fuck-off.
Oh, shit, this is...

(08:19):
No, it's not, there's something on Apple Music
called, oh, it's from 2017.
What to find it?
All right, anyways, here we go.
If you can find it on your Instagrams,
Nazi Trumps fuck-off, you can listen to that.
All right, here we go.
All right, that was Nazi Trumps fuck-off,
live Jello Biafra and what was the other man?

(08:43):
Cal...
Calvera?
Calvera, yeah, something, yeah.
I mean, he's right.
I mean, as we talked about on that last episode
of No Party Preference, the ones that love them so much
are literally the first ones to go.
All of the Mexicans for Trump, guess what?

(09:03):
Now your asses are getting deported.
Yeah.
Fucking cops for Trump?
Oh, guess what?
Now your asses are getting defunded by fucking Trump.
Oh, also fucking factory workers for Trump?
Guess what?
He's replacing you with robots.
You're the first to go?
That's kinda usually how it works.
Yeah, so it's like, it's just very, very fitting

(09:26):
that a song made 50 years ago or 40 years,
oh, shit, from 1980 to 2020 is what?
It's 40, 40.
Fuck, man, that's 40 years, 1980.
It's been a minute, so it's just,
I just can't believe that a song as dated as that

(09:47):
has now become just as relevant as it was back then,
which means that we have learned fucking absolutely nothing.
Well, you know what's funny is a lot of the stuff,
this might be a tangent, but fuck it,
this is our show doing fuck who want,
a lot of the stuff they were talking about
in the punk scene in like the late 70s
to like through the 80s,
all of that stuff's now coming true,
in turn basically showing us that

(10:10):
punk was really generally ahead of its time
in terms of its outspoken nature
and what they were against because,
yeah, sure, it wasn't really back then,
I don't think fully in danger
of having a full like fascist police state society.
This was 20 years after the 60s

(10:32):
or like the sexual revolution and all that stuff
that was going, the ultimate of freedom
that was the anti-Vietnam whole era of,
oh, this is, we just want our freedom or whatever, right?
And then we went through this like 10 or 15 year period
where, okay, you kind of had that,
you got disco out of that, you got the 70s,
a lot of free love, free fucking bullshit.

(10:52):
And then in the 80s,
they kind of did start cracking down a little bit
and that's kind of what punk was talking about,
but it wasn't to the level that it is today.
It's much worse I think today
and we are much closer to entering that 1984 dystopian future
than 40 years ago when they were talking about this shit,

(11:13):
which is why it's still relevant now to this day, I think.
And honestly, it's even more relevant probably
than it was originally 40 years ago.
Yeah, and this is like the difference
between why I like the dead Kennedy's
versus many of the people that enjoy Green Day
is because Green Day can never disseminate information

(11:33):
through a song and be explicit
in like specific fucking targets of people,
whether that's Jerry Brown or that's Dianne Feinstein,
who he was adamant fucking hater of
and just also being anti-establishment, anti-consumerist.
The dude was outspoken,

(11:54):
but he also was extremely knowledgeable about local politics
and also just politics at a national level.
And Green Day has never been that.
And I know everybody touts American idiot
as like this thing, this zeitgeist of a album.
And I'm like, dude, you really can't ever amount

(12:16):
to what dead Kennedy's were
because nobody has ever been as cerebral as to me,
or not me in particular,
but has never been so cerebral as Jell-O-Bi-Oph-Ra
back in the 1980s.
And Green Day is like a bastardized, watered down version.
Their message equates to fuck the system
with no further explanation.

(12:39):
And Jell-O-Bi-Oph-Ra can give you explicit reasons
why it is fuck the system, or fuck the government.
Fuck the government and here's 42 reasons why.
Here's the 99 thesis of fuck the government and why.
Yes, and that's the difference between a true, for me,
a true punk band versus what Green Day is.
I just wanted to shit on Green Day.

(13:00):
Yeah, fuck Green Day.
They don't do shit.
They are the system.
They are the system.
They became the man.
Yeah, they are the man.
So that also sucks.
Yeah, so if you still care to listen,
if you still care about punk music,
I'd recommend you check out the entire discography

(13:22):
of the Dead Kennedys.
This is a band that should have like a resurgence
in popularity, especially now,
because of the times that we live in.
So if you ever get a chance,
if you're not familiar with them,
if you're a younger listener, go ahead and do so.
Think for yourself.
Use your critical thinking skills.
Don't let people boss you around and tell you
that this is the way things are.

(13:44):
Fucking not.
Yeah, especially us.
Don't let us tell you anything.
Oh yeah, don't tell me.
Yeah, especially us.
So I don't know.
I just wanna talk about this real quickly
because just can't believe it, man.
I can't believe fucking Jellabree Offra
is still out there still talking about this message.

(14:04):
Yeah, still putting in the work.
Yeah.
At 85 years old.
I don't know how old he is.
He's probably up there.
He's probably 65 or something.
Yeah, something like that.
Anyways, all right, we got anything else for this one?
Nope.
All right, well that'll do it.
Yeah, not Trump's fuck off, I guess.
And we'll catch you on the next one
unless you're an actual Trump

(14:24):
and we'll kick you straight in the dick.
Yeah.
I hope you enjoyed that 와우

(14:57):
you