Alex Ogg - Dead Kennedys: fresh fruit for rotting vegetables: the early years

Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, The Early Years

Alex Ogg 2014

This edition 2014 PM Press

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be transmitted by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-60486-489-2

LCCN: 2013956920

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

PM Press

P.O. Box 23912

Oakland, CA 94623

Book design by Russ Bestley www.hitsvilleuk.com

Front cover design by John Yates www.stealworks.com

DK Photographs (where specified) Ruby Ray, Mick McGee

Fallout magazine Winston Smith www.winstonsmith.com

Printed in the USA by the Employee Owners of Thomson-Shore in Dexter, Michigan www.thomsonshore.com

The author would like to dedicate this book to Dawn Nichola Wrench Never TDTF

He also thanks the staff and students at Brittons and in particular 10ad/en1 for contract-checking and 8OGG, his day job treasures.

Jellos support for this project was crucial in seeing it finally reach print, but the author also acknowledges the contributions made by his fellow band members when the project existed in a different guise. The author would also like to thank his favourite collage artist, Winston Smith, for his support and involvement in this project. Others who were vital to the development of the book included all those interviewed, and special thanks to Russ Bestley (design), Roger Sabin, Vanessa Demaude and Josef Loderer (for advice and encouragement), Helen Donlon (his fab literary agent), Mick McGee and Ruby Ray (for photos). Thanks also to DK record and memorabilia specialists Tony Raven, Mason Bermingham, Andrew Kenrick, Iain Scatterty, Vaughan Wyn Roberts, Darren Hardcastle, Kevin Shepherd and Rich Hassall for rare record cover details and images, and to Jay Allen Sanford of Rock n Roll Comics. Vasilia Dimitrova brought her illustration skills to bear to highlight an essential part of the story, and thanks to Allan Kausch for initial editing and feedback, together with early gig flyers and information, and Gregory Nipper for an extremely detailed final edit. Thanks too to co-publishers Kristiina in Finland, Craig and Ramsey in America, Joachim in Germany, Maria in Brazil, David in the dear old UK and anyone whos been forgotten!

Book jacket collages by Winston Smith, 2013.

S ome of the interview material collated herein was originally commissioned as the basis for the projected sleeve notes to the twenty-fifth anniversary reissue of Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables. The fact that said endeavour was derailed by wrangling among former members will come as no great surprise to longstanding observers of Dead Kennedys. The maxim is that history is dictated by the winners, whether said victory be defined by court case, fiscal arm-twisting, media access or variations on those themes. Efforts to maintain authorial independence on the project were undermined by warring factions competing over the narrative and in the end the sleeve notes were withdrawn. Or rather just tossed aside. The final stumbling block was a single sentence, which is retained in this book (youll struggle to spot it though, its astonishingly innocuous). It got very messy and at times deeply unpleasant. But it represents subject matter I was always committed to returning to. And its taken to the thirtieth anniversary, and beyond, to sort it all out.

It was a salutary lesson in how deep some feuds run, and yet I maintain that it was a tragic denouement to a job well worth undertaking. Informed readers will doubtless be aware how much the reputation of the band has been tarnished over recent years. To borrow San Francisco Chronicle writer James Sullivans analogy, any metaphysical statue the city might have erected in the bands honour just got covered in seagull poop. Yet a great band they truly were. I am not alone in ranking Fresh Fruit as one of the most important albums to emerge from punk, one of only a handful that genuinely transcended genre stretching musical and lyrical conventions while making a point, or several dozen, and jabbing funny bones the world over. This is an effort to restore its standing. Or hose off some of the guano.

In fact, the history of this project extends even deeper than the sleeve-note debacle. In 1991 I was editing a British music magazine to which someone submitted an article on the band. I was very keen to publish, and sent it off to Dead Kennedys singer Jello Biafra for evaluation and scrutiny. When he eventually replied there were over a hundred written amendments he wasnt too taken by the writer. He wasnt all that impressed, either, when he discovered said magazines publisher had bootlegged DKs records in the past a fact I was blissfully unaware of at the time. In the event the magazine disappeared down the tubes. In effect, then, what you are reading has spent two decades in gestation. That sounds overly grand; Ive applied myself to the odd job in between.

Our correspondence continued, albeit sporadically, over the course of two decades. Thereafter I was commissioned to submit an article on the band for another music magazine, and a similar process of writing and revision was embarked upon. Unfortunately, at that precise moment the legal shenanigans between the former band-mates erupted and the piece was lost in the shuffle. Another few years rolled by and in 2005 I was asked to write the aforementioned sleeve notes. I was thrilled, naively thinking I could get around entrenched positions by playing fair and being transparent to all parties. I spent about a month working with the former members on new interviews and got some great material. Then it got to the nitty gritty and pretty soon I was trying to mediate various issues, showing each party the others replies and attempting to reconcile what could broadly, and generously, be described as competing takes on history.

The opposing parties by this point had diluted to Biafra versus guitarist East Bay Ray, which again will not be a surprising revelation to those who know something of the bands internal politics. Klaus Flouride (bass) very much follows Rays lead in inter-band affairs and Ted, in charmingly typical drummer-like fashion, seemed completely bemused as to why anyone would wish to bother. I was pretty close to coming round to his way of thinking by the end.

Petty just doesnt cover it. The ten drafts wound up running to over sixty-four thousand words; we had space for five thousand. At one stage an employee at Alternative Tentacles (Dead Kennedys record label subsequently administered by Biafra) complained that Id single-handedly broken their printer. There was a lengthy telephone debate on whether to allow a band member the use of the personal rather than collective pronoun. As part of my increasingly desperate attempts at appeasement, I ended up totting up quote allocations to prove that everyones thoughts were evenly accounted for. If the men in white coats had knocked at my door at this stage, I would have gone quietly. The absolute nadir was when one band member not Biafra accused me of being the cause of his bad back. Over a transatlantic phone call. Repeatedly.