Dead Kennedys - Holiday In Cambodia (Live)

The Dead Kennedys are one of the few punk bands that I used to adore in middle/high school that i can still listen to. In fact, i still listen to them a lot. Although this is the most obvious DK song to play - especially after its inclusion in Guitar Hero - maybe it's because it's their best. Or, maybe its because it's the only live clip i found where he sings the whole song without losing the microrphone.

It is probably Jello Biafra's greatest use of sarcastic, politically-charged lyrics. I mean, talking about how some rich kid will 'work harder with a gun in his back, for a bowl of rice a day'? That line was his super bowl.

I think my favorite Jello Biafra story is from during his run for mayor in the 80s. There was one homeless guy who would always show up to his rallies wearing a shirt that said "Vote for Jello Biafra or i'll kill myself". You can't make that kind of stuff up. I believe Jello ended up 6th in that race.

Give me back my book

One weekend in the TENTH FUCKING GRADE you borrowed my Kids in the Hall tapes. Tapes, mind you, that I spent ages assembling like the obsessive dweeb that I was, making sure I recorded every episode I could from CBC and Comedy Central. For years, you claimed no knowledge of the event, and I bought your lies. I thought I must have dreamt the whole thing up. Maybe I really only had one tape all along.

Finally, in 2006, 8 years after the fact, you fessed up. You'd had the tapes all along, and you even told me that you'd just watched one earlier in the day. Because I was buying the DVDs as they came out, my anger had subsided, otherwise I would have murdered you on the spot. You also offered me a Bad Religion DVD as some kind of blood money which I gladly took.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

What in the hell was I thinking letting you borrow my precious copy of Our Band Could Be Your Life? This time around, you didn't even have the courtesy to lie to me and claim you never had it. Instead, every time I'd see you, you'd tell me how much you loved the book and how you'd never give it back.

Aaron Surma, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for yourself, if you seek liberalization, come here to the Majestic Theater on October 14th. Mr. Surma, bring my God forsaken copy of Our Band Could Be Your Life. Mr. Surma, give me back my book.

Proto-Weezer

I'd never heard of Big Dipper until this past June when Jim DeRogatis talked them up on Sound Opinions. I probably hate 99% of the music I hear. The 1% I do love, I pretty much fall in love with instantly. Needless to say, as soon as I heard Big Dipper's combination of big, surfy guitars and oddball lyrics, I rushed home and downloaded everything of theirs I could find on soulseek like the horrible bastard that I am.

Big Dipper formed in Boston during the mid-80s, put out a few albums, including one on a major label, and then broke up in 1990. I'd say the best way to describe their sound would be Weezer, but with balls, or as this really terrible music website which I hate but find myself checking from time to time puts it, "they sound kinda like early R.E.M., but nerdier and with more heft."

This year, Merge Records released a collection of the band's work titled Supercluster:The Big Dipper Anthology on which both the songs I'm posting ("Loch Ness" followed by "When Men Were Trains") appear.

Luckily, some dude in 1988 had the foresight to record an entire Big Dipper show with his crappy camcorder. They're pretty low quality, but about the only Big Dipper videos to be found on the innernett. Enjoy.

Piss on your dog (not Cinnamon or Rocco)

Wow, so much pressure to show how with it, underground, and cool I am. I'm sorry, but I'm absolutely terrible at describing things, especially music. The best I can come up with is to say that I'm generally a fan of straight ahead rock music, especially if it has herky, jerky guitars and a loud booming drum.

Here's a band from San Francisco called Crime. They were around in the 70s to early 80s and only had a handful of releases and were pretty obscure until Swami records released a disc with all their collected material in 2004 called San Francisco's Still Doomed. Some even claim, well some dude who wrote on Wikipedia, that their single Hot Wire My Heart/Baby You're So Repulsive was the first punk release by a band not from New York. Being a Michigander and a huge fan of the Stooges, I take exception to that but this sort of thing really wasn't seen much outside of New York in this day and age I guess.

Here's a video of them performing my absolute favorite song of theirs called 'Piss on Your Dog' at San Quentin prison. This was filmed during a period when the very anti-social band had taken to wearing nothing but police uniforms in public. The quality is terrible, but if anything, enjoy it for the shots of all the 1980s convicts holding up Crime posters