Category: The Library

Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables: The Early Years
Author: Alex Ogg
Publisher: PM Press

The Ramones’ original drummer Tommy passed away recently, and whilst there’s no argument his band majorly defined the blueprint of what would soon become known as Punk Rock, it was San Francisco’s Dead Kennedys that can claim to have been the most important actual Punk group America produced. Their influence globally was massive.

I’ll never forget hearing ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ on John Peel; the immediate impact on this 14 year old was seismic. I just had to get a copy! It wasn’t released in the UK until a few months later and I kept badgering local record shops until, finally, in the summer of 1980, I laid my hands on one of the greatest seven inches ever. It was lifted from their debut album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, a classic in its own right.

This book, as the title implies, covers those key initial years of the DKs, delving into the member’s personal stories, their gravitation to San Francisco, and the subsequent formation of the band. Yeah, that’s when the real fun starts! Theirs was, as the world was to discover, a memorable formula, fronted by Biafra’s natural rebellious attitude, to take on and upset the establishment with pranks and mischief, and driven by uniquely powerful and penetrating music, awash with guitarist East Bay Ray’s twisted dark surf guitars. Seriously, hang your head in shame if you’ve never had your ears exposed to Fresh Fruit….

So yeah, these were the DKs Golden Years. More records, tours, and controversy, followed, before they called it quits in ‘86. There’s no denying the huge mark they left behind, but unfortunately the subsequent years of their history has been memorable for all the wrong reasons with singer Jello Biafra being sued by the other Kennedy’s. The relationship between the 2 warring parties remains highly toxic, so credit to Alex Ogg for managing to pull together interviews with all original members (including Biafra) but, tellingly, even the author admits that at times the rancor and animosity is exasperating, to the point you imagine his working title for the book was “Fresh Beefs against Rotten Band Mates”.

The dialogue exposes countless disputes and disparities between the band members; Biafra’s stance is he (and he alone) injected the political vitriol that the DK’s became so notorious for, and the rest of the group were just jobbing musicians that followed his lead down the path of underground righteousness. Or something like that! I accept, certainly lyrically and presentation-wise, Biafra orchestrated much of the menace they became so notorious for, but at the end of the day, it’s a group effort to write songs, perform, and clearly the chemistry between them was tight enough for a time to produce so much musical gold. Jeez, even Johnny Rotten and Glen Matlock were able to bury the hatchet (albeit in the name of Cash from Chaos) but there’s more chance of seeing Peace in The Middle East, that a reformed original line-up DKs (and you won’t find me handing over my hard earned cash to go see the Jello-less line-up).

This book is an engaging read, and pretty much an essential pick-up for anyone with an iota of interest in the DKs and Punk in general. There are band photos, and reproductions of record sleeves, flyers, media clippings, and of course, lots of cool art by the wonderful Winston Smith. Highly recommended.

Pete Craven

‘Live At The Brixton Academy’
Simon Parkes & JS Rafaeli
(Serpent’s Tail)

Nowadays there’s an Academy venue to be found in most major UK cities, but it all started with Lincolnshire native Simon Parkes’ acquisition of a dilapidated 1920s former cinema in Brixton, south London, in 1983. If you’re wondering why Parkes chose the name ‘Academy’, the truth is that it came to him in a random flash of inspiration, not long after he cannily persuaded the building’s former owners to sell him the lease for just one pound. Yep, this man had serious balls, and they were to be tested many a time over the next decade and a half.

Nowadays, in Brixton, you’re never far away from a health food shop or newly-developed block of flats, but back in 1983 it was very much the violent, half burnt-out, poverty-stricken neighbourhood of old. Over the next decade, Parkes and his team have to contend with all manner of challenges, from overcoming booking agents’ prejudices of the area, to local gangs attempting to take control of the Academy’s security operations, to Grace Jones refusing to perfrom until she was supplied with her desired brand of vintage champagne. Fearsome stuff, all told.

Still, they persevered, and the rewards were many. After two years of surviving via (often troubled) reggae gigs, Parkes had The Clash specifically requesting to play some London shows at the Academy, and by the end of the decade, his maverick approach ensured that major acts of all genres were bypassing the once all-powerful Hammersmith Odeon (now Apollo) in favour of a trip to SW9. Megastars like The Police and AC/DC booked themselves in for weeks of rehearsals, and the stories of the Academy’s outlandish club nights highlight just how much of a different world those early days were. What indoor venue could get away with hosting a full-scale fairground bumper car ride at a club night these days?

We at Crossfire have been through the Academy’s doors more times than we care to remember, and seen plenty of amazing shows to boot. If you’ve ever had so much as a passing interest in London’s live music history, this book is an essential piece of the puzzle.

Alex Gosman

Stewart Lee is a comedian. A very marvellous comedian. His recent BBC2 series, Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, shuffled him closer into public view with its low-key combination of stand-up and sketches. It was the culmination of several years of building up a discerning audience of people who understood and appreciated his work. Prior to this, engulfed by disillusionment and apathy, Lee had left stand-up in 2001. This book follows his efforts at re-entry into a career that now has him praised and acclaimed as one of the most challenging and original comics working today.

The book opens with a charting of his initial interest as a teenager in comedy, to establishing a successful performing partnership with fellow comic Richard Herring, and to his eventual and thorough disenchantment with the stand-up craft that had so previously enthralled him. It goes on to describe what he did in the absence of a mic and stage – most notably co-writing and directing the eminently controversial Jerry Springer: The Opera – and the circumstances that led to him reconsider his muted, virtually unnoticed retirement from stand-up.

From here, things get very interesting. What follows are three complete transcripts of full-length performances (that are also helpfully available on DVD) broken up by chapters explaining the circumstances and influences that led to him writing these particular shows. The transcripts are often funny to read, though at times I wondered if people who didn’t know of Lee could find them amusing in the absence of a mental image, without be able envision the hilariously laborious pauses that break his routines up into calmly cobbled flotsam of thought. But this is why Lee is a spectacular comedian. He needs to be seen, to be experienced in the same room as you, to observe him playing with and moderating the mood, tone and the beads of moisture between your buttocks. Which is why the transcripts aren’t just blithely strewn across the page like a pale corpse.

Each page is, without exaggeration, heaving with footnotes, appendages, and academic post-its fluttering all over the routines. Lee uses these asides to dissect even the most seemingly mundane off-the-cuff remark of a routine and delineates his thought processes behind them, not just exploring the meaning and intent behind almost every word but also every pause for breath, every gesture and sideways glance, and explains how they relate to the themes and ideas he was intending to explore on stage. It is gloriously busy, and infused with such an exciting assertion of artistic independence. Stewart Lee has such an adoring fringe audience (although it’s less a fringe now and more a long, bristly Rapunzel weave of commitment) that he doesn’t have to worry about alienating or inveigling readers. As such, the book unabashedly dances in it’s own gleeful filth of critiques and pop-shots, of snipes and finger wagging at anything and everything from unappreciative audiences, to other comedians, and even his own inadequacies and failings as a performer.

In a comedy climate where people are triumphed and fast-tracked to appearing on Live At the Apollo because they’re innocuously watchable through dead eyes, and a climate where comedians rarely criticise each other publicly for fear of compromising their career, there is solace to be had in Lee’s relentless, care-free critical shrugging. For this reason, the book is easy to recommend to those who have never of heard of Stewart Lee. The level of analysis that fills this 378 page book (that also has other transcribed routines, interviews and tidbits at the back) should be appreciated by anyone interested in the minute craft and intense deliberation that goes into building a comedy routine.

Jordan Brookes