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

Description

Dead Kennedys routinely top both critic and fan polls as the greatest punk band of their generation. Their debut, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, in particular, is regularly voted among the top albums in the genre. The book uses dozens of first-hand interviews, photos and original artwork to offer a new perspective on a group who would become mired in controversy almost from the get-go. It applauds the band's key role in transforming punk rhetoric, both polemical and musical, into something genuinely threatening - and enormously funny.

Alex Ogg is a freelance writer and journalist whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including the Guardian and the Times. He is the author of several music titles, including The Hip Hop Years: A History of Rap and No More Heroes: A Complete History of UK Punk from 1976 to 1980, and the coauthor of The Art of Punk, which was named a 2012 book of the year by the Independent. Ruby Ray is a former staff photographer for Search & Destroy magazine, for which she photographed acts such as Dead Kennedys, Devo, Flipper, the Sex Pistols, and X. Her work has been collected in From the Edge of the World: California Punk, 1977-1981. She lives in San Francisco. Winston Smith is an artist known for his use of "hand-carved" collage. He first came to prominence through his collaborations with Dead Kennedys, for which he created numerous album covers, inserts, and flyers. He lives in San Francisco.

"We have a sense of humor and we're not afraid to use it in a vicious way if we have to. In some ways, we're cultural terrorists, using music instead of guns." --Jello Biafra, Dead Kennedys "It was obvious that DKs weren't just another band that was gonna come and go. They were something special. Biafra was an absolute talent. And he had a band behind him that were tight and good." --Howie Klein, concert promoter, disc jockey, and record label executive "One day, this kid from my social studies class brought in a cassette tape of Dead Kennedys' Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables and I listened to it and my life was changed completely." --Adam Gierasch, film director "One of my favorite rock 'n' roll memories is of an after-party during DKs' first visit to Seattle. Recognize that bands like this for me--these actual guys being at a party in the same house that I was in--was like being in the presence of Led Zeppelin or Kiss." --Duff McKagan of Guns 'n' Roses "My education was punk rock--what Dead Kennedys said... It was attacking America, but it was American at the same time." --Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day