Tomorrow I’m going to the Jello Biafra & the Guantanamo School of Medicine gig at the Melkweg in Amsterdam. I’ve never seen him live before, so I’m looking forward to it and I’m very curious. As you probably all know Jello Biafra was the singer of American punkband The Dead Kennedys and therefore the album of the week is ‘Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables’ by that band.
The album was released in late 1980, which means I was 2 years old at the time of release. Difficult to believe really, as I do think that the album still sounds great today. Some of the (mainly political) lyrics might be a bit outdated, others could’ve been written nowadays, considering the state the world is in at the moment. Anyway, so I was too young to catch the album around the time it was released, but I do still remember how I became aware of ‘Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables’.
As my parents lived quite close to the German border when I was growing up, we used to go shopping in Cologne, as it was much cheaper. The great thing about Cologne was that there was a Saturn, a massive electronics shop with a record department that looked like a library. So me and my older sister would save up ahead of one of those trips, so we could buy cd’s/vinyl at great prices.
During one of these trips my sister picked up a vinyl copy of ‘Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables’ and we both loved that record! The venom in the lyrics, the meaning of the lyrics (as far as I could understand them at 15 years old or so) and obviously Biafra’s voice and the aggressive riffs, it was the perfect record for a 15-year-old.
The record has too many great songs to really pick any one of them, so just have a listen for yourself (if you haven’t already).
I'm Wide Awake 