Information
Lead vocalist Jello Biafra's strong political statements on songs such as "California Über Alles" and "When Ya Get Drafted" launched the Dead Kennedys into the political arena.
Musically, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables laid the blueprint for future Dead Kennedys' releases: loud, noisy, fast, but with a sense of dynamics and musical individualism. The surf and rockabilly-inspired riffs owe something to the Ramones' most influential recordings, drawing from early American AM pop and rehashing it in the immediate, aggressive context of punk rock. The lyrics lend a significant bite to the breakthrough of the already strident musical assault. On the original vinyl version Side A was tracks 1-7 and Side B was tracks 8-14. The songs on Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables were recorded with minimal overdubs limited to vocals and the addition of rhythm guitar in places.
The photo on the front cover, showing several police cars on fire, was taken during the "White Night Riots" of 21 May 1979, that resulted from the light sentence given to former San Francisco City Supervisor Dan White for the murder of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.
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Famous quotes containing the word information:
“But while ignorance can make you insensitive, familiarity can also numb. Entering the second half-century of an information age, our cumulative knowledge has changed the level of what appalls, what stuns, what shocks.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“The real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase of knowledge.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“Many more children observe attitudes, values and ways different from or in conflict with those of their families, social networks, and institutions. Yet today’s young people are no more mature or capable of handling the increased conflicting and often stimulating information they receive than were young people of the past, who received the information and had more adult control of and advice about the information they did receive.”
—James P. Comer (20th century)