Dead Kennedys: Live At The Deaf Club : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The world really needs the original Dead Kennedys now. Alas, they are no more, but their sinew-and-silly-putty West Coast punk reverberates anew on this classic live CD. Captured at their playful-sardonic peak in 1979, the slash-and-burn set includes such anti-Establishment thorns as "California Uber Alles," "Kill the Poor" and the strangely timeless "Holiday in Cambodia." Mondo-campo versions of "Back in the U.S.S.R." and (believe it) "Viva Las Vegas" close out a short-sharp-shock of a show. Frontman Jello Biafra is in typically hyperactive form and the rest of the band, Klaus Flouride (bass), East Bay Ray (guitar), Ted (drums) and, in his last gig with the DKs, 6025 (guitar) blow the bricks loose on one of the punk era's definitive live albums.