SOUNDTRACK: DEAD KENNEDYS-“Nazi Punks Fuck Off” (ill.Gates x RIP KENNY Remix) (2020).
The Dead Kennedys are one of my favorite punk bands. Lyrically (thanks Jello Biafra) they were always sharp and on point. But musically they were also adventurous and interesting–their songs were never simple, easy punk.
This song is one of the few exceptions–it’s really fast (the whole song is a minute long) and the lyrics are kind of inaudible, which is a bit of a shame. Really all you can hear is the screamed Fuck Off!
So this remix is by ill.gates (hilarious name) and RIP Kenny. I don’t know anything about them (except that ill.gates is a Canadian EDM artist).
The remix is hardly a remix at all. The original riff is present, but it’s mostly a lot of interesting trippy EDM beats and distorted vocals shouting “fuck off.” The breaks in the song are, unexpectedly, the beginning of the original recording where Biafra says, “Uh, ‘Nazi Punks Fuck Off,’ take 3.” They then distort this spoken line for each subsequent break.
I don’t think there are any other words. Which means that ill.gates’ story about the song is more entertaining than the song itself. But if this remix introduces more people to the Dead Kennedys that’s no bad thing.
RIP Kenny and I made this remix in 2019 and then spent an ENTIRE YEAR trying to track down Dead Kennedys and get permission to release it. Jello Biafra is not a big computer guy, so we had to actually burn a physical CD and mail it in… hilarious. Anyway, Jello eventually listened to it and gave us his blessing for an official release so long as we use the funds to oppose fascism. Sounds good to me.”
Al proceeds from this release go to the ACLU to support civil rights in the USA .
But heck, give to the ACLU, we need it.
[READ: August 1, 2020] “Layover”
This is a short story that is pretty much like a skit from a sketch comedy troupe. Although without an audience, it’s hard to know if the story is funny.
Essentially, a man in an airport scopes out a woman (“now there’s a nice lay”). He lets her pass and she flickers a smile at him. Clearly she wants him.
When she asks him to pass a spork, he knows that she is his.
Their banter is interrupted by the loud speaker announcement. When she says she’d never been called on a courtesy phone, he says he would announce: “tell the redhead that I’m nuts about her and to get home safely because I already miss her.”
She replies with “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in six years.” Then invites him to sit with her.
Labute does not live in the same world as me, although I don’t know if his world actually exists either.
The man tells her that he is sitting with people, but he turns back around to give her a little bit of hope.
The second half of the story (which is all of two pages) shows him sitting with his family–wife and two girls. He looks up and the woman is walking towards him.
Labute was pretty hot back in 2001 when his misanthropic films and plays were riding high. Its hard to know if this story is just generally misanthropic or if he genuinely thinks a woman might act like this.
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