Dead Kennedys
Live at the Deaf Club
Manifesto Records
This is one of the cleanest sounding live punk records I’ve ever heard. It must be the magic of digital signal processing and Dolby sound, because everything else from that era sounds like crap. This nifty little disc records a concert in a weird little place known as the San Francisco Club of the Deaf. The SF punks loved it, and how could the other patrons complain about the noise?
The disc is full of classics and filler. Jello Biafra cranks out “Kill the Poor,” “Holiday in Cambodia,” “California Uber Alles” and all the songs you’d really like on one disc. There’s even an amazing cover of “Back in the USSR,” and, of course, we get “Viva Las Vegas.” The drumming is on key, the guitars are fuzzy, rough and no one sounds too drunk to sing. Best of all, they must have hauled in a real sound tech, because nothing seems saturated or noisy. This is a crisp nugget, and any middle-aged punk ought to have it in their personal collection.
Manifesto: http://www.manifesto.com
