I can’t believe we‘ve already reached the half point! As always, looking forward to reading your texts. So happy we’re still doing this!
The Dead Kennedys — Frankenchrist
I’ve been torn about whether to include this one. It’s deeply, deeply American, and despite loving the music, I’ve never felt any real connection to the lyrics. However, after a recent re-listen that led to many more recent re-listens, I realized it would be a disservice not to write about it.
I of course first heard about the Dead Kennedys from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and I knew of Jello Biafra more broadly because LARD was featured in a few skateboarding videos (see footnote). This was post-Napster and pre-Oink, when P2P servers like Limewire and Kazaa gave suburban kids like me disorganized access to a reasonably wide array of music. All this to say, I was familiar with quite a few Dead Kennedys songs, but Future Shop and HMV didn’t carry their albums so I had a very narrow and chaotic glimpse into their discography.
One day, we were visiting my uncle on Vancouver Island and he wanted to pop into a record shop. He was very into punk; his band at the time was called Mickey Christ (which really drove my parents crazy), and we had had some good chats about music on the trip. Shopping was a little tricky, however: I hated the early-aughts “emo punk” thing, and I wasn’t into screamo or post-hardcore, so I decided to play it safe and buy records I hadn’t heard by bands I knew I liked. I wound up with NOFX’s Surfer EP and Dead Kennedy’s Frankenchrist, both on vinyl because the shop didn’t actually carry CDs. Unfortunately, because we were on vacation, I had to wait over a week before I could actually listen to the albums. This would have been 2003ish because I was still carrying an off-brand Discman and a very-ironic Hello Kitty CD wallet everywhere I went. (Actually, that trip was when I fell in love with The Ventures in Space, which I’m 99% sure will make this list!)
Anyhow, Frankenchrist was not what I expected. “Soup is Good Food” starts off with a jerky 12-string riff, then the rhythm section comes in at half-time while Jello sing-talks at a conversational pitch. The chorus picks up into something more recognizably “punk,” but even then it’s pretty slow, and the song clocks in at more than four minutes. “Hellnation” veers back to hardcore, but even then, the band jumps in on two, making it feel like you can never catch up with them. “This Could Be Anywhere,” “A Growing Boy Needs His Lunch,” and “Chicken Farm” round out side A at more than five minutes each, and while they’re all in 4/4 and relatively fast, East Bay Ray’s surf-inspired riffs and generous use of tape echo keep the sonic palette well outside the ordinary.
“Chicken Farm” has one of my favourite guitar riffs of all time, although the lyrics are an absolute bummer. Jello tells a tragic tale about life in Vietnam after the US withdrew from the war, and while I’m sure he thought his heart was in the right place, there’s no empathy to speak of — he just talks about people suffering and hopes the listener feels guilty about it. But good lord is the band on-point, with Jello hitting some incredible crescendos and intervals while East Bay Ray, Klaus Flouride, and DH Peligro explore a rather spacious groove. I’ve wanted to cover this song since the first time I heard it, and I’ve learned how to play it start to finish on guitar, drums, and bass, but I just don’t feel good about singing it.
On Side B, “Jock-o-Rama” kicks off with a “Mr. Sandman”-esque arpeggio before jumping into a heavy surf riff and some classic “oh whoa whoas.” The song completely drops out to mourn a teenage football player, then jumps back up to ten for some good-old-fashioned underage drinking. Fun stuff. “Goons of Hazzard” leans even heavier into the surf vibe with a tom-heavy drum intro and a classic bass vamp, with East Bay Ray getting some simple-but-effective blues licks throughout. Once again, the lyrics supposedly criticize violence, but mostly just describe it. The back half of this song is probably the low point of the album for me, although by virtue of listening on vinyl, I rarely skipped it.
“MTV Get Off The Air” kicks off with an pointedly-simple bubblegum singalong, complete with varispeed vocals: “Fun fun fun in the fluffy chair / flame up the herb, wolf down the beer.” After Jello plays the part of an MTV VJ (also pitch-shifted, to emphasize the quaalude addiction), the song kicks into the most straightforward punk song on the album before once again dropping down for another Jello sermon. I particularly like the mariachi-esque trumpet in the breakdown — it’s brash, it’s out of place, and it makes perfect sense given the song’s subject matter. “At MY Job” delivers another shift in the sound palette, with harsh fuzz, robotic rhythms, and heavy electronic drums. This album came out in 1985 and industrial music was already well established, but it’s a cool turn all the same. And finally, we have “Stars and Stripes of Corruption,” a six-and-a-half minute takedown of the USA. I don’t have much to say about it — it’s fast, the bassline is cool but the guitar and drums are pretty straightforward, and it feels like a lengthy spoken-word rant superimposed onto a forgettable melody. I usually stopped listening shortly after this one came on, which is fine because it’s the last song on the album.
Finally, a note on the lyrics. Whereas a lot of the songs on Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables were dark in tone, the satire tended towards the Horatian. “Let’s Lynch the Landlord,” “California Uber Alles,” “Kill the Poor,” and “When Ya Get Drafted” all dealt with serious topics while still feeling light. But by Frankenchrist, Jello Biafra had fully shifted to Juvenalian satire. Worse, he knew he was the smartest guy in the room and made sure everyone else knew it too. Lyrically, this album is not even remotely fun — track by track we get profit-driven workforce downsizing; apathy towards the poor; severe urban decay; thoughtless American consumerism and how it leads to destruction around the world; the horrors of post-war Vietnam; exaggerated tales of Midwest jock culture; them “good ol’ boys” getting violent then getting away with it; MTV single-handedly destroying society; tales of meaningless 9-5 work; and a detailed description of America’s ills. Some of it works well, but this is still 45 minutes of Jello telling you about big problems, with a few vague solution-isms thrown in during the last ninety seconds.
Footnote: I planned on posting about a few of my favourite skateboarding videos at some point, but Stevo32 (the former drummer from Canadian punk band Sum 41) captured basically everything I intended to say:
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Cool your uncle is/ was in Mickey Christ. Victoria has always had a cooler punk scene than you would expect for a town of that size.
I’ve been debating a DK album for my list as well though i was surprised to see Frankenchrist on here, makes sense with your story though. And, truly and sincerely not to demean or rebuke your take in any way, but it’s surprising to see a punk record criticised for being too negative. That said, i agree jello can be an ass and he definitely makes it a point to tell everyone that he’s the smartest person in the room which is insufferable even if usually true. The first time i met him a metal band had to physically separate us. I think their albums kept getting more and more cynical from a feeling of “you’re not fucking listening” combined with the state of things just getting worse and worse. I get it.
Also, Lard is one of my all time favorite bands.
Thanks for your writeup, it was unexpected and i enjoyed it.
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My goal in this challenge has been to pick albums that have been very influential and elemental to me in becoming who I am musically and as a person in 2026, but I’ve also tried to steer clear of the most obvious choices.
For me there’s no point in writing another piece on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, King Crimson’s Discipline, Nirvana’s Nevermind or Michael Jackson’s Thriller although I’d categorize all four of them as being very influential at one point of my life. Everybody’s heard them already, I’ll pick something more obscure. I’ve tried to dig a bit deeper and perhaps introduce stuff that might open some new doors in people’s minds. Write about albums that are not familiar to people beforehand.
As I come from Finland and have been listening to a lot of local bands throughout my life, I knew I had to pick at least one finnish album in my set of twelve and I guess it has come time to do that. A couple of finnish bands are among my all time favourites but as our language barrier is more or less impenetrable I won’t try to persuade you to read about finnish weird progressive rock bands that sing about sheep in finnish.
Finland is known for it’s metal music export. Some study declared that Finland has largest amount of metal bands when compared to the population living here. A long time before Nightwish, Amorphis and Children Of Bodom there was a very lively underground alternative rock movement that mostly came from one city or at least one record label. Bad Vugum released amazing stuff in the 90s and achieved early worldwide fame with bands like Circle and Deep Turtle. You had to be there to really experience it. Luckily I grew up 50km from Pori, the epicentre of finnish noise rock and was the right age to see all the greats play live.
Before metal music, the noise rock scene and the 70’s prog rockers, Finland’s best known musical export was Jean Sibelius - a classical composer known for Finlandia and a couple of other pieces.
The album I’d like to present for your listening pleasure this June is a kind of amalgam of the work of Sibelius and the lively prog rock scene here.
Anssi Tikanmäki was a finnish movie composer and an orchestrator that had a side hustle as an instrumental artist and composer who effortlessly combined jazz, prog rock and classical music into one coherent package.
His perhaps most famous work was 1981’s album Maisemakuvia Suomesta, but he also made music for the movies of the Kaurismäki -brothers and played keyboards and other instruments in the backing band for one of the most famous finnish rockers Juice Leskinen.
My father had a tendency to shed tears when he listened to his favourite music. He just welled up and couldn’t speak anymore as the music took hold of his heartstrings. I’m the same. I inherited that trait from him. Hearing any track from Maisemakuvia gets me every time.
Tikanmäki - who died in 2024 - had a special ability to put the essence of Finland and being finnish into music. Maisemakuvia Suomesta translates as Finnish Landscapes and every track on the album is named after a particular place in Finland. As we took a roadtrip to the middle of Finland last summer with my spouse I was on the lookout for seeing the places that inspired Tikanmäki to write the compositions on the album. The Chimney pipes of Valkeakoski in particular was on my list of things to experience.
This album is a masterpiece in it’s own weird micro niche of instrumental orchestral landscape paintings. Tikanmäki did a lot of amazing stuff but this is the one album I return to over and over again, always wiping tears from my eyes. This is the most finnish music I can imagine and it makes me love my motherland even more. It has a lot in common with many of my favourite finnish progressive rock bands and also I feel that Camel and especially their album Snow Goose is kind of a kindred spirit. Love that band and album too.
Dj Shadow sampled finnish prog bass player Pekka Pohjola’s Sekoilu seestyy (Madness subsides) on Endtroducing - and every finn felt very proud of it, but I feel that the work of Anssi Tikanmäki is ripe for picking too. Someone should find this smörgåsbord of amazing melodies and sample the shit out of it.
I don’t usually include youtube-links in my posts, but this time I felt compelled just to have a better chance of someone clicking and actually listening to these magnificent tunes.
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Hau Ruck by KMFDM
Combichrist
- Today We Are All Demons (2009): This record is a sanctuary for the lone wolf. It creates a dark, aggressive space where being a social outcast is transformed into a source of weaponized, defensive strength
- What the Fk Is Wrong with You? (2007)**: A chaotic, heavy album that reflects the mental breaking point of constantly feeling like you do not fit in.
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Beautiful post, I’m excited to listen to the album! Also please tell me more about these bands.
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I found this one an interesting reflection of sorts. It’s kind of funny how you can be heading towards your 60’s, but can still easily channel all the feels you had when you were in that messy stage of your teen years and you are absolutely clueless about how to address almost anything you encounter. When I set out to write about how I came into the genre of punk oriented music, I was thinking to myself “Dude, settle down there. You’re getting all wound up! Chill!” But that was honestly how I was back then. And guess how I can still be at times even decades later. While I don’t intend to park myself that zone, it was interesting to channel that little shit for this June entry. Surviving your teen years is a skill and sometimes you apparently need to resurface those skills even during the onset of geriatric adulthood.
What follows is the usual directors cut of how Nevermind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols influenced me in all its meandering “what the hell is he going on about” gory glory.
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