Music Theater Books

38 CHICAGO READER | DECEMBER 9, 2005 | SECTION ONE Reviews Music Theater Books Anniversary reissues from Bruce Springsteen Old Clown and the Wanted Sprawl: Dead Kennedys at Trap Door ACompact REVIEW BY MONICAKENDRICK Theatre History REVIEW BY JUSTIN HAYFORD by Robert a Bruegmann 38 REVIEW BY HAROLD HENDERSON 40 42 T CHAPPELL a a Y KIT SALL Music DEAD KENNEDYS FRESH FRUIT FOR ROTTING VEGETABLES: SPECIAL 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION CD + DVD (MANIFESTO) BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN BORN TO RUN: 30TH ANNIVERSARY 3 DISC SET (COLUMBIA) It’s the Economics, Stupid What could Bruce Springsteen and the Dead Kennedys possibly have in common? By Monica Kendrick t’s a little jarring to be reminded now that these two I era-defining albums—which seem to lie on either side of a generation gap the size of Snake River Canyon—came out only five years apart. But if you were at an impressionable age in 1975, when Bruce Springsteen released Born to Run, or in 1980, when the Dead Kennedys put out Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, chances are those five years made all the difference in the world. Relative age matters TEEN) more the younger you are. I mean, do you feel the same way now about dating someone five years older as you did when you were 15? I turned 6 and 11 the years PETER CUNNINGHAM (SPRINGS they were originally released— Dead Kennedys circa 1980, Bruce Springsteen circa 1975 my dad even bought the Dead Kennedys record, bless him— trends, they still are. Somebody frustration and despair of the inside and a reproduction of ognize the Boss for his contri- and caught up with them both somewhere in the world is hear- working class in ways that have the original insert—a punk-ass butions to American culture. around the same time, so they ing “Holiday in Cambodia” for yet to grow old. black-and-white photocopied Even though Republicans killed occupy similarly exalted places in the first time right now. The differences, of course, are collage salted with pictures of it, no doubt to remind everyone my consciousness. To my ears Somebody is listening to many, but perhaps the most John Wayne Gacy, Ronald that not even rock stars are Jello Biafra’s declamatory bray- “Thunder Road” in her car, important is that only one of Reagan, Travis Bickle, and allowed to back John Kerry and ing is an endearing minor irri- rolling down the window and let- these albums has made a shit- Howdy Doody. The DKs release escape retribution, can you tant, and no more compromises ting the wind blow back her hair load of money. This class dis- does come with a DVD of its imagine anybody so much as Fresh Fruit’s brilliance than the just like Bruce is telling her to. tinction is instantly apparent in own, which contains six songs’ mentioning the Dead Kennedys Boss sinks Born to Run with his In the past few weeks both the packaging of the reissues. worth of live footage and a on Capitol Hill? (I’m not even rambling beat-poetry riffs on records have been reissued in On one hand you’ve got a tony- decent documentary on the sure they came up during the “Jungleland” and “Backstreets.” special anniversary editions, and looking box set with a lovingly band called Fresh Fruit for infamous PMRC hearings in Jon Landau, the former so the natural thing to do is com- remastered version of the record Rotting Eyeballs. But my opin- 1985, since the Frankenchrist Rolling Stone writer who went pare them—which isn’t just an uncluttered by outtakes or alter- ion—that these records are obscenity prosecution didn’t on to serve as Bruce’s producer, apples-and-oranges proposition. nate versions, a slick photo book classics of roughly equal kick off till ’86.) manager, and Svengali, famously It’s like trying to choose between full of shots of Bruce at his sexi- stature—is obviously not a uni- Needless to say the DKs never called Springsteen rock ’n’ roll’s Guernica and Michelangelo’s est and hairiest, a 16-song DVD versal consensus. achieved Bruce’s iconic status or future back in 1974—but neither David. But they do have some- of a November 1975 live set in Springsteen, with or without pulled in the rock-star bucks, of these records was ever the thing in common: though they London, and a second DVD the E Street Band, continues to and that’s no doubt added ran- future of rock. They were its have yet to inspire an upwelling with a documentary on the make a shitload of money. Last cor to the squabbling over present—and in listener land, of fellowship between Bay Area making of the record. On the month senators Jon Corzine money that kept the band in the where there aren’t any critics punks in bondage pants and other you’ve got a pretty per- and Frank Lautenberg, both news in the late 90s. East Bay digging for the next big thing or New Jersey jamokes in denim functory double Digipak with a Democrats from New Jersey, Ray, Klaus Flouride, and D.H. record labels marketing fresh jackets, they both speak to the bare-bones discography on the sponsored a resolution to rec- Peligro have accused Biafra of CHICAGO READER | DECEMBER 9, 2005 | SECTION ONE 39 sitting on years of royalties time, and Springsteen and the If the passing decades have slightly harder going for me now. they’d want to live through. rather than disbursing them, DKs both knew it. Born to Run been kinder to one of these The DKs for sure never said in Faith in love—or the scornful hiring a lawyer and manager to romanticizes the mortal fuck out albums, it’s Fresh Fruit, probably eight minutes what could be said spurning of that faith—becomes steer cash to himself, and of the obsession with escape, ulti- because youthful bitterness ages in one—and if these albums were a social signifier, so that you attempting to take sole song- mately passing through that sen- better than youthful romanti- all I’d heard by either artist, I might as well be wearing your writing credit on tunes the band timental haze and lying exhaust- cism. The DKs’ music doesn’t know which one I’d pick as the preference like a costume in a wrote together, among other ed and almost lucid on the other sound groundbreaking or outre more likely singles act. remake of The Warriors set in a things. If you actually look at side. (A critic whose name today—for Christ’s sake, the gui- Granted, “I wanna die with record store. If you were paying the amounts they’re fighting escapes me once said that tar solo in “Let’s Lynch the you Wendy on the streets attention when Fresh Fruit and over—the disputed royalties Springsteen’s early music is to Landlord” is pure surf—but the tonight in an everlasting kiss” is Born to Run came out, where were about 80 grand—well, rock ’n’ roll what West Side Story tunes have the timelessness of more acceptable as a “deep” sen- you stood probably mattered a would that cover even one tour is to real gang warfare.) Fresh great direct rock ’n’ roll, in the timent than “I’m looking for- lot, but now it’s hard to enter- bus for the E Street Band? Fruit takes the Jonathan Swift tradition yet not bound by it. The ward to death,” but both feed on tain the notion that such a con- I don’t mean to imply that approach, gleefully and repeated- political themes in the lyrics are the same heady, adolescent emo- flict means anything. No matter Bruce and his buddies would’ve ly assaulting some of the last real as relevant and urgent as ever, tional fatalism—in this appeal- which side you choose, yin or been at one another’s throats if social taboos in America (don’t and their snarky outrage still ingly nonspecific ethos, death is yang, you’re part of the same they’d had to struggle to make talk about money in polite com- falls on fertile ground. (You almost always the big ooga- structure of belief. Those dis- rent, but poverty rarely helps a pany, don’t acknowledge that the could make a good case that booga climax to something or tinctions ultimately fall away band’s long-term prospects. class structure even exists) with “California Über Alles” just keeps other, an irresistible vortex tug- and leave the music to stand on Money is a great oppressor when all the crass, bad-boy bonhomie getting more dead-on as the ging on all those young people its own, ready to be heard again you have to think about it all the of Jim Morrison dropping trou. years go by.) Born to Run is who can’t imagine a future as if for the first time. v.

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