The Early Years Live | |
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Video by | |
Released | July 1987 (VHS) July 10, 2001 (DVD) |
Genre | Hardcore punk |
Length | 30:00 |
Label | Target Video |
The Early Years Live is a video album of various live performances of the Dead Kennedys, filmed from 1978 to 1981 by Joe Reis, owner of the punk-centric video studio Target Video. It was officially released on VHS in July 1987 (and heavily pirated some years afterward) and on DVD in 2001.
The video also features, along with some of Target's trademark stock footage (battle footage, public domain movies, Ronald Reagan) and crude video graphics, news clips of lead singer Jello Biafra's 1979 San Francisco mayoral campaign.
The video is also notable for containing the only existing video footage of the original five-piece lineup of Dead Kennedys, which included original drummer Ted and second guitarist 6025. The band's more well-known drummer, D.H. Peligro, only appears on the live-in-studio performances shot at Target Video's Bay Area studio.
The performances, in order of appearance, are:
The performances of "Kill the Poor" and "Viva Las Vegas" were shot in black-and-white.
Dead Kennedys are an American punk rock band that formed in San Francisco, California, in 1978. The band was one of the defining punk bands during its initial eight-year run.
The Mabuhay Gardens, also known as The Fab Mab or The Mab, was a former San Francisco nightclub, located at 443 Broadway Street, in North Beach on the Broadway strip area best known for its striptease clubs. It closed in 1987.
Terry John Bozzio is an American drummer best known for his work with Missing Persons, U.K., and Frank Zappa. He has been featured on nine solo or collaborative albums, 26 albums with Zappa and seven albums with Missing Persons. Bozzio has been a prolific sideman, playing on numerous releases by other artists since the mid-1970s. He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1997.
The Screamers were an American electropunk group founded in 1975. They were among the first wave of the L.A. punk rock scene. The Los Angeles Times applied the label "techno-punk" to the band in 1978. In the documentary Punk: Attitude (2005), vocalist Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys cites the Screamers as a key influence on their group and as one of the great unrecorded groups in rock history.
Jeffrey Thomas Porcaro was an American drummer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known for being the co-founder and drummer of the rock band Toto, but is one of the most recorded session musicians in history, working on hundreds of albums and thousands of sessions. While already an established studio player in the 1970s, he came to prominence in the United States as the drummer on the Steely Dan album Katy Lied (1975).
Carlo Cadona, also known by his stage name 6025, is an American musician who served as the second guitarist for the American punk rock band Dead Kennedys, from their formation in July 1978 to March 1979.
The Nuns was an American rock band based in San Francisco and New York City. Best known as one of the founding acts of the early San Francisco punk scene, the band went through a number of hiatuses and periodic reunions, lineup changes, and changes in style. Overall, The Nuns performed and recorded on and off from the mid-1970s into the 2000s. While the band was centered on Jennifer Miro and Jeff Olener through its various incarnations, Alejandro Escovedo, who went on to later success as an Americana and alternative country musician, was also a key member during its years of fame in late 1970s San Francisco.
Elvis: That's the Way It Is is a 1970 American documentary film directed by Denis Sanders. The film documents American singer Elvis Presley's Summer Festival in Las Vegas during August 1970. It was his first non-dramatic film since the beginning of his film career in 1956, and the film gives a clear view of Presley's return to live performances after years of making films. The film was released simultaneously with Presley's similarly titled twelfth studio album, That's the Way It Is.
Dead Kennedys: DMPO's On Broadway is a concert video by the American punk rock band Dead Kennedys, documenting their entire June 16, 1984 performance as the headlining act on the closing night of the On Broadway, a former avant-garde theatre and nightclub located in the 435 Broadway building, which it shared with the Mabuhay Gardens nightclub, in the North Beach area of San Francisco.
In God We Trust, Inc.: The Lost Tapes is VHS/DVD of the Dead Kennedys' first recording session of their EP, In God We Trust Inc.. It was released in July 2003. The session was filmed in June 1981 by Joe Rees at Target Video. When the DKs went to master the tape it started to peel and deteriorate, so they had to record it again. The video tapes of the session were in the DK's video collection. This film was directed and edited by Eric S. Goodfield and was released to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Dead Kennedys EP In God We Trust, Inc. It includes live versions of all the songs except "Hyperactive Child", for which no live footage could be found.
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Target Video is a San Francisco-based studio, founded by artist Joe Rees, collaborating with Jackie Sharp, Jill Hoffman, Sam Edwards and others. The studio archived early art performance, punk and hardcore bands on video and film. Performers such as the Sex Pistols, the Dead Kennedys, The Screamers, The Cramps, William S. Burroughs, The Clash, the Avengers, Mark Pauline, Survival Research Labs, The Go-Go's, John Cooper Clarke, Bauhaus, X, The Dils, Johanna Went, Talking Heads, Black Flag, Flipper, D.O.A and Crucifix were recorded in the late 1970s to the early 1980s. In addition, videos often included interviews with members of the bands.
Sam Butera was an American tenor saxophonist and singer best noted for his collaborations with Louis Prima and Keely Smith. Butera is frequently regarded as a crossover artist who performed with equal ease in both R&B and the post-big band pop style of jazz that permeated the early Vegas nightclub scene.
Dirk Dirksen was a music promoter and emcee of the San Francisco punk rock clubs Mabuhay Gardens and On Broadway in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Dirksen was nicknamed the "Pope of Punk."
Negative Trend was an American punk rock band active between 1977 and 1979. Before they disbanded, the band released one self-titled EP in September 1978.
Formed circa 1978, The Offs were a punk/ska band from San Francisco, started by guitarist Billy Hawk and singer Don Vinil, and later joined by former Hot Tuna drummer Bob Steeler and a rotation of horn players including Bob Roberts, Richard Edson and Roland Young. The Offs were active in the early days of the San Francisco punk rock scene.
The TCB Band is a group of musicians who formed the rhythm section of Elvis Presley's band from August 1969 until his death in 1977.. The initials TCB stand for Taking Care of Business, a personal motto Presley adopted in the early 1970s. Although personnel changed over the years, the original members were James Burton, Jerry Scheff (bass), John Wilkinson, Larry Muhoberac (keyboards) and Ron Tutt (drums). They first appeared live at Presley's first Las Vegas performance at what was then known as the International Hotel on July 31, 1969.
Milking the Sacred Cow is a compilation album by San Francisco punk rock band Dead Kennedys. Released in 2007, it comprises songs recorded between 1979 and 1985 that originally appeared on the band’s various studio albums and singles. The compilation also contains two previously unreleased live versions of songs from the band’s Frankenchrist album. Notably, Milking the Sacred Cow contains no material from the Dead Kennedys’ final studio album, Bedtime for Democracy.
The Jars were a new wave band from Berkeley, California, active from 1978 to 1982. According to Subterranean Records founder Steven Tupper, the Jars were one of the first bands to successfully combine 1960s garage rock and 1970s punk. They recorded two singles and were known for opening for many top punk and new wave bands that appeared in San Francisco during this period.
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