Dead Kennedys, Koko

Fight the power in August with prototypical US hardcore band Dead Kennedys. UK tour dates 2014 bring the San Franciscans to Camden's famous venue Koko

Get back in touch with your revolutionary side as San Franciscan hardcore punk originals Dead Kennedys play Koko this August.

Formed in the San Francisco Bay area in 1978, the group quickly became one of the most controversial bands of the 1980s. Known for their fusion of hardcore punk with surf rock, as well as frontman Jello Biafra’s challenging and abrasive lyrics - harshly critical of class privilege and the sociopolitical climate of the Reagan era.  

Their first album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, was released in 1980 and is still regarded as one of the finest documents of the US punk scene. The band are overtly political: Kill The Poor (featuring the line “Efficiency and progress is ours once more, now that we have the neutron bomb. It’s nice and quick and clean and gets things done”) and the popular single Holiday in Cambodia - which satirises privileged yuppie culture and is critical of the brutal regime of dictator Pol Pot- both tapped into social issues of the time.

Feeling disenchanted with the changing face of the underground music scene, Dead Kennedys disbanded in 1986 after their fourth and final album Bedtime for Democracy was released. In 2001 guitarist East Bay Ray, bass player Klaus Flouride and drummer D. H. Peligro began touring again without Biafra, and in 2008 they hired current frontman Skip to deliver the vocals.

Even without their original lead singer they still bring their visceral punk attack to defiant tracks written over 30 years ago.