Something 4 The Weekend # 109

Dead Kennedys: Frankenchrist: "MTV, Get Off The Air" [mp3]

MC Paul Barman: It's Very Stimulating: "MTV, Get Off The Air, Part 2" [mp3]

Some things never change, I guess.

MTV had only been on the air about four years when Jello Biafra penned and bleated the words to "MTV, Get Off The Air" for the Dead Kennedys...But really, MTV was only a convenient and prudent target for his argument against television in general, and against a whole new generation with just one more option for passive entertainment and the dreaded but inevitable mind rot that occurs when one doesn't have to think...As a screed, it's pretty easy and tame, although I always loved the line "the dumbest buy the mostest"...

(I'm dumb all over)

Fifteen years later (2000), and MC Paul Barman hits the scene, bringing a filthy song with Princess Superstar that really only borrows the DK's title cuz he's a clever Ivy League (Brown!) graduate like that...A a short, horny Jewish dude studying English in Rhode Island (Brown!) who only wants MTV off the air to make room for a channel devoted solely to him...But he's smart enough to namecheck the Dead Kennedys without actually naming 'em, leaving room to drop rhymes like "I'm a hunter-gatherer, a cunter-latherer...My dandy voice makes the most anti-choice granny's panties moist"...

Personally, I haven't had cable television since 1995, and I seem to remember watching Nickolodeon almost exclusively, so I really don't have any beef with MTV...When I watched MTV back in the 1980's, I thought it was the coolest shit ever, so as much as I loved the Dead Kennedys, I didn't give a shit about Jello's feelings on the matter...

Besides, anyone in the know knows that East Bay Ray was the true fucking hero of that band, and easily one of the most underrated and overlooked guitarists in rock history...

Hotcha! Hank