10 Most Devious Punk Rock Tricks And Hoaxes

Among the most successful of all punk bands in terms of winding up the establishment (their name alone gave the PMRC nightmares), one of San Francisco’s Dead Kennedys’ earliest stunts involved duping the organizers of the 1980 Bay Area Music Awards by playing a different song to the one agreed. It was a song many of the industry high-rollers in the audience would certainly not have permitted had they been forewarned.

All dressed in white shirts with a black letter 'S' painted on the front, the band began playing a few seconds of the agreed song before halting completely and pulling their black ties around from behind them so their shirts formed dollar signs. They then started playing a new song written just for the awards entitled Pull My Strings, which tells of an impoverished man who decides to sell out to the music industry (many representatives of which were of course assembled before them) by forming a new wave band and allowing himself to be controlled by fashion and the whims of music executives for nothing more than money. The chorus included the line “is my cock big enough, is my brain small enough, for you to make me a star”.

For a song only written for one specific occasion (and never recorded in a studio), it remains impressive with a searing, albeit tongue-in-cheek guitar solo from guitarist East Bay Ray and a chorus that mocks The Knacks' My Sharona - exactly the type of music they were attacking.