There wasn’t a west coast equivalent to Dischord. But Alternative Tentacles functioned in a similar fashion considering the fact that Jello Biafra, the label’s founder and lead singer of the Dead Kennedys’, wanted to document the music that was occurring up and down the coast during the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

Biafra’s earliest attempt to distill what was going on over there in Cali and even up into Canada was represented in the pressing of Let Them Eat Jellybeans! The cartoon face of then president Ronald Reagan greeting listeners each time the slab was tossed on was a successful joke even if the image probably won’t play to today’s current crop of young punkers.

That being said, some of the music – political or not – has aged in much the same way as that cover image. It’s not that there isn’t good music here, but the inclusion of some bigger name bands, that are now pretty easily found in major record stores, renders some of Let Them Eat Jellybeans! an artifact of a bygone era. Alongside the Republican jokes are the likes of Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, DOA, Bad Brains and of course the Dead Kennedys’ contributing some of its classic cuts making some of the album less than a necessity at this point.

With the majority of the first side of the compilation taken up by those bigger names, the Feederz present themselves as the most interesting inclusion on side ‘A.’ With that in mind, it’s worth noting that the band comes off as something like a cut rate Dead Kennedys’ with the lead singer of the Feederz, Frank Discussion, sounding exactly like Biafra when yelling about asses and the like during “Jesus Entering from the Rear.” Musically, the song’s a winner, just funny when contrasted with the Kennedys’ output.

As the second side begins Geza X gets his just due seeing as the man was responsible for producing records by some of the bigger names in west coast punk at the time. He’d never parlay that renown into a highly visible recording career, but “Isotope Soap” is an off kilter, punk killer. The descending – and nonsensical – guitar line separates this work pretty easily from anything on side ‘A’ of the record. But the inclusion of Geza X points to the breadth of punk related stuff that was getting worked out in California during the time period.

Continuing on in the same vein as Geza X, the second side of Let Them Eat Jellybeans! includes a group called B People and its offering “Persecution (That’s My Song).” While a lot of what’s included on this compilation gets bogged down by political or social messages, B People are able to get past it all by turning in an odd, almost gothic and stately take on punk replete with occasional saxophone.

Jellybeans won’t change your life now, but back in 1981 it probably would have. Unfortunately, the disc isn’t slated for re-issue due to legal wrangling, but keep scouring those innernuts to hunt it down.