01 ] The name and image — vicious, anti-wimp every-man-for-himself cynicism — are just right for the ’80s, but the music doesn’t add much to the concept. A Los Angeles quintet that fancies itself performance art of a sort, Dead Hippie sounds like a Batcave band (Specimen, Alien Sex Fiend) grinding out tuneless melodrama with a hyperkinetic beat and unchained guitars. What spoils it most is Simon Smallwood’s histrionic singing, which is indistinct and annoying.