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Old 01-24-2003, 09:27 PM   #1
sambo
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The taste for Jello

That's Jello Biafra and his spoken word madness.

Anybody else listen to this stuff? I know it is a bit outdated now but somehow I still split a gut when I listen to him.
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Old 01-25-2003, 03:45 AM   #2
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As a doped up San Franciscan youth, Jello Biafra was the typical bored kid who decided to start up a punk band with all the intentions of pissing off everyone they could. Hence, the Dead Kennedys.

In 1987, the Frankenchrist album brought national mainstream media attention (the cops busted Biafra by raiding his home) and arresting him on obscenity charges. The main reason being the H.R. Giger (famous for the creation of the set designs for the film Alien) poster of erect penis' entering vagina-like holes that was the artwork on the cover. Looking back, this whole fiasco could be considered an obscenity trial/witch-hunt that failed miserably (he was acquitted).

Attacked because the DK's had their own label (Alternative Tentacles) and virtually no capital to fight back in court, they were a classic scapegoat. The D.A.'s office stated then that the DK's were "a cost-effective way to send a message to the music industry."

The stress of the trial caused the unfortunate break up of the Dead Kennedys and they ejected in separate directions. Biafra wound up on television courting the mayorship of San Francisco. Also unfortunate was that he lost.

With encouragement from his friends he took up the art of ranting on stage about anything he liked - preferably vehement government-bashing conspiracy-ridden anecdotes on everything from drug legalization to Bush and the Iran-Contra scandal to the old Dead Kennedy days. And he was good, very good. He traveled the country talking to college kids and anyone that would listen and ended up recording these 'spoken word' sessions to disc and releasing them on Alternative Tentacles.

Later projects included film cameos in Tapeheads as an FBI agent, a corporate-junkie power-mad head of the Secret Police (as well as getting the soundtrack rights and doing the actual soundtrack with D.O.A. and NoMeansNo) in the Vancouver-produced Terminal City Ricochet, and more recently as the arch-villain in GWAR's new movie Mr. Skulhed.....Face.

His current musical adventures are known as Lard with Al Jourgensen and then Tumor Circus. With no real 'band' to call his own, he is frequently collaborating with other A.T. artists and friends. Out now is the joint effort with Mojo Nixon & The Toadliquors, Prairie Home Invasion, which is definitely some new musical ground being experimented with here.

Biafra makes a great many jokes and is in high spirits for a man who is a primary target of the censor-lords in this country. For most people, the skin would be running very thin after all the harassment and thwarting he has undergone. But he barrels forward with his artistic and political pursuits, always building on the foundations that he has constructed. Often criticized as a loud-mouthed liberal and treated by the media as a crazed fanatic of the punk fall-out, he is both and exponentially more. Give him a mic, he'll scream into it; put him on a stage, he'll blow your mind; let him make records and challenge the fundamentally corrupt and bigoted right wing of this country with his literal interpretation of the 1st Amendment, and watch them make assholistic narrow-minded blowhards of themselves. And don't get him started on "Yuppie-scum Clinton". 8)
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Old 01-25-2003, 08:11 AM   #3
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Moved to Smokin Tunes room.

Saw Jello and the DKs in Dallas years ago. Great stuff.
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Old 01-26-2003, 09:43 AM   #4
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Interesting article although I don't think it does justice to the DK's influence on 80's punk. He's more than just a ranter. Fresh Fruit, Plastic Surgery Disasters, Holiday in Cambodia, Too Drunk Too Fuck, ok maybe not the last one. Well it certainly influenced my formative years.

I've seen his spoken word twice. Stale by the second time but an interesting guy regardless.
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Old 01-26-2003, 05:05 PM   #5
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I thought they were too angry.
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