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A firebrand of America's West Coast punk rock scene,
Jello Biafra first made a name for himself as the lead singer with the
Dead Kennedys, the band that bridged the gap between first-era punk and hardcore, and divided his time between music, spoken word performing, and activism after they broke up. Possessing a distinctive high-pitched voice, a powerfully dramatic delivery, and a fearless willingness to attack any issue with words,
Biafra becomes the spotlight figure no matter who he collaborates with, from
D.O.A. and
Mojo Nixon to
the Melvins and
NoMeansNo. One of his first and best (if dated) spoken word efforts was 1987's
No More Cocoons, 1990's
Last Scream of the Missing Neighbors, with
D.O.A., is a highlight among his collaborative albums, and 2009's
The Audacity of Hype introduced his first proper band since the breakup of the
Dead Kennedys,
the Guantanamo School of Medicine.
Jello Biafra was born
Eric Boucher in Boulder, Colorado, and began collecting odd records in high school. He moved to San Francisco and took his stage name from the war-ravaged African nation then called Biafra, appending the name of the popular dessert substance because he liked the way the two sounded together.
Biafra formed
the Dead Kennedys in 1978, and the band quickly gained a following thanks to its hyper-driven sonic assault and
Biafra's nasal, declamatory (and often quite funny) political rantings. In 1979, a year before
the Kennedys' influential debut,
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, was released,
Biafra ran for mayor of San Francisco on a bet; his platform included holding auctions for high-ranking city government positions, setting up a board of bribery to handle liquor licenses and building codes, banning automobiles in the city limits, forcing businessmen to dress in clown suits, and allowing vagrants legal access to empty buildings. (Voters apparently found the satire compelling enough to place
Biafra fourth out of ten candidates.)
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables suffered distribution problems owing to
the Dead Kennedys' name and subject matter, so
Biafra formed his own Alternative Tentacles label in 1981 to counter the majors' reluctance to disseminate his material. When
the Kennedys included a poster of H.R. Giger's painting Landscape #20 (Penis Landscape), which depicted rows of penises engaged in anal intercourse, in their 1985 album
Frankenchrist, the band and label were prosecuted under California obscenity statutes for distributing "harmful matter to minors."
Biafra's apartment was ransacked by police, and a trial was undertaken in April 1986 that lasted over a year; a hung jury resulted in the charges being dropped.
The already politically conscious
Biafra emerged as an articulate champion of free speech, and with
the Kennedys' breakup, he hit the college lecture circuit with a vengeance, expounding his views on American culture with a righteous anger and acerbic wit. His first solo recordings were spoken word affairs drawing on his lecture material --
No More Cocoons appeared in 1987, with
High Priest of Harmful Matter: Tales from the Trial, a detailed, humorous account of the obscenity trial, following in 1989. Other spoken word releases would pop up from time to time, including 1991's
I Blow Minds for a Living and 1994's three-CD set
Beyond the Valley of the Gift Police.
Biafra also offered frequent collaborations with other artists: the
Lard project with
Ministry's
Al Jourgensen and
Paul Barker (1988's
Power of Lard EP, 1990's
The Last Temptation of Reid); the
D.O.A.-backed
Last Scream of the Missing Neighbors EP (1990); a 1991 outing with
Nomeansno entitled
The Sky Is Falling, and I Want My Mommy; a side project with members of
Steel Pole Bath Tub and King Snake Roost called
Tumor Circus, which released a self-titled album in 1991; an EP with Plainfield; and several collaborations with
Mojo Nixon, including an EP centered around the country parody "Will the Fetus Be Aborted" and the 1994 album
Prairie Home Invasion.
In one of the most bizarre and least likely mishaps punk fans could imagine,
Biafra was attacked at a San Francisco club in 1994 by skinheads who had somehow gotten the idea that he was a sellout; he was hospitalized for a time with two broken legs. After returning to
Lard in 1997 for a new album,
Pure Chewing Satisfaction, he issued the solo
If Evolution Is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Evolve a year later and
Become the Media in fall 2000.
The Big Ka-Boom, Pt. 1 from 2002 was a 33-minute-long speech about the war on terrorism while
Machine Gun in the Clown's Hand from later that year featured three discs' worth of spoken word from 2000-2002. The 2004 release
Never Breathe What You Can't See found
Biafra ranting over the heavy music of
the Melvins. The collaboration continued on 2005's
Sieg Howdy, which featured a cover version of the
Alice Cooper classic "Halo of Flies." The three-CD set
In the Grip of Official Treason landed in 2006.
Around the time of his 50th birthday,
Biafra recruited
Faith No More bassist
Billy Gould, guitarists Ralph Spight and Kimo Ball, and drummer Jon Weiss to form
Jello Biafra & the Guantanamo School of Medicine. The band released three albums in quick succession, 2009's
The Audacity of Hype, 2011's
Enhanced Methods of Questioning, and 2013's
White People & the Damage Done. As he worked on new music,
Biafra made guest appearances on albums by
James Williamson (2014's Re-Licked),
Al Jourgensen's project
Surgical Meth Machine (2016's
Surgical Meth Machine),
Die Toten Hosen (2019's
Zuhause Live: Das Laune der Natour-Finale/Auf der Suche nach der Schnapsinsel: Live im SO36), and
Body Count (2020's Carnivore). 2021's
Tea Party Revenge Porn was a fiercely political set that introduced a new lineup of
the Guantanamo School of Medicine -- Ralph Spight on guitar, Larry Boothroyd on bass, and Jason Willer on drums. ~ Steve Huey & Mark Deming