Dead Kennedys
The
Dead Kennedys are a
punk rock band from
San Francisco,
California. Attacking assumptions of the
political left and
right with humor, their music mixed the more experimental elements of English punk with the energy of the American punk scene. The Dead Kennedys officially disbanded in 1986, reforming in 2001 with a new vocalist.
The Dead Kennedys formed in June
1978, after guitarist
East Bay Ray (real name Raymond Pepperell, Jr.) advertised for band mates after seeing a punk show at the
Mabuhay Gardens. The original DK lineup consisted of
Jello Biafra (real name Eric Boucher) on vocals, East Bay Ray on guitar,
Klaus Flouride (real name Geoffrey Lyall) on bass, and
6025 (real name Carlos Cadona) on drums. They recorded their
first demos with this lineup. In early July the band wanted a more experienced drummer, so they hired
Ted (real name Bruce Slesinger). 6025 left, but was invited back as second guitarist. Their first concert was on July 19, 1978, at the Mabuhay Gardens in
San Francisco.
They played numerous shows at local venues afterwards. Because of the band's provocative name, they sometimes played under
pseudonyms, including "The Sharks", "The Creamsicles", and "The Pink Twinkies". The name, despite popular belief, was not meant to insult the assassinated Kennedy brothers, but to remind people that the American dream was killed.
[Pfeiffer. "'You'd Look Nice as a Drawstring Lamp': Dead Kennedys, Cynicism and Discursive Space". Universität Gesamthochschule Siegen. 2000. p. 21 PDF link]6025 left the band in March of 1979. In June of
1979, the band released their first single, "
California Über Alles", on
Alternative Tentacles. They followed with a well received east-coast tour.
On March 25, 1980, the DKs were invited to perform at the Bay Area Music Awards in front of music industry big-wigs to give the event some "new wave credibility" in the words of the organizers. The day of the show was spent practicing the song they were asked to play, the underground hit "California Über Alles". In typically
subversive, perverse style, the band became the talking point of the ceremony when after about 15 seconds into the song, Biafra said, "Hold it! We've gotta prove that we're adults now. We're not a punk rock band, we're a
new wave band." The band, who all wore white shirts with a big, black S painted on the front, pulled black ties from around the backs of their necks, to form a dollar sign, then tore into the previously unheard "Pull My Strings", a barbed,
satirical attack on the ethics of the mainstream music industry. As well as containing the lyrics "Is my
cock big enough, is my
brain small enough, for you to make me a star", the song also sent-up
The Knack's biggest new wave hit, "My Sharona". The song was never recorded in the studio but this performance, the first and only time the song was ever performed, was released on the posthumous compilation album
Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death... and the band was never invited to play the awards show again.
During the spring of 1980, they recorded and released "
Holiday in Cambodia". In the fall they released their debut album,
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. It reached #33 in the
UK Albums Chart.
In December of 1980, Ted announced that he wanted to leave to pursue a career in architecture and would help look for a replacement. He played his last concert in February. His replacement was
D.H. Peligro (real name Darren Henley). Around the same time, according to a 2005 Biafra interview conducted by
Nardwuar the Human Serviette, East Bay Ray had tried to pressure the rest of the band to sign a major label deal with
Polydor Records; according to Biafra, he was prepared to quit the group if the rest of the band wanted to sign the deal.
[Nardwuar the Human Serviette, December 2005 interview with Jello Biafra and The Melvins, as reproduced in Alternative Tentacles Batcast #15, April 25, 2006] Polydor balked after they learned that the Kennedys were planning their next single to be "
Too Drunk To Fuck".
In May, the band released the single "
Too Drunk To Fuck". The song caused much controversy in the U.K. as BBC feared the single would reach the Top 30; this would require a performance of the song on
Top of the Pops. However, this never came to be as the single peaked at #31. The EP
In God We Trust, Inc. (1981) and album
Plastic Surgery Disasters (1982) showed a development in musical style, and their music became a political force, pitting itself against rising elements of American social and political life such as the
religious right and
Ronald Reagan. The band continued touring all over the United States, as well as Europe and Australia, during the 1980s and gained a large underground following.
In January of 1986, the DKs decided to break up to pursue other interests. They played their last concert on February 21. During the summer they recorded
Bedtime for Democracy, which was released in November. In December, the band announced their split. Biafra went on to become a highly active political force, appearing on numerous television shows and releasing a number of
spoken-word albums. Ray, Flouride, and Peligro also went on to solo careers.
Criminal obscenity prosecution
The release of the album
Frankenchrist in
1985 caused a furor with the newly formed
PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center). In December of 1985 a teenage girl purchased the
album at a Wherehouse chain record store in
Los Angeles County.
[Wishnia, Steven. "Of Punk and Pornography: Rockin' With the First Amendment". The Nation. October 24, 1987.] The girl's mother wrote letters of complaint to the
Attorney General for the State of California and to Los Angeles
prosecutors.
[Wishnia, Steven. "Of Punk and Pornography: Rockin' With the First Amendment" The Nation, October 24, 1987.] In 1986 members of the band Dead Kennedys, along with other parties involved in the distribution of
Frankenchrist, were charged criminally with distribution of harmful matter to minors. The Wherehouse store where the girl actually purchased the album was never named in the law suit.
[Wishnia, Steven. "Of Punk and Pornography: Rockin' With the First Amendment" The Nation, October 24, 1987.] The criminal charges were primarily based on an
H.R. Giger illustration included with the album. Members of the band and others were each charged with violating California Penal Code
section 313.1 / 313.4, which carries a maximum penalty of up to a year in county jail and a base
fine of up to $2000. The poster, "Landscape # 20: Where Are We Coming From?" (also known as
Penis Landscape), depicts nine
sex acts.
[Deflem, Matthieu "RAP, ROCK AND CENSORSHIP: Popular Culture and the Technologies of Justice" March, 2001 revision of a paper presented originally to the Law and Society Association, Chicago, May 27-30, 1993. [1]] Biafra says that during this time government agents invaded and searched his home. The prosecution tried to present the poster to the jury in isolation for consideration as obscene material, but
Judge Isacoff ruled that the poster must be considered along with the music and lyrics.
[ Staff, "Judge Isacoff, Commissioner Duffey Slate July Retirements" Metropolitan News-EnterpriseFriday, May 28, 2004[2] ] The charges against three of the original defendants, Ruth Schwartz (owner of Mordam Records), Steve Boudreau (a distributor involved in supplying "Frankenchrist" to the Los Angeles Wherehouse store), and Salvatore Alberti (owner of the factory where the
record was pressed), were dismissed for lack of evidence.
[Wishnia, Steven. "Of Punk and Pornography: Rockin' With the First Amendment" The Nation, October 24, 1987. ] In August of 1987 the criminal trial was submitted to the jury with the two remaining defendants: Jello Biafra and Michael Bonanno (former Alternative Tentacles label manager).
[Wishnia, Steven. "Of Punk and Pornography: Rockin' With the First Amendment" The Nation, October 24, 1987. ] In August of 1987, the criminal trial ended with a hung jury. The split on the jury was 7 to 5 in favor of acquittal for all of the
defendants.
District Attorneys Michael Guarino and Ira Riener made a motion for a retrial which was denied by The Honorable Susan Isacoff,
Superior Court Judge for the County of
Los Angeles.
[Drozdowski, Ted. "Jello Biafra cuts to the politics of pop" Bullshit Detector [3].] The album, however, was banned from many record stores nationwide.
Internal conflicts
It was discovered in the late 1990s that there were issues with the payments each band member had received from their record label
Alternative Tentacles. Former band members claimed that Jello Biafra had conspired to pay less royalty rates to the band members. Although both sides agreed that the failure to pay these royalties was an accounting mistake, they took issue with the fact that Biafra failed to inform the band of the mistake after he and his co-workers discovered it. Biafra claims that their lawyers had told him only to correspond through lawyers and not directly with the band, as the conflict over payment had apparently arisen before the accounting mistake was discovered. Both sides claim they attempted to resolve the matter without legal action, but the ultimately complicated legal dispute (involving royalties, publishing rights, and a number of other issues) soon led to the courts, where Biafra was found liable for the royalties and guilty of fraud and malice,
Appeal Verdict, Dead Kennedys v. Jello Biafra. Biafra's appeal was denied; he had to pay the outstanding royalties and damages, and was forced to hand over the rights to the majority of Dead Kennedys' back catalogue to the Decay Music partnership. The courts also found from evidence presented by both sides that the
songwriting credits were due to the entire band. (Jello had received sole songwriting credit for most Dead Kennedys songs on all released albums for the last 20 years or so without complaints from the band, though a minority of songs had given credit to certain group members or the entire band as a whole, indicating a system designed to reflect the primary composers rather than a regimented system like the Jagger/Richards partnership; today, most Kennedys reissues list the songwriters as "Biafra, Dead Kennedys" indicating Biafra's lyrical contributions -- which the band doesn't dispute, or else simply as "Dead Kennedys"). However, the online database of
BMI still retains the original songwriting credits. Ray, Flouride and Peligro found new distribution through another label,
Manifesto Records.
This dispute was hotly contested by all concerned who felt passionately for their cause, and the case caused minor waves within punk circles. Many fans felt the three's lawsuit against Jello was motivated by greed, as they had numerous unsuccessful solo records and gigs after the band's break-up (Biafra was by far the most prolific and successful of the four). In addition, Biafra claims that guitarist
East Bay Ray had long expressed displeasure with
Alternative Tentacles and with the amount of money he received from them, thus the original incentive for the discovery of the back payments. (In a related instance, Biafra recalled during the 2005 Nardwuar interview that Ray had called Biafra at the Texas studio the latter was working on his
1994 album
Prairie Home Invasion and, in Biafra's words, "yelled at me for over an hour, claiming that I ruined his life because we didn't sign with Polydor."
[Nardwuar the Human Serviette, December 2005 interview with Jello Biafra and The Melvins, as reproduced in Alternative Tentacles Batcast #15, April 25, 2006]) Some observers felt that although Biafra did not try to cheat his band in any way (as he does not take a salary from Alternative Tentacles
[Vander Molen, Jodi. "Jello Biafra Interview". The Progressive. February 2002.]), his sneering, irreverent attitude did not endear him to jurors during the trial. Biafra accused the band of wanting to license the famous Dead Kennedys song "
Holiday in Cambodia" for use in a
Levi's jeans commercial, which the band denied. Biafra apparently pushed this issue in court, although there was no hard evidence and the jurors were apparently unconcerned with corporate use of independently produced political music. Biafra would later complain that the jury was not sympathetic towards underground music and punk culture. The song never appeared in a Levi's commercial, although in interviews Biafra described the situation surrounding the commercial in detail and was able to give specifics about the advertisement, including the name of the advertising agency that had created the commercial's script.
Biafra's bandmates, under the apparent, though unspoken leadership of
East Bay Ray, maintain that they sued because of Jello Biafra's deliberate withholding of money, though when pressed they have acknowledged that the payment was an accounting mistake and that Biafra was wrong in failing to inform the band directly, however details about this issue remain scarce. The band also maintains that the entire Levi's story was completely fictitious and invented by Biafra to discredit them. Ultimately, these issues have led to a souring of relationships with the erstwhile bandmates, who still have not resolved their personal differences as of 2006.
Matters were stirred up even further when the three bandmates invited Jello Biafra to "bury the hatchet" in the form of a band reunion. Jello Biafra felt it was unprofessional because no one contacted him directly. In addition, Biafra was disdainful of the reunion, having long expressed his disdain for nostalgia and rock reunion/oldies tours in particular (with the 1996, corporate-sponsored Sex Pistols reunion perhaps fresh in his mind), flatly stating that the whole affair was an exercise in greed.
Several DVD's, re-issues, and live albums have been released since the departure of Jello. According to Jello, the live albums are cash-ins on the Dead Kennedys' name and Jello's music. Jello also accused the releases of the new live material being of poor sound quality and claims to not be receiving royalties from their sale or the sale of any Manifesto Records releases. The other band members deny Biafra's accusations, and have defended the mixes of the material as an effort of hard work.
Biafra further criticized them for advertising shows using his own image taken from the original 80s incarnation of the band, which he labeled as false advertising. Biafra recently attacked them on song called "
Those Dumb Punk Kids (Will Buy Anything)", which appears on his second collaboratory with experimental metal band
The Melvins,
Sieg Howdy!.
Reformation
The reformed Dead Kennedys followed their court victory by announcing a number of tour dates, released reissues of all Dead Kennedys albums (except
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, which they did not have the rights to until 2005) and a number of concert DVDs, as well as licensing several songs (in
Tony Hawk Pro Skater and
The Manchurian Candidate remake, respectively), actions that were thought extremely controversial among some fans, but those fans appear to willfully ignore the fact that Biafra, along with the other band members, approved the use of Dead Kennedys' songs in other major film releases like
Neighbors, 1981 and
Class, 1983. Biafra also approved the licensing to Tony Hawk's video game.
[May 5, 1999 Fax from Uli Elser, previous manager of Alternative Tentacles (scroll down for link ] But this controversy was ultimately paid little attention by the press and the group's overall fanbase.
The Manchurian Candidate, which used "Kinky Sex (Makes the World Go 'Round)", was a movie about an evil corporation, while "
Police Truck" was used in
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater because of punk music's close bond with
skateboarding. The band says on their website that they still pay close attention to an anti-corporation ideology, noting that they have since pulled out of a show in Los Angeles when they found that it was being sponsored by
Coors["DKs Pull Out of "Waking the Dead" Show", though earlier they performed at a festival in Turkey that was sponsored by Coca-Cola. DeadKennedys.com. October 6, 2005.] However, many fans, as well as Biafra, claim the above mentioned licensing deals prove otherwise.
In 2001, Ray, Peligro, and Flouride chose
Brandon Cruz to replace Biafra's role as vocalist. The band played under name "DK Kennedys" for a few concerts, but have since gone back to "Dead Kennedys" permanently. They have played across the continental United States, Europe, Asia, South America, and Russia.
Brandon Cruz left the band in May of 2003 and was replaced by
Jeff Penalty. The band has released two live albums on Manifesto Records of old performances -
Mutiny On The Bay, an edited-together compilation of various live performances of varying quality from the San Francisco area, and
Live at the Deaf Club, a recording of a 1979 performance at the Deaf Club in San Francisco, which was greeted with more enthusiasm.
The Dead Kennedys are noted for the
acerbity of their lyrics, which generally express a harsh and staunchly
left-wing view of contemporary America. Unlike other leftist punk bands who use more direct sloganeering, the Kennedys' lyrics are often
satirical and sarcastic, all the while retaining the deliberately shocking lyrics of punk. "
Holiday In Cambodia" is a multi-layered satire targeting both
yuppie culture and
Cambodia's then-current
Khmer Rouge regime (together with the US government who at the time of recording were tacitly supporting
Pol Pot in his war against
Vietnam). Songs such as "
Kill The Poor", "
California Über Alles" and "
Police Truck" actually take the lyrical viewpoint of the band's hated right-wing targets. In some cases in their early days the band attracted support from right-wing punks who took the lyrics of "Kill The Poor", etc. at face value, somehow missing the staggering amount of sarcastic nastiness and irony with which the lyrics were presented. The Kennedys wrote a song in response to this development, tellingly titled "
Nazi Punks Fuck Off!".
Jello Biafra continues to be a noted critic of the American political establishment, embarking on lecture tours both before and after his time with the band.
Current lineup*
Jeff Penalty - vocals (May 2003 to present)
*
East Bay Ray - guitar (June 1978 to February 1986, November 2001 to present)
*
Klaus Flouride - bass (June 1978 to February 1986, November 2001 to present)
*
D.H. Peligro - drums (December 1980 to February 1986, November 2001 to present)
Former members*
Jello Biafra - vocals (June 1978 to February 1986)
*
Brandon Cruz - vocals (November 2001 to May 2003)
*
6025 - drums (June 1978), guitar (June 1978 to March 1979)
*
Ted - drums (July 1978 to December 1980)
Studio albums
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables - September
1980 (# 33)
Plastic Surgery Disasters - November
1982Frankenchrist - October
1985Bedtime for Democracy - November
1986Live albums
A Scateboard Party - August
1983Mutiny on the Bay - February
2001Live at the Deaf Club - March
2004Compilation albums
Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death - June
1987EPs
In God We Trust, Inc. - December
1981Singles
California Über Alles - June
1979Holiday in Cambodia - May
1980Kill the Poor - October
1980 (# 49)
Too Drunk to Fuck - May
1981 (# 31)
Nazi Punks Fuck Off! - November
1981Bleed for Me - July
1982Halloween - December
1982Videos
The Early Years Live - July
1987The Lost Tapes - July
2003Live at DMPO's on Broadway - February
2004Bootlegs
The 1978 Demos*
Punk ideology
*Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "
Dead Kennedys".
All Music Guide. Retrieved May 10, 2005.
*
Official site of the Dead Kennedys*
Alternative Tentacles - Record Label Launched by Dead Kennedys*
Alternative Tentacles's Dead Kennedys Biography*
Dead Kennedys Lyrics*
First-hand account from a fan who was at the 2000 DK trial
