As Jello Biafra is heading to the uk for his Vive Le Punk/Big Cheese sponsored tour-heres a rundown of how he got his band together.
Jello Biafra and The Guantanamo School of Medicine
Bio
In the twenty or so years since his brainchild Dead Kennedys
officially disbanded,Jello Biafra has made a career of spoken word
gigs interspersed with musical collaborations with some of the most
compelling figures in underground music. Recording projects and
touring with the likes of Melvins, No Means No, DOA, Mojo Nixon and
Lard (with Ministry's Al Jorgensen) among others have kept his
"hardcore as political weapon" message sharp, but the lack of his own
band made these collaborations usually short-lived and left Biafra
with a ton of songs that had never seen the light of day.
Inspired by Iggy Pop's 60Th birthday gig at the Warfield in San
Francisco, Biafra laid plans for his own 50Th birthday party and
finally decided it was time to start a band of his own. Ten years
before he had been attempting the same thing with the likes of
guitarist Ralph Spight (Victims Family,Freak Accident,Hellworms) and
drummer Jon Weiss (Sharkbait,Horsey). They had also previously worked
with basist Billy Gould (Faith No More) who was tapped for the new
group. After cramming rehearsal for a month the four piece band known
as Jello Biafra and the Axis Of Merry Evildoers took the stage in a
sold-out two night stand at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall
and subsequently spent the next 9 months in rehearsal for an album
project.Before entering the studio guitarist Kimo Ball (Freak
Accident,Carneyball Johnson,Mol Triffid,Griddle) was recuited and the
resulting twin guitar attack took the groups sound to new, noisier
heights. The quintet now known as Jello Biafra and The Guantanamo
School of Medicine began recording tracks for the upcoming LP/CD
entitled "The Audacity Of Hype"(Alternative Tentacles Records) slated
for release in October 2009, produced by Biafra and engineered by Hip
Hop legend and long time Jello co-conspirator Matt Kelley
(Hieroglyphics,Tupac,Digital Underground,Victims Family) at Prairie
Sun Recording in Cotati,CA and San Francisco's Hyde Street Studios.
The band's sound retains some of the the spy-music-on-meth chaos of
the DK's while adding a healthy dose of Detroit style proto-punk mixed
with layers of sonic guitar noise, and Weiss' industrial excursions
into metal percussion. Topically, the album explores how our forced
Iraqnophobia and Homeland Insecurity continues to feed lawlessness at
the top("The Terror Of Tiny Town") vs. a runaway police state and
class war towards the bottom ("Three Stirkes","Electronic
Plantation")."Clean As A Thistle" becomes more timely every day as
"Family Values" blowhards get caught in sinful trysts while, album
closer "I Won't Give Up" offers an age of Obama anthem on how change
comes from agitation from below, not glamor and soundbites from the
top. Thirty years on, Jello Biafra has made an album that solidifies
and expands his uncompromising vision and updates it for the new
century, with a powerhouse band that promises to be a terrifying live
machine, featuring Jon's brother Andrew Weiss (Rollins
Band,Ween,Butthole Surfers) filling the live bass position recently
left vacant by Billy Gould's return to Faith No More.