Jello Biafra is obviously one of punk’s legendary frontmen. In retrospect it’s surprising how much of a reaction he could elicit with so very little. If you were exposed to Dead Kennedys on record only back in the day, the mental image his vocal style summoned had little relation to the spazzy, cherubic, spiky-haired mountebank Biafra actually was in concert. You’d expect him to have props, perhaps a GWAR-style mask, but no, his own purposefully odious personality was all he required. All Biafra needed was to take off his shirt and don a pair of green rubber gloves, and he would get all the impact he could ever want.
Dead Kennedys:The Early Years Live has been kicking around for quite a while; it was released by Target Video on VHS in 1987 and then on DVD in 2001. True to its longtime existence as a widely traded pirate video, someone has posted it on YouTube for all to see.
The video begins with the cheeky disclaimer “Caution: The following material contains violent imagery taken from actual everyday life. This program could be offensive to those individuals who prefer not to deal with reality.” The compilation has its share of non-concert material. After the third song there is a brief news report on Biafra’s 1979 run for mayor of San Francisco—worth it if only for the brief shots of him vacuuming the sidewalk in then-mayor Dianne Feinstein’s tony neighborhood. There’s also a quick video joke about Ronald Reagan, and “Holiday in Cambodia” features liberal use of horrifying footage clips from the Vietnam War—it’s pretty inspired work.
Track listing:
“California Über Alles,” Mabuhay Gardens, SF 1979
“Kill the Poor,” 330 Grove Street, SF 1979
“Drug Me,” Mabuhay Gardens, SF 1979
“The Man with the Dogs,” Mabuhay Gardens, SF 1980
“Insight,” Mabuhay Gardens, SF 1980
“Let’s Lynch the Landlord,” Mabuhay Gardens, SF 1980
“Bleed for Me,” Target Studios, SF 1981
“Holiday in Cambodia,” Target Studios, SF 1981
“Viva Las Vegas,” Sproul Plaza, Berkeley 1978
Meanwhile, Matthew Perpetua at his blog Fluxtumblr recently linked to a bit of fabulous footage of DK in the studio working on “We Got a Bigger Problem Now,” circa 1981. I can’t improve on Perpetua’s description: “I really love this clip, in part because I guess I never realized that Jello Biafra and the rest of the band were kinda…adorable?” The audio is maddeningly out of sync, but it doesn’t really matter, as the band segues effortlessly from some aimless fooling around to a ferocious rendition of one of their signature tunes “California Über Alles.”
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Deconstructing ‘Holiday in Cambodia’: Dead Kennedys in the studio
Cartoon Beatles performing Dead Kennedys’ ‘California Über Alles’