.:deadkennedys:.
JELLO BIAFRA
EAST BAY RAY
KLAUS FLOURIDE
D.H. PELIGRO
DEAD KENNEDYS were one of the most popular and important American hardcore punk bands of the late '70s/early '80s. They formed in San Francisco in 1978 when EAST BAY RAY placed an ad in a music paper that vocalist JELLO BIAFRA responded to. They were soon joined by bassist KLAUS FLOURIDE, drummer TED and a second guitarist known to posterity simply as 6025. The latter departed in March 1979, while Ted was replaced at the very end of 1980 by D.H. PELIGRO.
he eight-track EP, IN GOD WE TRUST, INC. (1981), took things further, boasting a speed and power that left most reviewers nonplussed and contemporaries trailing. The EP included a wild cover of "Rawhide" and "Nazi Punks, Fuck Off," an anti-violence paean. The band then changed musical gears again when the PLASTIC SURGERY DISASTERS appeared in late 1982. Possibly their best album, this fine collection of songs retained the trademark savagery and satire, but the musical content had diversified, even including such unexpected moments as Klaus Flouride playing clarinet. Featured were the singles "Bleed for Me" and "Halloween," and it also included "Moon Over Marin," as close as Dead Kennedys ever came to a ballad, albeit with anti-pollution lyrics.
After two years of touring, where they performed all over North America, Europe and Australia, the more melodic FRANKENCHRIST (1985) appeared, marked by a frantic sense of desperation that reflected America's increasingly right-wing political landscape and with songs like "MTV Get Off the Air." As ever, the group ran into controversy, this time with the LP's accompanying poster, "Penis Landscape," by Swiss artist H. R. Giger.
Detailing several rows of copulating genitalia, it provoked a legal offensive against the band beginning in April 1986. As well as having his flat torn apart by the police, Biafra was charged with "distributing harmful matter to minors," a charge which he repulsed on the basis of the First Amendment right to free speech and which was dismissed the following year. But before the controversy, the band had already decided to disband in January 1986 and to complete the recording of BEDTIME FOR DEMOCRACY, which was released later that year. The band rocked as tight as ever, with Ray's voodoo/surf guitar, Flouride's thumping bass and Peligro's skin bashing providing the perfect "sturm und drang" for Biafra's words.
Dead Kennedys played their last show in March of 1986 in the San Francisco Bay Area, where they began. GIVE ME CONVENIENCE OR GIVE ME DEATH, a fantastic collection of their classic early singles and B sides, rare tracks and compilation tracks, was released in 1987.
Adapted from THE ROUGH GUIDE TO ROCK biography by Andy Lewis.
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