The Dead Kennedys were formed when vocalist Jello Biafra - having seen the Sex Pistols' final live performance at the San Francisco Winterland in January 1978 - answered a music paper advert placed by guitarist East Bay Ray. They were joined by bassist Klaus Flouride, drummer Bruce Slesinger (aka Ted) and a second guitarist known to posterity simply as 6025. The latter soon departed, while Slesinger was replaced in 1981 by D. H. Peligro. After a brief rehearsal period, the Dead Kennedys played their first gig in July 1978. Initially, their music was a fairly faithful reproduction of British punk rock, all beefy guitar sound, rumbling bass and enthusiastically whacked drums.Yet from the start there was obviously more to them than this: the band were quite clearly playing within their musical abilities, and there was a depth to the lyrics which raised the group above the average punk outfit. Biafra's main lyrical concerns were political and his polemical broadsides attacked any number of easy but nonetheless deserving targets - big-business skullduggery, the Reagan administration, atrocities perpetrated by the Klan, and the feeble response of liberals to such issues. Underpinned by an acute sense of humour and Biafra's extraordinary tremulous vocal, early songs such as "Let's Lynch The Landlord", "I Kill Children", "Chemical Warfare" and "Funland At The Beach" satirized the twin elements of extreme violence and conservatism which characterize much of American life. The Dead Kennedys' inflammatory name and provocative behaviour (in one 1979 prank, Biafra ran for mayor of San Francisco - and came fourth) attracted the attention of a number of far-right politico-religious groups. The band's problems with these self-appointed moral guardians were compounded by a confrontational relationship with US authorities, ensuring an aggressive police presence at most of their gigs. These associations scared off major record companies from signing the band, so their only option was to
release records on their own label - Alternative
Tentacles - set up in 1979.
Early British singles were issued on indie label Cherry Red, beginning with "California Über Alles", a blistering attack on the Governor of California, Jerry Brown. "Holiday In Cambodia" followed and is perhaps the band's definitive moment - a perfect mix of hilarious yuppie-baiting lyrics and evil-sounding music. Almost as essential were "Kill The Poor" and "Too Drunk To Fuck" (remarkably, a British Top 40 single in 1981), but the debut LP, Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables (1980), was largely sunk by unsympathetic production. Nevertheless, a British tourin late 1980 established the band as a figurehead for an audience long deprived of the Pistols and affronted by the alleged 'sellout' of the Clash, Biafra stage-diving to great enthusiasm. The eight-track EP, In God We Trust Inc.(1981), took things further, boasting a speed and power which left most reviewers nonplussed and contemporaries trailing.There followed a lengthy hiatus before the album Plastic Surgery Disasters appeared in late 1982. A vast improvement on Fresh Fruit . . . , this fine collection of songs retained the trademark savagery and satire, but the musical content had diversified, even including such unexpected moments as Flouride playing clarinet. After two years of touring, the more melodic Frankenchrist(1985) appeared, marked by a frantic sense of desperation which reflected America's increasingly right-wing political landscape. 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 finally overturned the following year. The band, meantime, had taken the decision to disband in early 1986, before release of their final album, Bedtime For Democracy (1986), which suggested their creative relationship had run out of steam.