The Dead Kennedys (often known by their initials DK, as in "decay") are a punk band from San Francisco, California. During the 1980s, the band gained a large underground following in the international punk and hardcore music scenes. Their music mixed the more experimental elements of English 1970s punk with the raw energy of the 1980s American hardcore punk scene. The Kennedys' songs mix the deliberately shocking lyrics of punk with a humorous, acerbic, satirical, and sarcastic left-wing commentary on current social and political issues. At the same time, some of their songs also mocked the hypocritical stances of some liberal elites. Many of the band's songs criticize the right-wing ideologies of the religious right and the Ronald Reagan administration.
In the late 1980s, the band was embroiled in an obscenity trial in the US over the 1985 Frankenchrist album, which included a poster with art that depicted penises ("Penis Landscape" by H. R. Giger). The band was charged criminally with distribution of harmful matter to minors, but the trial ended with a hung jury. The band officially disbanded in 1986. From 1998-2004, the band was embrolied in an acrimonious lawsuit over royalties and rights to the band's music. In 2001, the band re-formed and began touring with a new vocalist over the objections of former lead singer Jello Biafra, who, after losing the lawsuit and being found liable for fraud, filed two appeals that he later lost.
Late 1970s: Formation of the band
The Dead Kennedys formed in June 1978, after guitarist East Bay Ray (Raymond Pepperell) advertised for bandmates after seeing a punk show at the Mabuhay Gardens. The original DK lineup consisted of Jello Biafra (Eric Reed Boucher) on vocals, East Bay Ray on guitar, Klaus Flouride (Geoffrey Lyall) on bass, and 6025 (Carlos Cadona) on drums. This lineup recorded their first demos. In early July, the band wanted a more experienced drummer, so they recruited Ted (Bruce Slesinger). Drummer 6025 left the band, but he was invited back as second guitarist. Their first concert was on July 19, 1978, at the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco, California.
Dead Kennedys 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 quote Biafra, "to bring attention to the end of the American Dream".[1] 6025 left the band in March of 1979. In June of 1979, the band released their first single, "California Über Alles", on the Alternative Tentacles label. They followed with a well received East Coast tour.
1980s
Disruption of music awards show
On March 25, 1980, the DKs were invited to perform at the Bay Area Music Awards in front of music industry bigwigs 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 started playing a new song "Pull My Strings", a barbed, satirical attack on the ethics of the mainstream music industry. which contained the lyrics, "Is my cock big enough, is my brain small enough, for you to make me a star?". The song also referenced 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. The band was never invited to play the awards show again.
Release of Holiday in Cambodia
During the spring of 1980, they recorded and released "Holiday in Cambodia". In the fall, the band released their debut album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. It reached #33 in the UK Albums Chart. In January of 1981, 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 (Darren Henley).
Around the same time, 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,[2] which Ray denies happening, Ray recommended against signing with Polydor. 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 UK as BBC feared the single would reach the Top 30; this would require a mention of the song on Top of the Pops. However, this never came to be as the single peaked at #31. It is also likely that had "Too Drunk to Fuck" hit the top 30, it would have been banned from playing, in the fashion of The Exploited.
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.
1986: Break up of band
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 speak about his political beliefs on numerous television shows and he released a number of spoken-word albums. Ray, Flouride, and Peligro also went on to solo careers.
1986: Criminal obscenity prosecution
The release of the album Frankenchrist in 1985 caused a furor with the newly formed Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC). In December 1985 a teenage girl purchased the album at the Wherehouse Records store in Los Angeles County.[3] The girl's mother wrote letters of complaint to the Attorney General for the State of California and to Los Angeles prosecutors.[3]
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 store where the girl actually purchased the album was never named in the law suit.[3] The criminal charges focused on an illustration by H.R. Giger, titled "Work 219: Landscape XX" (also known as Penis Landscape). Included as a poster with the album, Penis Landscape depicts nine copulating penises.[4]
Members of the band and others were each charged with violating the California Penal Code,[5] which carries a maximum penalty of up to a year in county jail and a base fine of up to $2000. 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.[6] 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.[3]
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).[3] 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.[7] The album, however, was banned from many record stores nationwide.
1990s: Legal conflicts
Lawsuits over royalty payments
In the late 1990s, former band members discovered problems with the amount of payments which 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 were upset 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, and was ordered to pay damages of nearly $200,000, including $20,000 in punitive damages, to the band members.
Malice was defined for the jury as "conduct which is intended to cause injury or despicable conduct which is carried with a willful and conscious disregard for the rights of others."[8]. Biafra's appeal was denied; he had to pay the outstanding royalties and punitive damages,[9], and was forced to hand over the rights to the majority of Dead Kennedys' back catalogue to the Decay Music partnership.
The jury and judges also noted, in their words, that Biafra “lacked credibility” on the songwriting issue and found from evidence presented by both sides that the songwriting credits were due to the entire band, using a clause in the band's written partnership giving a small share of every Dead Kennedys song royalty directly to the band partnership.[10].
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"). 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. 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. It was found out that Alternative Tentacles was paying Dead Kennedys less per CD than all the other bands, including Biafra himself, and not informing his other band mates, which was the fraud. 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 former bandmates 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, but insist that Biafra was wrong in failing to inform the band directly. Details about this issue remain scarce. The band also maintains that the 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.
Disputes over new commercial activities
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, and having long expressed his disdain for nostalgia and rock reunion/oldies tours in particular, argued that the whole affair was motivated by greed.
Several DVDs, re-issues, and live albums have been released since the departure of Biafra. According to Jello, the live albums are "cash-ins" on the Dead Kennedys' name and his 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 dismissed the new group as "the world's greediest karaoke band." Nevertheless, in 2003, Klaus Flouride, bassist for the band, had this to say of performances without the band's former frontman: "There hasn't been a show yet that people didn't really like."[11]
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. He recently attacked the reformed Dead Kennedys in a song called "Those Dumb Punk Kids (Will Buy Anything)", which appears on his second collaboration with experimental metal band The Melvins, Sieg Howdy!.
Biafra told an audience at a speaking gig in Trenton, New Jersey, that the remaining Dead Kennedys have licensed their single "Too Drunk to Fuck" to be used in a rape scene in a Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino movie. The reference is to a lounge cover of the song, recorded by the band Nouvelle Vague, played during a scene in Planet Terror segment of Grindhouse, although no rape takes place, and in fact the would-be rapist is killed by the would-be victim.
Reformation of new band line-up
The reformed Dead Kennedys followed their court victory by announcing a number of tour dates, releasing reissues of all Dead Kennedys albums (except Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, to which they did not have the rights until 2005), releasing several new archival concert DVDs, and licensing several songs to The Manchurian Candidate remake and the Tony Hawk Pro Skater video game. East Bay Ray received a fax from Alternative Tentacles purporting Biafra approved the licensing for the game,[12] which Biafra denies happening.
The band claims on their website that they still pay close attention to an anti-corporate ideology, despite performing on September 5, 2003 at a festival in Turkey that was sponsored by Coca-Cola, noting that they have since pulled out of a show in Los Angeles when they found that it was being sponsored by Coors.[13] However, Biafra claims the above mentioned licensing deals prove otherwise. Some have found difficulty reconciling this claim when Biafra also licensed to major corporations, approving with the other band members use of Dead Kennedys’ songs in major studio film releases such as Neighbors, Freddy Got Fingered, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.[14].
In 2001, Ray, Peligro, and Flouride chose former child star 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 of archival performances on Manifesto Records: 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.
Lyrical stance
The Dead Kennedys are noted for the acerbity of their lyrics, which generally express a 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 liberal elites and Cambodia's then-current Khmer Rouge regime (who, 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.
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.
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