Full of Jello: Jello Biafra's Spoken Word Review

Location(s)

Concert dateOctober 26, 2006ArtistJello BiafraReviewby Andrew R. Tonry, KPSU Editorial Team

A friend of mine sold merch at a Jello Biafra speaking engagement a few days earlier in Eugene and I asked him how it went. “It’s good, but it’s nothing you haven’t heard before,” he said. “Oh, and it’s really long.” He couldn’t have put it much better.
Biafra, former front man of the legendary Dead Kennedy’s, recently made his stop in Portland on a tour to promote his newest spoken world album, In the Grip of Official Treason. The album is a 3-CD package, and it’s Biafra’s eighth. Each CD boasts 70+ minutes. Let’s pause for a minute and consider this – we’re talking 3 ½ hours from the caustic, sarcastic, most obnoxiously nasally voices in history. His live show is much the same (Don’t get me wrong, I have a big soft spot in my heart for Jello. I still have my Dead Kennedys records from my teenage years of rebellion (though all the dubbed cassettes are long gone), a few torn up old patches, and I still crank up Plastic Surgery Disasters or Bedtime for Democracy every so often).
Some twenty years after DK’s demise, Jello’s voice remains much the same -- it’s all apocalyptical sarcasm at all times. And while Biafra is certainly over the top, his shots are mostly hit targets taped to the backs of the usual suspects. The rich, government, politicians (Republicans and Democrats), the bigoted, the dumb, the military, SUV owners and the like are all smacked around again and again.
Over the course of the long evening, Biafra lambasts just about everyone on the planet, including former Dead Kennedy’s guitarist East Bay Ray. The show is heavy on criticism and light on proactive ideas, though there are a few:
Biafra’s most lighthearted campaign, on the cessation of junk mail, is also his most entertaining. Here Jello produces his only props – promotional mail from the campaigns from Arnold Schwarzenegger, George W. Bush and the Representative from his own home district, Nancy Pelosi. That this mail is coming to Jello, addressed to him at Alternative Tentacles underscores the waste that’s going on here. And campaign rhetoric has never sounded more ridiculous than when it’s being rattled off the tongue of Biafra.
After last year’s hurricane Katrina, Jello traveled to New Orleans to see the devestation for himself, and it was much worse than he could’ve imagined. Here, Jello adds personal stories and a connected tenderness missing from much of the show.
However, most of Jello’s topics are more mundane, not so much in scope, but in presentation (hey, punks get pissed… it’s just what they do!). He rifles through cards and cards of facts, but none of them are particularly out of step with far left or green politics. And while ideas of wage ceiling, or SUV owners being the first line of offense in an oil war are intriguing, they are hardly comprise a full political platform.
Most of the crowd that filled up Disjecta that night were already familiar with Biafra’s angles, though, I couldn’t help but feel hopeful and nostalgic for the 14-year-old punk kids hoping to meet the punk icon. But then, when I was their age, and more concerned with punk rock’s ridiculous ethical code, I’d bet dimes to dollars that my friends and I would’ve called Biafra a “sellout” for charging $14 to see him speak. Very un-punk rock.
Perhaps Biafra was hip to this concern, and determined to give attendees their money’s worth, causing him to speak in excess of three hours. But, whatever the reason, it was simply too long. Nearly half the crowd had left by the time Biafra broke for his intermission 2+ hours in. As he ended the segment, the crowd collectively exhaled, thinking was finally over, only to be surprised when Jello said he’d be back shortly.
'What else could he have to say?' I wondered. 'If, after two some-odd hours nothing sounded especially fresh, why would things change now? ' It was enough. It was more than enough.
The good of inflammatory political speech is limited when it’s tucked behind an admission fee – especially since everyone holding tickets knows more-or-less what they’re going to hear. If Biafra is truly concerned about the state of affairs – which I believe he is – he ought to hold an afternoon rally in every town he visits. Put a megaphone in his hand and send him out to the Park Blocks or Pioneer Square. There Biafra would have a chance to truly spread his message.
And if he was good, he could probably fill a few more seats for the show that night.
Artist homepageLocation

Disjecta

Portland, us-OR

See map: Google Maps