Line #6 Music/JelloBiafra


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jello_biafra.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''"For every prohibition you create, you also create an underground."'']]
3
4	->''"I think one of the most important things punk brought back was the whole concept of staying independent and doing things yourself. It made music a lot less boring in any category you can name."''
5
6	While undoubtedly best known as the frontman of HardcorePunk legends Music/DeadKennedys, '''Jello Biafra''' (born Eric Boucher, June 17, 1958) has had quite a career since leaving the band as well. He has amassed quite a large number of spoken-word albums about political activism as well as a large body of recorded music that mostly serves as {{Spiritual Successor}}s to the Kennedys' output. His music recordings, both as collaborations with other artists (Music/{{DOA}}, Music/{{Nomeansno}}, Music/MojoNixon, Music/{{Melvins}}, most of Music/{{Ministry}} as Lard, members of Steel Pole Bath Tub and Grong Grong as Tumor Circus) and with his own band the Guantanamo School of Medicine, have made him a respected elder statesman in the world of punk (a condition he even comments on in the song "Enchanted Thoughtfist"). While his former bandmates from the Kennedys have evolved into the living incarnation of MoneyDearBoy, half-heartedly playing songs "from the good old days about how bad the good old days were", Biafra continues to evolve and to produce some [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic awesome new tunes]]. He also owns and operates the Creator/AlternativeTentacles label.
7
8	!!Discography
9	See Music/DeadKennedys for his releases with them.
10
11	Solo, spoken-word:
12	* 1987 - ''No More Cocoons''
13	* 1989 - ''High Priest of Harmful Matter: Tales From the Trial''
14	* 1991 - ''I Blow Minds for a Living''
15	* 1994 - ''Beyond the Valley of the Gift Police''
16	* 1998 - ''If Evolution Is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Evolve''
17	* 2000 - ''Become the Media''
18	* 2002 - ''The Big Ka-Boom, Pt. 1''
19	* 2002 - ''Machine Gun in the Clown's Hand''
20	* 2006 - ''In the Grip of Official Treason''
21
22	Collaborations with other artists:
23	* 1990 - ''Last Scream of the Missing Neighbors'' (with Music/{{DOA}})
24	* 1991 - ''The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy'' (with Music/{{Nomeansno}})
25	* 1991 - ''Tumor Circus'' (with Tumor Circus)
26	* 1994 - ''Prairie Home Invasion'' (with Music/MojoNixon; sessions also produced the single ''Will the Fetus Be Aborted?'')
27	* 2000 - ''Live from the Battle in Seattle'' (with the No W.T.O. Combo, a short-lived {{supergroup}} including [[Music/{{Soundgarden}} Kim Thayil]] and [[Music/{{Nirvana}} Krist Novoselic]], as well as Novoselic's Sweet 75 bandmate Gina Mainwal)
28	* 2004 - ''Never Breathe What You Can't See'' (with Music/{{Melvins}})
29	* 2005 - ''Sieg Howdy!'' (with Music/{{Melvins}})
30	* 2015 - ''Walk on Jindal's Splinters'' ([[LiveAlbum live]], with the New Orleans Raunch and Soul All-Stars, a {{supergroup}} of Southern musicians)
31
32	With Lard (collaboration with [[Music/{{Ministry}} Al Jourgensen]] and others):
33	* 1989 - ''The Power of Lard'' (EP)
34	* 1990 - ''I Am Your Clock'' (EP)
35	* 1990 - ''The Last Temptation of Reid''
36	* 1997 - ''Pure Chewing Satisfaction''
37	* 2000 - ''70's Rock Must Die'' (EP)
38
39	With the Guantanamo School of Medicine:
40	* 2009 - ''The Audacity of Hype''
41	* 2011 - ''Enhanced Methods of Questioning'' (marketed as an EP, despite containing over forty minutes of music)
42	* 2012 - ''Shock-u-py!'' (single)
43	* 2013 - ''White People and the Damage Done''
44	* 2020 - ''Tea Party Revenge Porn''
45
46	!!Tropes present in his post-Kennedys career include:
47	* AlbumTitleDrop: Most of the albums avert it. ''White People and the Damage Done'' and ''Tea Party Revenge Porn'' play it straight, and ''The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy'' ''almost'' plays it straight (the lyrics say "The sky is ''melting'' and I want my mommy" instead). ''Last Scream of the Missing Neighbors'' is more subtle about it; "Full Metal Jackoff" gives the quote listed below under CleanupCrew, then asks:
48	-->If someone came for you one night and dragged you away
49	-->Do you really think your neighbors would even care?
50	* BadBoss: Present in many of his songs, but the bosses in "Hamlet Chicken Plant Disaster" have to take the cake. They locked their workers into the factory to boost productivity levels, then it burned down. Horrifyingly, this is based on real-life events; twenty-five people died and forty more were injured.
51	* BlackComedy: Jello's stage name, which juxtaposes the name of a cheap, mass-produced dessert with the infamous Biafran Civil War, one of the more publicised cases of mass starvation in UsefulNotes/{{Africa}}. Plus quite a lot of his songs.
52	* CallBack:
53	** "I Wish I Was in UsefulNotes/ElSalvador" refers to "KillThePoor" by name.
54	** "Burgers of Wrath" refers to "Soup Is Good Food" by name.
55	** A line about songs "from the good old days about how bad the good old days were" appears in both "Buy My Snake Oil" and "Those Dumb Punk Kids (Will Buy Anything)", the second time as a TakeThat towards Jello's former bandmates.
56	** The refrain of "Chew" off ''The Sky is Falling and I Want My Mommy'' is used again in "Dawn of the Locusts".
57	** ''Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death'' is name-dropped in "Strength Thru Shopping".
58	* CleanupCrew[=/=]{{Unperson}}: From "Full Metal Jackoff":
59	-->My van's a mobile oven now
60	-->It burns the bodies you never see
61	-->Just like in UsefulNotes/{{Chile}} or UsefulNotes/{{Guatemala}}
62	-->People just seem to disappear
63	* ComicBook/ChickTracts: Referenced by name in "Dawn of the Locusts" and "Crapture".
64	* CityOfSpies: "[=McGruff the Crime Dog=]" asks, "Why not hire half the country to spy on the other half?"
65	* CompetitionFreak: "The Ghost of Vince Lombardi" [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructs]] and criticizes this mindset, claiming it's "poison" that permeates American society and damages kids worse than TV or video games.
66	-->The ghost of Vince Lombardi, where dirty tricks are cool\
67	Someone's gotta win and someone's gotta lose\
68	The ghost of Vince Lombardi rules the marketplace\
69	He who dies with the most toys wins\
70	This is why this country has no soul, has no sense of community
71	* CoverAlbum: ''Walk on Jindal's Splinters''.
72	* TheCoverChangesTheMeaning: "Will the Fetus Be Aborted?" and "Let's Go Burn Ole UsefulNotes/{{Nashville}} Down" are based on older songs but have completely different lyrics unrelated to the concepts of the songs they were based on (although the former is a {{snowclone}} of the original song's title, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?"). "Achey Rakey Heart", more pointedly, contains a direct TakeThat towards the original performer, Music/BillyRayCyrus.
73	* CoverVersion:
74	** With Music/{{DOA}} he covered Music/TheAnimals' "We Gotta Get Out of This Place".
75	** "Bad" on ''The Sky is Falling and I Want My Mommy'' is technically a cover of backing band Music/{{Nomeansno}}'s side project The Hanson Brothers, but they wouldn't release their own version until a year later on their debut album.
76	** With Music/MojoNixon he covered Darryl Cherney's "Where Are We Gonna Work (When the Trees Are Gone?)", Fred Kirby's "Atomic Power", Music/PhilOchs' "Love Me, I'm a Liberal" (with some new lyrics to make it more current to TheNineties), the Goldcoast Singers' novelty hit "Plastic Jesus", the traditional songs "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" (with new lyrics by environmental activist Judi Bari as "[[CrossesTheLineTwice Will the Fetus Be Aborted]]?") and "Old Joe Clark" (with new lyrics as "Let's Go Burn Ole Nashville Down"). There was also a "cover" of Billy Ray Cyrus' "Achey Breaky Heart" entitled "Achey Rakey Heart", which as one might expect is more of a {{Parody}} and TakeThat; however, note that this last song is actually credited to Eugene Chadbourne & Evan Johns, despite appearing on Jello and Mojo's single for "Will the Fetus Be Aborted".
77	** With Music/{{Melvins}} he covered Music/AliceCooper's "Halo of Flies", as well as a version of Music/DeadKennedys' "California Über Alles" given new lyrics referring to then-California governor Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger.
78	** With Lard he covered Music/NapoleonXIV's "They're Coming to Take Me Away".
79	** With the Guantanamo School of Medicine, "Metamorphosis Exploration on Deviation Street Jam" is a reworking of the Deviants' "Metamorphosis Explosion".
80	* DreadfulMusician: ZigZagged. Jello doesn't play any instruments on his recordings because, well, he's not very good at it, by his own admission. He started out trying to teach the other band members the parts he wrote by playing them on guitar and it wound up being easier for him to just scat-sing the parts. (This would cost him when his former band mates in the Music/DeadKennedys sued him). However, he's a very skilled ''composer''. Nearly 90% of the Dead Kennedys songs were solely written by him, and he's responsible for quite a lot of the songwriting on his collaborations as well. He's also managed to be one of the most iconic front men in punk, which serves as a testament to his stage presence and prowess as a vocalist.
81	* DrivesLikeCrazy: "Plastic Jesus", "Yuppie Cadillac"
82	* EpicInstrumentalOpener: Shows up sometimes. The singing doesn't start until 2:40 into "Chew", for example.
83	* EpicRocking: Parodied with Lard's "70s Rock Must Die", which features all kinds of [[TheSeventies Seventies]] hard rock tropes including gratuitous cowbell, endless guitar solos, a PowerBallad style bridge, vocal histrionics, an overly repetitive chorus, and of course the obligatory BigRockEnding. Played straight with several other songs:
84	** Lard's 6:37 "Pineapple Face", 7:29 "The Power of Lard", 8:28 "[[Music/NapoleonXIV They're Coming to Take Me Away]]", 15:29 "I Am Your Clock", and 31:55 "Time to Melt" (though the latter two could be considered subversions as they don't go through tons of changes; they're just really slow).
85	** ''Last Scream of the Missing Neighbors'' has the 13:57 "Full Metal Jackoff"; Music/{{DOA}} frontman Joey Shithead recounts that the song was recorded in one take with Biafra giving the band hand signals for different sections of the song, and that by the end drummer Jon Card's cymbal-hitting arm was "ready to fall off".
86	** ''The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy'' has the 8:48 "Chew" and the 6:35 "Sharks in the Gene Pool".
87	** ''Tumor Circus'' has the 9:03 "Hazing for Success (Pork Grind Confidential)", the 7:08 "Fireball", the 6:52 "Calcutta a-Go-Go", and the 15:38 "Turn Off the Respirator".
88	** ''Prairie Home Invasion'' has the 9:07 "Buy My Snake Oil".
89	** ''Never Breathe What You Can't See'' has the 6:20 "Islamic Bomb" and the 6:09 "Caped Crusader".
90	** ''Sieg Howdy!'' has the 7:43 "Halo of Flies", the 7:55 "The Lighter Side of Global Terrorism (extended space-melt version)", and the 7:33 "Caped Crusader (Subway Gas/Hello Kitty mix)".
91	** ''The Audacity of Hype'' has the 6:05 "Three Strikes" and the 21:13 "I Won't Give Up" (though the actual song is 7:14 and it ends with an 8:01 HiddenTrack featuring all the songs played at once after about 7 minutes of silence).
92	** ''Enhanced Methods of Questioning'' has the 32:03 "Miracle Penis Island" (though the actual song is 7:38 and it includes the 18:23 "Metamorphosis Exploration on Deviation Street Jam" as a HiddenTrack).
93	** ''White People and the Damage Done'' has the 14:34 "Shock-u-py!" (though around half of that is silence; the actual song is about 7:40), the 6:52 "Crapture (Flight F.I.N.A.L. Space Blast Extension)", and the 7:34 "Shock-u-py! (Soul Clap mix)".
94	** ''Walk on Jindal's Splinters'' has the 12:37 "Walk on Gilded Splinters".
95	* FoxNewsLiberal: As with Music/PhilOchs' original, Jello and Music/MojoNixon's version of "Love Me, I'm a Liberal" eviscerates them.
96	* GiveMeLibertyOrGiveMeDeath: The TropeNamer is mocked as a {{hypocrite}} in "The Myth Is Real - Let's Eat":
97	-->Patrick Henry said, "Give me liberty or death"
98	-->At the time he owned sixty-five slaves
99	* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Viciously deconstructed in "Will the Fetus Be Aborted?", which spends most of its verses describing reasons a good girl might get an abortion (e.g. addictions, being a victim of rape and/or ParentalIncest, being likely to die from pregnancy, already having enough kids, etc.), then in the final verse:
100	--> Tanya lived for revolution
101	--> Wanted to overthrow the state
102	--> She had fifteen [[DirtyCommies Commie]] babies
103	--> [[MoralGuardians Phyllis Schlafly]], ain't that great?
104	* GratuitousPanning: Appears in several places in the remix of "Caped Crusader".
105	* HiddenTrack: ''The Audacity of Hype'' and ''Enhanced Methods of Questioning'' both have them (and in each case they're the longest song on the album, if the one on ''Audacity'' qualifies as a "song"). ''White People and the Damage Done'' doesn't, technically, but does feature four bonus tracks after about seven minutes of silence, so it's still similar.
106	* HummerDinger: Subjected to a song-length TakeThat in "Yuppie Cadillac".
107	* {{Hypocrite}}: "Nostalgia for an Age That Never Existed" and "Lessons in What Not to Become" both criticise Boomers for telling their kids "Just Say No" when they themselves frequently had adolescences full of sex and drugs. The latter song also examines a few other instances of hypocrisy.
108	* IAmSong: "I Am Your Clock", about how modern society is ruled by time, amongst other things.
109	* IWantMyMommy: ''The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy''
110	* IndustrialMetal: His work with Lard mostly falls into this trope, unsurprisingly.
111	* ItsQuietTooQuiet: Stated almost word-for-word in "Chew".
112	* JustLikeRobinHood: "John Dillinger", though it uses a liberal dose of SarcasmMode to get its point across.
113	* KillThePoor: Referenced by name in "Wish I Was in El Salvador".
114	* LastNoteNightmare: ''The Audacity of Hype'' ends with an eight-minute HiddenTrack featuring all the songs from the album played at once (though since most of them have finished playing by the end of the track, the track may actually be taken as something of an inversion of this trope as well). The remix of "Caped Crusader" is also an example.
115	* ListSong: Often combined with a TakeThat.
116	** From "Yuppie Cadillac":
117	--->What is it 'bout the Navigator, Escalade, Suburban, Explorer, Yukon\
118	That brings out the road rage macho dick in everybody who drives one?\
119	Icy curves, slow down; another Pathfinder found its way to hell\
120	What a great way to thin the herd
121	** In "Those Dumb Punk Kids (Will Buy Anything)", Jello reacts to his former bandmates enlisting a FormerChildStar as his replacement:
122	--->And if our scam works, what a bandwagon it will be\
123	Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle in Music/TheMisfits, or [[Creator/MaryKateAndAshleyOlsen Mary-Kate and Ashley]]\
124	Gary Coleman in Music/BlackFlag, [[Music/CourtneyLove Courtney]] in Music/{{Nirvana}} at last\
125	And Emmanuel Lewis back in action singing for Music/TheGerms\
126	When will it end? When people see this for what it is\
127	Rock and Roll Swindle [[Music/SexPistols Pistols]] backed a thief\
128	So how about Martha Stewart in Music/DeadKennedys?[[note]]The printed lyrics have "Kenny Boy Lay" (referring to the [[CorruptCorporateExecutive disgraced CEO]] of Enron) written instead of Martha Stewart[[/note]]
129	** "Mascot Mania" starts with a list of sports teams and the unusual behaviour of their fans, then suggests renaming sports teams with {{Take That}}s towards their hometowns (partially as a TakeThat towards the real-life Washington Redskins, whose name has been a sore point with real-life American Indians for decades):
130	--->It seems to me that to stay mean, these names should change with time\
131	The New York Muggers, Detroit Murders, and Chicago Mob\
132	Boston Bigots, Texas Swindlers, and the L.A. Cops\
133	Miami Drugs, New Jersey Dumps take on the Denver Smog\
134	Seattle Fads, New Orleans Hoods, Milwaukee Cannibals\
135	San Diego Jarheads and the Arizona Drought\
136	That's mascot mania, mascot mania, uh-huh.\
137	Go, Carp, go! Salmonbellies rule!\
138	Hit 'em harder Cops! But a hockey team called The Mighty Ducks?
139	--->Heads explode when Dallas Oswalds meet Washington Bribes\
140	Home team band plays Cop Killer when L.A. comes to town\
141	Pittsburgh Polluters, Houston Drive-Bys; don't stir near the fear\
142	When the Florida Abortion Bombers meet the San Francisco Queers\
143	That's mascot mania, mascot mania, uh-huh.\
144	Anywhere you go, the game's the same old thing\
145	Bet your money on the Bribes; they always win
146	* LoudnessWar: Averted with his older work. His newer work starting around the TurnOfTheMillennium dips into this somewhat, but is still nowhere near as bad as the worst examples of the trope. The worst example of this in his work is ''Live from the Battle in Seattle'', which, at [=DR6=], still isn't anywhere near as bad as the worst offenders. Lard, a collaboration with members of Music/{{Ministry}} (whose music for the past couple of decades has generally been a straight example of this trope), also falls into this somewhat, though some songs and releases are worse about it than others.
147	* TheLudovicoTechnique: Referenced in "Plethysmograph":
148	-->Flash ya pictures, [[Literature/AClockworkOrange Clockwork Orange]]-style
149	-->Let's see what makes Stewart smile
150	* MinisculeRocking: Not as often as you'd probably expect given his HardcorePunk roots. His only post-Kennedys track that actually falls under the two-minute limit mentioned in the trope description is the fifty-second-long "Voted Off the Island" from ''Sieg Howdy!''. "Bad" from the Music/{{Nomeansno}} collaboration is 2:18, and after that all his other songs are at least two and a half minutes long.
151	* MorallyBankruptBanker: Targeted in "John Dillinger" among others.
152	* NoiseRock: Tumor Circus has elements of this.
153	* NotSoDifferentRemark: "Caped Crusader" swipes some of its lines from 9/11 terrorist Mohammed Atta and some from then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, and in the liner notes invites the listener to "spot the difference".
154	* PretenderDiss: Just like the original, "Love Me, I'm a Liberal" is this to {{Fox News Liberal}}s.
155	* ProtestSong: Most, if not all, of his output.
156	* RealLifeWritesThePlot[=/=]RippedFromTheHeadlines: Several of his songs are based on real-life events, including the TearJerker "Hamlet Chicken Plant Disaster".
157	* RockstarSong: "Enchanted Thoughtfist" is an unusually introspective example, as it features Jello reflecting on his legacy and advising listeners, "Don't just question authority/Don't forget to question me".
158	* SarcasmMode: Used so often in his lyrics you might think it was his default voice.
159	* ShoutOut:
160	** "Full Metal Jackoff" to ''Film/FullMetalJacket''.
161	** "Burgers of Wrath" to ''Literature/TheGrapesOfWrath''.
162	** "Werewolves of Wall Street" to Music/WarrenZevon's "Werewolves of London".
163	** ''White People and the Damage Done'' to Music/NeilYoung's "The Needle and the Damage Done".
164	** "John Dillinger" kinda speaks for itself.
165	** "Ride the Flume" to ''WesternAnimation/GeorgeOfTheJungle''.
166	** "Plethysmograph" to ''Literature/AClockworkOrange''; see TheLudovicoTechnique above.
167	** "Enchanted Thoughtfist" to Creator/AllenGinsberg.
168	** "The Terror of Tinytown" to ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'' and [[Film/ThisIsSpinalTap Spinal Tap]].
169	** "Pets Eat Their Master" to ''Film/SoylentGreen''.
170	** "Dot Com Monte Carlo" to ''Literature/TheGreatGatsby''.
171	** "Metamorphosis Exploration on Deviation Street Jam" to Music/{{Nirvana}}'s "[[Music/NevermindAlbum Territorial Pissings]]" and Music/TheDoors' "[[Music/StrangeDays When the Music's Over]]".
172	** "The Brown Lipstick Parade" to ''Film/MrSmithGoesToWashington''.
173	** ''Prairie Home Invasion'' to ''Radio/APrairieHomeCompanion'', probably.
174	** "Invasion of the Mind Snatchers" may or may not be one to ''Film/InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers'', and "Caped Crusader" may or may not be one to, well, Franchise/{{Batman}} (the main thing ambiguous about these is whether they're intended as Shout-Outs or {{Take That}}s).
175	** ''A lot'' of his other references to pop culture are probably closer to {{Take That}}s (for instance, the reference to ''Series/{{Baywatch}}'' in "The Terror of Tinytown").
176	* SiameseTwinSongs: "Enchanted Thoughtfist" into "Dawn of the Locusts".
177	* SinisterSurveillance: Taken to its logical extreme in "[=McGruff=] the Crime Dog", which satirically proposes hiring half the country to spy on the other half.
178	* SpecialGuest: Adam Jones of Music/{{Tool}} on literally half the tracks on each Music/{{Melvins}} collaboration. Mike Scaccia of Music/{{Ministry}} and Rigor Mortis also shows up on "Enchanted Thoughtfist".
179	* SpokenWordInMusic: "Metamorphosis Exploration on Deviation Street Jam", mostly, although Jello sings in it some too. "Shock-U-Py!" uses it some too.
180	* TakeThat: As with his Music/DeadKennedys material, plentiful, including a few against his former bandmates in "Those Dumb Punk Kids (Will Buy Anything)" and "Voted Off the Island". He's taken a few at UsefulNotes/BarackObama from a left-wing perspective as well ("Barackstar O'Bummer" and the album title ''The Audacity of Hype'' being the most obvious; "I Won't Give Up" counts as well). The album title ''Walk on Jindal's Splinters'' is a TakeThat to Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana at the time (the album was recorded in UsefulNotes/NewOrleans with a cast of New Orleans musicians and largely consists of covers of songs associated with New Orleans).
181	* ThreeChordsAndTheTruth: Although he comes from a HardcorePunk background, this trope is normally averted. He plays the ProtestSong nature of hardcore straight, but tends to write much more complex songs than are the norm for the genre (see the number of straight EpicRocking examples above for proof).
182	* TitleTrack: Only ''White People and the Damage Done'' has one.
183	* TitleOnlyChorus: "Attack of the Peacekeepers", "Power Is Boring", "Yuppie Cadillac", etc.
184	* UncommonTime: The verses of "Enchanted Thoughtfist" are in 7/4. "Dawn of the Locusts" has a riff in 13/8. When industrial hip-hop group [[Music/{{Dalek}} dälek]] remixed the latter track, they put a 4/4 drumbeat under the whole song just to make it even more disorienting. Meanwhile, "Sharks in the Gene Pool" from the Music/{{Nomeansno}} collaboration goes through several time signature changes, with one of its riffs in 7/4, and from Lard's ''The Last Temptation of Reid'', "Sylvestre Matruschka" is mostly in 5/4. (The usage of this trope is part of Nomeansno's SignatureStyle; they are known as an UrExample of MathRock for a reason.)
185	* VillainSong: Many of Biafra's songs count as this, but "Bruce's Diary" off his album with Nomeansno ''The Sky is Falling and I Want My Mommy'' is sung from the point of view of his villainous ''Film/TerminalCityRicochet'' character Bruce Coddle.
186	* VocalTagTeam: On his album with Music/MojoNixon they are this. Most of the other time if any other vocalists share vocals with him it's a case of StepUpToTheMicrophone.

Context Music / JelloBiafra