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The Dead Kennedys (often known by their initials DK, as in "decay") are a hardcore punk band from San Francisco, California. Attacking assumptions of the political left and right with humor, their music mixed the more experimental elements of English punk with the energy of the American punk scene. The Dead Kennedys officially disbanded in 1986. An acrimonious lawsuit among band members over royalties and rights ensued. In 2001, the band reformed and began touring with a new vocalist over the objections of former lead singer Jello Biafra, who, after losing the lawsuit, two appeals, and found liable for fraud, 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 their former frontman: "There hasn't been a show yet that people didn't really like it."
History The Dead Kennedys formed in June 1978, after guitarist East Bay Ray (real name Raymond Pepperell) advertised for band mates after seeing a punk show at the Mabuhay Gardens. The original DK lineup consisted of Jello Biafra (real name Eric Boucher) on vocals, East Bay Ray (real name Raymond Pepperell Junior) on guitar, Klaus Flouride (real name Geoffrey Lyall) on bass, and 6025 (real name Carlos Cadona) on drums. They recorded their first demos with this lineup. In early July the band wanted a more experienced drummer, so they hired Ted (real name Bruce Slesinger). 6025 left, but was invited back as second guitarist. Their first concert was on July 19 1978, at the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco. They 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". 6025 left the band in March of 1979. In June of 1979, the band released their first single, "California Über Alles", on Alternative Tentacles. They followed with a well received east-coast tour. On March 25 1980, the DKs were invited to perform at the Bay Area Music Awards in front of music industry big-wigs 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 tore into the previously unheard "Pull My Strings", a barbed, satirical attack on the ethics of the mainstream music industry. As well as containing the lyrics "Is my cock big enough, is my brain small enough, for you to make me a star", the song also sent-up 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... and the band was never invited to play the awards show again. Biafra recently stated that audience member Francis Ford Coppola pushed aside drummer Ted after their performance. During the spring of 1980, they recorded and released "Holiday in Cambodia". In the fall they released their debut album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. It reached 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 (real name Darren Henley). Around the same time, according to a 2005 Biafra interview conducted by Nardwuar the Human Serviette, 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. 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 performance of the song on Top of the Pops. However, this never came to be as the single peaked at 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 become a highly active political force, appearing on numerous television shows and releasing a number of spoken-word albums. Ray, Fluoride, and Peligro also went on to solo careers. Criminal obscenity prosecution The release of the album Frankenchrist in 1985 caused a furor with the newly formed PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center). In December of 1985 a teenage girl purchased the album at the Wherehouse chain record store in Los Angeles County. The girl's mother wrote letters of complaint to the Attorney General for the State of California and to Los Angeles prosecutors. 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. The criminal charges were primarily based on an H.R. Giger illustration included with the album. Members of the band and others were each charged with violating California Penal Code , which carries a maximum penalty of up to a year in county jail and a base fine of up to $2000. The poster, "Landscape Internal conflicts It was discovered in the late 1990s that there were issues with the payments 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 took issue with the fact 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." . Biafra's appeal was denied; he had to pay the outstanding royalties and punative damages, , 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. . (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"). However, the online database of BMI still retains the original songwriting credits. Ray, Fluoride 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. 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 and that Biafra was wrong in failing to inform the band directly, however details about this issue remain scarce. The band also maintains that the entire 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. 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, having long expressed his disdain for nostalgia and rock reunion/oldies tours in particular (with the 1996, corporate-sponsored Sex Pistols reunion perhaps fresh in his mind), flatly stating that the whole affair was an exercise in greed. Several DVDs, re-issues, and live albums have been released since the departure of Jello. According to Jello, the live albums are cash-ins on the Dead Kennedys' name and Jello's 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 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. Biafra recently attacked them on song called "Those Dumb Punk Kids (Will Buy Anything)", which appears on his second collaboratory with experimental metal band The Melvins, Sieg Howdy!. Reformation The reformed Dead Kennedys followed their court victory by announcing a number of tour dates, released reissues of all Dead Kennedys albums (except Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, which they did not have the rights to until 2005) and a number of concert DVDs, as well as licensing several songs (in Tony Hawk Pro Skater and The Manchurian Candidate remake, respectively. The Manchurian Candidate, which used "Kinky Sex (Makes the World Go 'Round)", was a movie about an evil corporation, while "Police Truck" was used in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater because of punk music's close bond with skateboarding. The band says on their website that they still pay close attention to an anti-corporation ideology, despite earlier performing 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. However, Biafra, claims the above mentioned licensing deals prove otherwise; though he makes this claim when he has also licensed to major corporations, approving along with the other band members, the use of Dead Kennedys’ songs in major film releases like Neighbors, 1981 and Class, 1983 and there is a fax from Alternative Tentacles that says Biafra approved the licensing for the Tony Hawk video game.. In 2001, Ray, Peligro, and Fluoride chose 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 on Manifesto Records of old performances - 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. Personnel timeline 1978-2006 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy ImageSize = width:800 height:300 PlotArea = width:750 height:250 bottom:20 left:20 Colors = id:canvas value:rgb(0.97,0.97,0.97) id:grid1 value:rgb(0.86,0.86,0.86) id:grid2 value:gray(0.8) id:bars value:rgb(0.96,0.96,0.6) BackgroundColors = canvas:canvas Period = from:1978 till:2006 ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:1978.0 gridcolor:grid1 bardata= bar:Singer text: bar:Guitar text: bar:Secgit text: bar:Bass text: bar:Drums text: plotdata= bar:Singer color:red from:1978.50 till:1986.22 text:"Jello Biafra" from:2001.85 till:2003.45 text:"Brandon Cruz" shift:(5,3) color:red from:2003.45 till:2006 text:"Jeff Penalty" shift:(5,3) color:red bar:Guitar color:blue from:1978.50 till:2006 text:"East Bay Ray" bar:Secgit color:yellow from:1978.50 till:1979.20 text:"6025" bar:Bass color:green from:1978.50 till:2006 text:"Klaus Flouride" bar:Drums color:black textcolor:white from:1978.50 till:1978.55 text:"6025" from:1978.55 till:1981.22 text:"Ted" shift:(5,3) from:1981.22 till:2006 text: "D. H. Peligro" shift:(5,3) Lyrical stance The Dead Kennedys are noted for the 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 yuppie culture and Cambodia's then-current Khmer Rouge regime (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. In some cases in their early days the band attracted support from right-wing punks who took the lyrics of "Kill The Poor", etc. at face value, somehow missing the staggering amount of sarcastic nastiness and irony with which the lyrics were presented. The Kennedys wrote a song in response to this development, tellingly titled "Nazi Punks Fuck Off!". 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. Samples Members Current lineup Former members Discography Image:DeadKennedysFreshFruit.jpg| (1980) Image:Ingodwetrustinc.jpg| (1981) Image:DK Plastic Surgery Disasters.jpg| (1982) Image:St germany 82 front.jpg| (1983) Image:Dkfranken.jpg| (1985) Image:Dkbedtime.jpg| (1986) Image:Dead Kennedys-Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death.jpg| (1987) Image:Mutiny on the bay.jpg| (2001) Image:Live at deaf club.jpg| (2004) Studio albums Live albums Compilation albums EPs Singles Videos Bootlegs See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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