Fact #87668
When:
Short story:
A 2000 ruling against former Dead Kennedys' frontman Jello Biafra is upheld by a California Court of Appeals. The three-judge panel finds that Biafra still owes his former bandmates more than $200,000 in compensatory and punitive damages because his label, Alternative Tentacles, based in San Francisco, California, USA, withheld money from the band partnership, Decay Music.
Full article:
BIAFRA ON THE RECORD ABOUT THE DEAD KENNEDYS RUPTURE
From the Santa Rosa Bohemian, May 13, 2009
By Gabe Meline
In 1989, a 13-year-old kid approached Jello Biafra, the singer of Dead Kennedys, at the River Theatre in Guerneville. It was dark inside the show, but the young fan recognized his idol through a sea of purple Mohawks and leather jackets, his mind racing to all the hours he'd spent listening to Dead Kennedys cassettes on his Walkman, all the lyrics he'd pored over and memorized. "Excuse me, Mr. Biafra," he meekly opened, "but I'd just like to say that I love your music, and, uh, the Dead Kennedys had a real huge impact on me . . ."
"Yeah, yeah," Biafra snorted. "Blah blah blah! Buy a record! Buy a T-shirt!"
The kid was crushed. How could it be that this man who'd written some of the most scathing indictments of capitalism, who'd made fun of money-grubbing new wave bands, who'd assembled brilliantly off- kilter album booklet collages and who'd taken the entire American ideal of consumerism to task as the heart and soul of one of the most important punk bands in the world
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From the Santa Rosa Bohemian, May 13, 2009
By Gabe Meline
In 1989, a 13-year-old kid approached Jello Biafra, the singer of Dead Kennedys, at the River Theatre in Guerneville. It was dark inside the show, but the young fan recognized his idol through a sea of purple Mohawks and leather jackets, his mind racing to all the hours he'd spent listening to Dead Kennedys cassettes on his Walkman, all the lyrics he'd pored over and memorized. "Excuse me, Mr. Biafra," he meekly opened, "but I'd just like to say that I love your music, and, uh, the Dead Kennedys had a real huge impact on me . . ."
"Yeah, yeah," Biafra snorted. "Blah blah blah! Buy a record! Buy a T-shirt!"
The kid was crushed. How could it be that this man who'd written some of the most scathing indictments of capitalism, who'd made fun of money-grubbing new wave bands, who'd assembled brilliantly off- kilter album booklet collages and who'd taken the entire American ideal of consumerism to task as the heart and soul of one of the most important punk bands in the world