JELLO BIAFRA & D.O.A.

„last screams of the missing neighbors“

(Alternative Tentacles, 1989)

Apart from the Dead Kennedys (whom I will not mention because these happenings of late and the way they resulted are too shameful and typical to keep me cool) and the spoken word albums, this collaboration with the Canadian punk-old-timers of DOA is really the best thing with Jello Biafra on it. Around that time, end of the Eighties, early Nineties, Jello Biafra did a lot of collaborations and maybe he was looking for a new band to rule the world with. He worked with No Means No, Evan Johns and the H-Bombs and of course LARD (which is Jello Biafra with Al Jourgensen from Ministry and assorted friends), but none of those reached the energy-level and compactness, in short words: the crispy, full-fledged, straight in your face, heavy punkness of this album. Every track on this record is a killer punkrock-track. The guitars and heavy drums of DOA set the perfect basis to transport the impeccable voice of Biafra. The lyrics are great. The force of these tracks will grab you and shake you around no matter what. In more short words: dude, you will headbang.

Sure, there are only six tracks on here, but keep in mind that the last one called “Full Metal Jackoff” is a legendary, circa fifteen minute long punkrock-epic. I call it legendary because it is maybe the only punksong with that length that really ever made sense and works. And it was played a lot in underground-discos (back in the times when underground-discos still existed.) and people remember it. Of course, it is perfect for DJs who need to take a break. It is also perfect for juvenile hot-shots who will remember that song because headbanging through the whole damn thing is a perfect way to give you a sore neck. Moreover, in “Full Metal Jackoff” the tension builds up. It starts with some guitar noise and the distinctive guitar-chugga chugga (which made some juvenile hotshots run towards the dancefloor in the times, when… but we already had that.) Then Jello Biafra sets in and starts singing / reciting about mobile drug-labs in Washington D.C., Wall Street or Crack Dealer Avenue, Willie Horton, narco-militarism (remember that was the time when it got finally public that the CIA was one heavy force in drug trafficking). Damn, that song is a piece of cultural history, maybe more important than any official textbooks.

The whole record is a piece of history lesson now, cultural as well as political. The five songs on side A are mainly crunchy, tight-fisted and driving punkrock-blasts dealing with some of the main punkrock-issues: the evils of progress, gentrification and data-collecting (“That’s progress”), militarism (“Attack of the peacekeepers”), police-brutality (“Wish I was in El Salvador”) and dictatorships (“Power is boring”). Of course, Biafra can’t deal with these issues in a straight way (straight as in according to punkrock 101), so expect to find a great deal of irony and wit in here, which doesn’t really hide the political oppositional stance of Biafra in any way. Take for instance this line: “The “tracts for sale” sign promises deer in your backyard, if the deer somehow makes it past the fences and yards” or “Army ads looked cool - I signed right up, besides it was the only way I could get a job”. There is also a funny hint at old times in a song, where it says: “Gonna jerk off with my gun and kill the poor”. But maybe that is just because Biafra was then still tackling the same old issues. Overall it is the great way in which Biafra as a singer impersonates these various characters, e.g.- policeman, soldier, crack-dealer, dictator and all the other scum of the earth, with a lot of energy and passion, which makes the lyrics even more intriguing. Has anyone ever thought of asking Biafra to play in a movie? He might be great in some characters.

The last song on side A, “We gotta get out of this place”, is of course a cover-version, which I have heard by the Animals as well as by Nina Simone and might be one of the few early R’n’B-songs with a obvious socio-political message, where the singer laments his father’s fate of working all his live and getting none of it. And, musically, it’s a damn fine cover-version that injects this protest-song with the rightful dose of punkrock.

Some more words to the graphic style. With a concept by Biafra himself and the layout done by John Yates (Stealworks) there can’t be much wrong basically. But the collages by Winston Smith (already known from a lot of record-sleeves on Alternative Tentacles) really give the songs the perfect package. The front cover (“Life as we know it”) shows a roman horse-race amidst a meteor-shower and with cars and tanks competing as well. Modern life is a constant fight. If you ever drove through rush hour traffic in the city, you know what I mean. The back cover (“The money tree”) shows some well-off business men in their spare time, in that unique Fifties-style, picking money from a tree. Yeah, some people just reap the fruits off the money they have and lead an otherwise comfortable live. The banks pay them interest on their wealth and they don’t need much more. But where do the banks get the money from?