Jello Biafra was born Eric Boucher today in Colorado in 1958. Best known as the singer of the punk/hardcore band Dead Kennedys, Biafra is one of the most influential members of that scene. He took his stage name from every 1970s kid's favorite dessert and the African country of Biafra. Blending humor, sarcasm, a heavy dose of political commentary, and his unmistakable warbly voice, Biafra stamped his imprint on punk music and is fairly revered today.
Not bad for a guy that can barely play guitar. He was such a terrible player that he gave up trying to compose songs on the guitar and would instead sing them to his bandmates for them to play. Despite this, Biafra is considered an above average composer. Songs like "Holiday in Cambodia", "California Uber Alles", and a few more with song titles not fit for print are a testament to his song writing prowess.
Like any good rock star, Biafra's life was not free from controversy. In 1986 the evil, hypocritical, anti-American group called the Parents Music Resource Center was on the warpath and Biafra was an easy target due to his lack of relative wealth and that of his small record label. The PMRC was on a mission to obliterate the First Amendment and scrub popular music free of anything they deemed offensive. The cowardly PMRC enlisted the aid of Los Angeles authorities and they arrested Biafra for distributing harmful material to minors because a poster of H.R. Giger's painting "Landscape XX" was included in a Dead Kennedy's album. Luckily the jury couldn't come to a verdict and despite pressure from the District Attorney to retry the case, the judge threw it out.
In 1979 he ran for mayor of San Francisco and finished in a respectable third place, losing to current Senator Dianne Feinstein. His platform was about as ridiculous you can imagine but did contain some interesting ideas that I'll let you research yourself. In 2000 he was a candidate for the Green Party's presidential nomination but lost to Ralph Nader. Biafra remains politically active today but there's no word on a potential 2020 presidential bid.
Enough politics, let's rock.
