Newspaper Page Text
November 13, .1991
Flagpole Magazine
Page 7
hear you're real down on MTV.
KD: Well, if you were in a band and i;ome-
one asked you to make a video and
everytime you didn’t give them one with like
tits galore all over it, and preferably your tits,
and a dramatic story line...and then they’re
bummed out that we didn’t deliver. You
know what I mean. Unless you’re really arty
farty about it, like R.E.M., it's like, Tuck, I’m
not a film director." I don’t really fuckin’ care.
I don’t give a fuck.
FP: Yeah, well, I think Dave Kendall should
take a hike...
KD: [laughs] He was pretty much a shit to
us.
FP: I was watching 120 Minutes the night
he put down your "Velouria" video...[he said
something to the effect that it was the worse
video ever made and he'd never run it
again...]
KD: You know, I didn’t think it was that bad.
I saw it in a re-run. He’s just trying to be
funny...he has to run this show ..and we like
kill him for it. I don’t think it was that bad.
Charles got really mad at him for it.
FP: Well, compared to some of the shit they
show, what does it matter.
KD: Exactly. If the song is good, I automati
cally like the video. Video in art form, I’m not
convinced of.
FP: Record companies can be real testy
with their "product."
KD: Certainly, yeah. Just me in general,
though, video isn’t something. ..I mean we
can do the R.E.M. thing with the wings or
the Peter Gabriel thing, cutting up all those
collages and shit, that’s fine. Fuck it, burn
it too. I do not get moved...if you can make
those images go faster, faster, faster! Now,
make them purple! Now make them green!
Look it! Look at all those colors!
FP: Would you be more apt to do a per
formance video where you're on stage
playing for a real audience and there just
It comes from the
phrase Trompe L’oielle
which means
Trick the Eye.
happens to be a video camera there?
KD: Right. We did “Head On" for a video.
It’s a live recording. You don’t feel stupid.
You’re singing because you have to sing
it. How can you play your bass? It's weird.
It’s being precious.
FP: How's your record company about
making videos?
KD: Luckily, we're signed to 4AD. Pixies
have a contract with 4AD. All of our rec
ords go to 4AD. 4AD has a distribution
deal with Elektra for North America. So
4AD is really good about that [videos],
FP: A lot of people have preconceptions
about 4AD. When your first album came
out a lot of people thought, “oh. God,
another 4AD band. What is this Cocteau
Twins part 5?"
KD: I know and I didn’t even realize this
that 4AD had such a reputation. When
Come On Pilgrim was first released and
as import only, we’d do a show around our
area, around the East Coast, because we
couldn't go that far away from home. We
would do a show and people would come
up just to buy the album, only because it
was on 4AD. Big cult thing. And, they
would come up and say. “What's Igo
really like?" Well, I’ve never met him.
FP: It also explains why a lot of folks
thought Pixies were a British band
KD: Yeah, well, Throwing Muses were the
first American band and we're the second
[on the label].
FP: How’s it touring with Pere Ubu 7
KD: Good, good You know that guy. Eric
Feldman who plays with Pere Ubu he did
some synthesizer on Trompe Le Monde,
so after Pere Ubu gets done, he leaves his
stuff up there and then we have our key
board player with us. Gil Norton also pro
duced their new album.
Hillary Meister
Nobody’s Fool
"Don’t be lonely—resist the government," rocker and rapper
Jello Biafra told a cheering capacity crowd at the University’s
Tate Center auditorium last Tuesday, Nov. 5. Blasting Bush and
the tepid, timid Democrats alike, Biafra called upon his audi
ence to "monkey wrench the New World Order." In a three hour
talk that ranged over a wide variety of issues and social con
cerns. the caustic critic implored young people to "burn your
draft card, burn the flag, and burn the Pentagon, too."
Born Eric Boucher in Boulder, Colorado 33 years ago, Jello
Biafra is the former lead singer of the controversial punk rock
group Dead Kenhedys. Biafra has fought a long and hard
struggle against prudish bluenoses like Tipper Gore who would
censor and dilute rowdy and rebellious rock and roll, but like
crusading comedian Lenny
Bruce, Jello Biafra is much more
than a one-issue social gadfly.
With his pointed goatee and in
tense stage presence. Biafra
looks positively Mephistophe
lean but he is more like a New
Testament prophet crying out in
the wilderness of corporate
America.
Decrying a political climate
in which "the more people get
their political freedom abroad,
the more they keep taking it away
over here." Biafra elicited shouts,
applause and gales of laughter
from his audience as he assailed the White House, Congress,
religious fundamentalists, corporations, the military, the main
stream media, the courts, and the so-called “war on drugs."
People get used to the idea that “being lied to by their
government is okay," he warned. "A coup has happened right
here at home. Our democracy has been overthrown and the
former head of the secret police is now in power. Hitler had great
ratings in the polls, too, but that doesn’t mean he was right,"
added Biafra in a ringing denunciation of the former CIA director
who now lives in the White House.
“Why do people put up with it?" he asked. “Because they’re
afraid of the Big Bad Wolf — Cuba, Peru. Mexico, the Middle
East and domestic dissent." He called the Democrats “lapdogs
who provide no real opposition’ to the scams and schemes of
Skull and Bones Coolidge clones like George Bush.
Castigating the monied minions of the media, Biafra told his
audience, "We're being fed so many lies by the straight corpo
rate-owned press."
He excoriated the USA Today newspaper as "America's
Pravda" and railed against mass media that marginalized and
ignored the fast growing protests against the Persian Gulf oil war.
"Don’t hate the media, become the media," he advised, telling
his audience to start their own press networks and read alternative
media like The Nation, The Progressive, and Zmagazine. He also
recommended that concerned citizens read a book called The
Media Monopoly by leading journalistic critic Ben Bagdikian.
Biafra garnered his biggest applause of the evening with a
passionate call for the ‘egalization of cannabis-hemp-marijuana.
He pointed out that the beneficial plant can replace timber as a
source of paper. The paper companies that fight against hemp
“are making sure that we are wiping our poor ass with our own
future." He called the current use of Army and National Guard
troops against pot growers a
case of "the American Army
being sent to war against the
American people. Will someone
please protect us againstGeorge
Bush and his drug war?"
The social critic called upon
Americans to support rebel art
ists and alternative media and to
“put a little effort back into the
community." He mentioned pro
gressive political organizations
like the American Civil Liberties
Union, Amnesty International, the
Christie Institute and the National
Abortion Rights Action League
as deserving of mass support.
Later, at the Downstairs Caf6, Biafra fielded questions and
bandied political arguments with excited Athenians. He told this
reporter that Louisiana gubernatorial candidate David DuKKKe is
just a stalking horse for the racist politics of the president. "Duke
said first what Bush is saying now," he mentioned.
Jello Biafra is a trenchant and thought-provoking speaker who
deserves a careful listen from a wide audience. He is a fighter
against police pundits, preachers, and politicians who are “trying
to drag you back to the good old days that never existed." He
inspired his Athens listeners to become involved in social issues
by telling them, "It’s a lot more fun than sitting on your ass. It's now
or never, them or us."
Jello Biafra is not kinder and gentler, but he is a real point of
light in the gathering darkness of the Brave New World Order. Give
him a listen He will make you laugh, he will make you think, and
he will make you take action against the social ills of 1990’s
America.
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