Jello Biafra obscenity trial 1987
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- čas přidán 12. 09. 2024
- from the R+M Video collection...
Jello Biafra on- The New Music, Much Music- post trial August 1987.
Frankenchrist Trial Ends In Hung Jury
(Jeffrey Ressner, Rolling Stone - October 1987)
The two-week trial of former Dead Kennedys vocalist Jello Biafra ended on August 27th in a victory for the singer when a Los Angeles jury was unable to reach a verdict. Biafra and Michael Bonanno, the former manager of Biafra's record label, Alternative Tentacles, were charged with distributing harmful matter to a minor. It was apparently the first court case to scrutinize the contents of a rock album. The jurors deliberated a little more than a day before declaring themselves stalemated, causing the judge to declare a mistrial and throw out the case. The charges followed a consumer complaint about a poster of disembodied sex organs included in the Dead Kennedys' 1985 album Frankenchrist.
The insert was reproduced from a painting by artist H.R. Giger called "Penis Landscape". The singer's defense was that the poster was both a liters and a figurative illustration of "people screwing each other over" and therefore an integral element of the entire LP's concept, which featured songs about political corruption, unemployment, racism and poverty.
The prosecutor, deputy city attorney Micheal Guarino, termed the inclusion of the poster "absolutely irresponsible." During the trial, Guarino even compared Giger to Richard Ramirez, the suspected "night stalker" serial killer.
Despite the charges - which could have netted the singer a year in jail and a $2000 fine if he had been convicted - the mood at the trial was anything but somber. During several key moments of testimony, howling screams from child custody battles in the next room reverberated through the court. Young Dead Kennedys fans piled into the viewing area daily, sporting black leather jackets, biker boots and buzz-cut hair styles. And on the final day in court, a defense lawyer took a picture of Guarino with a phony camera that had a pop-out penis.
Following the dismissal of the charges, a jubilant Biafra let out a scream of joy, then autographed copies of the poster and album for the jurors
Enjoy
Awesome. Dead Kennedys fan or not, you've got to respect Jello Biafra. The man has guts. Way to go.
Chuloloc he speaks up for what he believes in
He was being persecuted by democrats, and he's a democrat. I'd say this is a portrait in idiocy.
@@isorokudono Is he a Democrat now? That would be news to me.
But for the record, PMRC was bipartisan--it was run by Al Gore's wife but financially backed by a bunch of "Christian Right" Evangelical churches.
@@macdeus2601 he always was.
@@isorokudono No, he wasn't always, because I know for a fact he was a member of the Green Party at one point in the early 2000's. He was talking about running for their presidential nomination with Mumia Abu Jamal as his running mate for VP.
I love the "found-footage" quality of the video, like it was an artifact discovered after a Reagan era nuclear holocaust.
Well, sparkles13, that was the way TV news looked back then..
Quaint, eh?
@@privatenumber7243 Well, no, it likely looked a lot better when it was first broadcast. But, quaint, why not?
@@sparkles13 you're probably right. Have a nice day.
@@privatenumber7243 This broadcast has been taped on to a VHS and then copied many times. Each time you copy a tape, the quality degrades. The original broadcast had far better quality. Here's a video demonstrating the degredation. czcams.com/video/nqy_hYDI0As/video.html
@@valurautakattila from what I remember from my T.V. Productions classes, and video, It's called 'drop-off'. But it's been 20 yrs, so I don't know.
What scares them is that they were expecting him to be stupid, but when Jello starts talking you can tell he is a highly intelligent and articulate man. At 52 I am still a DK fan but I had never seen a Jello interview until a couple of years ago (all hail youtube uploaders) after seeing him on talk shows and other interviews my respect for the man is stronger than ever,
The Dead Kennedys will always be 1 of the greatest political punk rock bands ever. I'm grateful for Punk rock music and culture .....it opened my eyes and taught me a lot , in general . Still I'd say Jellos Lyrics and The Dead Kennedy music open-minded my eyes to a plethora of good to know intelligent info. To be
aware, about our freedosm our God given rights to apeak of and share information move forward with a focused purposeful passion to change what's no good, for the greater good.
I wish I got to see DK play live,.. ......
Michele Kirkham hell yeah. The Germs, X, Minutemen, Bad Brains, tons of punk bands that will never die.
Jello makes more sense than most politicians these days.
He ran for mayor at one point but retracted his application because he couldn't use his alias
He's one of the only sane people on the fucking planet.
@@JayDecayAE Even though his demeanour may say otherwise at times 😂😂😂
Passion adds clarity when appropriately applied.
He made more sense than most politicians in those days, too.
If your 14 year old daughter is a fan of the Dead Kennedys, I think she can comprehend and laugh at the art featured in the album
yes we can
@@dia9221 14 year old girl dead kennedys fan gang 😈 💯
@@zoeyrodriguez1977 loving jello biafra is for life not just our teen years 🫀🥲😍
@@dia9221 Yep. Jello fan now at 14 and Jello fan until I die amen
He's said it's not meant to be prurient, and we all know how absolutely retarded it is to look at it that way. It's sex & horror married for the joke they are.
The bigger disorder is figuring out how so many people get that wrong, organize, and maintain one of the worst views of anything I can imagine.
"Sometimes life is like that". Shit Biafra is such a hardcore savage.
There's a hilarious warning on a video for Califorinia Über Alles. It says "The following material contains violent imagery taken from actual every day life. This program could be offensive to those individuals who prefer not to deal with reality.
czcams.com/video/eIqESwzCGg4/video.html
You spelled insufferable wrong
I remember when I got that album in the mid 90s. It didn't have the original H.R. Giger cover but there was an insert that said if you mailed $2 to the address given they would mail you the original cover. So I did. Four weeks later I got my letter back and there must have been half a dozen stamps on there saying "return to sender" and "no such address exists" and etc. I always wondered where that letter had gone when I mailed it. I thought it might have been a prank by Jello and the letter went to a government address or something. It may have been the case that Alternative Tentacles had moved by then but I like to think that letter went to Tipper Gore's mailbox or something.
jspro100 I did the same and did get the insert in the mail along with some pamphlets about the whole censorship ordeal.
I got the poster when i sent that in. And not long after my friend had to send a copy of his ID to get the poster
Man when I bought the CD when I was a teenager I wish I had sent it to Buck said I figured Jello is just scamming me
Jello Biafra defines eloquence.
jello biafra's dad speaks just like jello - same cadence and inflection.
Same LBGTQ lisp? 🤔
I'm 45 and absolutely remember when this crap was going on. For myself personally, it had a reverse effect. I was more likely to buy an album that had the "label" on it. As with most children, someone tells them they can't listen to something in particular, the child is going to find a way to listen to it. I would argue that the introduction of the label propelled music artists to be more "descriptively risque" in their craft.
I feel like there were more levels to the label then we were aware of. Like if there was some swearing on it stores would gladly carry it and sales would be great because it had distribution....but if something took more thought to interpret and judge and it wore the label then chains wouldn't carry it. If that was the case did each chain have their own inhouse yes/no system and would that have been shared by distributors with other stores/chains to the point where certain artists were being dropped from distro because of copycat wholesale purchasing.
When I was a kid, 90s-00s, there definitely was a luster to those albums that had the sticker on them. Especially before my tastes had fully been formed by the Ramones and other punk.
I'm the same age and did the same. I would purposely buy the ones they made the biggest deal over, just because it irritated me so much.
In the early 90's, if I had to choose between a CD with a parental advisory sticker and one without, I would always buy the one with the sticker
wish there were more jello Biafras all over the world..
There are. Use your internet.
This was HD in the 80s
I'd hate to see what SD was.
@toomuchjunkiebizness 79 there were hardly any people that new the difference.
@toomuchjunkiebizness 79 In retrospect i think i'd rather have 60 hz than higher res and slightly better colors
This would have been shitty even by 80s home VHS standards
Jello looks like he was filmed on a Game Boy.
I love Jello's voice.
Sounds like a Hasidic Rabbi
Screw GI Joe, Jello is the real American hero.
"Anytime anybody is afraid to say or create what they believe, that in itself is censorship."
An inspiring interview for us to keep on expressing and exploring. I write for a few science blogs, and have been intimidated by research institutions (who have even tracked my email to elected officials) into reducing my activities including attending conferences, speaking engagements, and even posting blogs. Thanks for posting this video, I may listen to High Priests of Harmful Matter again.
Well, creating what you believe I can easily foresee, creating a world of fiction is just creating fiction, either that or speaking coherent philosophy like a nonfiction philosophy book for example. But there's bound to be situations where people will be afraid to say what they believe and with good reason. Man A could want to say, "who cares about what the Catholic priests are doing in their life," or, "9/11 was cornball," because maybe man A truly does believe that 9/11 was cornball. And maybe there's a good number of people who think the same thing, that 9/11 was cornball and man was the post-9/11 paranoid era ridiculous. But that's the thing, it's been two and a half decades past 9/11 and the American norm is still post-9/11 paranoid to this day. And now the new paranoia is the corona virus. Should man A say, "The corona virus is cornball" to anyone else in the public? Or I'll give a better example. Should man B say without being afraid, "9/11 was cornball," or "The corona virus is cornball," in a coffee shop? No, of course he should be afraid to say that, because the Starbucks management (or management of whatever the coffee shop) will kick him out. And the coffee shop management reserves the right to kick out customers for free speech as they are the company after all and they can and will make the rules.
My place of residence used to be pitched up around Panorama City, California. The place is the slums mind you, not the worst but kinda close up there and they have this mall that enforced against T-shirts that they feel were sexually or violently obscene. Because of edgy T-shirts they could literally kick out customers. Blows donkey dick that their rules are that rigid? Of course it does, but they're the company and they can determine the rules and no one else in society is going to complain or disagree with the erosion of free speech (or any other freedom for that matter). There's the surveillance state suppression of the 4th Amendment, the unfair, kangaroo court-esque approach to trials suppression of the 6th amendment, the cruel and unusual punishment of Guantanamo Bay and the unfair bail money and sentences of the courts suppression of the 8th Amendment and no one complains or disagrees with any of those. You name the amendment to the Bill of Rights and it's been attacked multiple times and no one else disagrees with it and they certainly aren't willing to do something actively well thought out and effective against it. Most people aren't against authoritarianism, in fact agree with it.
Here's an even better example. Should man C carry out man A's legacy by saying, "9/11 was cornball," to a cop? Technically either man A, man B, or man C or any other person for that matter, can say "9/11 was cornball," to a cop without being afraid of getting arrested as per First Amendment free speech except even that is debatable depending on the cop, the situation and often the state/locale you live in and including your finance as the cops favor the upper-class, not the poor-class. And the other thing is even if you weren't arrested for saying, "9/11 was cornball," to the cop, he's very likely going to put you on his police database list. Now you can argue that people should be able to say and create what they believe without being afraid but what should happen is much different from what will happen and what will continue to happen. It should happen that there's no disease, war, death, poverty, corporate pollution or economic divide. Doesn't mean it's going to happen.
My dad never backed me up like this
Jello knows his shit.
I had that album and poster. What really irritated me about the case was why was this woman shirking her responsibility as a parent by dragging this record and insert to the authorities? Why waste taxpayer dollars over a punk rock record w/a painting as a part of the packaging? I know that if my parents found an objectionable record in my collection, they would have questioned me, and they would've told me to keep it out of sight, or they would've just taken it away and trashed it. Luckily, my parents were pretty open-minded and would've settled for the former. I sure wouldn't want the government legislating issues that are part and parcel of parenting.
"Still ahead on the new music, Jellybean." Haha
This is a spokesperson of my generation of which I couldn't be prouder
..a living legend...
Extremely intelligent man.
5:08 r.i.p. his father
@@pashadyne Yeah looks like he's Jello's dad.
@@komfykoala6083 that is jellos dad
I love Frankenchrist. But, why is this in black and white? Frankenchrist came out in 1985.
Z Aub recorded from an old school BW TV
The person with the ability to capture it to video had at their disposal some very old school equipment that saved it in back and white.
Marx Dudek That makes total sense actually. Guess I was kind of short-sighted.
how dare a band have artwork on the cover
and then gg allin came along and fucked everything up
Jello won, you can watch all his stuff and far worse on the internet and crime is at an all-time low.
***** A lot of crime has been reduced by invention, HD cameras. Almost all homes have them now. Also a lot of internet forums get the feeling are controlled, mostly by liberal globalist types. If you say anything even moderate you get ridiculed and eventually banned.
The D.K.s won, but they lost. When there's A Witch Hunt like this, the antagonist has virtually all the cards, the antagonist may lose the case, and the defendant found not guilty but, the damage has been done monetarily, they lost so much money defending themselves, if I'm correct they went bankrupt, and basically took away their right to make A living, so the antagonist got what they wanted. No more "Trouble" from those D.K's
I believe one of the prosecuting lawyers said in an interview years down the road that, the D.K.s were actually good, in the context of expressing the rights of individuals, that the whole thing was A "WITCH HUNT"on the behalf of the prosecution, and their. "Benefactors".
Jello Biafra runs the best punk rock label out there and still plays music to sold out audiences. He's also collaborated with some of the greatest musicians in the world. What happened with Dead Kennedy's is that they broke up and the other band members sued him for the rights to the album's even though he wrote all the songs, did the art, produced the albums, and pressed them himself, they wanted more of a cut. They play without him, but they kinda suck.
Check out Jello Biafra and The Guantanamo School of Medicine to hear his current band, and his record label is called Alternative Tentacles. His album he did with the band D.O.A. pretty much immediately after this trial was wrapped up "The Last Scream of the Missing Neighbor" is one of the best and most underrated punk albums ever made.
I haven't seen that old Muchmusic format in many years.
There’s always room for Jello!
Fortunately, I was able to buy the Alternative Tentacles Frankenchrist CD in the 90s and it came with the Giger poster!
He's always been so well spoken and clear with his words.
*What a good fellow... this Jello!*
Brilliant man. I'm glad I've seen him and his band at the Montebello Rockfest. This act has been the highlight of the whole weekend to me.
Thanks for the upload
This reminds me that I had to use an old BW tube TV during the late 90s as my first TV.
BEST thing that can happen to artist is to be Censored
Look at Tropic Of Cancer Henry Miller, Howl by Ginsburg, Catcher in the Rye, 2 Live Crew in the early 90's, Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, All of these things BLEW UP and became famous right when people tried to ban them.
The moment a work of art becomes illegal everyone becomes intrigued by it. It's also free marketing, everyone talks about your work. If you are in a band, try to get your music banned without getting arrested yourself. You won't regret it.
Lots of guts, the guy has been monetarily bankrupted for this, and other things that were outright , Witch Hunts, I know he doesn't want sympathy, but he's got mine, and my full admiration. 😱
Could be talking about CZcams and Facebook.
the prosecutor of this case became friends with jello( he realized he was wrong) also his kid became a dead kennedys fan and played his albums and his spoken records so basically he had to hear jello's voice a lot
So the only person that could shut Jello up is his dad?🤔
Old skool
Acid rain? Whatever happened to that anyway?
EXACTLY!!! Lol.
So this is what you call "The American Dream"?
your welcome. to me it is amazing that this went to trial in USA.
Wow, not only is Jello cool, his father was cool!
i grew up listening to dk in straya respect
"...how often has heroin started a war?" @ about 3:50. Well Mr. Biafra, having myself been to school for a year or two, I've no doubt you are informed and enlightened enough to now know that it has started at least a few... to include the present US debacle in Afghanistan. Do please excuse me, but I need to go and unpack... ; )
spg77777 You realize this was filmed before Afghanistan?
Ha, holiday in Cambodia reference. Nice.
@@Lat3xE4teR tq for noticing.. iconic tune… one day a movie similar to Apocalypse Now will be made with it as it's theme/motif ...
I have a dream... and I dream in color. : )
Freedom of speech.
Fucking censorship...
The actual poster wasn't pee pee's and wee wee's.
I had the album. The poster wasn't pornography.
Jello is one of the best frontmen of all time
Jello Biafra is on my very short list of superheroes! Jello is the man
Jello's just a very smart and intelligent guy!!
Was this recorded in 1957, when 1985 was the future?!?
Is this only a bad copy or is the black and white style something like art.All the people look like some sort of "1920ies Vampyres".Did Murnau held the camera? By the way,I remember when I bought Frankenchrist my mother threatened to rip the poster of if I dared to pin it on my wall.But she didn't trialed me.I put the poster of to save the art.
Things were so simple back then...
Life, indeed, can be that way.
I’m honestly surprised he was never killed by big brother.
Are the statues in D.C. distrubuting porn to children? I am sure that is a common point, but this case does raise the question,
Odd 1987 looks like the 50s, filmed on 8 mm off TV?
Looks like at least eight generations of tape copy decay
And the horrible Tipper Gore types never went away.
He was a bit wrong about “heroin starting a war”, but I’m sure he didn’t know what we know now. I love him still, all that he talks about, it was hard to be raised in that social climate. It actually put shame into kids artistic and self expression. In part, I was put away in schools for wearing black, dark makeup and listening to The Cure, and show our problems that wouldn’t have been there had I not been abused, most likely.
In God We Trust, Inc.
He seems to make some good points. I'm Too Drunk to understand any of it.
Conservative dad believes in free speech 👍
Jello Biafra VS Tipper Gore and the PMRC.
jello for president.
Thank you Jello.
We make art. Art doesn't make us. Is there any weaker argument than to blame art for the thoughts and deeds of humans?
My band used to practice around the corner from the Gore's Northern Virginia house. It was well after this attempt at mind control.
The idead of being againsr sex and drugs and rock n roll makes as much sense as being against oxygen.
jello dad is so cool
Jello is guilty of speaking the truth
love Jello
I had this album and I sent in for the artwork and proudly displayed in my room. I was like 12 years old and had no clue what it was.... mom came in and saw it and was like that’s disgusting. I was like huh... yea ignorance is bliss, she didn’t make me take it down... I wish I still had it
wherehouse chains and otherss had records
Jello is my hero.
just watched jim jeffries doing his piece on american freedom. some things don't change.
Heh heh. Pissing off the public is fun.
if you are going to record off your television, buy a color set
Am embarrassed as a Canadian to hear how clueless the interviewer is. Jello is eloquence pure!
And then Death Grips came around
I started listening to the dead Kennedys in the 5th grade, a year before that was 9/11. Music was a big part of my life but not what fucked me up 🤷♀️
He told you all it was coming..
If G Gordon Liddy is the highest paid speaker, then somebody's got to do something
I wanted to hear about the jellybeans.
There was some fall-oat?
Well I won't be posting o Facebook again
5:46
6:53
the harvest of dead kennedys never ends
Now look where we are today. CZcams won't even permit me to describe the sights exposed to even our children. Thanks Jello! Thanks for Drag Queen Story Hour at my local library!
get mental help.
@@gumshake689
Whatever you say, Sigmund.
Articulate intelligence 👍🏻
Is that how bad tv looked back then ?
Heck no. Somehow it’s been “aged” using a filter or something.
@@bimscutney1242 oh ok thanks
Unfortunately they used goons of hazard. Should've been MTV get off the air.
I love Wasp and Dead fuckin"Kennedys.. Hurray
Deliberately made to look old. TV resolution was not this bad in the late 80's. DEfinitely not black and white.
I was a teen that year and agree. This resolution just makes me feel even older. It may have been done this way to avoid copy right laws too.
Recorded on a cheap VCR and degraded over the years, is what I'd think.
@@snewl5324 That seems possible, but the audio sounds fine and VHS would stay in color and generally degrade, but not look fairly clean while just losing color. There would usually be visual static and sometimes tracking errors too (remember those tracking controls?) That was my experience back then, Oh well, I suppose we will not know for sure.
absurdity trial is better.
As a DK fan I still understand the need for warning label. Nobody wants their kids to be surprised by something pornographic. I had this album and remember the poster. It qualified enough that I wouldn't want my kid under 18 to by subject to it without warning.
All though it is shocking, here are two points:
Life is shoking and kids need to see some visceral things in life as to not become shelterd. Sneaking peaks at dirty movies or horror flicks are one thing but seeing shocking art and potentialy disturbing imagery is also a pivotal part of life. Censorship is fucked.
And, its not pornography its art.
@@dietdrano1059 Yes, but parents have the right to decide what they want their own children to watch or see. It's actually a call to get more information about contents, not less. Just like people like to see what's on an ingredient label before they eat.
The poster of "Penis Landscape" is obscene?
Give me a fucking break!
War is obscene, religious fanaticism is obscene, racism is obscene, censorship is obscene...
The human body isn't a bit obscene specially women's bodies which are mother nature's masterpieces! 😎
I'm always against censorship this is America the right of freedom of speech is for everyone but yet we have people who like to think differently who want to make u.s. communist nation we have the right to speak and rhe right to vote the right to owen a firearm. R.stark
this is when Much Music was actually good... its total shit now and has been for years... but it USED to be good
I'm so nostalgic for the liberal of the past. They were antiwar. Now they line up to vote for Joe Biden.