Happy 60th Birthday JELLO BIAFRA

The original singer with The Dead Kennedys and founder of Alternative Tentacles record label San Francisco Punk legend Jello Biafra is 60 today. 
There are several connections between Biafra and Faith No More. Most notably in 1992 FNM recorded a lounge version of The Dead Kennedys song Let's Lynch The Landlord for the Alternative Tentacles Virus 100 album, which also featured L7 and Sepultura. The song was also included on the 1993 Faith No More EP Songs To Make Love To and The 2015 Deluxe Edition of Angel Dust. The song made regular appearances on set lists during the Angel Dust and King For A Day tours however FNM stopped playing it after 1995. However it made a comeback only once at the Spirit Of Burgas festival in Bulgaria, 2009. 

In 1999 Biafra's former manager at Alternative Tentacles Greg Werckman formed Ipecac Recordings with Mike Patton, 

"Jello Biafra puts the music and artists first, way ahead of everything else. So I learned that the best way to look at the label/artist relationship is that the label works for the artist. I also learned to not get sucked into standard "music industry" traps. Not to look at it as competition with other labels and to respect music as a form of art.” - Werckman

In 2005, Biafra was performing with The Melvins under the name Jello Biafra and the Melvins, or The Jelvins. However it was during his 50th birthday celebrations, Biafra Five-O that Biafra formed the Guantanamo School of Medicine with Bill Gould on bass. The band released their only full length album The Audacity of Hype in 2009, and Bill returned to FNM. 

 "I was at a Ministry show and ran into him. I told him I was putting a new band together and was looking for a bass player, and did he know anybody he would recommend - and he recommended himself [laughter]. Bill has since gone back into Faith No More, so for the tour we're borrowing Jon's brother Andrew Weiss, who you might know from Rollins Band, and Ween and his time in the Butthole Surfers."-  Biafra

"Near the time of the Biafra 5-0 shows, the Melvins had already gotten Cody and Jarred and really wanted to go off and work their own thing, and boy did that turn out well. When Buzz said to me, very excitedly, “I think we’re just beginning to tap in to what we can do with this lineup,” I thought “okay, that’s probably the end of the Jelvins.” Dale was saying, “you know, you really need to get your own band again.”
Then, around that time, I saw Iggy and the Stooges at the Warfield and thought, “Oh shit! I turn 50 in about six months, I better do something! So, after all these years, I had a deadline and finally the band happened. So I booked Biafra 5-0 for my 50th and got GSM going. We didn’t have a name yet, so we called ourselves the Axis. We had Kimo ball and we were a double guitar lineup.
Billy Gould had to go back to Faith No More who were just reforming and said “Look, I can’t do this anymore unless we record now.” We recorded and we had enough stuff and some experimental improv stuff to put in that we got Audacity of Hype and Advanced Methods of Questioning." - Biafra



In 2017 Biafra joined Patton and Dead Cross at UC Theatre in Berkeley to perform The Dead Kennedys song Nazi Trumps Fuck Off (Nazi Punks Fuck Off), which DxCx have performed regularly since.