University Daily Kansan / Thursday, September 17, 1987
Arts/Entertainment
7
Jello Biafra:
Lead singer of Dead Kennedys talks about censorship cultural terrorism, music and his recent obscenity trial
By JULIE McMAHON
Staff writer
Jello Biafra, lead singer in the band Dead Kennedys, was in Lawrence last week for the River City Reunion. Biafra's trip came after an obscenities trial which ended in Los Angeles two weeks ago. He was tried for distribution of harmful matter to minors.
The charges stemmed from a poster by H.R. Giger, who was the Oscar-winning set designer for the movie "Alien." Giger's poster, which pictures penises, was taken in the Dead Kennedys' latest album, "Frankenchrist."
Biafra's trial resulted in a hung jury. The judge declared a mistrial, so Biafra was acquitted.
Q. How would you describe the Dead Kennedys' music?
Biafra spoke about his music, censorship and his trial in an interview Friday.
A. I would say musical stonefish, the stonefish being the most poisonous fish in the world. You step on one and you can die within minutes. We're cultural terrorists, or shall we say people who used music as a form of journalism and information as well as had a pretty well-planted sense of humor.
Q. What is your audience like?
A. Our audience is very cosmopolitan. We draw a wider spectrum of people than almost any other hardcore band ever has. We had everything from old beatniks to parents who wanted to take their kids there, including real little kids. Occasionally we've even seen five-year-olds dive off the stage.
11 had in recent years in some areas turned into more and more of a white male audience, particularly in New York and New Jersey and Los Angeles. That kind of bummed me out because at one point women got on the dance floor as much as anyone else.
Q. How did you hear about the River City Reunion?
Q. Did you wear a suit during the trial?
A. I've known Bill Rich and James Grauerholz of River City productions for years. They introduced me to Mr. (William S.) Burroughs on a couple of occasions — twice in San Francisco and once here. Bill also put on Dead Kennedy in Lawrence. He called early on trying to get me in for River City, and when he did not succeed to last as long as six weeks, I couldn't jump back in until the last minute, so I hope people at least know I'm here.
A. Yeah, you might as well confuse the issue as to who the real crooks are. I not only wore a suit; I wore a lawyer's suit. One of them was the famed suit I wore when I ran for mayor of San Francisco. So, for the best in courtroom attire, shop Salvation Army.
A. There was a long battle over that. Pre-trial motions took almost 10 days. Most of it was arguing over what was admissible evidence and what the instructions were that were going to be read to the jury. It was very important how that was worded.
Q. Were you tried for the lyrics on the album "Frankenstein" or for the poster inside the album or both?
After a couple of victories on jury instructions, two defendants had charges dropped against them because they couldn't convict them after that. There were five total defendants
And then came time for admissibility of evidence and of course the prosecutor wanted to keep all references out of the album itself because he knew that paint cast an entirely different light on the H.R. Giger painting inside the
He knew we included it for real reasons and not for just a cheap promo gimmick like he alleged. That was a key victory — that they were able to let the whole album in. It was a real crack-up to watch the whole jury, each holding their "Frankenchrist" lyric sheets, all following the lyrics like a bouncing ball.
Ironically, this painting in question, "Landscape XX," has also been printed in magazines and in a book called "20th Century Masters of Erotic Art" by Bradley Smith, which is available to many people of any age at many public libraries and university libraries.
Q. Do you feel there is a lack of publicity about your trial?
a. I know James (Grauerholz) and Bill (Rich) knew about it and a lot of people in the underground in hardcore scenes knew about it and a lot about it. We even got a letter from a mother in Topeka about why she didn't think our music was harmful to her children and that the PMRC (Parents' Music Resource Center) and the
religious right was much more harmful.
Towards the end a group called Musicians in Action in New York, who had been formed to fight censorship, had been helping us get attention from the New York Daily News and the New York Times. The Kansas papers have the option of picking up the day-to-day account of the story from the wire services, and they chose not to. There were different times, especially on CNN and ABC, but it was mainly biased towards the prosecution for the most part.
I was also on the Oprah Winfrey show with Tipper Gore of the PMRC, although I was hardly ever allowed to talk. . . The amusing highlight was when a woman called up on the air claiming that Dead Kennedys were responsible for her son trying to kill her. She couldn't cite specifics nor could she actually detail whether the guy was really trying to kill her or whether she was just another paranoid, chicken-hearted parent who would rather let the PMRC and the police do her parenting for her.
Jello Biafra, lead singer of the band Dead Kennedys.
Q. Do you believe it is possible to go too far with art?
A. Not really, because history has always sided with the artist. The government of ancient Greece thought Socrates was too dangerous and they executed him. Yeh his plays and literature survive to this day.
his past.
And I think Lenny Bruce has been vindicated. They tried to prosecute Allen Ginsberg over "Howl" and now they teach it in classrooms, although there are many people who are trying to turn the clock back. And they've succeeded, especially in North Carolina, where a few words of the state obscurity laws were changed at the request of Sen. Jesse Helms to take out educational and artistic value. Most of the legislators probably didn't even look at it because it looked like such a minor change.
But now the law in that state is so strict that if you flash a picture of a Michelangelo nude in a college art class, you can go to jail for three years and be fined $10,000. There are many movies where that it is now ill. A video of in North Carolina
And so consequently the colleges, instead of going to court, have simply dropped a lot of classes, including law school classes on obscurity law, because the transcripts are under consideration by legislatures in five other states.
Q. Do you think pornography exists?
A. It's in the eye of the beholder. Let's go back to the law I was prosecuted under, the distribution of harmful matter to minors. What is harmful to a kid? I think something like "Rambo" or "Top Gun" or some of the really right-wing racist metal bands that come out on Combat Records would be a lot more harmful to an impressible kid than anything we could come up with if we tried. But I don't think banning it would solve the problem. It would just put it under the table so the kid would sneak the record in next time and have that much less communication with his parents.
Rather than censor, we just have to come out against it and that's the reason we got prosecuted in the first place. Who encourages more kids to wind up dead? Ozzy Ozbourne or military recruiting ads? That's what I think is harmful to minors.
Q. Would you ever consider banning something you didn't agree with?
A. No. Because that would be giving someone else the option of doing the same to me. Once you say that your taste is better than someone else's and therefore you have the right to ban it, you have become a surrogate Jimmy Swaggart even if it's coming from the left. I want no part of that.
Q. Why did the record industry cooperate with PMRC after the Senate hearings?
A. It was a pure and simple game of money and back room politics. The industry wanted to have a sales tax placed on blank cassette tapes that would go directly to them. In other words, it would be an unprecedented tax where the federal government would impose a tax to benefit a particular part of the private sector, which would be a $250 million windfall for the record industry.
The record companies are willing to censor and even blackball their own artist in order to try to get this tape tax. All they've gotten is a rejection of the blank tape tax and an outrage of the censorship of the leadership of their artists in some cases - blackballing
What happens when the owners of these chain shopping malls threaten to evict a record store if they carry any record with any sticky? The store could either pull the record or go out of business. So nine times out of ten, they pull the record. This is where the blackballing and censorship really hits home.
Artist will give two talks
"The Lady and the Tiger" is one of 13 lithographs by Margo Humphrey on display in the Spencer Museum of Art.
Scott Carpenter/KANSAN
A well-known San Francisco area artist will visit the University of Kansas today at Spencer Museum of Art.
By a Kansan reporter
The artist, Margo Humphrey, a lithographer, will give a talk at 11:30 a.m. at the museum's South Balcony Gallery. She will give a public lecture at 7:30 p.m. in the museum auditorium.
Humphrey will speak about her work, including 13 lithographs that
Stephen Goddard, curator of prints at the museum and assistant professor of art history, says, "They're very personal images. They have a lot to do with love and life. They're a lot colorful, very vibrant."
will be on display until Oct. 18 in the gallery.
Goddard said the display covered about a ten-year-period of Humphrey's work. Some of the pieces evolved from her recollections of 1950s comics.
KU prof choreographs play in Greece
By KIRK ADAMS
Staff writer
A University of Kansas professor returned recently from a trip to Greece, where he helped choreograph a dance. Sophia is a 2-year-old theater
Andrew T. Tsubaki, professor of theater and media arts and chairman of the department of East Asian languages and cultures, spent the last two summers at the International Meeting of Ancient Drama at the ancient fortress Oeniales in west-central Greece.
The event was sponsored by the people of Katokhi, a village near the fortress, and the nearby city of Agrionin. He said the cast and crew were lodged and fed by the local people.
The play was performed in English by U.S. actors for primarily Greek-speaking audiences.
After the three performances in
celebration in June, the company was
the recipient of a 100 million prize.
He worked under the direction of internationally known director Heinz-Uwe Haus of the German Democratic Republic. Tsubaki was assisted by co-director Nicos Shiakalis, a Greek Cypriot.
Tsubaki choreographed the play and was in charge of the actors' physical training.
Tsubaki said Haus asked him to work on the play because of his knowledge of Japanese traditional theater.
"I'm very conscious of style, form and movement, and he wanted me to
give input in those areas."
Tsubaki said Haus was most concerned about presenting the play with energy and visual appeal. He intended to make the chorus more of a visual element
He said the techniques they used to make the play more exciting were almost revolutionary.
One of the most innovative aspects of the play, he said, was the way the chorus functioned. The chorus was composed of all the actors, with characters separating from the chorus when they were identified. The play then reverted to the original script.
Tsubaki added aspects of the surviving Japanese traditional Noh theater for the chorus' chanting.
"Based on Noh style chanting I developed a tune or melody for chorus people to chant, and then I added dance movement."
He said he choreographed the dancing by incorporating many non-traditional moves.
"We used from Greek steps to Japanese martial arts to rock music."
Tsubaki said the innovations were well-received.
Professor Ronald Willis, chairman of the department of theater and media arts, said that he had not seen Tsubaki's work on "Antigone," but that Professor had a long-standing record of integrating aspects of the Oriental theater into non-Oriental scripts.
"They responded to our performance so positively. Many of them made a point to tell us what was going on there than the traditional Greek style," he said.
"I've seen his shows and admired them," Willis said. He said he thought Tsubaki had developed a small core of followers and that his
work had significantly benefited the department.
Tsubaki said the play was so successful, he would be returning to the theater and work on the production of "Oedipus" in 1896; the third play in Sophocles' trilogy.
Andrew T. Tsubaki displays a map of Greece, where he recently choreographed "Antigone," a play written by Sophocles. Tsubaki is a KU professor of theater and media arts, director of international theater studies, and department chairman of East Asian languages and cultures.