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Punk politico to preach this Thursday evening

Jello Biafra’s answering machine spews a rant about the Mel Gibson film The Passion of the Christ.

Who: Jello Biafra

Where: Delta Whistler Hotel Ballroom

When: Thursday, April 22

Tickets: $15

Jello Biafra’s answering machine spews a rant about the Mel Gibson film The Passion of the Christ.

No "Hello." No "Leave a message after the beep." Just a sardonic tirade on hypocrisy delivered with the staccato snarkiness the former front man for legendary 1980s punk band the Dead Kennedys has made his own.

Say what you want about the man – he definitely walks the walk. He’s an activist even down at the answering machine level. A political warrior pressing for change at all levels of government. A free speech advocate, a creative freedom advocate, and a fierce believer in individualism.

If you’re a delicate lamb that can’t handle dissenting opinion, Biafra is going to bowl you over, then kick you when you’re down.

And he doesn’t even need the power of distorted electric guitar to do it.

He’s mainly a man of words now. Spoken word. Kind of like an atheist evangelist, travelling from town to town, trying to shake people up with his fervent beliefs.

It’s been said that spoken word is what punks do when they’re too old to rock. But Biafra’s a bit of an anomaly since he started presenting his sharp-tongued writings and opinions at coffee houses in early 1986, before The Dead Kennedys disintegration.

His profile as an orator was bolstered when the band was sued under California obscenity laws over surrealist artwork accompanying 1985 album Frankenchrist.

True to his punk rock roots, Biafra had no intention of conceding to anti-obscenity and censorship crusader Tipper Gore and Co. He fought the charge and the case was eventually dismissed in 1987.

In an ironic twist, the trial vaulted the coffee house punk poet to the level of the university free-speech lecturer.

Small venue or large, he takes every opportunity to tell it like he thinks it is. And right now he thinks the U.S. government stinks.

Bush is bunk. Gore was no better. Besides, there was that thing with Mrs. Gore a while back that’s pretty hard for him to forget.

Biafra’s a Ralph Nader man, naturally, and was even on the ballot himself for a while in 2000 after being nominated by fellow Green Party members. However, a running lawsuit with members of his former band over the right to use Kennedys’ song Holiday in Cambodia in a Levi’s commercial (not surprisingly, Biafra counts himself among the no-way-in-hell-camp) tied up his resources and prevented him from actively campaigning, he says.

The lawsuit is yet to be resolved.

Realistically, the next president of the world’s biggest superpower is not going to be a man that recorded "Too Drunk to Fuck" but Biafra defends leaving his name on the ballot.

"Well, I think I’d make a better president than Bush, but then again, so would your average housefly," he says. "I decided to leave my name on the ballot even though I couldn’t campaign because that way it would hopefully draw people who were down with what I’d been saying and doing. Inspire people to get off their butts and onto the Nader and Green Party Web sites and register and show up and vote.

"To a degree I think it helped. It brought a badly needed rock ’n’ roll and punk spirit to the Green Party."

And to those who charge that Nader and Green Party supporters are to blame for the current Republican administration, Biafra counters that second place Charlie was barely distinguishable policy-wise and that Green voters would rather have not voted at all than cast their ballots with the Democrats. Gore, he says, lost the election all on his own.

"It was almost like he was an actor hired to play the loser," he sneers.

Ever the crusader, Biafra has immersed himself in municipal issues such as homeless shelter construction in his home base of San Francisco, even running for mayor. He stands firmly behind NoFx front man and fellow Californian Fat Mike’s Punkvoter.com initiative to mobilize disaffected young concert goers. Even though he considers many of the bands on board too pop-music for his liking, he’s doing it for the cause.

"I’d even go on tour with Good Charlotte if it would help get rid of Bush," he quips.

He’s still fighting his old bandmates and rages against the "reunion" shows they perform with the front man’s absence unbilled.

He’s still recording music too, his most recent project a collaboration with The Melvins titled Never Breathe What You Can’t See.

Though most of his issues are with the U.S. government and its warring tendencies, he’s got some bones to pick with Canada too: draft dodging amnesty law revisions, media issues, the list is endless and those who come out on Thursday night are going to get an earful.

But that’s really the point. Bush-bashing has brought punks back to politics and Biafra can be counted on to be there offering his brand of non-spiritual guidance.

Really, he’s in his element. He’s a shit-disturber through and through, living in a time where there is an infinite amount of shit to be disturbed. No one this sarcastic could ever be happy in paradise.

"I happen to like causing trouble," says Biafra. "I never thought in my worst nightmare that punk would become so accepted that (Dead Kennedys album) Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables would become another generation’s Crosby Stills and Nash."

Catch Jello Biafra’s spoken word performance at the Delta Whistler Hotel Ballroom on Thursday, April 22. Tickets are $15 available in advance from The Circle and the Electric Daisy Internet Cafe.

For more information go to www.mountainpromotions.net.