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Jello Biafra Attacked
By Michael Goldberg.
(Rolling Stone, 7/14/94 & 7/28/94 Issue 686-687, p26)
Veteran punk rocker and spoken-word artist Jello Biafra was attacked and seriously injured
by a group of young men at Gilman Street, a Berkeley, Calif., punk club, on May 7 [1994].
One of Biafra's legs was broken, and he sustained extensive damage to the ligaments of one
knee as well as a superficial head wound. Berkeley police are currently investigating the
incident, but there have been no arrests.
"It may well have destroyed my chances of performing music live the way I want to," said
Biafra, who is recuperating at his San Francisco home. "if I can't get the knee to come back.
I don't just want to stand there and bore everyone to death."
Biafra, the former leader of the Dead Kennedys, was watching a show by the Fixtures when,
according to Biafra, a slam dancer crashed through the crowd, landing on Biafra's leg and
breaking it. "I asked him for an ID so I could deal with it and leave the cops out of it," said
Biafra. "He laughed."
According to Biafra, the slam dancer, whose nickname is Creton, said, "Well, you're such a
rich rock star, you can deal with it yourself."
An argument insued. By Biafra's account, Creton then pushed him to the floor: "All of his
friends - five or six thugs - jumped on me and kicked me in the head from both sides. As they
kicked me, they were yelling, 'Sellout rock star, kick him.'"
Because of the injuries, Biafra was forced to cancel an upcoming spoken-word tour of
western Canada. He had planned to tape his shows for use on a spoken-word album that was
to be his next release on Alternative Tentacles, the punk label he owns. "Now I don't have
those recordings," said Biafra. His most recent album was Prairie Home Invasion, a
collaboration with Mojo Nixon relaesed this past March.
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