The Dead Kennedys was mostly all about frontman
Jello Biafra (aka
Eric Boucher). Other members include cofounders (with Biafra)
Klaus Fluoride and
East Bay Ray; original drummer Ted and replacement drummer
D.H. Peligro, and short-term guitarist
6025. My personal favorite cover art was the collage art by
Winston Smith on
Give Me Convenience... The poster included with
Frankenchrist that attracted the hysteria leading to the band's dissolution, was
H.R. Giger's
Landscape #20 (also called
Penis Landscape).
Dead Kennedys recordings are still readily available; for a while their distribution was shaky, but these days even Wal-Mart can safely cash in on the 80s nostalgia factor. This is ancient history for some of you, I know, Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown mean as little to you as Nixon and Lyndon Johnson did to me. It was clever, and even important, dissent in its time. For the serious collector (or hungry pirate), then, here's the DK discography:
In 1988,
In God We Trust, Inc. and
Plastic Surgery Disasters were released on one CD.
Rhino keeps the 1991 "
Dead Kennedys Live" concert video in distribution.