Jello Biafra knows youre a fucking phony. Possessed by possessions, slave to your laptop, worshipper of shitty indie pop bands (as he says in Dot Com Monte Carlo), he sees you as you truly are: wrapped in a cocoon of blind consumerism, sipping a latte in complete complacency as the atrocities of the world pass you by. He wants to recruit you anyway, and hes going to scream and shake his naked, middle-aged belly in your face til it happens. Biafras latest effort with the Guantanamo School of Medicine, The Audacity of Hype, is a rally cry that wants to rip you out of that cocoon and turn you into a free thinking butterfly with anarchy emblazoned on your wings. We stopped Vietnam, got Civil Rights and New Deals cause we kept a blowtorch up their ass/All that stands in the way of more wars and Abu Ghraibs aint Messiahs, it is us he rages on the track I Wont Give Up. Heres hoping he doesnt, because these days, we need Jello more than ever. MA’CHELL DUMA LAVASSAR
Tue., Dec. 29, 8 p.m., 2009