Alternative Tentacles
The brainchild of notorious Dead Kennedys rabble-rouser Jello Biafra, Alternative Tentacles is a musical platform for infidels, revolutionaries, wingnuts, activists, mad poets, and aural terrorists -- in short, for everything that Biafra has always stood for. The San Francisco-based label emerged when the Dead Kennedys did -- it was the name on the band's self-produced debut single, "California Uber Alles" -- but Biafra has controlled it since the group's acrimonious split. Not surprisingly, the label's offerings lean towards punk rock, but there's plenty of other stuff in the AT catalogue. The one thing that all AT artists have in common is a tendency to be provocative, innovative, and willfully controversial.
The Causey Way
Yes, The Causey Way is a rock band, an out-of-control new wave science experiment on wheels -- without any brakes. But it's oh so much more than that. It's a way of life, a religion, if you will, a new and better way of perceiving the world. Prepare to be indoctrinated.
Causey vs. Everything
-
2001
Jad Fair and Jason Willett
Avant-noise post-punk icon Jad Fair has been hailed as an avatar of the D.I.Y. punk ethic and a childlike genius for his inexplicable, intentionally amateurish rock deconstructions. With longtime collaborator and Half-Japanese bandmate Jason Willett, Fair produces some of the strangest, most unformed, and fascinating "music" you're likely to hear.
Enjoyable Songs
-
1999
Half Japanese
They've been around two decades now, but Jad Fair and Company remain among the strangest and most original voices in rock. Other venerable independent artists have slowly entered the mainstream over the course of their careers, but Half Japanese's weird brand of childish, experimental avant-rock has always remained further out than the music of any of their contemporaries.
Hello
-
2000
Lard
Will you be wiped? Lard (featuring members of Ministry and ex-Dead Kennedys vocalist Jello Biafra) sneers and jeers at the modern corporate world and tired trends that won't go away, launching a full-fledged assault on your ears and your brain.
'70s Rock Must Die
-
2000
No Means No
The brothers Wright -- Rob and John -- have been leading the quirky Canadian punk band No Means No to a certain measure of underground fame and fortune for nearly twenty years with a bizarre, often polemical hardcore attack underscored by a metallic jazz edge.
One
-
1998
The No WTO Combo
During the December 1999 World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle, former Dead Kennedys frontman and free speech icon Jello Biafra got together with former Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil and Sweet 75's Krist Novoselic (formerly of Nirvana) and Gina Mainwal to form a one-off protest band. The No WTO Combo offers one searing punk rock manifesto after another declaiming the WTO in particular and global capitalism in general.
Live From The Battle In Seattle
-
2000
The Pattern
Oakland's newest underground supergroup mixes up classic '60s blue-eyed soul with spunky '90s pop punk -- and discovers that the two genres aren't so stylistically far apart. Featuring former members of the PeeChees and other Bay Area punk faves.
Wet Circuit City
-
2001
Real Feelness
-
2002
Wesley Willis
Rock over London, Rock over Chicago! Oversized schizophrenic Windy City street singer Wesley Willis may be no more than a novelty act to some but to many he's the Dylan of the next century, a true idiot savant whose backwards three-chord poetry speaks uncannily for our damaged tabloid-crazy times.
Greatest Hits Vol. 2
-
1999
