THE JELLO BIAFRA BIRTHDAY BASH

Ani Kyd and friends celebrate a milestone with the legend himself

By Allan MacInnis

Jello Biafra has somewhat of a reputation for being a “hard guy to work with.” At least that’s the phrase used by Mojo Nixon, who recorded two albums with Jello and then wrote an unreleased song called “Nailing Jello to a Tree,” which can be seen on YouTube. It’s either a revenge fantasy or a metaphor for the futility of life; the normally direct Nixon, author of songs like “Don Henley Must Die,” allows the listeners the option of picking their interpretation. Since Vancouver musician Ani Kyd is a bit of a Biafra insider — she’s acted, sung, toured and recorded with him, directed him in a short film, and counts the occasionally abrasive punk legend as one of her best friends — would she agree with that statement?

“He’s high maintenance. I’ll say that no problem. I’ll say that right to his face!” she giggles. “The thing about Jello is, he’s really, really particular and he’s really passionate about what he does. I think that’s the reason he’s so successful. He has a really definite idea of what he wants, and about what he likes and what he doesn’t like. And I think a lot of big personalities have a lot of stuff to deal with.”

Kyd first met Biafra on the set of the 1999 feature film The Widower, a surreal, locally-shot horror/comedy about a man who refuses to come to terms with the death of his wife.

“I was called in by Marcus Rogers, the director, to borrow this nurse’s outfit that I was wearing on Halloween. I said no problem. And so on Saturday he calls me at 10 a.m. to pick it up and says, ‘Can I borrow you, also?’ ‘Okay, what do I have to do?’ ‘You have to dress really hot and be this mortician’s assistant.’ He also said the mortician was going to grope me and be my boyfriend. I said, ‘Okay, who’s the mortician?’ I thought it was going to be somebody I knew,” since the film features a long cast of noted Vancouverites, including Joe Keithley, Rot N. Hell, Watermelon and Nardwuar the Human Serviette. When Rogers told her that her co-star was Jello Biafra she was a bit freaked out.

“I had never met Jello and I was a huge Dead Kennedys fan. But once I met him, all that stuff was gone and we just became really good friends. By the end of the shoot people were asking me ‘could you ask Jello if he wants some juice?’ or ‘Could you ask Jello…’ ‘Why don’t you ask him yourself? He’s right beside you!”

When Biafra discovered Kyd was a musician, he asked to hear some demos. “I was a little embarrassed. You know, it’s Jello. I was a huge Dead Kennedys fan when I was 18, and the last thing you want to do is…” she adopts a needy, whiny voice, “Oh, yeah, this is my stuff!” But he took it home with him. And never listened to it.” (Jello, for his part, explains that he thought such a “sweet girl” would obviously be singing girl-group bubblegum pop. He had no idea of Ani Kyd’s powerhouse vocal style or the intensity of her songs and was in no rush to hear it).

Some time later, Ani was touring down to San Francisco, where Biafra and his Alternative Tentacles label are based, “and he’d said, ‘Anytime you come to San Francisco, let’s hang out.’ And he thought, ‘well, I better listen to that girl’s CD.’ So he listened to it, and called me back right away and started reciting the names of my songs and going, ‘Oh, the third chorus in “Rejoyce!” and all this kind of stuff. I literally looked around to see if there were cameras on me to see my expression. Not only does Jello Biafra know the names of my songs, he loved them. He was like, "How come I never heard of you?”

The songs off those demos ended up the stuff of Ani Kyd’s solo album, Evil Needs Candy Too, the first and to-date the only project that Biafra produced that was not of his own music, released on Alternative Tentacles in 2005.  “He actually was really easy to work with as a co-producer on my CD,” Kyd remembers. “He had some great ideas, but he never pushed anything down my throat. When we were in the studio, he wrote this part - like, ‘bnyeeeeeeew,’ this crazy little guitar riff  - that was overtop of one of my songs - in his head, and he hummed it to (guitarist) Ian (White) repeatedly, and Ian got it, and it was just brilliant. It was very much a weirdly Dead Kennedys/Jello Biafra type of riff - I think he deserves so much credit for what he does,” Kyd says.

She’s speaking here to the controversy - one of the issues when Biafra’s former bandmates sued him for control of the Dead Kennedys back catalogue - about whether Biafra deserves credit for writing the music, when he cannot actually play an instrument. “His true musicianship is pretty incredible, actually,” Kyd opines - something anyone who hears his new album with the Guantanamo School of Medicine, White People and the Damage Done, should have no trouble believing, particularly since all tunes are written by Biafra. “He just hasn’t learned how to play the guitar - it’s not that he doesn’t have the ability in his mind to write these amazing riffs for songs. He has these CDs and tapes and everything of riffs that he’s written in his head, that he hums, and he hums them perfectly, and they’re like, ‘riff #13,’ or whatever; and he has a very, very distinct style of writing. Why people have said that he’s high maintenance or that he’s difficult is because he really knows what he wants.”

Ani Kyd will be turning out to celebrate Jello Biafra’s 55th birthday, June 17 at The Rickshaw, along with Nardwuar the Human Serviette, who is Kyd’s go-to guy to take Biafra record shopping when he comes to town. The event will feature a Jello Biafra spoken word performance, to be followed by sets by Nardwuar’s band Thee Goblins and a new lineup of Fuel Injected .45. Jello will join both bands onstage to sing encores.

“Jello loves Vancouver, he’s thought of moving here a number of times, and there are a lot of bands from Vancouver that have gone on to Alternative Tentacles” - including the Subhumans, DOA, SNFU, Nomeansno, Facepuller, The Evaporators and Kyd herself. “We wanted to do something really fun and special. And Jello likes obscure records, so if you bring him presents…”

There will also be a screening of Ani Kyd’s short film I Love You… I Am The Porn Queen, starring Ani herself, with Jello in two roles; plus a Jello Biafra spoken word. Be sure to come early; Jello doesn’t like to do spoken word after bands play, so his performance will likely be near the start of the evening!

Come celebrate Jello Biafra’s 55th Birthday with Jello and his Vancouver pals on June 17 at the Rickshaw Theatre.