Jello Biafra – Memphis Flyer

Joey Killingsworth, who plays guitar and sings in contemporary Memphis bands like Super Witch, Grendel Crane, and the George Jonestown Massacre, understands the importance of legacy. Last Thursday, his dad, Bo Jack Killingsworth, a guitar slinger and keyboard pounder who played alongside early Memphis rock artists like Eddie Bond and Charlie Feathers, was inducted into the International Rockabilly Hall of Fame in Jackson, TN, and Joey played at his side.

“Everybody started chanting, “Bo Jack, Bo Jack,” he says, recalling the night.

Saturday evening the younger Killingsworth was busy honoring another group of Memphis area players with a completely different sound. He and a clutch of area musicians gathered at the Mighty Aw Poots studio in Cordova to record “Jim Dandy to the Rescue,” the last track for a Black Oak Arkansas (BOA) tribute project that has attracted contributors like Shooter Jennings, Black Flag’s Greg Ginn, Eddie Spaghetti of the Supersuckers, and Jimbo Mathus. West Coast Punk legend Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys will provide lead vocals for “Jim Dandy.”

Chris Davis

Joey Killingsworth (right)

Killingsworth gets excited when he talks about BOA and its legendary frontman Jim Dandy, the washboard-scratching wildman who shared stages with bands like the Rolling Stones, the Who, King Crimson, and Alice Cooper, and whose onstage antics inspired Van Halen’s David Lee Roth. “They toured with Black Sabbath,” Killingsworth says, as he sets up to record. “Kiss opened for them!”

Killingsworth is just one of several area musicians who has played in current iterations of BOA who are joining forces for the Bastard Sons of Black Oak Arkansas Guitar Festival 2014, Friday, August 15th, at the Stage Stop. The festival showcases the bands Electrick Nobody, Joecephus and the George Jonestown Massacre, Oliveria and Lost Cauze, each of which includes at least one member who has played with BOA in recent years.

In the year 2000, Green Americans had a difficult choice to make. They could either nominate a tireless consumer advocate like Ralph Nader as their candidate for president, or they could go a little crazy and support Jello Biafra, the controversial prankster, spoken-word artist, and former Dead Kennedys frontman who had become famous for defending his First Amendment rights with a barrage of four-letter words. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the Greens went with Nader, who was generally viewed as being more electable. Nader lost, but not before robbing Al Gore of thousands of votes and the American people of an opportunity to hear Biafra riff hilariously and obscenely on the self-defeating nature of American politics.

Oh well, as Biafra once famously noted, “Every prohibition creates an underground,” and anybody still interested in hearing what the State of the Union might have sounded like delivered by the man behind such alternative classics as “Holiday in Cambodia” and “Terminal Preppy” can visit the Media Co-op on Tuesday, March 6th, for an up-close-and-personal visit with the punk-turned-politico. Since much of Biafra’s political thought can be boiled down to the simple notion that “You either spend money on housing for poor people or you spend it on a football stadium,” his visit to Memphis couldn’t be more timely. Maybe he’s planning to run for mayor.

Jello Biafra, Tuesday, March 6th, Media Co-op Theater, First Congregational Church. Seating is extremely limited, and advance tickets are available at Black Lodge Video and Goner Records.