The name of the band alone – Dead Kennedys – is about as Twisted as they come. They were looking for some action, and they got it. San Francisco's answer to the Sex Pistols had more than their share of colorful episodes.
Where to begin? We could lead with the time that Jello Biafra ran a campaign for San Francisco mayor, advocating a citywide ban on cars and a requirement that all businessmen wear clown suits. He got more than 6,000 votes, placing him fourth in a field of 10.

We could start with the obscenity charge brought on Biafra's band by Tipper Gore's Parents Music Resource Center for an H.R. Giger poster the group packaged in its 'Frankenchrist' album. The offending poster is now known, unofficially, as 'Penis Landscape.'

Or we could reminisce about the colossal irony that was unleashed when the DKs, always committed to exposing the hypocrisies of modern life, dragged themselves into the same mud they saw the culture wallowing in when they sued one another in 2000 over royalty discrepancies and other instances of cashbox skimming. According to Biafra, the dispute stemmed from his former bandmates' bitterness when he nixed a potentially lucrative licensing gig: Levi's was asking about using the group's best-known song, 'Holiday in Cambodia.'

Yes, the dual legacies of Dead Kennedys and their cranky frontman are exceedingly eventful. The band name, Biafra has said, represents "the end of the American dream," while his own stage name (he was born Eric Reed Boucher in Boulder, Colo.) is an unholy amalgam of the jiggly, Cosby-endorsed food product and the short-lived secessionist state of famine-stricken Nigeria in the 1960s.

One night in 1994, Biafra was watching a band at 924 Gilman, Berkeley's underground live-music space, when a local punk who answered to the name Cretin allegedly smashed into him while slam-dancing. Cretin and his friends reportedly kicked the man while he was down, screaming that he was a "sellout rock star." Amazingly enough, for these self-proclaimed purists, this world-class provocateur was not quite punk enough. Tough crowd!