Singer Jello Biafra's politically confrontational lyrics lived up to the provocative billing of his group's name: the Dead Kennedys. Biafra's equal-opportunity outrage reproached a wide collection of targets: callow corporations, the Reagan Administration, the Moral Majority, then-California Governor Jerry Brown, feeble liberals, punk rockers with fascist leanings, and MTV. When asked if playing a concert on the anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination wasn't distasteful, guitarist East Bay Ray responded that the assassination wasn't in particularly good taste either. Generally acknowledged as pioneers in the American hardcore scene, which was centered in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles in the early 1980s, the Dead Kennedys' faster variant of punk never fully matched the fury in Biafra's lyrics. By the mid-1980s, in the midst of a political backlash against rock music, Biafra, the group, and its record label became the targets of a misguided...