EMERYVILLE, Calif. — Legendary punk singer Jello Biafra announced a special edition reissue of his 2002 spoken word album “Machine Gun in the Clown’s Hand” which will contain a bonus, non-removable commentary track of him speaking on various topics, several overwhelmed sources report.
“A lot has changed since George W. was in office and I felt the time is right to express my opinions on the currents state of the cesspool we call America,” Biafra explained after taking a large, deep breath. “I mean, just like Tipper Gore and her army of clean-cut, moral crusading zombies sent out to feast on the brains of the creative lower-class ‘burdens’ of this country, the House has been overrun by the brainless, ignorant scum of what’s become the Republican party. As if the party of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan couldn’t become anymore of a bubbling piss-swamp of toxic gun-toting hate mongering foolishness. That’s just a sneak peek of the special edition album.”
Longtime Biafra and Dead Kennedys Fan Gaylen Rossetti felt a little exhausted when listening to the spoken word release.
“I find Jello’s world views to typically align with mine, but hearing him talking over himself was downright painful,” Rossetti said. “At first, I thought the record was broken. He starts talking about the Gulf of Tonkin incident and compares it to the Iraq War. Then there is the new 2023 commentary track with him talking about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and it was just too much, I thought I was hallucinating. This was truly a test of mental fortitude.”
Punk historian Joshua Rowley uses decades of experience in the scene to give examples of other unnecessary bonus tracks.
“Throughout the 40+ years of the genre’s existence, there have been many punks who notoriously love the sound of their own voices,” Rowley explained. “For example, in 2005, the Exploited reissued their seminal ‘Punks Not Dead’ record with a new audio track of Wattie talking shit about bands like Crass and Conflict over the remastered original album. Wattie sure does love to rant, even if the only words you can really make out are a few ‘wankers’ here and there.
At press time, Biafra announced that the special edition of the spoken word album will also contain a blooper reel at the end.