Biography All Music Guide Wikipedia
Group Members: Michael Franti, Michael Franti And Spearhead
All Music Guide:
The original vehicle for social and political critic Michael Franti (later of the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and Spearhead), the Beatnigs used elements of industrial music and punk on their lone album, a 1988 self-titled effort for Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles label. After its release and a remix of the single "Television" by Adrian Sherwood, the group broke up; Franti, however, returned to music three years later with his Disposable Heroes project, an act in much the same vein as the Beatnigs but with more ties to rap.
Wikipedia:
The Beatnigs were a San Francisco band, which combined hard-core punk, industrial and hip hop influences, described as "a kind of avant-guard industrial jazz poets collective". The band was the initial collaboration of Michael Franti and Rono Tse, who would later form Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. The band's stage performance included the use of power tools such as a rotary saw on a metal bar to create industrial noise and pyrotechnics. The Beatnigs released an LP (virus065, Jan 1988) and 12" EP of their most famous song, "Television: The Drug of the Nation (remixed by Adrian Sherwood, Gary Clail, and Mark Stewart) on Alternative Tentacles in 1988. That same year the played their NYC "debut" at the New Music Seminar, and recorded for the BBC's Peel Sessions. The LP was recently reissued by Alternative Tentacles, which called it a "classic slab of late 1980's political rap/punk/industrial/???". One venue for the band was Barrington Hall. Franti at the time worked for Berkeley's Subway Guitars.
