The most recent of these albums, an epic three-disc (or three-psalm) affair by the name of In The Grip Of Official Treason, consists of recordings made at various American venues from 2004 to 2006, the shebang kicking off with an awe-inspiring harangue captured at a Punk Voter / Rock Against Bush extravaganza in 2004.

Characteristically shy and wary of stoking any controversy at all, Jello’s been on stage for no more than 30 seconds before he’s announcing, with the veins audibly erupting ‘neath the skin of his neck, that “Nobody has done more to disrespect and exploit the innocent people who died on September 11th and piss on their graves than George Bush.”

Cheers and hollers from the audience.

“If you know anybody who’s in the military or thinking of joining up, and you care about them, now would be a really good time to tell them to get the fuck out of there as quick as they can.”

Further cheers and hollers.

By the end of the 24-and-a-bit minutes Jello spends wrestling with the microphone, they’ve been cheering and hollering with such zeal and passion that a fella finds himself pitying both whoever took the stage thereafter, and whoever has to clean the site at the end of the evening - throats choked out faces litter the grounds, a fella can reasonably assume, surely to God.

Of the topics snared and bitten and stomped to colourless mush;

Gulf War Syndrome. Media Distraction / Media Subversion (“Become The Media!”). Military Strategy (“All we’re doing is planting the seeds for more Osama Bin Ladens!”). Medical Insurance (“What kind of twisted, fundamentalist, Christian Nazi logic is this? The life of the unborn child is sacred… But once they’re born? Fuck ‘em!”). The Iraq War (“Hey, I support the troops when I say Bring Them Home!”). National Security. The importance of local elections. The worth of individual action - however slight - in the face of condescending snobbery from the More Radical Than Thou elements. The loss of American jobs to China.

And so on and so forth.

This extraordinary spiel sets the tone, more or less, for the remainder of the set. Incredibly incisive critique coupled with brilliantly rabble-rousing sloganeering, deeply distressing facts and figures nestled alongside the kinds of asides that have a fella hunched and spluttering with the laughter careering out his face like a herd of rabid gazelle.

Upon reflection, also, a fella notes that, in his continual emphasis herein on the importance of grassroots politics, of local elections, of “widening the base of the pyramid”, Jello is concerning himself not only with problems but with real, workable solutions - long-term solutions that may take a year or twenty to bear fruit, but which, in their very far-sightedness, are steeled against the disappointment and sense of futility that might otherwise have gripped hold the soul with, for example, the re-election of George W Bush. Biafra, it becomes apparent, never expected anything else. These things don’t change in a few months, or a year or two years. The work put in now is in service of a reward or series of rewards flittering up out the cracks in the stone maybe a decade hence.