MUSIC: Green Jellÿ bounces back

By Michele DeLuca

michele.deluca@niagara-gazette.com

When Bud Redding played with Green Jello back in the early ’80s, he used to cover his keyboard with plastic so he didn’t end up with green gelatin all over everything.

That’s the kind of band Green Jello was when it started up in the Kenmore area. The group would show up in outlandish costumes, spilling out of a hired limousine. There was a wheel of torture that lead singer Bill Manspeaker used to tie himself to and spin around on while he sang. And at the end of every performance, there would be a green Jell-O food fight.

The band was banned from the stages of at least a couple of high schools, including Kenmore West, and at least one veteran’s post. There was, of course, a good reason for all the shenanigans.

“They were horrible,” Redding said. “They were entertaining, but they couldn’t play their instruments. That’s where the whole ‘Green Jello Suxx’ thing got started.”

It was a well-deserved anthem. But the band was getting enough attention that Manspeaker decided to move them out to Hollywood.

“He hit it really big,” said Redding, who declined the invite to Los Angeles and stayed home in Kenmore to raise his young family and pursue a music career. But in California, Manspeaker continued the wild antics, deciding he wanted to make a music video and convincing an industry executive to give him $10,000.

Instead of making a video, he bought video equipment and made a whole album full of videos, which no one had ever done before, and included a scene where the band broke into the executive’s house while he was away.

“The guy loved it,” Redding said.

MTV started playing one of the videos, “Three Little Pigs,” and its crazy cartoon style grabbed viewers’ attention. The rest, as they say, is history. Green Jello was so successful that Manspeaker used the money he made to open a studio and a nightclub. Then he retired for a little while and, according to Redding, “spent a year driving a dune buggy around L.A.”

Last year, Manspeaker parked the dune buggy, assembled another band and went on tour.

“It was a huge success. They got back to L.A. and said, ‘Let’s do it again,’ ” Redding said.

So now, the Kenmore musician is helping his old friend as promoter to the Buffalo leg of the band’s current tour.

Of course, now the band is no longer Green Jello. Kraft Foods came after them about the pesky business of trademark infringement, and the band changed its name to Green Jellÿ, putting an umlaut over the y so that it’s still pronounced “Green Jello.”

They are bringing their “Rock and Roll Puppet Show” to Buffalo next week. The show promises a mix of hard core punk and metal songs performed by a strange collection of costumed characters, scantily clad ladies and rock n’ roll puppets. There will also be a Halloween Costume Contest, a live video shoot and a Continental Nightclub reunion.

While Redding feels no remorse at missing the Green Jellÿ ride, he sees the upcoming show as an opportunity to see his long-time friend carry on.

“The last time I saw them, they didn't throw any green Jell-O around, but they did a lot of other crazy stuff. All the fans tried to get on stage. It’s a security nightmare,” said Redding with a quiet laugh. “Bill thrives on it.”

On the road to anarchy

Bill Manspeaker is on tour again because his 13-year-old son wanted to see what it was like.

“Because I live in the state of California, they gave him a three-month leave of absence,” Manspeaker joked.

However, Damien Hellion Manspeaker’s teacher said he would have to write a report on the experience. That should be some report.

Damien is only a little younger than his father was when Manspeaker began his career trajectory from Kenmore to Hollywood.

Bill Manspeaker was a senior at Kenmore West High School when the cafeteria was featuring green Jell-O and somebody said, “Hey, that would be a great name for a band.”

He rented a public address system, dragged it into the cafeteria, plugged it in and started screaming his opinions about green Jell-O.

“I got suspended from school for causing a disruption. I though, ‘Wow, this is great.’ I haven't stopped since,” he said during a recent cell phone conversation from his tour bus, which was heading to an “anarchist skate park” in Ohio.

His band, Green Jello, caused a stir in the Buffalo area in the early 1980s because everywhere they played, green gelatin was part of the performance. The wiggly dessert food may have been the least crazy part. There were wild costumes and antics on and off stage.

Manspeaker never took the music seriously, but was dead serious about enjoying the ride. He got a gig on “The Gong Show” in Hollywood, and after being gonged, he went on to forge an infamous national reputation as a band that played lousy while being outrageously entertaining. Their song “Three Little Pigs,” featuring an animated rock video, got a lot of air time on MTV in 1993, and the group proceeded to sell 2.5 million worldwide copies of the record from which that song came, “Cereal Killer Soundtrack.”

After a protest from Kraft Foods about use of the name Jell-O, the band changed it’s name to Green Jellÿ (pronounced the same as Jell-O) and continued performing until Manspeaker had a son with his college sweetheart, Kim O’Donnell of Lewiston.

“I had to decided whether to be a rock star guy or a dad,” he said.

Being a dad won out until this past summer when Damien joined the tour with the newly organized band.

The band is heading to a Buffalo performance at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Town Ballroom. Manspeaker will be able to reconnect with a lot of relatives from the area, including his mother’s family in Niagara Falls, and a lineage that includes his uncle, Big Wheelie, of Big Wheelie and the Hubcaps.

The tour itself is all he hoped it would be.

“In 27 years,” he said, “this is best time ever.”

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Concert by former local band Green Jellÿ with The Radioactive Chickenheads and Rosemary’s Billygoat

WHEN: 7 p.m. TuesdayOct. 28

WHERE: Town Ballroom, 681 Main St., Buffalo

MORE INFORMATION: Call 877-3344, write to usmcbud18@yahoo.com or visit myspace.com/greenjelly