About: The Beatnigs

The Beatnigs were an American, San Francisco-based band, which combined hardcore punk, industrial and hip hop influences, described as "a kind of avant-garde industrial jazz poets collective". The band was the initial collaboration of Michael Franti and , who would later form The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, and who would later form . 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 (virus071, 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 B