Kepone

In the early 1990s an American alternative rock trio called Kepone assembled, built around Michael Bishop (bass/vocals; ex-GWAR), Tim Harriss (guitar/vocals) and Seth Harris, the ex-Honor Role drummer who was subsequently replaced by Ed Trask. The group took its name from a pesticide manufactured in the 1970s by the Allied Signal Corporation in Hopewell, Virginia—an incident that produced lasting neurological injury among the company’s workers and later supplied the subject matter for the Dead Kennedys song “Kepone Factory.” Their measured, anthemic rock sound first appeared on the 1994 album Ugly Dance, released by Quarterstick Records, where punk-pop structures met the band’s signature dual-lead-vocal approach. That record followed the strong 1993 singles “Henry” and “295,” the latter issued on Alternative Tentacles Records, the label operated by ex-Dead Kennedys vocalist Jello Biafra, thereby confirming the source of the band’s inspiration. Skin and Kepone supplied further examples of Kepone’s singularly eccentric brand of alternative rock.