What can you say about the influence from theater and acting in your own visual performance as front-man?
I studied the Meisner method, repetition to the extreme so much so that you do something repeatedly a thousand times. At some point your character, honesty and truthfulness is inherent and inescapable. Now you can go off, improvise while still being truthful to who you really are; you are doing two or three things at once but all are true. I wanted to be multiple conversations occurring on the street corner.
On June 21, 2013, you will be hosting the Skin Graft Saint Louis Homecoming at the Schlafly Tap Room. What does "hosting" mean to you, and how does Al Johnson of U.S. Maple fit into the picture?
Hosting this event for Skin Graft in St. Louis means much to me, however I cannot comment much on hosting as I've never really actualized this kind of thing. I'm hoping to hook up with Ludacris. I want to deliver an emphatic speech with the intensity of the Lincoln/Douglas debates. My adept publicist has procured a podium. Now, with a little gin and the St. Louis people, which I've always found to be deadly and weird, I feel at home. I will need an attractive escort to take me to the Tums building. As a writer and welder, the Tums building is my blue-collar mystery. I want to be photographed in front of the Tums building. That's the picture I want to fit into.
What does St. Louis, Missouri mean to you anyway? Has this city left any scars in you these past two decades?
I love St. Louis and continue to love her. She knows who she is. I'm quite fond of the Benton Park area. Pat Samson, original drummer for Maple, his sister lived there, and where they lived, in the summers it reeked of stale Budweiser. The plant was down a few blocks. I used to walk around the area when we played there. Foliage with troubled vibrations; I felt this at times. It's real, beautiful. A demented Sherwood forest. I am a single father. If memory serves me correctly, the Children's Museum blew his mind! It's incredible, unlike anything I've ever experienced. As a writer, P.R. person, I feel compelled to endorse it. I have to thank a sweet ol' gal I dated, Tracy Heuschel, for exposing my son Van to this place. He was satiated.
Skin Graft Records has provided a warm little pocket of, in my opinion, good taste for over twenty years. How would you, a participant in the label's heyday, relate Skin Graft to the oblivious or uninformed.
The Skin Graft label is and has always been an original. For me, the label is a living, breathing comic book comprised of villains from all over: Space Streakings, the Flying Luttenbachers, Mount Shasta, Zeni Geva, Melt-Banana, etc. The biggest crime is that the label was way ahead of its time. Maple shares in the bitter sweetness. It's so easy now to splatter one's bullshit or genius world-wide due to technology. I'm a few classes away from a degree in Communications at Clarke University. Clarke is a prestigious school. Technology is great, beneficial and the status quo for every soul. It's technological determinism that distresses me. Mark Fischer is the Alan Freed of no-wave, a term he coined. There's only a worm-hole's distance between Mark and William Burroughs. Burroughs coined "heavy metal."
Why the hell would a St. Louisian pick this Skin Graft Homecoming over the Black Flag show happening, or the local hardcore band covering Black Flag in the same area ?
I am a fan of Black Flag. Hell, I still have Greg's Gone LPs and Black Flag's Everything Went Black. The radio spots are brilliant, archival triumphs. I'm not about to parse out sourness because both shows are happening on the same night. If you can, go to both. It will nourish you, educate you on two generations who did what they wanted, put in the work -- they matter. However, the objective difference lies in the fact that the Skin Graft label originated in St. Louis. It will always continue to be about St. Louis, for St. Louis and in its birth town- a product of St. Louis.
Continue to the next page for show details and flyer.
