SKiN GRAFT News for You's

B A L L P E E N ( ! ) B U L L E T I N S

updated: June 17th, 2013

U.S. MAPLE
Metal sleeves before and after polishing

Available for ORDER at

U.S. MAPLE PRE-ORDERS
BEGIN SHIPPING THIS WEEK

Hi Everybody -

This is Mark again. I'm off to the USA for the free SKiN GRAFT show going down in St. Louis at the Schlafly Tap Room (picture up above) on June 21st and will be back in Vienna, Austria (where I'm writing at you from now) just in time to celebrate the Fourth of July as an expat. All of the items up top are starting to arrive at the SG HQ, so if you pre-ordered, packages will begin rolling out late this week in the order they were received. We are stealth shipping and not sending shipping email notices out (we never do), so prepare to be pleasantly surprised when your package lands at your door.

Everyone who pre-ordered a metal sleeved U.S. Maple edition is set. Al Johnson, my dad and I are planning to make a few more while I'm in the states, so if you want one at the current price, please get your order in soon.

I've gotten some emails asking for an update on my personal status post-spine injury (details are in the April 20th, 2013 update) and I'm doing really well. Still not fully healed - but I'm up and about and well past the Stephen Hawking / Professor X stage.

If you're in the St. Louis area - don't be a stranger!
Here are the show details, followed by bios of the participants:

SKiN GRAFT St. Louis HOMECOMING 2013

YOWIE / XADDAX / LOVELY LITTLE GIRLS
and your host DECENT AL JOHNSON of U.S. Maple

FRIDAY, JUNE 21st, 2013
Schlafly Tap Room 2100 Locust Street, Saint Louis, MO.

ALL AGES admitted FREE of Charge
(no secret handshake required)

YOWIE
Coming no less than eight years after their debut LP, the second full length release from St. Louis’ sideways metaphysical “new math” rock outfit Yowie has been released. “Damning With Faint Praise” surpasses the girth and intensity of their debut, “Cryptooology”, an album that few have learned to decipher (or pronounce).

Utilizing just two guitars and drums, "Damning with Faint Praise" finds Yowie shredding through an array of gravity defying multidimensional shifting structures, while maintaining cohesion, and even, yes, grooves. Yowie’s Christopher Trull was honored with the Riverfront Times’ Best Guitarist Award of 2012. The other two guys was robbed.

YOWIE
BAND Page / FACEBOOK
Listen to “Shriners Sure Do Cuss A Lot”

XADDAX
Nick Sakes boasts one of those impeccable underground-rock track records. His discography to date encompasses three brilliant, insular projects: prog-minded post-hardcore nightmare merchants Dazzling Killmen, cryptic art-punk psychos Colossamite and the skewed yet surprisingly tuneful Sicbay.

His new band Xaddax - a duo with drummer Chrissy Rossettie - is as challenging and gloriously cathartic as anything he's done to date. Working with a mad-scientist electroacoustic drum set-up -- huge toms, no cymbals, various sample-triggering pads and a foot-controlled synth pedal -- Rossettie pounds out lurching math-disco rhythms, haloed in scuzzy sci-fi FX. Sakes responds with perversely anthemic riffs and mantra-like shouts, resulting in a kind of hot-wired hardcore -- like Devo gone nastily dystopic. Their debut album “Counterclockwork” is out now on SKiN GRAFT Records, home to Nick's former acts Dazzling Killmen and Colossamite.

XADDAX:
BAND Page / FACEBOOK
Listen to "Lives On Nerves"

LOVELY LITTLE GIRLS
Chicago's Lovely Little Girls construct theatrical No-Wave suites that morph from off-kilter dance anthems to punishing and ridiculous progressive rock. Simple musical motifs quickly deform into charges of odd harmony and tangled polyrhythms, punctuated by syllable-stuffed cut-and-paste prose; and grounded in a love for catchy melodies - a gravy-encrusted GLEE for the regressive metal and free jazz set.

“Cleaning the Filth From a Delicate Frame”, the band's latest recording and first for SKiN GRAFT Records is Lovely Little Girls' most cohesive work yet - a seven stage Théâtre de l'Absurde concept record.

The visual does aural.

LOVELY LITTLE GIRLS:
BAND Page / FACEBOOK
Listen to "Massive Vulva Cantaloupe"

DECENT AL JOHNSON
With glove on hand, Al Johnson erased the rules of rock as founder and frontman of the band U.S. Maple. U.S. Maple were pioneers of the new school, controlling time and space without falling hack to today’s trendier form: improvising. Make no mistake, U.S. Maple were always about songs - not the sum of parts - placing emphasis where the emphasis belongs: entertainment.

Al is decent. Currently sequestered in Dubuque, Iowa, he is pushing boundaries in the field of writing, contributing to Vice Magazine as well as his website, AlJohnsonisDecent.com. By accepting the role of host for the SKiN GRAFT St. Louis Homecoming, Al's self-inflicted exile has come to an end. He has returned – to place emphasis where the emphasis belongs: entertainment.

U.S. MAPLE's “Long Hair In Three Stages” is ranked #85 on the Alternative Press “90 Greatest Albums of the '90s”. We know better. This summer, U.S. MAPLE's debut LP will be available again on Compact Disc - and on Vinyl in three different editions: A standard issue LP and two hand-crafted metal-sleeved variants.

U.S. MAPLE:
BAND Page / FACEBOOK
Listen to “Letter To ZZ Top"

SKiN GRAFT RECORDS:
SKiN GRAFT sprang to life in 1986 as a fanzine, publishing a series of punk-infused comics out of the St. Louis area. With a move to Chicago in 1991, SKiN GRAFT Comix co-founder Mark Fischer reinvented SKiN GRAFT as record label, arriving fully formed as a quirky, aesthetically-driven collective serving up action-oriented “Now Wave” music (a term coined with tongue planted firmly in cheek).

SKiN GRAFT Records launched with a collection of seven inch singles packed inside comic book sleeves that defined it's multi-disciplinary approach, and began churning out a run of genre defying records that would seem at home nowhere else: from Dazzling Killmen's groundbreaking “Face Of Collapse” to U.S. Maple's debut LP packaged in hand-polished aluminum sleeves to the breakthrough album from Japan's Melt-Banana, 2500 of which were packaged in a screen-printed rubber jacket with a temporary tattoo insert.

Now headquartered in Vienna, Austria and with shipping facilities in St. Louis, SKiN GRAFT continues to curate a collection of music cultivated from some of the most extraordinary recording artists of the last two decades – touting acts such as Arab On Radar, Quintron and Miss Pussycat, AIDS Wolf, Cheer-Accident and Japan’s drum and bass duo Ruins.

SKiN GRAFT's Mark Fischer will be making a rare USA appearance (he's the tall guy with glasses) and the label will have an extensive merch table of wares available for sale.

SKiN GRAFT Records on FACEBOOK

More details on the SKiN GRAFT St. Louis HOMECOMING 2013
at the FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE HERE

Alrighty - I've got a plane to catch.
Meet Me In St. Louis!

Mark Fischer

MORE NEW NEWS:

updated: May 27th, 2013

U.S. MAPLE "Long Hair" LP Update:
Replacement lacquers with the newly remastered bonus track "Found A Place To Have My Kittens" have been at the pressing plant since April 22nd & we've been awaiting new test pressings ever since. We've been assured that we will receive them this week. We are continuing to accept pre-orders at the discounted price. Advance mailorders will go out first & will receive the lowest #'d editions.

- OUT NOW -
ATHLETIC AUTOMATON
"5 Days In Africa: Extended" MOD CD

PRE-ORDERS:

US MAPLE
Diecut Metal LP

US MAPLE
LP / CD

US MAPLE
Non-Diecut Metal LP

SKiN GRAFT
VINYL STICKER

SKiN GRAFT
T-SHIRT

SKiN GRAFT
PRINT

RUINS
PRINT

ARAB ON RADAR
LP / CD

SKiN GRAFT
BUTTON

All up for PRE-ORDERS at

Salütes Sound Seekers ( ! )

SKiN GRAFT's Ace Reporter, "Jazzy" Joe Romita here with another staggering summary of the frankly phenomenal feats fathered at the famed fount of flabbergast... the forever favored, far-from faddish, far-flung frontiersmen of the fashionable Fort SKiN GRAFT!!!!

AA's Audio Sports - "5 Days In Africa: Extended"

Greetings Gang!
Yes - you read that right - your mild-mannered manic-music messiah has come down from the mount to grace the denizens of the SKiN GRAFT News Page with his enduring, egocentric effulgence, the kind that could only erupt from the jovial, jabbering jaws of Jazzy Joe Romita!

Fortunately, your devoted discord dealer and his pop gun are both loaded, the latter with just the ammunition needed to set your mood swinging - and spin that frown upside-down!

ITEM!: As loyal listeners of our legendary long-players, you've no doubt relished the rich, raw, rabble- rousing rumble reeled out by that dynamic double-header ATHLETIC AUTOMATON on their album "A Journey Through Roman's Empire". Surely, you've gushed over the guzzling guitar greatness of Stephen Mattos and pogo-ed about to punishing percussive poundings of Patrick Crump on "Clash Of The Life-Force Warriors", their collaboration with AIDS WOLF.

But have you heard where it all began?

ATHLETIC AUTOMATON Hemlock SF: micro-collage

ATHLETIC AUTOMATON formed following the implosion of Providence Rhode Islands' Arab On Radar, comprised solely of AOR guitarist Stephen Mattos and ex-Pellum 1-2-3 drummer Patrick Crump, the duo sported '70s basketball jerseys, headbands and uncomfortably snug gym shorts - and came out playing a sci-fi take on Sabbath/Stooge sludge filtered through no-wave knee socks.

The band released two albums on Skin Graft Records “A Journey Through Roman's Empire” and "Clash Of The Life-Force Warriors", a collaborative LP with Montreal's AIDS Wolf. Their newest release - "5 Days In Africa: Extended" re-issues their long out of print first album with two never before available recordings, Six Finger Satellite's J Ryan on vocals, and a rock-solid remastering courtesy of Weasel Walter.

Though ATHLETIC AUTOMATON has disbanded, the heavy dissonance they pioneered lives on through Stephen Mattos' solo “band” CHROME JACKSON, who's debut CD “Chrome Forest” is also available through SKiN GRAFT Records.

ATHLETIC AUTOMATON are:
Stephen Mattos: guitar, vocals
Patrick Crump: drums, vocals
- with J Ryan: vocals

Recorded and Engineered by Rick Pelletier
Mastered by Weasel Walter

--------------------------------------
PRESS QUOTES:
--------------------------------------
o " Athletic Automaton are are a two-piece Sherman tank." - Tasty Fanzine

o "Athletic Automaton's debut full-length is making my palms (and ears) sweat as we speak. Of the bands that have splintered out of the Providence, Rhode Island, implosion that was agro-fuck pukes Arab on Radar's demise, Athletic Automaton rules my world the most, rocking a sick dynamic that is all about sustain and twisting your mind and expectations past the breaking point. Their riffs and grooves are minimal, the lyrics occasional, and the tension they bend a most welcome constant." - Skyscraper Magazine

o "Everything is big here, and when I say big I mean humongous. Like otherworldly big. In a live setting, you'll go deaf or walk out with a headache the size of a planet." - Deaf Sparrow

o "Riffs repeat, the drums steady rumble, and the whole mess on AA's obstinately single-minded debut 5 Days in Africa is a Dodgeball-smirking wink at tectonic-plate-shifting Richter-scale madness." - City Paper

--------------------------------------
TRACK LISTING:
--------------------------------------
1) Into Africa
2) Beyond The Arc
3) Marathon Mammal
4) Flesheating Disease
5) Gypsy Moth Epidemic
6) African Autobahn
7) Lumber Boat
8) The Bee Roundup
9) Cicadas
10) Out Of Africa

Bonus Tracks:
11) Athletic Limbo
12) Death On An Escalator (live)

Preview MP3: African Autobahn
Mail Orders: SKiN GRAFT Records PAYPAL SHOP

There's no time like the present to give yourself the gift that keeps on giving (headaches) all year long! Point, click and shoot your way to the PAYPAL Shop post-haste!

All titles available for ORDER at

And pre-orders are still being taken for the reissues from US MAPLE and ARAB ON RADAR - details are in the previous updates below!

Excel-sore!

"JAZZY" JOE ROMITA

MORE NEW NEWS:

updated: May 10th, 2013

- EVEN MORE PRE-ORDERS -

SKiN GRAFT T-SHIRTS and PRINTS
featuring YOWIE, XADDAX, LOVELY LITTLE GIRLS
and US MAPLE's Decent Al Johnson!

- SHIPPING JUNE 21st, 2013! -

All up for PRE-ORDERS at

Hi Everybody -

On Friday, JUNE 21st, SKiN GRAFT is throwing a party in St. Louis - The St. Louis HOMECOMING 2013 - with YOWIE, XADDAX, LOVELY LITTLE GIRLS and Al Johnson of U.S. MAPLE. The show is open to ALL AGES and admission is FREE of charge. Details on the show are below.

To commemorate the event, we're making Double-sided T-shirts, Posters and Stickers and I've put them up for pre-orders at the PAYPAL SHOP. SKiN GRAFT Logo Shirts have been one of the most requested items here at the website, so we wanted to make them available to everyone, not just those who can make it to the show. The biggest problem with T-Shirts is that we ALWAYS seem to miscalculate the demand for each size - and invariably, we have folks making due with whatever size we have available, - then stuffing their faces full of pulled pork or going on a crash diet just to fill out the shirt appropriately.

I have to place the final order soon, so to guarantee the size you want, it would be really helpful if you place your order before May 20th over at the SKiN GRAFT Shop. Orders will ship on around the date of the show - June 21st.

And pre-orders are still being taken for the reissues from US MAPLE, ATHLETIC AUTOMATON and ARAB ON RADAR - details are in the previous update below.

Here are the
St. Louis show specifics...

SKiN GRAFT
St. Louis HOMECOMING 2013
featuring:

YOWIE
((St. Louis))

XADDAX
((New York: ex Dazzling Killmen))

LOVELY LITTLE GIRLS
((Chicago: members of Cheer-Accident))

DECENT AL JOHNSON
((Dubuque: singer of U.S. Maple))

- and hold on to that paper route
and scour the sofa for the
NOW WAVE DAVE Sr's
SKiN GRAFT MERCH MART

FRIDAY, JUNE 21st, 2013

Schlafly Tap Room
2100 Locust Street, Saint Louis, MO.

ALL AGES
admitted FREE of Charge
(no secret handshake required)

PLENTY MORE DETAILS HERE
and the
FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE is HERE

Hope to see you there!

Thanks Again -

Mark

Click HERE for MORE new NEWS ( ! )

PRE-ORDERS:

US MAPLE Diecut Metal LP	US MAPLE LP / CD	US MAPLE Non-Diecut Metal LP

SKiN GRAFT VINYL STICKER	SKiN GRAFT T-SHIRT	SKiN GRAFT PRINT

RUINS PRINT	ARAB ON RADAR LP / CD	SKiN GRAFT BUTTON