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

updated: December 4th, 2017 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE!!!: YOWIE: EVOLUTION YOWIE is about to evolve again. As all YOWIE trackers know, the beast is prone to bursts of intense activity, followed by a period of hibernation. The last time YOWIE went subterranean; after recording "Damning With Faint Praise"; it re-emerged with the current lineup of Trull / Wonsewitz / Defenestrator, the lineup that created “Synchromysticism". Well, here we are again. This incarnation of the band will perform one last time in its native habitat of St. Louis, Missouri on December 30th, 2017, at Foam (3359 S Jefferson Ave, St. Louis 63118), with Skin Tags and Jr. Clooney. The band will play an extra long "European" style set to say goodbye to this lineup. Hope you can make it. The next step in YOWIE evolution is already underway and new potential Yowie limbs, organs, and other appendages are starting to sprout and take form. When announcements are ready to be made, we will certainly keep you posted. But to be clear: YOWIE has no intention of disbanding. The band will just mutate into a different form, assuming Darwin smiles upon us. And he hasn't let us down so far... VISIT THE FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE! YOWIE "Synchromysticism" Special Edition LP/CD/Ult-Ed Ultimate Edition includes a Colored Vinyl LP packaged in a Matte-Varnished “Un-candescent” Jacket, a Glass-Mastered Compact Disc with Alternate Artwork, plus a collectible wrap-around Obi and a huge 22” x 22” double-sided Poster by cover artist Arnulf Rödler. AVAILABLE to ORDER at the or the SKiN GRAFT Records BANDCAMP Store! Have Yourself an UNCANNY LITTLE X-MAS ( ! ) - BREAKING NEWS!!!:The SKiN GRAFT Records Black Christmas Blood Drive is now live and will end at Noon CST on Tuesday, December 12th, 2017. - PLEASE NOTE: The SKiN GRAFT Shipping Department will be closed from November 29th through December 11th. We will still be taking orders, but all orders received during this period will not ship out until shipments resume on December 12th. Thanks! -------- Short & Simple Mark version: We’ve just gone live with our 2017 CHRISTMAS sale. The sale is for select physical LPs, 7”s and CD’s - and only applies to orders placed through the SKiN GRAFT Records Black Christmas BLOOD DRIVE Sale page HERE. Thanks for all of the support this year. The bands and I really appreciate it! -------- Long & Winding "Jazzy" Joe version: Ho! Ho! Ho! It's none other than Jazzy Joe! Judging by the number of black eyes sauntering in and our of the SKiN GRAFT offices of late, I'd say that last month's BLOOD DRIVE Sale was an unqualified hit! But through it all, amidst the countless hosanna's on high, one request was heard loud and clear - "Howzabout including some 12" Vinyl in the sale"?!!? Okay Kimosabee, your wish is our command! Take that stocking out of your pants - pronto -(!) - 'cuz we're dropping our BLACK CHRISTMAS sale as of right NOW and this stuffer is going to help you ding-a-ling out the old year like never before! The SKiN GRAFT Records BLACK CHRISTMAS BLOOD DRIVE SALE is an extension of the biggest sale in our history - focused on select 12” Vinyl Records, Compact Discs and 7" Singles. The price paid is based on the quantity ordered - and an order of 10 or more items gets you the deepest discount! Get all of the details and visit the sale HERE. For a behind the scenes briefing on the distributor bankruptcy that ultimately led to this sale, see theNews Desk update from October 16th below. If you are looking to score our non-sale items - such as the new releases from Yowie, Cheer-Accident or the remastered Flying Luttenbachers LP, please visit our standard storefronts - the SKiN GRAFT Paypal Shop or Bandcamp Store. Like Mark said last time, there’s more than a quarter century of our music history reddened, ripe and ready to be discovered! Sale ends at Noon CST on Tuesday, December 12th, 2017. Excel-sore! "Jazzy" Joe Romita updated: November 3rd, 2017 A t - L A S T - ( ! ) - Wipe those weepers, take a deep, deep breath, and skooch just a bit to the right, 'cuz your wayward white-collar wielder of way-out wonderment has returned to illuminate the ill, enlighten the frightened, and soothe the sorrows of sad sacks far and wide! That's right, Jazzy Joe is back in the hood and your martyr of misanthropic mayhem is hitting the rewind button to drop some serious mad science from our wayback machine, in the sensational, superfluous SKiN GRAFT style!!! Hottttt on the high heels up the release of newly remastered editions of Cheer-Accident's "Salad Days" and "Trading Balloons" albums (read below) comes none other than the NEXT ONE you've all have been baiting your breath for! CHEER-ACCIDENT "Gumballhead The Cat" CD & Comic Set (Back Cover) Con-spicuously absent from the SKiN GRAFT Records Bandcamp page til just NOW, allow me to allow you to put your paws together for the "Gumballhead The Cat" CD and Comic Book set from Cheer-Accident - now available digitally in its entirety for the first time ever - and we've got a bushel and a peck of physical copies to sell as well! In a masterful multimedia mishmash of formats, cartoonist "Rootin" Rob Syers drew up a full length Gumballhead The Cat adventure - "The Mystery Treasure Of The San Miguel Apartments", a mind-boggling foray into the sublimely silly; filled with page after page of unshaved, balls-out action! Accompanying this feline funny book is an exclusive CD soundtrack recorded specifically for this release by Chicago's CHEER-ACCIDENT. Sporting a perplexing palette of opulent musical textures, and lightning in a bottle aural episodes - these custom compositions bring the broad ink strokes of Gumballhead The Cat hurling into the fifth dimension as never before!!!!! We're talking OVER 60 MINUTES of adroitly extrapolated audio intrigue and jaw dropping dynamic group interplay - some bordering on the telepathic!!! The physical edition of the CHEER-ACCIDENT "Gumballhead The Cat" CD and Comic Book Set comes complete with a big 7" x 7" comic book packed alongside the pocketed, glass-mastered Compact Disc in a resealable plastic sleeve that allows for easy storage among your 7" singles - and being encased in plastic, it's protected against stray spray in the litter box! The BANDCAMP exclusive deluxe digital version includes all 13 tracks - plus a 20 page Gumballhead The Cat PDF Comic Book! A PREVIEW of the COMIC BOOK is available for viewing HERE and orders are being taken for both the physical and digital version over at our Bandcamp Store. For a physical-only fix, stop by our standard storefront, the SKiN GRAFT Paypal Shop. Alrighty Alums and Chums - your nutty news hound is keeping his glorious return short and sweet this time, but you can bet ALL of your bottom's dollars that you've not heard the last of Jazzy Joe. Watch this space for more wizened wordage before the month is out! Excel-sore! "Jazzy" Joe Romita updated: October 16th, 2017 Hi Everybody - This is Mark filling in for Jazzy Joe. Last year SKiN GRAFT Records turned 25 years old. We marked the occasion with the move to a new distributor, the launch of our new T-Shirt line - "Unfit Apparel”, new releases from Cellular Chaos, Arab On Radar, Lovely Little Girls and Doomsday Student - and a special 25th Anniversary reissue of Dazzling Killmen’s “Face Of Collapse”. Allegro began as a classical distribution company, and expanded its repertory into other genres in the early 2000s. But behind the scenes, things were "complicated". Nail / Allegro Music - our primary distributor since 2003 - had gone bankrupt - and was doing its level best to take every label on its roster down with it. Prior to going bankrupt, Allegro went through an out-of-court liquidation that enabled them to keep every distributed label’s unsold, unpaid for inventory and sell it off to to pay back their secured creditors - - - - rather than record labels themselves - which had already gone months and months without payment. Fortunately, SKiN GRAFT escaped Allegro before word came down that they were liquidating the business. We landed at Redeye Distribution, but when all was said and done SKiN GRAFT and it’s bands had lost thousands upon thousands of dollars due to Allegro’s non-payments. When we reclaimed our inventory, we shipped most of it back to our warehouse space in Missouri while some went to Redeye for distribution to stores. Now as everybody knows, retail space for music has been in decline for over a decade as countless record shops and chains have shuttered - leaving us with some truly amazing, thriving independent shops - but also leaving our warehouse with more inventory than is needed to stock those remaining shops. SO - to level things off and clear out some storage space, we're announcing the biggest sale in our history - THE SKiN GRAFT Blood Drive - focused on selected 7” Vinyl Records and Compact Discs. Get all of the details and visit the sale HERE. If you’d prefer to pay the normal price, or are looking to score our non-sale items - such as the new releases from Yowie, Cheer-Accident or the remastered Flying Luttenbachers LP, please visit our standard storefronts - the SKiN GRAFT Paypal Shop or Bandcamp Store. There’s more than a quarter century of our music history reddened, ripe and ready to be discovered. SALE ENDS at NOON CST on November 1st, 2017! Thanks! Mark updated: September 9th, 2017 OUT NOW: CHEER-ACCIDENT "Salad Days : Remastered" Vinyl LP / MOD CD "Trading Balloons : Remastered" MOD CD C H E E R - A C C I D E N T - Salad Days / Trading Balloons : Remastered - Ultimate Edition includes Colored Vinyl LP+Obi and (2) MOD CDs: "Salad Days: Remastered" and "Trading Balloons: Remastered" (over 52 additional minutes of music not on the LP) Order at the or the SKiN GRAFT Records BANDCAMP Store The PRESS when pressed on CHEER-ACCIDENT: PDF One-Sheet “One of the most fascinating creative careers in the modern American underground - in any medium. Imagine a confluence of the grandeur of Yes, the range of This Heat, the irreverence of Ween, the poignancy of Elliott Smith and the mischief of Andy Kaufman, and you’ll be getting close to the net effect of Cheer-Accident’s musical output since its formation in 1981.” - Signal To Noise “Cheer-Accident are the quintessential Chicago post-rock band... a higher-brow variety of avant-rock that covers ground as diverse as falsetto vocal vignettes, orchestral dissonant horn lines, Van Dyke Parks-ian rainy-day pop, cubist piano compositions, ambient cinematic excursions, noise collages, free-form freakouts, and every kind of noodle-y and angular guitar manifestation possible.” - Pitchfork …(Cheer-Accident) meld difficult, angular rock with absurdist lunacy in intentionally disturbing ways that are just brilliant.” - Alternative Press “The anti-pop element in rock 'n' roll began in the late '60s with groups like Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Henry Cow and continued right through the '90s… The results have been mixed at best - far too many albums appeal to true believers but feel distant, even alienating, to everyone else. But there have always been grand exceptions… Cheer-Accident is worth deliberate investigation.” - NPR : Fresh Air “Cheer-Accident is one of the very few local progressive units whose music is consciously built on the foundation of '70s prog-rock. On Salad Days, Cheer-Accident delivers a concise, effective survey of its musical palette. The record's centerpiece - the 19-minute title track, encompasses dense, knotty instrumental forays and truly gorgeous chamber orchestra scoring.” - Chicago Tribune “Formed over 30 years ago by drummer Thymme Jones (and completed by Jeff Libersher and a “revolving cast of collaborators”), the group never fails to deliver peculiar yet gripping sequences bursting with vibrant instrumentation and inventive movements.” - Popmatters “(Salad Days is...) A feel-good masterpiece of expansive, hypnotic math rock and so much more from the 1997-1999 period of Cheer-Accident. The orchestration is incredible, with extended lush passages fading in and out of proggy grooves and heavenly weirdo sing-a-longs. To me it's like a math rock version of Hatfield and the North. It's really that amazing. I have several friends who are pretty serious Cheer- Accident fans, and we all have slightly different opinions about the relative merits of different albums, but the one guy who knows their work much more thoroughly than the rest of us and ranks the band highest in his pantheon tells me Salad Days is possibly his favorite, so that says a lot. There's no question it's a classic of avant-rock, demanding the attention of a wider audience.”- Downtown Music Gallery “Salad Days showcases a group functioning outside the normal bounds.” - All Music Guide " On February 2nd, 1999, two days after Cheer-Accident finished recording the basic tracks for the epic title tune from their new album, guitarist Phil Bonnet was found dead of a brain aneurysm. Bonnet had been playing in the band for nearly a decade, and the other members of the group were devastated, having lost not only a close friend but also a crucial collaborator. Bands have certainly broken up for lesser reasons - but remarkably Cheer-Accident survived the loss. As experimental music has expanded its audience in Chicago, they've attained something like elder statesman status... They’re musicians’ musicians... the guys to watch to see what everyone will be doing next year or next decade or maybe just never dare to do at all.” - Chicago Reader ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- SALAD DAYS : REMASTERED TRACK LISTING: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Graphic Depression (remastered) 2. Insomnia (remastered) 3. Graphic Depression (remastered) 4. Post-Premature (remastered) 5. Salad Days (remastered) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADING BALLOONS : REMASTERED TRACK LISTING: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Trading Balloons (remastered) Mail Orders: SKiN GRAFT Records PAYPAL SHOP or at BANDCAMP for Digital and Physical / Digital Bundles YOWIE and CHEER-ACCIDENT European Tours begin this September! Check your local listings for details! Thanks! ... MORE NEW NEWS BELOW .... updated: July 28th, 2017 Hi Everybody - We're going to call a time out on pushing T-shirts (you'll find details on the new Mount Shasta and Xaddax shirts in the updates below) - and hop back to releasing music for just a bit - - - - Thanks to a piece of press in the Chicago Reader, the word is out that SKiN GRAFT Records will be releasing a new album from CHEER-ACCIDENT in 2018 (!), but we're not waiting for the turn of the year to start celebrating... we've got some Rip Taylors to drop right here and now! In anticipation of the band’s performance at the 10th Anniversary of the reanimated RIO (Rock In Opposition) Festival this September, SKiN GRAFT is releasing newly remastered special editions of two of the band’s greatest albums: "Salad Days" and " Trading Balloons". Salad Days: Remastered LP Trading Balloons : Remastered MOD CD On "Salad Days", New York’s Downtown Music Gallery writes: “Salad Days” is a feel good masterpiece of expansive, hypnotic math rock and so much more from the 1997-1999 period of Cheer-Accident. The orchestration is incredible, with extended lush passages fading in and out of proggy grooves and heavenly weirdo sing-a-longs. To me it's like a math rock version of Hatfield and the North. It's really that amazing. There's no question it's a classic of avant-rock, demanding the attention of a wider audience.” On "Trading Balloons": Recorded just prior to “Salad Days”, and originally self-released by the band in a very limited edition, the 52 minute song “Trading Balloons” anticipated the direction the band would take in years to come - exploring a dizzying blend of musical styles: from Zeppelin-esque bombast to folk-tinged Americana to Stravinsky-flavored progressive rock to cinematic melodrama and beyond. "SALAD DAYS : REMASTERED": 1. Graphic Depression / trt: 11:20 2. Insomnia / trt: 03:06 3. Graphic Depression / trt: 00:53 4. Post-Premature / trt: 02:09 5. Salad Days / trt: 18:51 "TRADING BALLOONS : REMASTERED": 1. Trading Balloons / trt: 52:22 H I G H L I G H T S : o Both albums extensively remastered by Todd Rittmann of U.S. Maple and Dead Rider and redesigned by SKiN GRAFT Records' Mark Fischer. o "Salad Days" recorded by Steve Albini and pressed on vinyl for the first time ever. Record includes randomly mixed Colored Vinyl LP and collectible wrap-around Obi. o "Trading Balloons" receives its first ever commercial release! Guests on "Trading Balloons" include Bobby Conn and Darin Gray of Dazzling Killmen and Brise-Glace. o CHEER-ACCIDENT will be touring the USA and EUROPE and will be performing at France’s RIO Festival alongside GONG, ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE and FAUST this September. P R E S S Q U O T E S : “One of the most fascinating creative careers in the modern American underground - in any medium. Imagine a confluence of the grandeur of Yes, the range of This Heat, the irreverence of Ween, the poignancy of Elliott Smith and the mischief of Andy Kaufman, and you’ll be getting close to the net effect of Cheer-Accident’s musical output since its formation in 1981.” - Signal To Noise “Cheer-Accident are the quintessential Chicago post-rock band... a higher-brow variety of avant-rock that covers ground as diverse as falsetto vocal vignettes, orchestral dissonant horn lines, Van Dyke Parks-ian rainy-day pop, cubist piano compositions, ambient cinematic excursions, noise collages, free-form freakouts, and every kind of noodley and angular guitar manifestation possible.” - Pitchfork “Cheer-Accident is worth deliberate investigation.” - NPR: Fresh Air Next CHEER-ACCIDENT Live Shows: Saturday, July 29th St. Louis, MO. Schlafly Tap Room. 2100 Locust St. (w/Yowie and The Pat Sajak Assassins.) Sunday, July 30th KC, MO. Record Bar. 1520 Grand Blvd. ( w/Free Salamander Exhibit.) Monday, July 31st Chicago, IL. Beat Kitchen. 2100 W. Belmont Ave. (w/Free Salamander Exhibit and The Four Three.) Tuesday, August 1st Indianapolis, IN. Radio Radio. 1119 E. Prospect. (w/Free Salamander Exhibit and Dragon Drop.) NOW UP FOR PRE-ORDERS: CHEER - ACCIDENT "Salad Days" / "Trading Balloons" Remastered : Ultimate Edition Colored Vinyl "Salad Days: Remastered" LP with (2) MOD CDs: "Salad Days: Remastered" and "Trading Balloons: Remastered" (includes 52 minutes of music not on the LP) - plus collectible Obi - AVAILABLE to PRE-ORDER at the or the SKiN GRAFT Records BANDCAMP Store!

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updated: July 17th, 2017

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NEW T-SHIRT UP FOR ORDERS!

XADDAX "Snake"
Double-Sided T-Shirt
Design by Chrissy Rossettie Sakes
(Click for Hi-Res: Front)

Part of the SKiN GRAFT Records UNFIT Apparel Line
Expected to ship on or around August 1st, 2017
Available to order HERE
or at The Dark Slide Skate Shop

UNFIT Apparel T-Shirt orders will be fulfilled by The DARK SLIDE Skate Shop, not SKiN GRAFT. T-Shirt orders will be re-directed to their storefront. Other items from the SKiN GRAFT Shop may NOT be combined with UNFIT Apparel.

ABOUT XADDAX: Nick Sakes (Dazzling Killmen, Colossamite, Sicbay) and Chrissy Rossettie Sakes (The Hex, My Name is Rar-Rar, Iyaxia) form Xaddax — a kinetic, No Wave-y two piece from Kingston, NY. Sakes’ jagged guitar parts and legendary howls lurch across the backdrop of Rossettie’s haywire electronics, meandering synth, and frenzied drumming. The result is erratic and wild; a malfunctioning robot/injured werewolf hybrid. Their first album, "Counterclockwork", was released on SKiN GRAFT Records in 2012, and new material is in the works. A new split 7” single with two new songs will be out early next year. Watch this space for an announcment soon! QUICK LINKS!: XADDAX Facebook Page SKiN GRAFT Records Shop The DARK SLIDE Shop SKiN GRAFT Records Bandcamp Page

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