SKiN GRAFT News for You's

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

updated: December 12th, 2016

DOOMSDAY STUDENT "A Self-Help Tragedy"
LP / CD / Ultimate Edition / Digital
A SKiN GRAFT / THREE ONE G Co-Release

(click for hi-res)

Available to order HERE
or at BANDCAMP for Digital and Physical / Digital Bundles

Hi Everybody,

This is Mark writing. DOOMSDAY STUDENT “A Self-Help Tragedy”, the final release of SKiN GRAFT's 25th Anniversary is here! You can order it at out PAYPAL Shop or go to our newly launched BANDCAMP page for Digital and Digital / Physical bundles.

Released in partnership with our friends at THREE ONE G Records, I can think of no better flip of the bird to 2016 as we march perilously into the new year.

The new video from DOOMSDAY STUDENT has just debuted over at Ghettoblaster Magazine - check it out below!

<p align="center"> </p> <p align="center"> </p> DOOMSDAY STUDENT "The FIrst Trip"
Directed by Planchette
Starring: J. M. Wyand, A. M. Ticaric, T. Giles
from the album "A Self-Help Tragedy"

Also - There has been a flood of press and band interviews over the last few weeks. I've been adding them to our Facebook feed as they pop up, but I'll include a few of them at the end of this update. Especially noteworthy is that YOWIE has announced the title of their upcoming third album - "Synchromysticism" - you can read all about it in StL Mag HERE!

Here is the official DOOMSDAY STUDENT press release:

Doomsday Student is Eric Paul, Stephen Mattos, Craig Kureck and Paul Vieira. With members culled from the ranks of Arab on Radar, The Chinese Stars, Athletic Automaton and Chrome Jackson, the level of dissonance, mania, and peculiarity thoughtfully melded into every layer of their music is not particularly surprising to the already enlightened. Doomsday Student’s unsettling lyrics, hysteric guitars and irregular rhythms resonate as obnoxious to those who seek the obvious but are music to the bloodied ears of those looking for a higher, wilder truth. The band has performed alongside and befriended Retox, Guerilla Toss, Child Bite, Cellular Chaos, Head Wound City, White Mice and Graf Orlok, among many others.

Doomsday Student’s third album, “A Self-Help Tragedy”, unwraps like an exorcism, and hits like a nervous breakdown - full of anxiety-inducing guitar wails, curiously plucked patterns, raucous rhythms, and lyrics that read as personal anecdotes and confessions. Listening to tracks such as “Fight and Flight” is like being let in on vague, dirty secrets, decidedly taciturn even in their blunt forthrightness.

“The perfect balance between unhinged scuzz and technical nuance”
- CLRVYNT

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TRACK LISTING:
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1. The First Trip
2. L.S.D. Mom
3. Angry Christmas
4. Wonderful
5. Fight and Flight
6. Yoko Ono’s Nightmare
7. The Kids Are Confused
8. Johnston Tar Pit

Mail Orders: SKiN GRAFT Records PAYPAL SHOP
or at BANDCAMP for Digital and Physical / Digital Bundles

<a href="http://skingraftrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-self-help-tragedy">A Self-Help Tragedy by Doomsday Student</a>

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And to wrap this update up,
here are a few interesting bits of recent press:
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DAZZLING KILLMEN:
New interview with the band in CLRVYNT
New interview w/ band & Steve Albini in the RIVERFRONT TIMES
Unboxing video and review at GLACIALLY MUSICAL

DOOMSDAY STUDENT:
Video premiere for Angry CHristmas at STEREOGUM
Band interview over at DECIBEL
Track premiere at BROOKLYN VEGAN

ARAB ON RADAR:
10 bands that are actually terrifying from ALTERNATIVE PRESS

CELLULAR CHAOS:
New band interview at STAF MAGAZINE
(scroll for English)

YOWIE (new album early 2017!):
Big interview on upcoming album at St. LOUIS MAG

LOVELY LITTLE GIRLS:
Interview with Gregory Jacobsen at STAF MAGAZINE
(scroll for English)

updated: November 11th, 2016

DAZZLING KiLLMEN "Face of Collapse"
"SKiN GRAFT Records 25th Anniversary Special Edition"
Gatefold Double LP&Book / CD / Ultimate Edition

Available to order HERE - Shipping NOW!

Hi Everybody,

The DAZZLING KILLMEN "Face Of Collapse" 25th Anniversary Edition 2XLP&Book is out now and pre-orders have shipped (order it over HERE). You can read about all of the bells and whistles in the previous updates, but if you'd like a peak at what is in store, I've uploaded some photos of the finished product at the SKiN GRAFT Records Facebook Page HERE. These are just quick shots taken with my phone, but I laid it out on the baby's mattress for a nice baby blue background. Below you'll find an excerpt of from the 16 page book (included with the album) - a small snippet from Hank Shteamer's new oral history of the album - as told by the band members themselves.

Before we get to that - the new DOOMSDAY STUDENT LP / CD / Ultimate Edition "A Self-Help Tragedy" will be releasing next month (and yep, you can pre-order it at the SKiN GRAFT Shop or our newly launched Bandcamp page) - and there are a number of November tours that I should bring to your attention - CELLULAR CHAOS will be playing select US dates in support of their new album "Diamond Teeth Clenched", while CHILD ABUSE and RUINS ALONE are touring South America - and meeting up for one blow out show in Lima, Peru!

CELLULAR CHAOS North America Tour
November:
16th - Baltimore, MD
17th - Washington, DC
18th - Norfolk, VA
19th - Richmond, VA
20th - Charlottesville, VA
21st - Athens, OH
22nd - Philadelphia, PA

CHILD ABUSE South America Tour
November:
12th - Sao Paulo, Brazil
13th - Rio, Brazil
14th - Braganca Paulista, Brazil
17th - Lima, Peru (with RUINS ALONE)
18th - Bogota, Columbia
19th - Medellin, Columbia

RUINS ALONE South America Tour
November:
17th - Lima, Peru (with CHILD ABUSE)
18th - Santiago
19th - Santiago
20th - Valparaiso
24th - Rio de Janeiro
26th - Sao Paulo

I was recently asked why DAZZLING KILLMEN was picked to commemorate the label's 25th Anniversary...

Twenty-five years ago to the month, SKiN GRAFT released it's first record - the DAZZLING KILLMEN "Killing Fever" 7" and comic book set. Another 7" and comic and a live cassette followed - and then the band recorded SKiN GRAFT’s first full length album “Face Of Collapse”. DAZZLING KILLMEN were (and remain) something very special - and maybe more than anyone, I can say that they changed my life. I'd daydreamed of starting a record label before, but I think it is pretty safe to say that there wouldn’t be a SKiN GRAFT Records if not for DAZZLING KILLMEN - and that’s what I wanted to celebrate with this album.

Here is a small portion Hank's oral history found in the double album:

Nick Sakes: I think maybe "Face of Collapse" might have been a reaction to how disappointed we were with how that first album came out.

Darin Gray: "Dig Out the Switch" was a totally unsatisfactory experience. We recorded and mixed that record in one day, and that's not very long. We worked really hard to make that record good, and it's no reflection on anybody that we worked with; we just didn't like the way it sounded.

Really, to me, the obvious difference between those two records is Tim. Tim and Blake and I all went to school together, and so we were practicing a lot during the day at school. We were practicing Dazzling Killmen music; we were playing all kinds of stuff. So that was super important to [Face of Collapse]. Tim's guitarwork is all over that record. It just opened the floodgates, really.

Tim Garrigan: I met Blake first at summer jazz camp, the summer before our senior year in high school, at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. So Blake and I became friends, and then it wasn't until sophomore year in college that Darin came into the music department. I remember walking down the hall and hearing [him] in the combo room playing, I was like, "Who is that bass player? Holy shit!"

We started playing together in an electric jazz trio. That opened the door to Darin inviting me to be a guest artist on "Poptones" and "Medicine Me" [Ed. note: Both songs were recorded in August 1992 and released the following year on a Skin Graft 7-inch].

The cool thing with those guys was, they didn't really tell me how to play. It was fun for me to add just subtle elements. Like, "What would it be like if I take a weird chord and move it on top of that pattern so it creates another layer of movement?"

Face Of Collapse 2xLP&Book Photo Gallery

DG: Tim and I were roommates around this time too. So a lot of those haunting guitar melody sections where it's just guitar and bass, a lot of that stuff, we came up with in our apartment, just bouncing [ideas] back and forth.

TG: Darin and I shared a little house together, I guess that was from late '92 to late '93, and that was a great woodshedding time. Darin had a ton of records, and we just spent a lot of time talking and thinking about music. And then I started writing some stuff. Darin encouraged me to contribute, and that's something that I'm grateful for.

Blake Fleming: Bringing [Tim] into the band, there was an obvious shift. We were a three-piece, and we're playing more punk-rock-oriented things. It was more of a proggy Black Flag, or something, in the beginning, or still deriving [from] the Minutemen, but on Face of Collapse, we had finally really come into our own. And it was a combination of all those things. It was the musical rebelliousness that we all kind of shared from a lot of our peers that we were around in high school and college and stuff, and the music we were getting into.

Me, Tim and Darin at that point, we were all listening heavily to everything from This Heat's first record to Stockhausen to all the Naked City stuff to Cecil Taylor to Satie. And Nick was a huge music head also. We were all heavily geeking out into all that kind of stuff. The most rock & roll-oriented stuff that we listened to maybe at that point would've been [Captain Beefheart's] "Lick My Decals Off, Baby". We were just gravitating toward all this stuff that seemed to be outside - the more abstract, the more avant-garde, the more underground, the more obtuse - because we felt like that's where we were.

Everybody was just kind of growing and evolving at the same time, and it was the fact that Tim had joined the band that opened up the palette of what we could do tonally more. Like in the song "In the Face of Collapse," the more jangly, strummy chords, you can hear that the tonality is evolving with the band, and I think Tim had a lot to do with that, and that was coming from what we were all listening to at that time.

NS: I really didn't know what I was being dragged into on that album. In fact, I was hanging on for dear life so much just practicing that thing, that we never even really practiced with vocals, because I couldn't imagine singing and playing this stuff. And they didn't really know anything about what I was going to be singing. To be honest, I wrote a lot of those lyrics at [Steve] Albini's house the day before I recorded them. I was kind of scared. I felt like one of those nightmares where you're in a class and it's finals, and you're like, "Oh, shit, I didn't go to class all year, and I have to take this test."

It worked out.

(Much more of the oral history can be found in the DAZZLING KILLMEN "Face Of Collapse" 25th Anniversary Edition 2XLP&Book - available to order HERE)

MORE NEW NEWS:

updated: October 17th, 2016

DOOMSDAY STUDENT "A Self-Help Tragedy"
LP / CD / Ultimate Edition
A SKiN GRAFT / THREE ONE G Co-Release

(click for hi-res)

Available for PRE-ORDERS HERE - Out December 2nd, 2016

Hi Everybody,
“Surprise ~ ( ! ) - We've got one more release to squeeze in before the curtain closes on SKiN GRAFT Records' 25th Anniversary - the new album from DOOMSDAY STUDENT- "A Self-Help Tragedy"!

CLRVYNT has just previewed the track L.S.D. Mom over HERE and you can check out the music video for Angry Christmas (animated by cover artist Luke Boggia over HERE. This is being released in partnership with our friends at THREE ONE G Records and it is expected to ship in time for the gift giving season - a perfect companion to the new ARAB ON RADAR 7" single (you can read all about that in our previous updates)!

DOOMSDAY STUDENT "A Self-Help Tragedy is now up for orders at the SKiN GRAFT Shop as a fully functional vinyl LP, a pressed to impress Compact Disc and as an Ultimate Edition that brings the two physical formats together at a deep discount.

We are still taking pre-orders for the DAZZLING KILLMEN "Face Of Collapse" 25th Anniversary Edition and it is my pleasure to announce that the records have been pressed and everything is on track for our November 11th release date! We can't wait to get it to you!

Thanks!

Mark Fischer

TO ORDER, VISIT THE

MORE NEW NEWS:

updated: September 22nd, 2016

DAZZLING KiLLMEN "Face of Collapse"
"SKiN GRAFT Records 25th Anniversary Special Edition"
Gatefold Double LP&Book / CD / Ultimate Edition

Available for PRE-ORDERS HERE - Out NOVEMBER 11th

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT:
- SKiN GRAFT Records 25th Anniversry Release -
DAZZLING KILLMEN "Face of Collapse" Special Edition
Gatefold Double Album and Book
out November 11th, 2016

(click for hi-res)

Gatefold Double Vinyl Special Edition Contents:
Brand new restoration from the original analog tapes
by Blake Fleming and Jason McEntire of SawHorse Studios.
Recorded and engineered by Steve Albini.

Second LP includes bonus tracks on Side Three:
“Medicine Me”, “Poptones” (Public Image Ltd. cover) and “My Lacerations” (alternate version). Collects every studio track recorded by the quartet version of the band.

Side Four features new artwork from cover artist Paul Nitsche
silk-screened directly onto the vinyl.

Large 16-page book, measuring 12” x 12”, with liner notes
from Aaron Burgess (former editorial director of
Alternative Press), a new oral history of the album from Hank
Shteamer (senior editor, music, RollingStone.com)
and artwork and comics from Mark Buckheit, Mark Fischer,
Paul Nitsche, Miles Rutlin and Rob Syers.

Full color Gatefold Sleeve includes removable obi with
color mini-poster printed on the reverse side. Entire contents come packaged in a crystal-clear resealable overbag.

(click for hi-res)

"Ultimate Edition" includes all of the above, PLUS:
DAZZLING KILLMEN "Face Of Collapse
Compact Disc (catalog # GR12CD)

Full Color DAZZLING KILLMEN / SKiN GRAFT Records
25th Anniversary Poster (11" x 17")

TRACK LISTING:
Staring Contest / Bone Fragments
My Lacerations Blown (Face Down) / Windshear
Painless One / In The Face Of Collapse
Agitator

VINYL ONLY BONUS TRACKS:
Medicine Me / Poptones / My Lacerations (alternate)

PRESS RELEASE:
Was DAZZLING KILLMEN a hardcore band?
A metal band?
The world’s gnarliest progressive-rock quartet?

“Yes” is the easy answer, but only because it’s easy to rewind through two decades of genre fragmentation to hear Dazzling Killmen’s influence on any number of “math-metal,” “prog-core” and similarly classified bands. At the time, however, this St. Louis quartet occupied a genre of one. When SKiN GRAFT released the Killmen’s 1994 sophomore album, “Face of Collapse”, that genre had its touchstone.“
- Excerpt from Aaron Burgess’ liner notes

DAZZLING KILLMEN "Killing Fever" 7"
and Comic Book
SKiN GRAFT
# GR01 (1991)

Nick Sakes, Darin Gray and Blake Fleming formed Dazzling Killmen just outside of St. Louis, Missouri in 1990. The following year SKiN GRAFT Records made its debut with a 7” single and comic book set from the band. Shortly afterward, Tim Garrigan joined the group, and the quartet began writing and refining material for what would become the label’s first, and the band’s second and final full-length, “Face of Collapse”.

“As the songs progress, Dazzling Killmen bends the music just short of the breaking point, creating a frenzy that is always on the verge. They're not linear melodies that arrive predictably in their neat little spaces. Rather there is a center to each song and in this space the band attempts to reach it from different directions. A phrase appears for a moment then vanishes and orbits around the next phrase, hovering and waiting for it's next approach. Sometimes this center is the magnet that holds the whole shebang together. At other times the center cannot hold and the space collapses. It's during these moments that Dazzling Killmen floor me.”
- Randall Roberts, LA Times (from the band’s original presskit)

Loud Life at Alternative Press magazine declared it the top album of the 90's based on the following criteria: 1) Avoidance of formula or cliché. 2) Dexterity of rhythm section, 3) Quality of album's production values, 4) Lack of predictable lyrical subjects - Satan, Straightedge, Viking folklore, etc. "Sounds like Dave Bruebeck's Time Out played through Carcass' PA system."

“Face Of Collapse” was a key influence on Dillinger Escape Plan: “Most of the great progressive underground bands of the ‘90s would not exist if it weren't for them.” - Ben Weinman

Spin Magazine called Blake Fleming one of the 100 Greatest Drummers of Alternative Music; while Fact Magazine named the album one of the Best Post-Metal Records Ever. Guitarist / vocalist Nick Sakes went on to form Colossomite (with Ed and John of Gorge Trio and Deerhoof) and now performs in Xaddax. Blake founded Laddio Boloko and then The Mars Volta; while Tim Garrigan and Darin Gray formed You Fantastic! Darin is renowned for his work with Jim O’Rourke, including their bands Brise-Glace and Yona-Kit. Currently Darin performs with William Tyler and recently appeared on The Tonight Show in the band Tweedy, alongside Jeff of Wilco (who coincidentally produced the very first SKiN GRAFT 7" single. Tim has started a new band, Skryptor, with David McClelland of Craw.

So thats it! We expect to have them to ship out out November 11th. You can place pre-orders at the SKiN GRAFT Shop HERE. You can stream a track over at our SOUNDCLOUD and BANDCAMP pages or download a free MP3 at our AUDIO page.

And speaking of BANDCAMP, you can pre-order the new DAZZLING KILLMEN and you'll find the latest releases from ARAB ON RADAR, LOVELY LITTLE GIRLS, CELLULAR CHAOS (plus a few other surprises) at our new CAMP SKiN GRAFT page.

Thanks Everybody!

Mark Fischer

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