Skin Graft Records is an independent record label

Independent record label

An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...

 specializing in No Wave

No Wave

No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City. The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre...

 and noise rock

Noise rock

Noise rock describes a style of post-punk rock music that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of rock, but incorporates atonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.-Style:Noise...

 music, originally based in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

. The label is largely responsible for spawning the so-called Now Wave genre, an updated version of the late-1970s/early-1980s No Wave movement.

History

In 1986, SKiN GRAFT was begun by Mark Fischer and Rob Syers as a small-scale publisher of bizarre comic book

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

s and fanzine

Fanzine

A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...

s. Some of its comics included The Kidz and Cynicalmanson.

The label's first record was released at the end of 1991. Founder Mark Fischer said of the label in 2000, "Skin Graft is a comic book company that puts out records." The label's mascot

Mascot

The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...

 is a simply-drawn cat/Devil hybrid, usually shown issuing the "heavy metal horns

Corna

The sign of the horns is a hand gesture with a variety of meanings and uses in various cultures. It is formed by extending the index and little fingers while holding the middle and ring fingers down with the thumb.-Superstition:...

" hand sign.

SKiN GRAFT has since released music by bands, most of whom display an irreverent attitude towards music, and/or appear on stage wearing costumes or face paint. Bands who have recorded for the label include Dazzling Killmen

Dazzling Killmen

Dazzling Killmen was a math rock band from the St. Louis, Missouri area. The band combining a punk-inspired noisy ruckus with jazzy Sun Ra-type intelligence and complex arrangements.-Biography:...

, Brise-Glace

Brise-Glace

Brise-Glace was a 1990s instrumental avant-rock "supergroup" composed of Jim O'Rourke , Darin Gray , Dylan Posa , and Thymme Jones ....

 (featuring Jim O'Rourke

Jim O'Rourke (musician)

Jim O'Rourke is an Irish-American musician and record producer. He was long associated with the Chicago experimental and improv scene...

), Cheer-Accident

Cheer-Accident

Cheer-Accident is an American indie rock ensemble headed by Thymme Jones. Jones took the name of the band from a Hallmark Cards shopping display, and first formed the group in 1981 with singer Jim Drummond and drummer Mike Greenlees.-Biography:...

, The Strangulated Beatoffs, Zeek Sheck, The Chinese Stars, The Flying Luttenbachers

The Flying Luttenbachers

The Flying Luttenbachers were an instrumental unit led by multi-instrumentalist / composer / producer Weasel Walter. The Luttenbachers have created a large body of work focusing on an agenda of musical extremity and dissonance...

, Lake Of Dracula, Gorge Trio

Gorge Trio

Gorge Trio is an American experimental rock band based in Oakland, California. It is composed of three-fourths of the critically acclaimed math rock band Colossamite, which disbanded in 1998, and is survived by three releases on Skin Graft Records....

, CoLOSSamite

Colossamite

Colossamite was a mid-to-late 1990s math rock band based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They were one of the most prominent exponents of the genre....

, Shorty

Shorty (band)

Shorty was an American rock band formed in Illinois in 1991. The band consisted of vocalist Al Johnson, guitarist Mark Shippy, drummer Todd Lamparelli, and bassist Luke Frantom. After the group's breakup, Al Johnson and Mark Shippy would go on to form the underground art rock band U.S...

, U.S. Maple

U.S. Maple

U.S. Maple was an American noise rock band. The group formed in Chicago in 1995. The band consists of Al Johnson , Mark Shippy , Pat Samson , and Todd Rittmann — who banded together with the intent of becoming the deconstructionists of rock and roll.-Formation and first single:U.S...

, ZZZZZ, Made In Mexico, Melt-Banana

Melt-Banana

Melt-Banana is a Japanese punk band that is known for playing extremely fast noise music mixed with experimental electronica and pop-based song structures. They have worked with artists as diverse as Merzbow, John Zorn, Mike Patton, and Discordance Axis...

, Quintron

Mr. Quintron

Quintron is an American musician and leader of the eponymous one-man-band, "Quintron". He is a celebrated nightclub organist and inventor, who has patented a number of his own inventions and often performs at his own private club, the Spellcaster Lodge, located on St. Claude Avenue in New...

, My So-Called Lice, Flossie And The Unicorns, Yona-Kit

Yona-Kit

Yona-Kit was a math rock quartet active in 1994.A U.S.-Japanese collaboration, the group consisted of KK Null , Jim O'Rourke , Darin Gray , and Thymme Jones . All but Null were contemporaneously members of the group Brise-Glace.Yona-Kit released one album, Yona-Kit on Skin Graft Records...

, Nood Ham, You Fantastic!, Ruins, Space Streakings, Zeni Geva

Zeni Geva

Zeni Geva is a Japanese heavy metal group led by singer and guitarist KK. Null, together with guitarist Mitsuru Tabata and drummer Tatsuya Yoshida...

, AIDS Wolf

AIDS Wolf

AIDS Wolf is a Canadian noise rock band, who debuted on Pasalymany tapes but are currently on Skin Graft Records and Lovepump United.-Name:According to singer Chloe Lum, the name "AIDS Wolf" comes from an urban legend wherein wolves carry AIDS and pass it to house pets who then pass it on to...

, Mount Shasta

Mount Shasta

Mount Shasta is located at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, California and at is the second highest peak in the Cascades and the fifth highest in California...

, Arab On Radar

Arab on Radar

Arab on Radar are a Providence, Rhode Island based noise rock band founded in 1994. They went on hiatus in 2002. Members of the band went on to form or join the bands The Chinese Stars, Athletic Automaton, Made in Mexico, and most recently Doomsday Student...

, Yowie

Yowie (band)

Yowie is a band from St. Louis, Missouri, founded in 2001. The band was formerly made up of Jeremiah Wonsewitz on electric guitar, Jimbo "Moppy" on electric guitar and Shawn O'Connor "The Defenestrator" on drums....

, Athletic Automaton, and PRE

Pre (band)

Pre, often written as PRE, is a British noise rock band on Skin Graft Records and Lovepump United. It is based in London and was formed around 2005 with singer Akiko Matsuura, known for taking the stage in only her underwear and extensive stage diving. Pre includes former members of Todd and Seafood...

.

In keeping with the label's origins, many SKiN GRAFT musical releases (particularly 7" records and LPs) have included mini comic books as inserts. The label has also used non-traditional packaging with some of their releases. The early vinyl copies of U.S. Maple's first album, which were packaged in metal sheets, and CoLOSSamite's 1998 untitled EP came packaged with 5-inch frisbee

Frisbee

A flying disc is a disc-shaped glider that is generally plastic and roughly in diameter, with a lip. The shape of the disc, an airfoil in cross-section, allows it to fly by generating lift as it moves through the air while rotating....

s of varying colors.

From 1994 to 1998, and in 2002, SKiN GRAFT curated the OOPS(!) Fests, featuring many of its bands, along with sideshows and various styles of impromptu performance art.

In the late 1990s, the label purported (as a thinly-veiled hoax

Hoax

A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...

) that a European record label named SiN RAFT was illegally issuing bootleg

Copyright infringement

Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...

 copies of S.G. releases.

SKiN GRAFT in the media

On MTV's The Real World: Miami

The Real World: Miami

The Real World: Miami is the fifth season of MTV's reality television series The Real World, which focuses on a group of diverse strangers living together for several months in a different city each season, as cameras follow and document their lives and interpersonal relationships...

in 1996, cast member Sarah Becker frequently wore a red Mount Shasta

Mount Shasta

Mount Shasta is located at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, California and at is the second highest peak in the Cascades and the fifth highest in California...

band t-shirt.