Extreme behavior

RIOT ACT Skafish in 1979, when he was touring the Midwest with Iggy Pop.

Photo: Paul Natkin

Despite spending the latter part of the Me Decade strutting his stuff on Chicago stages in women’s swimwear, sporting a hideous bowl cut designed to bring attention to his toucan-like nose, and preaching musical sermons about violating children, fagbashing and lice infestation, some folks accused Jim Skafish of faking it.

“My experience in life was so extreme and so different that people assumed that since it wasn’t what they had experienced that it had to be made up,” recalls the singer-pianist from East Chicago, Indiana. “People were cynical. They thought, this must be a bid for attention. Everything I did on stage was a reflection of the life I had experienced.”

But if anything irks Skafish more than having his sincerity questioned, it is the lack of recognition he gets as a historical pioneer. It’s hard to have a conversation with him without hearing how he is the forefather of Chicago punk, new wave, alternative and indie rock; the first Chicago punk act to play CBGB’s, L.A., London; the first to cause a riot, to write a blasphemous rock song, to make audience members spontaneously vomit. And despite getting the Rodney Dangerfield treatment from Chicago punks, a lot of these claims are probably true, as evidenced by his new self-released CD, What’s This? 1976–1979, a collection of outstanding unreleased demos, lavishly packaged with archival photos and DVD-style bonus audio commentary tracks.

His band Skafish released two albums on the IRS label in the early ’80s, but the classically trained musician-turned-performance artist is best known for his appearance in the 1981 concert clip film Urgh! A Music War, in which his showmanship and eccentricities fit in perfectly alongside the likes of the Cramps and no-wave icon Klaus Nomi. But in Chicago Skafish was a far squarer peg. Despite gracing Chicago stages for nearly two decades, he was never fully embraced by local punks, and with good reason: With a few exceptions, this city’s scene was fairly conservative, with normal-guy haircuts, working-class values and leather police jackets that ultimately were not ironic at all. As a genuine weirdo, Skafish never really hooked up with any Windy City punk cliques. And in the end, the real Skafish appreciators turned out to be a disparate group of nonpunks that ranged from art-rockers ONO to popsters Cheap Trick (the latter of whom pays tribute by authoring the What’s This? liner notes).

In fact, Skafish is more organically connected to Chicago’s blues and jazz scenes than to Chicago punk. As a teen he studied with South Side piano legend Willie Pickens, had supportive relationships with Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon and, perhaps most bizarrely, recently released a Christmas CD of unironic, schmaltzy piano jazz. At its best, Skafish’s early music gloriously defiles the hooky pop aspects of new wave with an undercurrent of Sun Ra–inspired dissonance: The new collection’s stellar “Knuckle Sandwich” sounds like Captain Beefheart’s band sitting in with Devo.

Also separating Skafish was the scale of his ambitions. He wasn’t content to create an insular scene or rock a VFW—his schemes were far grander. “I wanted to change the world,” Skafish explains, “to take things further than what was being done in New York, Los Angeles and London. My ambition was to revolutionize and change things.”

He also expected massive success to follow. “I thought No Liberation Here was going to be a hit record. My friends laughed, as if teenagers in 1977 are going to be singing along, ‘I am feeling like I need some abuse…’ ”

Because the Billboard charts—and history—failed to appreciate Skafish’s odes to Catholic damage, it would seem that a reissue of his previously released recordings might make more sense than to compile rarities. And Skafish hopes to rerelease those some day (along with a complete “lost” LP he claims Miles Copeland rejected “for being too shocking”). But in truth these dynamic early cuts—which combine the rawness of budget recording techniques with the gloss of virtuoso musicianship (complementing Skafish’s discordant piano runs is some genuinely awesome drumming)—are a perfect introduction to new ears. For fans who enjoyed (or were nauseated by) Skafish’s vintage live shows, these more accurately document what they heard than the IRS albums.

Ultimately this disc could belatedly deliver Skafish the place in history he deserves. Despite being released 30 years too late, the songs on this CD should finally convince Chicago punk rockers who’s their daddy.

What’s This? 1976–1979 is available now at skafishwhatsthis.com.