This is me in a skirt and combat boots at Cornerstone Festival 1992 I believe. It’s probably hard to see in this old photo, but that’s a Lifesavers Underground (L.S.U.) shirt that I had specially screen printed (at a mall!). It’s the cover of their second album, Wakin’ Up the Dead (1989), which was likely my most repeated play at the time. I utterly loved it. You can’t even imagine. (Hey, I was more of a Blonde Vinyl kid than a Tooth & Nail kid, what can I say?) Before this I had made my own L.S.U. shirt on which I drew the tortured figure from Mike Knott’s painting on the cassette cover of their debut album Shaded Pain (1987).
Imagine seeing the kid wearing this shirt in high school. Nobody knew what it was, of course.
Blonde Vinyl records? Tooth & Nail records? Mike Knott? Don’t worry that you’ve never heard of him. Knowing obscure artists like that is a strange, “christian underground” thing that follows some of us around. (I’m sure you’ve also never heard of Pat Nobody, Terry Taylor, Mike Roe—some of the other adolescent musical heroes of mine.)
I think I started listening to L.S.U. around 89/90 and discovered their other iterations after that (Lifesavors, Lifesavers, etc.), all of which I loved and listened to repeatedly. Anything Mike Knott put out for the next decade was sacrosanct to me. The lyrics, the music, the vocals, the humor, the honesty, the darkness, and the light. It all spoke to my soul and formed a world I lived in for a while.
Oh, and the live performances. Believe it or not there were essentially two Mikes that made my teenage self want to be a singer, a performer. Mike Patton and Mike Knott. Kind of disparate I guess, but like a lot of us I was into punk, metal, and alternative rock all at the same time and in somewhat equal measure. Punk was the one ring to rule them all if I’m honest, but Mike Knott was as fuckin punk rock as it gets. Both Mikes put on wild, theatrical stage performances that not only entertained me but immediately made me want to emulate them. Mike Patton I only saw on TV, but Mike Knott I saw in person. Two seminal outdoor shows in particular at Cornerstone, one on a little stage by a lake (91) and one on a large main stage (92). I knew I was an average singer at best but I wanted to literally writhe on stage like that, galvanized by some holy-unholy muse, screaming and crooning, being sardonic and sincere at once, covering myself in various foods or other substances, wearing costumes, masks, etc. (A cafeteria-sized can of pork ‘n’ beans and a giant Cookie Monster head to name a few. Need I say more?) Connecting with the audience at a visceral level like that if possible. Singing from the heart and head, but being bonkers and having a blast.
I did poor imitations of Mike’s screams and chants and grunts and singing, and of the layered approach he had to vocals in many of his recordings. The hilarious and unhinged vocal soundscape of “House of Love” was a direct influence on my band’s song “Lovebot’s Revenge”. (And I’m only just this moment remembering that I actually sing the two-tracked falsetto “Oh, I’m in the house of love” bit on the second verse of Lovebot. Ha!) But I would never be able to do anything as cool as “Plague of Flies”. Nor could I be as lyrically honest as Mike. Instead I hid my doubts and shortcomings in various sci-fi and horror metaphors or by projecting monstrosity onto others that I really meant for myself. And I wasn’t yet able to articulate the inherent beauty and goodness of some monsters, no matter how flawed or fearsome. Mike knew how to do this well. The sympathetic and often humorous portrayal of misfit characters all across his music form a bestiary of grace in stark contrast to his unmasking of the insidious horrors of pious hypocrisy.
In fact, my whole life has been kind of a weak shadow of Mike’s in many ways, a troubled, broken family man and lyricist fighting to stay afloat. I guess the advantage of not being a singular genius like Mike, who lived his fraught wildness in the body as much as the mind, is that I’m still alive. Granted, I’m a decade younger, but I’m likely to be alive well past his age. Mike reminds me of another favourite singer, Dennis Wilson, in that they both sang soulfully and convincingly of the wild cosmic audacity of faith, hope, and love but struggled to live consistently in them, soaked instead in the elixirs that promise so much and cauterise so little, meeting untimely deaths. I can relate completely. Always could. Just these days I can be a lot more honest about it. And hopefully stay alive too. Or stay alive hopefully. Which is way more important.
I never really looked into Mike’s life so I have no idea about him as a father, husband, friend, neighbor, etc. (Though I’m touched by the few words his daughter Stormie wrote yesterday.) I don’t want to romanticize or lionize him. I only want to pay tribute to what he meant to me in some formative years. A flawed legend whom I never stopped admiring. His work was an artistic shot in the arm that has never left my bloodstream. I always revisit his music from time to time. Listening to it today in honour of his passing, it holds up. It holds up. Still kicks me in the ass, kicks me in the heart. It’s truly special. (His almost outsider art paintings too. Love ‘em.)
Thanks for the music and the madness, Mike. (I say that with an understanding of our problematic language around mental health. I mean it here to indicate a wild freedom from convention, an honesty to the point of misfit weirdness.) Safe journeys on your further travels, man. May you find better worlds. Ones that are better at accommodating souls like yours. Hope to see you again, brother. Can’t wait to hear your new albums on the other side.