n the fall of 1985, Mike Park began his journey in the music world. His first band Psychiatric Disorder, played blistering punk rock influenced by BLACK FLAG, 7 SECONDS, MINOR THREAT, and THE MINUTEMEN. Unfortunately, the band was horrible. But that was more than twenty five years ago and though the music has changed, the philosophy of punk has remained a staple in the life of Mr. Park. As a member of the now defunct band Skankin’ Pickle, Mike Park was able to release five full length records, tour fourteen countries, and make his mark in the independent music world.
In May of 1996, Park started Asian Man Records, which boasts a roster of bands that include ALKALINE TRIO, LAWRENCE ARMS, ANDREW JACKSON JIHAD, JOYCE MANOR, KEVIN SECONDS, BOMB THE MUSIC INDUSTRY, THE QUEERS, and many more.
I’m publishing a Mike Park song on my BandCamp platform, which is a thrill for me.
I’ve done three previous projects with Mike. His band Skankin’ Pickle did a free outdoors show at the Cubberley Ampthitheatre in summer, 1996. He produced a band Kemuri of Japan, on Roadrunner, that played at the Cub Auditorium (cafeteria), in 1997. He opened for The Evans (featuring Ian MacKaye and Amy Farina) at Terman in 2003. I have a lot of respect for his Asian Man Records (formerly Dill) and Fun Fun (children’s) labels.
But this also reminds me, as I tap this out on an Apple laptop with Thursday night football Jacksonville versus Miami in the background, awaiting the 7 p.m. Palo Alto candidates debate online, and my wife Terry Acebo Davis returning from her day job by 8 or so, that the very first time I used computers was in the 5th grade, at Fremont Hills in Palo Alto (LAH actually) and we would get to go to the district office at 25 Churchill and basically play games. Apparently also this computer simulation that seemed interesting at the time.
And my brother, an 8th grader, had similar classes or exposure — but I swear for a minute I knew more about computers than he — and we went to my dad’s office and used their teletype to call Palo Alto from Cupertino and play more football, and maybe print out weird drawings of a rabbit or diamonds or something or your name in big letters.
So, although I am also about to say something about the actual song, (I’m Not Your)Steppin’ Stone by The Monkees and Paul Revere.
Raymond W. Miseyka
who was in high school in Butler, PA when he wrote this.
I felt like a blessed (not privileged) 5th grader in Palo Alto to get to play this simple football thing in 1975 when I was 11 and now I’m 56 and I can put Mike Park onto my computer singing and in theory millions of people can hear or download his version of this song (although the guy who wrote it is now dead, but his estate can try to track me down for “mechanicals” even though I am streaming for free.
Computers do a lot of other things to and for other people, but I will leave the elaboration of that for another post. Miami is leading 21-7 which is good for me because in Fantasy Football my head-to-head opponent named Jamie who I’ve met only five or six times — once when my dad had back surgery and UCSF — Dr. M — and Jamie besides being a photographer is also a PT.
Mike Park was profiled in the Pink – the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday entertainment section – cover story even about a month ago. I also wrote a post about him for that AOL thing I cannot recall the name of Patch about the fact that he was on the cover of Metro. (Iam clicking “media’ on my categories).
Mike is also Korean, which makes me think of my dear friends in Massachusetts by way of Denver and Springfiled Brian and Jennifer Lee Moore and their kids L_ and A_. Three of the four of them have Korean middle names while Brian is stuck with “Edward”.
Thanks a lot to Mike Park, who is now the third artist to contribute content to Lions with Wings.
I hope we can get back to live shows sometime towards the end of 2021.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 