1982

Sprinkling Holy Water at the Chicago premiere of "Urgh!"
Photo by Paul Natkin

June - Skafish appears with backing vocalist Barbie Goodrich at the Chicago premier of “Urgh! A Music War,” throwing holy cards into the audience and sprinkling everyone in sight with authentic blessed Catholic holy water.

July - In limbo for a little over a year and a half, Skafish calls Miles Copeland and simply asks him directly if he can record another record. Surprisingly, Copeland instantly gives Skafish the go ahead, and plans are set to do the second album.

Nov. - Skafish begins recording the 2nd LP. The original concept by Skafish was to make a record more angry, shocking and radical than the first album. Most of the songs recorded date back to the early Skafish performance days, augmented by a few brand new compositions. Working with Skafish is engineer Gary Loizzo, two-time Grammy nominated engineer. Skafish, highly motivated, completes the proposed LP within a few weeks. The guitar and bass performances add muscular strength to the recordings as heard on “Let’s Play Doctor,” a rapid-fire tale about a sex change operation. It is one of the first songs ever to have an entire lead vocal done on a vocoder. “Home Invader” segues between blistering heavy metal guitar, reverse vocal messages, and a musically excruciating, polyrhythmic free-for-all in the middle, with the track’s lyric vividly describing Skafish breaking into an upper scale home.

When I.R.S. Records hears these and the other completed masters, they claim it is some of the worst and most offensive music they’ve ever heard, calling the project “un-releasable!” Of the 10 to 11 tracks presented, the record company only considers 3 or 4 of them useable. The remaining “rejected” masters are buried and forgotten about for almost 15 years.

Even though Skafish receives praise from label mates such as R.E.M. in print, he feels uncertain of his future with I.R.S. Records, and frantically submits new demos with the hope of completing the second album. The project is up in the air until the spring of 1983.

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