Mike Edison
Encyclopedia
Mike Edison is a New York-based writer, editor, musician, and spoken word artist. He was the publisher of marijuana counterculture magazine High Times, and was later named editor-in-chief of Screw
, the self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Newspaper." In his memoir I Have Fun Everywhere I Go, Edison recounts his adventures across twenty years of druggy adventurism and his parallel careers as a magazine editor, writer, and musician. His most recent book, Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!: Of Playboys, Pigs, and Penthouse Paupers, An American Tale of Sex and Wonder was published Fall 2011 by Soft Skull Press
.
experience. He later attended the New York University
Film School, and Columbia University
, dropping out of both to pursue a career as a musician and writer.
Between 1985 and 1988 he authored 28 pornographic novels, and in his career on the seamy side of the publishing business, he has written about German whorehouses and Spanish coke dealers for Hustler
, and has published a series of erotic “confessions” for Penthouse Letters
. He was also a frequent contributor to Screw magazine, penning chronicles of 42nd Street
, then the adult entertainment mecca of New York City.
In the late 1980s Edison began writing a featured column about television and politics, Shoot the Tube, for marijuana and counterculture
magazine High Times. In 1998 Edison was named publisher of High Times, and soon after took control of the editorial side of the magazine as well.
As editor and publisher, he caused a furor among staffers by putting Black Sabbath
singer Ozzy Osbourne
on the cover, and then leaking to the New York Post
’s Page Six gossip column that thousands of dollars of pot had gone missing from the photo shoot. After taking the magazine to new heights in sales and advertising, he was instrumental in producing High Times first feature film, High Times' Potluck
. Edison left High Times in 2001.
Following High Times, Edison became the editorial director for Jewish culture magazine Heeb, for whom he went undercover and exposed Jews for Jesus
as a Baptist organization. He also covered the 2003 harassment trial of Screw magazine
founding editor and publisher, Al Goldstein
.
Edison left Heeb later that year in protest over a cover story on The Passion of the Christ
, a rebuttal to the Mel Gibson
film.
In 2003, Edison was named editor-in-chief of Screw (replacing Al Goldstein), where he began writing seventeen years before as a freelancer. In late 2006 he announced that he was leaving the editor-in-chief position. Soon after Screw ceased publication.
Edison lives and works as a writer, editor, journalist, and musician in New York City. He continues to write frequently about sex and American culture, and he is the senior editor of music publisher Backbeat Books, a division of the Hal Leonard Performing Arts Publishing Group. He is a frequent contributor to many publications and websites, including Spin
, The Daily Beast
, and the New York Press
, for whom he covers professional wrestling and classical music.
Edison has also written bios, press releases, and liner notes for numerous bands, including The Stooges
, the Ramones
, the New York Dolls
, Was (Not Was)
, Zappa Plays Zappa
, and Robert Gordon
and Chris Spedding
.
called Edison “Cooler than Toby Young
and more credible than James Frey
,” while the SF Weekly
called I Have Fun “high-spirited sleaze, overeducated yokelry, and intensely American egalitarian humor.” Edison has also been criticized for spending too much time “settling old scores with his enemies,” particularly his former co-workers at High Times, which he refers to as “that dope rag.”
In addition, Edison has recorded a “beatnik bop and punk rock boogaloo, outerspace soundtrack and spoken word
” CD, a companion piece to the book, also called I Have Fun Everywhere I Go. The CD, a collaboration with rock musician and producer Jon Spencer, has been called “a revolutionary turn for the spoken word record,” and has been compared to “Lenny Bruce
, Jack Kerouac
, and Richard Pryor
.”
as "foul-mouthed popular history at its most entertaining." Largely a history of American men's magazines, beginning in the 1950s with Hugh Hefner
and Playboy
and winding its way through the 1960s and 1970s following Hefner's less genteel proegeny, Hustler
publisher Larry Flynt
, Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione
, and Screw
founder Al Goldstein
, the book covers approximately sixty years of American popular culture and free speech as "viewed from the darkside of he newsstand." Also prominently featured in the book are comedian Lenny Bruce
and pornographer Ralph Ginzberg among others. In November of 2011 Ian's Pizza in Chicago is honoring Edison by naming a pizza after him, the Mike Edison Dirty Pie.
) as well as being a collaborator of punk rocker GG Allin
, with whom he wrote a number of songs and recorded two albums. He currently leads his own band, the Edison Rocket Train.
In 1984 Edison joined the Rock Against Reagan Tour, opening shows in San Francisco, Washington, DC, and Dallas for New York hardcore band Reagan Youth
.
In late 1984 he and three NYU classmates formed the New York post-punk
band Killdozer 85, who released one self-produced LP entitled "There's No Mistaking Quality" before changing their band name to Sharky's Machine in order to avoid confusion with Madison, Wisconsin's postpunk band Killdozer
.
Edison joined the Raunch Hands in early 1990 and accompanied them that year on a tour of Japan, later relocating with them to Madrid, Spain. Now residing in New York City, and Gijon, Spain, the band records and performs only sporadically.
In 1992, while living in Madrid, Edison joined Spanish hardcore punk band The Pleasure Fuckers, and played with them through 1995.
In 2001 he formed his own band Edison Rocket Train, switching to vocals and guitar. The Edison Rocket Train has released one full-length CD, Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!, and several singles, including the traditional gospel number “This Train,” and the pro-wrestling themed “I Like to Hurt People,” featuring Handsome Dick Manitoba of proto punk
band the Dictators. The Edison Rocket Train continues to perform and record.
In addition, Edison has worked closely with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
as their "Minister of Information
," writing the band’s press releases, industry propaganda, and fan communiqués. Spencer wrote the liner notes for a series of deluxe reissues by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, including the 2010 compilation Dirty Shirt Rock 'n' Roll: The First Ten Years. Jon Spencer has also played on and produced recordings by the Edison Rocket Train.
Spencer also performs frequently with Edison, backing him for spoken word performances with Edison's group the Rocket Train Delta Science Arkestra — which has also featured ex-Capt. Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas
— and more recently the Space Liberation Army in which Edison also plays electric organ and Theremin
. Edison has also appeared frequently with Lucas's band Gods and Monsters
.
Screw magazine
Screw is a weekly pornographic magazine published in the United States aimed at heterosexual men. It was first published in 1968 by Al Goldstein and was printed weekly in tabloid form...
, the self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Newspaper." In his memoir I Have Fun Everywhere I Go, Edison recounts his adventures across twenty years of druggy adventurism and his parallel careers as a magazine editor, writer, and musician. His most recent book, Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!: Of Playboys, Pigs, and Penthouse Paupers, An American Tale of Sex and Wonder was published Fall 2011 by Soft Skull Press
Soft Skull Press
Soft Skull Press is an independent publisher founded by Sander Hicks in 1992, and run by Richard Eoin Nash from 2001 to 2009. In 2007, Nash sold Soft Skull to Counterpoint LLC, where it continues to function as a division of the press...
.
Early life
In his memoir, Edison describes growing up in a dysfunctional Jewish household in suburban New Jersey, and discovering marijuana at the age of fourteen. Soon after he had his first LSDLSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
experience. He later attended the New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
Film School, and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, dropping out of both to pursue a career as a musician and writer.
Career: Pro Wrestling, Sex, and the American Counterculture
Edison earned his first magazine publishing job in 1986, as editor of Wrestling's Main Event, by defeating the incumbent editor in a bloody Loser Leaves Town Match.Between 1985 and 1988 he authored 28 pornographic novels, and in his career on the seamy side of the publishing business, he has written about German whorehouses and Spanish coke dealers for Hustler
Hustler
Hustler is a monthly pornographic magazine aimed at men and published in the United States. It was first published in 1974 by Larry Flynt. It was a step forward from the Hustler Newsletter which was cheap advertising for his strip club businesses at the time. The magazine grew from a shaky start to...
, and has published a series of erotic “confessions” for Penthouse Letters
Penthouse (magazine)
Penthouse, a men's magazine founded by Bob Guccione, combines urban lifestyle articles and softcore pornographic pictorials that, in the 1990s, evolved into hardcore. Penthouse is owned by FriendFinder Network. formerly known as General Media, Inc. whose parent company was Penthouse International...
. He was also a frequent contributor to Screw magazine, penning chronicles of 42nd Street
42nd Street (Manhattan)
42nd Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, known for its theaters, especially near the intersection with Broadway at Times Square. It is also the name of the region of the theater district near that intersection...
, then the adult entertainment mecca of New York City.
In the late 1980s Edison began writing a featured column about television and politics, Shoot the Tube, for marijuana and counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
magazine High Times. In 1998 Edison was named publisher of High Times, and soon after took control of the editorial side of the magazine as well.
As editor and publisher, he caused a furor among staffers by putting Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
singer Ozzy Osbourne
Ozzy Osbourne
John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is an English vocalist, whose musical career has spanned over 40 years. Osbourne rose to prominence as lead singer of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, whose radically different, intentionally dark, harder sound helped spawn the heavy metal...
on the cover, and then leaking to the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
’s Page Six gossip column that thousands of dollars of pot had gone missing from the photo shoot. After taking the magazine to new heights in sales and advertising, he was instrumental in producing High Times first feature film, High Times' Potluck
High Times' Potluck
High Times' Potluck is a 2002 comedy film by High Times that revolves around a mobster in Manhattan who discovers the magic of marijuana.This aptly named comedy follows a suitcase of high-grade marijuana from the farm where it was grown, to its eventual distribution in New York...
. Edison left High Times in 2001.
Following High Times, Edison became the editorial director for Jewish culture magazine Heeb, for whom he went undercover and exposed Jews for Jesus
Jews for Jesus
Jews for Jesus is a conservative, Christian evangelical organization that focuses on the conversion of Jews to Christianity. Its members consider themselves to be Jews – either as defined by Jewish law, or as according to the view of Jews for Jesus. Jews for Jesus defines “Jewish” in terms of...
as a Baptist organization. He also covered the 2003 harassment trial of Screw magazine
Screw magazine
Screw is a weekly pornographic magazine published in the United States aimed at heterosexual men. It was first published in 1968 by Al Goldstein and was printed weekly in tabloid form...
founding editor and publisher, Al Goldstein
Al Goldstein
Alvin "Al" Goldstein is a former American publisher and pornographer. His company Milky Way Productions, home of Screw, and his long-running cable TV show, Midnight Blue was started in 1968 and went into bankruptcy in 2004...
.
Edison left Heeb later that year in protest over a cover story on The Passion of the Christ
The Passion of the Christ
The Passion of the Christ is a 2004 American drama film directed by Mel Gibson and starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus. It depicts the Passion of Jesus largely according to the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John...
, a rebuttal to the Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
film.
In 2003, Edison was named editor-in-chief of Screw (replacing Al Goldstein), where he began writing seventeen years before as a freelancer. In late 2006 he announced that he was leaving the editor-in-chief position. Soon after Screw ceased publication.
Edison lives and works as a writer, editor, journalist, and musician in New York City. He continues to write frequently about sex and American culture, and he is the senior editor of music publisher Backbeat Books, a division of the Hal Leonard Performing Arts Publishing Group. He is a frequent contributor to many publications and websites, including Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
, The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast is an American news reporting and opinion website founded and published by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker as well as the short-lived Talk Magazine. The Daily Beast was launched on October 6, 2008, and is owned by IAC...
, and the New York Press
New York Press
New York Press was a free alternative weekly in New York City, that was published from 1988 to 2011. During its lifetime, it was the main competitor to the Village Voice...
, for whom he covers professional wrestling and classical music.
Edison has also written bios, press releases, and liner notes for numerous bands, including The Stooges
The Stooges
The Stooges are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003...
, the Ramones
Ramones
The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...
, the New York Dolls
New York Dolls
The New York Dolls is an American rock band, formed in New York in 1971. The band's protopunk sound prefigured much of what was to come in the punk rock era; their visual style influenced the look of many new wave and 1980s-era glam metal groups, and they began the local New York scene that later...
, Was (Not Was)
Was (Not Was)
-Studio albums:-Compilation albums:-Singles:-Contributions:* A Christmas Record - "Christmas Time In The Motor City"* That's The Way I Feel Now: A Tribute to Thelonious Monk - "Ba-Lue-Bolivar-Ba-Lues-Are"...
, Zappa Plays Zappa
Zappa Plays Zappa
Zappa Plays Zappa is an American tribute act led by Dweezil Zappa, the eldest son of the late American composer and musician Frank Zappa, devoted to performing the music of Frank Zappa.- History :...
, and Robert Gordon
Robert Gordon (musician)
Robert Gordon is an American rockabilly musician. Gordon rose to fame performing in several genres including alternative rock, punk rock, and rock and roll.- Early days:...
and Chris Spedding
Chris Spedding
Chris Spedding is an English rock and roll and jazz guitarist, best known for his session work. Allmusic states - "Spedding is one of the UK's most versatile session guitarists, and has had a long career on two continents that saw him tackle nearly every style of rock and roll, as well as...
.
I Have Fun Everywhere I Go
His 2008 memoir is I Have Fun Everywhere I Go: Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World (May 2008, Faber and Faber/Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Reviewing the book, BookforumBookforum
Bookforum is a New York-based magazine devoted to books and the discussion of literature. It is edited by Albert Mobilio, Chris Lehmann, , and Michael Miller.-History: Bookforum was launched in 1994 as a literary supplement to Artforum...
called Edison “Cooler than Toby Young
Toby Young
Toby Young, MA, FRSA is a British journalist and the author of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, the tale of his stint in New York as a contributing editor at Vanity Fair magazine...
and more credible than James Frey
James Frey
James Christopher Frey is an American writer. His books A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard , as well as Bright Shiny Morning , were bestsellers...
,” while the SF Weekly
SF Weekly
SF Weekly is a free alternative weekly newspaper in San Francisco, California. The newspaper, distributed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area every Wednesday, is published by Village Voice Media, a 16-paper alt weekly newspaper chain that also includes the New York City Village Voice and the Los...
called I Have Fun “high-spirited sleaze, overeducated yokelry, and intensely American egalitarian humor.” Edison has also been criticized for spending too much time “settling old scores with his enemies,” particularly his former co-workers at High Times, which he refers to as “that dope rag.”
In addition, Edison has recorded a “beatnik bop and punk rock boogaloo, outerspace soundtrack and spoken word
Spoken word
Spoken word is a form of poetry that often uses alliterated prose or verse and occasionally uses metered verse to express social commentary. Traditionally it is in the first person, is from the poet’s point of view and is themed in current events....
” CD, a companion piece to the book, also called I Have Fun Everywhere I Go. The CD, a collaboration with rock musician and producer Jon Spencer, has been called “a revolutionary turn for the spoken word record,” and has been compared to “Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
, Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
, and Richard Pryor
Richard Pryor
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, writer and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities, and profanity, as well as racial epithets...
.”
Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!
Edison's most recent book Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!: Of Playboys, Pigs, and Penthouse Paupers, An American Tale of Sex and Wonder was described by journalist and historian Rick PerlsteinRick Perlstein
Eric S. "Rick" Perlstein is an American historian and journalist. He is a former writer for The Village Voice and The New Republic....
as "foul-mouthed popular history at its most entertaining." Largely a history of American men's magazines, beginning in the 1950s with Hugh Hefner
Hugh Hefner
Hugh Marston "Hef" Hefner is an American magazine publisher, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprises.-Early life:...
and Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
and winding its way through the 1960s and 1970s following Hefner's less genteel proegeny, Hustler
Hustler
Hustler is a monthly pornographic magazine aimed at men and published in the United States. It was first published in 1974 by Larry Flynt. It was a step forward from the Hustler Newsletter which was cheap advertising for his strip club businesses at the time. The magazine grew from a shaky start to...
publisher Larry Flynt
Larry Flynt
Larry Claxton Flynt, Jr. is an American publisher and the president of Larry Flynt Publications . In 2003, Arena magazine listed him as the number one on the "50 Powerful People in Porn" list....
, Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione
Bob Guccione
Bob Guccione was the founder and publisher of the adult magazine Penthouse. He resigned from his publisher position in November 2003.-Early life:...
, and Screw
Screw
A screw, or bolt, is a type of fastener characterized by a helical ridge, known as an external thread or just thread, wrapped around a cylinder. Some screw threads are designed to mate with a complementary thread, known as an internal thread, often in the form of a nut or an object that has the...
founder Al Goldstein
Al Goldstein
Alvin "Al" Goldstein is a former American publisher and pornographer. His company Milky Way Productions, home of Screw, and his long-running cable TV show, Midnight Blue was started in 1968 and went into bankruptcy in 2004...
, the book covers approximately sixty years of American popular culture and free speech as "viewed from the darkside of he newsstand." Also prominently featured in the book are comedian Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
and pornographer Ralph Ginzberg among others. In November of 2011 Ian's Pizza in Chicago is honoring Edison by naming a pizza after him, the Mike Edison Dirty Pie.
Rock’n’Roll
Edison is the long-time drummer for New York cult-garage band the Raunch Hands (Crypt RecordsCrypt Records
Crypt Records is a Hamburg-based record label and record store founded by Tim Warren. The label is perhaps best known for issuing the eight-volume Back From The Grave Series of garage rock compilations, although its reissues and releases include surf, rockabilly, punk rock, exotica, garage punk,...
) as well as being a collaborator of punk rocker GG Allin
GG Allin
Kevin Michael "GG" Allin was an American punk rock singer-songwriter, who performed and recorded with many groups during his career. GG Allin is perhaps best remembered for his notorious live performances, which often featured transgressive acts, including coprophagia, self-mutilation, and...
, with whom he wrote a number of songs and recorded two albums. He currently leads his own band, the Edison Rocket Train.
In 1984 Edison joined the Rock Against Reagan Tour, opening shows in San Francisco, Washington, DC, and Dallas for New York hardcore band Reagan Youth
Reagan Youth
Reagan Youth is an American punk rock band formed by singer Dave Rubinstein and guitarist Paul Bakija in Queens, New York in early 1980. They are known for introducing the style of hardcore punk to the East Coast punk scene, but were also a part of the peace punk movement...
.
In late 1984 he and three NYU classmates formed the New York post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
band Killdozer 85, who released one self-produced LP entitled "There's No Mistaking Quality" before changing their band name to Sharky's Machine in order to avoid confusion with Madison, Wisconsin's postpunk band Killdozer
Killdozer (band)
Killdozer was an American noise-rock band, formed in Madison, Wisconsin in 1983, with members Bill Hobson, Dan Hobson and Michael Gerald. They took their name from the 1974 TV movie, directed by Jerry London, itself based on a Theodore Sturgeon short story. They released their first album,...
.
Edison joined the Raunch Hands in early 1990 and accompanied them that year on a tour of Japan, later relocating with them to Madrid, Spain. Now residing in New York City, and Gijon, Spain, the band records and performs only sporadically.
In 1992, while living in Madrid, Edison joined Spanish hardcore punk band The Pleasure Fuckers, and played with them through 1995.
In 2001 he formed his own band Edison Rocket Train, switching to vocals and guitar. The Edison Rocket Train has released one full-length CD, Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!, and several singles, including the traditional gospel number “This Train,” and the pro-wrestling themed “I Like to Hurt People,” featuring Handsome Dick Manitoba of proto punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band the Dictators. The Edison Rocket Train continues to perform and record.
In addition, Edison has worked closely with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion are an American alternative rock trio, formed in 1991 and based out of New York City, New York. The band consists of Judah Bauer on guitar, backing vocals, harmonica and occasional lead vocals, Russell Simins on drums and Jon Spencer on vocals, guitar and theremin...
as their "Minister of Information
Minister of Information
The Ministry of Information , headed by the Minister of Information, was a United Kingdom government department created briefly at the end of World War I and again during World War II...
," writing the band’s press releases, industry propaganda, and fan communiqués. Spencer wrote the liner notes for a series of deluxe reissues by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, including the 2010 compilation Dirty Shirt Rock 'n' Roll: The First Ten Years. Jon Spencer has also played on and produced recordings by the Edison Rocket Train.
Spencer also performs frequently with Edison, backing him for spoken word performances with Edison's group the Rocket Train Delta Science Arkestra — which has also featured ex-Capt. Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas
Gary Lucas
Gary Lucas is an American guitarist, a Grammy-nominated songwriter, a soundtrack composer for film and television, and an international recording artist with over a dozen solo albums to date. He has been described as "one of the best and most original guitarists in America" ; a "legendary leftfield...
— and more recently the Space Liberation Army in which Edison also plays electric organ and Theremin
Theremin
The theremin , originally known as the aetherphone/etherophone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without discernible physical contact from the player. It is named after its Russian inventor, Professor Léon Theremin, who patented the device...
. Edison has also appeared frequently with Lucas's band Gods and Monsters
Gods and Monsters
Gods and Monsters is a 1998 drama film that recounts the last days of the life of troubled film director James Whale, whose homosexuality is a central theme. It stars Ian McKellen as Whale, along with Brendan Fraser, Lynn Redgrave, Lolita Davidovich, and David Dukes...
.
Selected discography
- Sharky's Machine - Let's Be Friends LP (Shimmy Disc) 1987
- Sharky's Machine - A Little Chin Music EP (LSD/Berlin) 1988
- GG AllinGG AllinKevin Michael "GG" Allin was an American punk rock singer-songwriter, who performed and recorded with many groups during his career. GG Allin is perhaps best remembered for his notorious live performances, which often featured transgressive acts, including coprophagia, self-mutilation, and...
- You Give Love a Bad Name LP/CD (Matador) 1988
- GG AllinGG AllinKevin Michael "GG" Allin was an American punk rock singer-songwriter, who performed and recorded with many groups during his career. GG Allin is perhaps best remembered for his notorious live performances, which often featured transgressive acts, including coprophagia, self-mutilation, and...
- Res-Erected CD (ROIR) 1998
- Raunch Hands - Million Dollar Movie CD (Crypt,1+2 Records, Barn Homes/Japan) 1990
- Raunch Hands - Fuck Me Stupid LP/CD (Crypt,1+2 Records, Barn Homes/Japan) 1992
- Raunch Hands - Got Hate If You Want It: Live at Cavestomp CD (Crypt) 2002
- Raunch Hands – Bigg Topp CD (Licorice Tree) 2007
- Pleasure Fuckers - Ripped (Sympathy for the Record Industry) 1993
- Edison Rocket Train w/Handosme Dick Manitoba - I Like to Hurt People single (Carbon 14) 2002
- Edison Rocket Train Yes! Yes!! Yes!!! CD (Steel Cage) 2003
- Mike Edison – How Punk Rock Ruined My Life, the Best of Mike Edison, Vol. 1 – free digital download (www.rockettrain.com) 2005
- Mike Edison and the Rocket Train Delta Science Arkestra – I Have Fun Everywhere I Go CD (Interstellar Roadhouse) 2008