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Fat Mike

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"Mike Burkett" redirects here. For the attorney and politician, see Mike Burkett (politician).

Fat Mike
Fat Mike in 2010
Fat Mike in 2010
Background information
Birth nameMichael John Burkett
Also known asFat Mike, Cokie the Clown
Born (1967-01-31) January 31, 1967 (age 57)[1]
Newton, Massachusetts, U.S.
OriginLos Angeles, California, U.S.
Genres
Instruments
  • Vocals
  • bass
  • keyboards
  • guitar
Years active1983–present
Labels
Websitenofxofficialwebsite.com

Michael John Burkett (born January 31, 1967), known professionally as Fat Mike, is an American musician and producer. He is the bassist and lead vocalist for the punk rock band NOFX and the bassist for the punk rock supergroup cover band Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Fat Mike started out with his first band False Alarm in 1982. He recorded the song Self Destruction that was on the False Alarm album, Buspar For Bedbug. Mike played in False Alarm until 1983. False Alarm went on to make 3 records and record with Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys. Dee Dee Ramone of the Ramones wrote and recorded the song False Alarm for the band with Paul Kostabi False Alarm's guitar player.

Musical career

While attending Beverly Hills High School, Mike began his musical career with the band False Alarm. After the band split up in 1983, he met Eric Melvin and Erik Sandin and formed the original line-up of NOFX. He has also appeared as a guest-vocalist on a number of other bands' tracks including "Peter Brady" on Screeching Weasel's 1993 album, "Anthem for a New Tomorrow." Other appearances include "Beware" by Randy, "Mr. Coffee" and "Lazy" by Lagwagon, and can be heard heckling and requesting "Free Bird" at the end of the Lunachicks song, "Missed It," off their 1996 album, "Pretty Ugly," which he also produced. He also appears as a guest vocalist on the Dropkick Murphys single "Going Out In Style". Mike is the owner and founder of Fat Wreck Chords, one of the biggest independent labels in North America.

Mike recorded the "Cokie the Clown" EP with NOFX, playing Cokie on both the cover of the EP and the music video for the title-track, "Cokie the Clown". In the video, Mike dresses as Cokie and puts white powder into his squirting flower, which in the song he describes as "my own special blend of ex, coke, and K". Cokie then walks around Chicago squirting powder in pedestrians' faces, as chronicled in the song itself. The video was shot during the punk music festival Riot Fest.

Fat Mike has made several appearances as Cokie the Clown, but one of his most memorable was at Emo's, a popular nightclub in Austin on March 20, 2010 at the South by Southwest festival.[6] He recounted several graphic and disturbing stories about his life, and played several songs both previously released and unreleased. He also tricked several members of the audience into drinking tequila, before showing them a video of himself filling a partially full bottle of tequila to the top with urine to shocked reactions. The stunt was later revealed as a joke on NOFX's website, which showed Fat Mike switching out the urine bottle for an untainted one before making audience members drink it. Mike has since been banned from Emo's.[7]

In 2015 Mike premiered a Broadway musical titled Home Street Home, which he co-wrote with Soma Snakeoil and Jeff Marx.[8]

Activism

Punkvoter.com

Fat Mike founded the website Punkvoter.com in 2004 in an effort to mobilize the punk community to vote George W. Bush out of office in that year's presidential election. He had never been very active in politics before then, admitting that he never even voted until 2000.[9] However, he was driven into political activism because of Bush, whom he viewed as "the most ridiculous president in the history of presidents."[10] Punkvoter.com targeted 18-to-25-year-old punk fans and other disenfranchised young people and encouraged them to vote Bush out of office. At its peak, the site was getting 15 million hits a day and ultimately raised over $1 million. Speculation has arose over the long-term viability, and genuine nature of what Punkvoter.com was all about. Many musicians, some very closely associated to Burkett, have claimed that Burkett's real goal with Punkvoter.com was to just sell t-shirts, cd's, and false hope to young, misguided, uneducated, lazy American citizens that Burkett knew he could manipulate given his status as a prominent figure in the Punk Rock community. Chris Hannah of Canadian Prog-Punk band Propagandhi, in regards to the Punkvoter.com movement, was quoted as saying "What were my criticisms against the punk-voter movement? Well, for starters, where is it? Most real, political movements don't just fizzle out after the group's greedy, war-mongering candidate loses an election." [11]

Rock Against Bush

As with Punkvoter.com, Mike organized the Rock Against Bush campaign to mobilize punk fans and musicians against George W. Bush. Fat Mike's band NOFX, along with many other well-known punk artists including Alkaline Trio, Green Day and Jello Biafra, embarked on a tour of American college campuses in the months leading up to the 2004 presidential election. Mike hoped to go beyond just protest and actually educate kids about why they should vote against Bush. At the shows, he would hand out free DVDs of Uncovered: The Whole Truth About The Iraq War, a documentary that questions the Bush administration's motives in the Middle East.[12] To coincide with the tour, Mike released two Rock Against Bush compilation albums on Fat Wreck Chords featuring new music from some of the bands on the label. The albums sold over 650,000 copies and proceeds helped fund the tour, as well as going toward magazine ads and billboards in swing states.

Personal life

Burkett lives in San Francisco, California. He attended college at San Francisco State University and graduated in 1990 with a bachelor's degree in Social Science and a minor in Human Sexuality.[13] According to the book "NOFX The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories", Burkett has said that he received the moniker "Fat Mike" from "one of the guys from [the band] Subculture".[14] He is of Jewish heritage, but is an atheist.[15][16]

He and his wife Erin divorced in 2010 after 18 years of marriage. They have a daughter named Darla.[17] In October 2009, Mike appeared in the documentary The Other F Word, an analysis of punk rock fatherhood.

Fat Mike formerly owned a gastropub-style restaurant in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY called Thistle Hill Tavern.[18] He has been into BDSM for years: he has had a dungeon in his house.[19] Fat Mike has numerous tattoos, including one on his left arm that features a golfing dominatrix and her bound caddy.[20]

Fat Mike announced his engagement to adult film actress Soma Snakeoil on January 28, 2014.[21] Mike and Soma separated August 2017.

He has been vocal about assisting his terminally ill mother's death, describing the episode in a song called "La Pieta" which featured in NOFX's audiobook version of The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories.

Fan assault incident, 2014

On November 5, 2014 at a NOFX show in Sydney, Australia, Fat Mike had complained about a neck injury and had asked the audience not to throw objects at him and grab him while on stage as it caused him pain. While playing the song "Linoleum", a fan climbed onstage and put his arm around Mike's neck, to which Mike responded by elbowing him to the ground and then kicking him in the face. The fan suffered some bruising on his face but had no major injuries.[22][23] Later, Fat Mike and the fan both apologized via Twitter. A video was released of Mike giving the fan a beer and custom T-shirt, and letting him kick him as an apology.[24]

Discography

Main articles: NOFX discography and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes discography

References

  1. ^ Lymangrover, Jason. Biography. Allmusic
  2. ^ Bush, John. "NOFX > Overview". allmusic. Retrieved January 28, 2010.
  3. ^ "Bulgaria: Skate Punks NOFX with Live September Show in Bulgaria – Novinite.com – Sofia News Agency". Novinite.com. July 27, 2007. Retrieved January 28, 2010.
  4. ^ "Where The Moshers Are". Time. July 22, 1996. Retrieved January 28, 2010.
  5. ^ Jandreus, Peter (2008) The Encyclopedia of Swedish Punk 1977–1987, Stockholm: Premium Publishing, p. 11. ISBN 9197271233.
  6. ^ "Fat Wreck Chords 2010 SXSW Showcase at Emo's". It All Happened – A Living History of Live Music.
  7. ^ "Banned in Austin: NOFX's Fat Mike Shocks SXSW". TheInertia.com. September 13, 2010. Retrieved July 4, 2011.
  8. ^ "NOFX's Fat Mike Preps Punk Musical". Rolling Stone.
  9. ^ Garofoli, Joe. "Beyond PunkVoter: "Fat" Mike Burkett built a legitimate interest in politics among apolitical punk listeners, but who'll carry that torch in 2008?". San Francisco Chronicle, May 27, 2007.
  10. ^ Selm, Nick. "Fat Mike, unfiltered". NUVO, September 12, 2012.
  11. ^ Flota, Brian. "The Politics of Post-9/11 Music: Sound, Trauma, and the Music Industry in the Time of Terror". Ashgate, 2011.
  12. ^ Cave, Damien. "Punks Mosh for Votes". Rolling Stone, May 13, 2004.
  13. ^ "Golden Gate [X]press : SF State alumnus still rockin' after 25 years".
  14. ^ Alulis, Jeff (2016). NOFX The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories. Da Capo PRESS. p. 73. ISBN 978-0-306-82477-7.
  15. ^ "'Punk Jews,' Why we made it?". Algemeiner.com.
  16. ^ "Humanist Anthems for Your iPod Playlist". American Humanist Association.
  17. ^ "Spontan intervju med NOFX". YouTube. Retrieved July 4, 2011.
  18. ^ "Fat Mike's Not-So-Punk Restaurant Thistle Hill, Now Open in Park Slope!". VillageVoice.com. May 10, 2010.
  19. ^ "NOFX'S Fat Mike lives a deep S&M lifestyle". Noisey. August 1, 2012.
  20. ^ How To Explain Awkward Tattoos, From A Guy With A Golfing Dominatrix On His Shoulder Fatherly. June 30, 3015
  21. ^ "This is Fat Mike from NOFX. I got tricked into doing this..." Interviewly. January 28, 2014.
  22. ^ Anthony, David (November 7, 2014). "NOFX's Fat Mike assaults fan on stage, apologizes on Twitter". The A.V. Club. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
  23. ^ Carty, Sarah (November 6, 2014). "Footage shows NOFX lead singer punching 'drunk' fan and violently kicking him on stage... now he's offering to buy him a beer". Daily Mail. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
  24. ^ Hartmann, Graham (November 10, 2014). "NOFX Fan That Got Kicked in the Face by Fat Mike Gets a Beer, Custom Shirt and Revenge!". Loudwire. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
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