Imperial Knights of Schism (Mike D, 1982)

[jimmyjrg]

Anyone know more about Mike D's band Imperial Knights of Schism?

They played a show Sep 5, 1982 at the 2 + 2, NYC which was reviewed in Maximum Rocknroll (1982 Nov-Dec) (https://archive.org/details/MaximumRocknrollNo.3nov-dec1982/mrr_003_phoenix/page/n23/mode/2up?q=%22beastie+boys%22).

In the Spin article from Sep 1998 (https://books.google.com.au/books?id=-5EbyHNqgkwC&pg=PA148&lpg=PA148&dq=%22mike+d%22+%22Imperial+Knights+of+Schism%22&source=bl&ots=-2n6r23Lot&sig=ACfU3U2W5eOgD_Yilu1JPAYpOPsmZJk-EA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjIkNms-MP-AhXf-zgGHcIoAngQ6AF6BAglEAM#v=onepage&q=%22mike%20d%22%20%22Imperial%20Knights%20of%20Sc hism%22&f=false) it also has this quote:

Darryl Jenifer (member, Bad Brains): We were fucking with Mike, trying to intimidate him — just Rasta shit — so they created this other band, the Imperial Knights of Schism. Instead of being fucked over, they started a band and made fun of our dialect and the way we looked. Mike put on blackface and a mop on his head — he had the balls to do that!

It also included the drummer of Regan Youth.

The only other mention I've seen is in MDC: Memoir from a Damaged Civilization: Stories of Punk, Fear, and Redemption, by Dave Dictor.

We played a few other East Coast gigs before heading back to
NYC to play with Reagan Youth and a version of the Beastie Boys called the Imperial Knights of Schism. They were taking the piss out of the Rastafarians, and the Bad Brains threw eggs intended for us at them. I started chatting with a few of the Bad Brains friends, and I said I wasn't looking to fight because I wished for it all to just be over. This kind of worked for all of them, but HR still looked at me hard, and I just shrugged

[jimmyjrg]

Found this in Going underground : American punk 1979-1989
by George Hurchalla, which kind of summarises the review from the zine mentioned above:

The Beastie Boys' biggest break came when the Bad Brains offered them the opening slot at the closing show of the legendary New York club Max's Kansas City. Darryl Jenifer of the Bad Brains recalled with amusement them trying to vibe out the Beastie Boys with Rasta orthodoxy, and having it bounce back on them. While the Bad Brains' vibing could work in racially divided DC, New York was such a melting pot of cultures living side by side that no one there was fazed by it. Mike Diamond rose to the challenge and started another band called Lucifer's Imperial Heretical Knights of Schism, wore a mop on his head, and spoofed the faux Jamaican accents of the Bad Brains. The Knights played an infamous show at the 2+2 club, on 2nd St. and 2nd Ave., in September of 1982. A7 club owner Dave Gibson was looking for a larger space, and 2+2 was a short-lived spinoff of A7 that only lasted a few months. Accompanied by Reagan Youth, MDC, and Bloodclot, the theme of the night was to take the Bad Brains down a notch. While Cro-Mags frontman John Bloodclot aka John Joseph was touring with the Bad Brains as one of their roadies, he and the other roadies formed a band called Bloodclot as a joke on the fact that whenever anything went wrong, the Bad Brains would denounce it as "bloodclot."

Mike Diamond was fronting the Knights, and read from a pamphlet called What Is Rastafari? while the band played dissonant noise. Pointing at different photos from the pamphlet, he quipped: "Okay, this is Jah ... See, here's Jah's grandma ... Check it out, Jah's best friend Eddie." The crowd roared with laughter. No one in New York took the Bad Brains' Rasta beliefs too seriously, and thought they could handle some roasting. Dave "Insurgent" Rubinstein, the singer of Reagan Youth, was playing drums with the Knights and introduced a song called "Floating in a Perpetually Fluctuating Sea of Schism," at which point Earl Hudson of the Bad Brains stepped up to the mike and declared the show over, warning, "We must all be held responsible for our actions."

This could further explain the "bloodclot" sample in Egg Man as inside joke from the Beasties.

[tuc70021]

I didn't know any of this, and it's all just so fucking awesome.

I love Bad Brains' music, but they always struck me as being pretty full of themselves. Little did they know that the kid they annoyed in 1982 was master troll himself, Michael Diamond.

[ClarenceAlabama]

I love hearing stories about the early days and still learning about them...

Here's a cool short interview about The Young Aborigines...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBfv48sn5Ho

[jimmyjrg]

I love hearing stories about the early days and still learning about them...

Here's a cool short interview about The Young Aborigines...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBfv48sn5Ho

Wow that's interesting there's some unreleased recordings from back then.