There were a ton of weird, wacky, wild multi-media projects created by the trio that included myself, Cory Davolos, and the late Jon Woodstock, but out of all of them Lard Star was Woodstock's absolute favorite.

For those unfamiliar, Jon Woodstock was an outsider artist and a 20th century avant garde provocateur all rolled into one. He recieved little 'formal' training in art other than a few high school art classes. His interest in the esoteric works of the 1800's-to-late 20th century was fostered by a desire to create a reality for himself that was far better than much of what defined his short dramatic existence on Earth.

Jon Woodstock never felt comfortable being on the fringe. He wanted to be a classic-style tough street punk/hardcore dude. In reality, he spent most of his artistic life as a vulnerable youth emotionally damaged by epic personal tragedies. During his most productive period (the early 90's), Woodstock's work maintained deep connections to far left wing political sentiments, and Maryland's incredibly strange Towson-Glen Arm movement (a movement which he helped give birth to). Without putting words into his mouth, I can only theorize when it comes to an explanation for Woodstock's desire to have a "hard" aggro persona, but one thing is for sure: his attempts to maintain that usually failed. This failure led him to freely delve into his subconscious and therefore create some wonderful timeless art that defies easy categorization.

Lard Star was probably the first ironic hipster hardcore band, and a band who despised the sheep mentality of the 90's hardcore/punk movements. The objection to such things was certainly a HUGE inspiration for our work. The three of us also were very open minded and we loved all kinds of art, so even though L.S. was a parody of punk/hardcore conventions we knew those conventions well, and we weren't scared to mix these ideas with plenty of non-hardcore punk ideas - nearly all of Lard Star's output was improvised; we rarely featured bass guitar; some L.S. songs only ever appeared on recordings and some were never performed more than once; dance, comedy, and slapstick pratfalls were all major elements of Lard Star's recordings and live performances.

Just like Jon Woodstock himself, Lard Star could drive you nuts, make you laugh out loud for days on end, make your heart skip a beat, and confuse the hell out of you leaving your head filled with more questions than answers. And if questions form the root of all enlightenment then I suppose you can say Lard Star is great because it presented your spirit and your mind with a fun challenge and a chance to better understand the world around you.

I'm not sayin Lard Star was the 'Finnegan's Wake' of hardcore or nothin like that (ha!!!), but it certainly represents the only time that Jon Woodstock was ever able to reconcile his dream of hardcore legendry with Towson-Glen Arm's collective vision of multi-versal harmony. Given the disparate relationship of such things, I guess Lard Star is at least amazing as an aesthetic balancing act, and a damn hilarious one at that.

- Mike Apichella, former member of Lard Star