Yoshi Walsh is still alive. Sorry if you got excited there. Nonetheless, the proudly slimy garage hero also known as Al Polk, best recognized for his outrageous antics with the band Streight Angular, does have an insane new book of poetry available, as well as a pair of albums—The Death of Yoshi Walsh and, appropriately, The Resurrection of Yoshi Walsh—plus a recently released group project.
We told Walsh that we would gladly spread the word about all of these developments—as well as his upcoming May 20 show and alleged plans to release some kind of project every month for the rest of 2017—under the condition that he wrote his own obituary for DigBoston and answered a couple of questions. Here goes …
What should transient folks just arriving in this city know about Al Polk?
Al Polk is not real. He was a dream some people in Boston had. Al Polk helped run my D.I.Y. record label Polk Records with me. He was some dude who helped promote local shows and played guitar in Streight Angular. We did Polkfest together at the All Asia for five years. R.I.P. All Asia, most of you will never know what a loss that was to the city when they tore it down. Very sad.
What’s your grind been for the past couple of years?
I’ve been doing a lot of reading and writing. I also have been directing and producing the Yoshi Walsh Show. I’ve been screen printing T-shirts and tote bags, writing a novel, working on a concept album, gardening, eating organic and non-organic foods, couch surfing, candy rock lollipops, smoking, drinking, swallowing anything I can get my hands on, and being a stay at home part-time dad. Also, killing it at stand-up comedy. I’m a pretty famous comedian now you know. I owe it all to Rick Jenkins at the the Comedy Studio in Harvard Square above the Hong Kong restaurant for giving me my big break! Stay slimey Rick!
Are you still Yoshi Walsh of Jamaica Plain? I don’t know too many people who can still afford to live in JP. You must be some kind of billionaire. Did you vote for Donald Trump?
I will always be Yoshi Walsh of Jamaica Plain. That is where I got my start and many people opened their homes to me. I don’t know where you can say I’m from now, I guess Boston or planet Earth is good enough. Most people figure out a way to live where they want to live irregardless if they are smart or rich enough. Everyone has a hustle. Some are better at surviving than others, that’s just a fact of life.
I try to stay posi and slimey [as fuck]; whether or not I have some coins in my pocket at all; money can go away in a second; more important to have a life full of rich memories and good slime times with friends and family is what I say. Also, I’m sorta close friends with Ernie Boch Jr. and Glenn Hughes from Deep Purple and they let me borrow money from time to time so I don’t have to be rich, just rich in life, rich with friends and staying slimey.
Tell us about The Death of Yoshi Walsh. Why die so young?
I was never young really. I’ve always been dead and I’ve always been alive. Life is relative. It’s a cycle. It’s just being recycled by the universe time and time again. Some people go into the light never to return. I like it here too much to leave. It’s mostly the challenge of living or not living that I enjoy. Dying young isn’t really that strange, most things never get to exist or even make it to an appropriate age to die, whatever that is. I was always young and will remain such until my dating hour. The young don’t know anything and the old forget everything. What was the question again?
You say this “book/album comes at a time where up is down and down is up in America.” What exactly does that mean, and where does your book fit into all of this?
Most people are depressed or super anxious right now because there is so much uncertainty as to whether we are living in reality or in a reality TV show. Facts are being distorted but we don’t know by who or for what reason. We as humans have reached a critical step in our evolution and it is mostly due to our own technology that we have created. We are surrounded by so much information, yet we feel helpless like we know nothing or at least everything we once thought was true isn’t true anymore. Gender, race, religion is all up for grabs.
Whoever shouts the loudest usually wins, but now there are so many voices can we even hear our own voice in ourselves? That is what my book is about—trying to hear the voice inside. Staying slimey and keeping it slimey has actually been able to center me in these times of confusion. Really it’s always been this way through history; this is our time. It’s the time of the memes. It’s the time of living memes.
You have promised to release a new project every month in 2017 from this point on. That’s not going to be easy when you’re dead.
2Pac did it, Biggie did it, hell even Jimi Hendrix did it. I feel anything is possible in the realm of possibility. Oh yeah, even David Bowie did it last year. I believe virtual me if not physically resurrected me will probably a have a presence online and in the physical world for the rest of eternity. Dying is just a phase, life comes and goes. I’ll be back soon enough. Maybe on a flashdrive. We are the children of the evolution.
You’re a creature of the Boston underground. As has been widely discussed of late, the underground ain’t quite what it used to be around here. What are you doing to keep things alive?
The Boston underground is very alive and well actually. Maybe you just can’t hear it. The city is so big and the artists cannot be contained. Every where there are shows going on, but I only go out to a few chosen ones … You gotta keep it slimey and if you know then you know [and] if you don’t then you don’t. Not everyone is destined to be part of the underground. It’s more of a choice if you really want to seek it out. You just have to listen close, it’s there if you want to hear it. Underground art and music is alive more than ever. More than we can even dream. Sometimes it’s good to know there is more happening in the world than besides what is sold to us.
So for a known so-called garage rocker, are there still plenty of garages to rock in?
Yes.
Can you bless us with a couple of poems from the new book?
Sure, here are three excerpts from The Death of Yoshi Walsh …
The Death of Yoshi Walsh
The Young cry
The old die
the dreamers dream
The heroes sigh
The rulers rule.
The Champions Win!
Everyone steals;
Time.
Big Party
Invite your friends tonight we’re gonna have a party:
With the head of state and the post master general and the anarchist and the terrorist and the dictators and tyrant whores and
the presidents and the treasures,
governors and the secretaries and the war mongers
and the poor soldiers who want to go to college
the bleeding hearts, officers and the filmmakers peace keepers karate instructors
Grab your bats everybody gets a turn
sweets will fall from the shreds that we have made
Sweets for everyone sweets for you and me
sweets sweets sweets and they’re free.
Invite your friends tonight we’re gonna have a party,
With the magistrate and the king and queen
and the nihilist and the communist
the realtors and the pharmacists and the specialists and the immigrants and derelicts
And exporters and the CIA and the IRS and the KGB
and the Maoists and the Cartoonists and the journalist.
Grab your bats everybody gets a turn
sweets will fall from the shreds that we have made
Sweets for everyone sweets for you and me
sweets sweets sweets and they’re free.
Children of the Evolution
We dance to the beat of the falling bombs.
We owe all our fears to our dads and moms.
We can’t put a price on the things we’ve done.
We buy and we sell our begotten suns.
Check out the Yoshi Walsh album release show on Saturday, May 20 at Out of the Blue Too Gallery in Cambridge.
Dig Staff means this article was a collaborative effort. Teamwork, as we like to call it.
