Mike Park
Korean American musician and activist

Michael Brian Park is an American Korean musician and progressive activist. His musical ventures include Skankin' Pickle for whom he both played the saxophone and sang, The Chinkees, The Bruce Lee Band, Kitty Kat Fan Club, Ogikubo Station, as well as an acoustic solo project under his own name. After his time with Skankin' Pickle he went on to found Asian Man Records, a label which he has run out of his garage in California since 1996 with only help from his parents and friends. Asian Man Records supports mostly ska and punk bands. Park has used Asian Man Records to release his own music, in addition to providing a start for smaller bands to allow them to grow, including Less Than Jake, Alkaline Trio, and The Lawrence Arms. In 1999 he formed the Plea for Peace Foundation an organization whose aim is "to promote the ideas of peace through the power of music", something which Park has been trying to do with his own bands and with the help of other groups.
Park was the impetus behind the Spring 1998 "Ska Against Racism" tour. The goal of the tour was to promote awareness about racism and raise money for anti-racism organisations such as the Museum of Tolerance. The national tour included The Toasters, Less Than Jake, the Blue Meanies, Mustard Plug, Five Iron Frenzy, MU330, Kemuri, and Mike Park himself.
Plea for Peace Foundation
The Plea for Peace Foundation was founded in 1999 by musician and founder of Asian Man Records, Mike Park.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Mike Park” is korean American musician and activist. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mike, Park and Korean, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q113138. VIAF identifies the subject as 44119231. The Library of Congress control number is no2008130938. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996, 1999 and 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mike Park” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.