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Part 1: An Act of Desperation Late Fall 1987 - Being sans bass player, we weren't sure what to do next. We didn't want to lose the momentum and visibility acquired at that point, so we flung ourselves into a new project, under the name Banzai. Cathi cooked up a cool logo and we started recording. There were two songs (that I sang) left over from the final Woodrose sessions, so we built the rest of the album around that. It didn't take long to get the project finished and released. |
Part 2: The Queasy Compromise Early 1988 - It
didn't really matter, because, Mick suddenly
found himself sans guitarist and Condition Red imploded. Greg had been their defacto drummer for a while, so it sorta made sense that we join forces. Step one: set about working on some demos. In retrospect the first mistake was not making it Mick's band. Have him front it, performing his songs or songs written as a unit. Instead I tried to integrate his thing with my thing and it didn't work as well as it could've. There was always a weird tension within the band that reflected in the music. The Davy Jones Letter Story
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 Banzai |
 Go here to peruse Banzai's recorded output |
Part 3: Beyond
Reality and Beyond 1989 - Before the inevitable breakup, I was able to corral the band into working on a second attempt at a linear album. The first attempt had been Freak Music's Guru Hamburger, but that was somewhat slapdash. This time I was gonna get the thing together. I recorded demos, the whole bit. And at the exact same time I decided to make my first full blown solo album. Tensions were brewing throughout all of this and as soon as we had spent a bunch of money on demos, pics, press packages and advertising, Mick quit to embark on his famous solo folk career. As the 1989 came to close, we (Cathi, Greg, Geofrey and I) got ready to move. Our landlord had been a royal scumbag, letting the place go to hell. We discovered we could keep our rent money in escrow, until the place was brought up to code. That never happened and so we put a down payment on a house in… Douglas, Massachusetts. |
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