Jagunda (2001-2002)

I had been playing improvised music with ambibat and FrankenHöff since 1996 and I was jonesing to rock out again. So I wrote a few songs and enlisted some friends to help record them. I originally asked Hoff and Deluca, since we all lived in the city, but it was proving difficult to pin down one of them so I let it go – I had kind of assumed they came as a package deal...being Earl's rhythm section and all. Some time passed and I floated it by Jim Burns, Kevin Purcell and Joe Kollar. They were more receptive to the idea.

At first I was entertaining having two basses (Jim had been dabbling with the bass), but I still didn't have a drummer. Jim stepped up and said he'd give it a go. As long as I've known Jim he's always been playing drums on everything around him (ie: school desk, his knees, steering wheel), but I've never actually seen him behind a kit. Even when we were in the Barking Spiders I never really saw him behind the drumset...at least not seriously. But he wailed.

We narrowed down my potential songs and worked on four of them. Joe made it clear from the beginning that he didn't care for the style of music but he was still on board. I appreciated his candor and his willingness to play. His contribution was solid and he added a part to "Chill Out" which definitely elevated the song.

The guys also decided to use stage names for the project – they had their street cred to protect. So I used my Franklin Mint handle which Kevin gave me many moons ago.

Here we are practicing at Not Saved's studio on 9/10/01 – the day before all hell broke loose…

"Chill Out"


"Happy Birthday"


"2099"


When I felt comfortable we had the songs down pat I booked some studio time.

Here's what we captured...

[DOWNLOAD] Jagunda (2001-2002)
1- 2099
2- Me & My Ego
3- Chill Out
4- Happy Birthday
5- Surfin'


After recording the four songs I asked the guys to improvise something in the key of "E" – before dismantling our gear. Joe doesn't do the improv thing so he packed up while Kev, Jim and I went nuts. I overdubbed a bunch of guitars and actually made a song out of it. To me it had a Butthole Surfers vibe so I called it "Surfin'". In fact, I liked it enough to make into a video back in '04... starring Dick Van Patten!



Here's another video I made using clips from movies and television for "2009"...



I'm very happy with the Jagunda recording and still listen to it today – but I'm a little biased. I would've liked for it to become a real band but everyone went into it as a project so I didn't push it – I saw how far that got Bionic Liver. We did play live once for the Bellmore-A-Thon (which I'll get to at a later date), to make it legit, but that was it.

Thanks Ralph Pepper, Nolandus Cleveland and Sir Foggy Mirror for helping me rock out again.