I put together a pop-reggae band called The Juana Bees that performed at CBGBs. We recorded at Baby Monster Studios, where I was studio manager for producer Steve and his wife Jamie Burgh for a short time when they were on Bleecker Street. I did a small demo with Chris Spedding producing and some interviews on Videowave TV, a music cable show, performed with friend Craig Backel in another band called Radio Free Zone, and scored my first small film, THE DOORMAN, for Dee D. Baché who was studying filmmaking at NYU. I organized a screening of the film at the Pyramid Club and my bass player, Ramsey Maclahan, debuted his own band with a friend on keys he’d brought up from New Orleans by the name of Harry Connick Jr. It was his first gig in NYC and he had long hair and an electric keyboards strung around his neck. Six months later, he had short hair and was a huge star.

I also co-starred in my first feature film, FEAR, ANXIETY & DEPRESSION, opposite Todd Solondz in his debut directing effort. I received a rave review in the New York Times for that performance.

In 1988, I filled in as a backup singer with a friend from college, Alison Gordy, for Johnny Thunders at the Limelight. He wanted someone who could play a little keyboard so I did so. After the show, I learned he sought a bass player and I told him I was one. He auditioned me at a rehearsal at UltraSound studios, and a few weeks later I was touring Europe as bass player in his new lineup. After his death this lineup was referred to as The Oddballs, a name he coined, joking around about us on the road.

Jamie Heath, our sax player, was also from the States.

In the U.K. we met Chris Musto, a drummer with an awesome car, the kind you only see in the U.K., and a very young Swedish guitarist named Stefan (Stevie) Klasson.

After a rehearsal, we leapt from the white cliffs of Dover onto a ferry, passed through Belgium, and began the first of a series of concerts under the watchful eye of tour manager, Mick Webster. We were accompanied by The Vaynes, a band from Leeds.

Most memorable gigs (and sundry other experiences) include our appearances at Gibus, the CBGBs of Paris; the infamous Marquee Club in London, where Stiv Bators of the Dead Boys visited backstage, the last time I saw him alive; Perugia, Italy in the open town square following a solo performance by John Cale of the Velvet Underground; having dinner in a club following a performance somewhere in France with the late, unique Jeffrey Lee Pierce from the Gun Club; hanging with Patti Palladin after she guest appeared with us;

doing a cover gig as a duo with Neon Leon in old town, Stockholm, while off-tour in Sweden staying at his and Stevie Klasson’s apartment; opening for Siouxie and the Banshees at an outdoor festival in Lausanne, Switzerland (followed by a pigroast!); meeting guitarist Steffen Jahnke and singer Monique from their wonderful Dusseldorf band Asmodi Bizaar (they opened for us) in Munster, Germany;

hanging with the Vaynes in Madrid, Spain and the large venue there; the night John repeated the instrumental “Green Onions” a thousand times in Bochum, Germany, driving the audience insane; performing in Frankfurt, Germany where I lived as a child when my dad was in the army and some audience members thinking they were amusing doing “sieg heil” during our performance (NOT!); seeing Rembrandt’s Night Watch and the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam before a gig; experiencing the Acropolis and then being driven around on the back of a motorcycle to a night market by a guy who worked at our hotel in Athens. Greek rockers rioted outside the entrance to our venue and set a fire because some couldn’t get in; the Leeds, UK, Polytechnic gig (same place where The Who did their album Live at Leeds!) where bassist Jessica (Vayne) put me up in her home and I met her roommate, Johnny Crash, later drummer for the talented Leed(ian) Royston Langdon who hit big in the U.S. with his band, Spacehog (after Royston put in time at Baby Monster at its 14th Street location, where I was again managing, and secured him an internship when he first moved to NYC from Leeds!); opening for the Replacements at the Beacon theater in NYC; meeting the amazing singer/songwriter P.J. Burton from the Chocolate Bunnies from Hell in Winnipeg, Canada, who filled in as our drummer there (I later played bass for the Bunnies at a gig in Toronto!); seeing East Berlin with Mick Webster and the crew. It was before the wall was down. They checked our gas tank for spies!

It was during our stopover in Sweden I first met Jenny Bohman, a fierce harmonica player who sang like a nightingale. She came over to the states and I put her up. We wrote songs together she later recorded. She had a son and we stayed in touch all those years. This beautiful spirit passed away from pancreatic cancer, but before she left her music touched many.

Some cool film sidenotes: Dee D. Baché directed a video of one of my Spedding produced songs, “In the Night”, and later, on tour with Johnny Thunders, I walked into TV Scandinavia in Stockholm and they added the video to their roster. I watched it broadcast on television one night, while on tour, from a hotel room in Avignon, France. And, in FEAR, ANXIETY & DEPRESSION, I wear a wig in a couple of scenes done as reshoots between European tours with Thunders. I had dyed my hair black. One scene you can see this in is when I’m on the subway the first time I spot “Ira” (Solondz’s character).