jason "jason" weinberg a/k/a jabanga bingelow

when i first bought a computer and went online in 2000 i created a netscape homepage where i  added photos and wrote autobiographical sketches. aol was in its heyday back then (it came with almost every computer for free they eventually actually bought and later deleted netscape and my netscape homepage) but social networking as we know it today really didn't exist then (napster was however in its full illegal glory though and o.g. napster was the shit). years later when  i became hooked on myspace (after a fleeting appearance on the dying freindster) i transferred a bunch of those stories to the blog section of my myspace. now myspace is a ghost town while we all hang on facebook (google tried to get us to leave for google + but as of now facebook  has held onto us) but having experienced having my old netscape homepage and all it contained  unceremoniously dumped i recently visited myspace and grabbed all the stories that were there. for some reason all the stories from the south bridgton farmhouse in the 80s weren't there but i have transferred everything that was here. pretty sure i stll have the farmhouse stories on the harddrive of my original computer or on the external hard-drive i moved everything from there too so i will try to find them and add them here. i also noticed i never wrote a story about deep '96 which was  one of the more profound nights of my life so maybe i'll try to tackle that one sometime. anyway,  if your sitting around bored, or you just want to know more about me, here some of those autobiographical sketches i wrote about myself way back when...

deep january 1993

There are a million places I could start this story. I'll start it at the bar at Shawnee Peak, where I once spent a tremendous amount of time. I was in my first week of learning to snowboard, and well, the first week or two you really take a beating. I was also probably hung-over as well, as I often was those days (I love my friends from back then but we were all a bunch of raging alcoholics). Some kind of a news report came on TV about raves. There was something in it about smart drinks and I pronounced to the bartender that I could really use a smart drink. I was somewhat familiar with smart drinks and raves because Madeleine and Phil had been going to raves in San Francisco, but the news story was a real primer in raving. It was interesting because in 1977 I had seen a news story about the punk rock scene and a week later I was the drummer in Tapeworm. I had seen ads for acidhouse night at Kris Clark's Zoots night club but with my acidhead days long behind me it hadn't interested me. It turned out, however, that Kris was throwing a full on rave that Saturday night and I knew I had to be there. I had met Chandra the previous summer through her friend Erin whose older brother Shawn was my roommate that summer. They had had another friend Becky who happened to answer my ad for a roommate in the Bridgton News after Shawn moved out. Chandra, who technically lived with her Mom started spending every night with us and it was really, really fun. Erin was going to college in Orono. I had this somewhat rave inspired Shriekback CD called Sacred City and Chandra was hooked on it. I also had Jah Wobble's Rising Above Bedlam which featured Sinead O'Conner on the incredible track Visions of You and Chandra loved it. Pretty hip for a young girl from Bridgton. I tried to round up a crowd to go but somehow it wound up being just Chandra and I. My old friend Amy was friends with Kris Clark (his wife Cindy worked with Amy at the Pepperclub) and we were supposed to meet Amy and her friend Sabine at Amy's apartment and head over together. We arrived at the magnificent old Fore Street warehouse (Portland Yacht Services) to see crowds and police and hearing the thump-thumping through the walls and seeing the lights through the windows. As we headed in I quickly realized we most certainly weren't in Bridgton anymore. I had lived in the country so long I was quickly soaking up the crowds and the culture. And the Music! I really had no idea how incredibly cool the music was going to be. Back then it was all about the music and the people and even though Kris had a star-studded line-up the DJs weren't up under the spotlights or anything. Unlike a rock concert the focus was never on the stage and the crowd evolved into a huge circle. I was at the party all of like five minutes when Amy introduced me to Kris. I felt like I was home again. I looked up and there was Chandra under the lights dancing like an egyptian goddess with flashbulbs and cameras all around her (the above picture captures that moment forever and was delivered to me by Kris the day of Deep '96). It was an amazing night and my life really changed that night. I realized what a rut my Bridgton lifestyle had become for me and vowed to reawaken and change. Was it the smart drinks? I don't think so, the girl who ran Kris' bar before me, Lee, made terrible drinks that tasted awful, although she did use the Durk and Sandy products I later used. It was the VIBE! Parties back then had this incredible almost religious revival type fervor to them. We really felt like we could change the world. And do you know what? My world changed. I remember sitting on Forest Avenue with Chandra waiting for a freight train to cross and the clicketty clack of the train became an extension of the party as we congratulated each other for pulling it off. Two days later I was in a tree at Gyger's Orchard pruning an apple tree when I came up with the Excellent Drinks name and idea (Lee's drinks were really bad after all) and walked right out of the orchard to call Madeleine about getting Smart Powders. I decided to quit drinking and after a raging bender with my brother-in-law Rick and my crazy British friend Ben, I went on the wagon (this lasted 3 1/2 years until Michele and I drank champagne together to celebrate our love). In search of more I went to Zoots the next weekend for the first time and Kris introduced me to Dale Charles who sold me two tapes which I spent the rest of the Winter snowboarding madly to. The next morning I tried to call Chandra and one of her roommates asked me to come over and that it was important. One of my drinking buddies and good friend Greg Hagerman had been killed in a drunk-driving caused crash the night before and Chandra was pretty much in shock. It turned out that Greg had just a few days before sworn his eternal allegiance to Chandra, proclaiming that he would always be there for her. I tried to comfort Chandra as best as could, talking about reincarnation and ever-lasting souls. We went to Shawnee Peak to the deck where Greg and I used to cook barbeques together. At some point as we drove through the country, Chandra turned to me and asked if we could promise to make sure our souls were together forever. Somehow, it seemed appropriate even though we were not lovers and hadn't even known each other that long. The promise was made and as best as I can tell has been kept. We returned to the farmhouse and played Visions of You with a profound new significance. Between quitting drinking and snowboarding obsessively, the weight melted off me that winter. I had just started the X painting above the day before Deep and began painting many of those smaller paintings somewhat effortlessly. I started making T-Shirts from many of my paintings. The Winter of 1993 was an incredibly magical time for me and it all started with Deep.

juicy july 1994

In July of 1994 Kris Clark threw an amazing party called Juicy. Excellent Drinks had made its Smart Bar debut at Kris' previous major party Ten, his 10th major event. Chandra and I were doing the Smart Bar at Juicy, which was taking place on one of the Casco Bay Lines Ferries. While I had been going to Kris' parties since Deep in January 1993, I was still just getting to know alot of the people. One of the first people Kris had introduced me to was Dale Charles, DJ extraordinaire, who had moved back to California and was flown in to spin for Juicy. There was a pre-party on the deck of the Porthole Restaurant and then there was going to be an after-party at a place that used to be called the Cage. To tell you the truth, I really don't have too many details to report about the party. Dale, of course, was unbelieveable. Chandra had been diagnosed with Hodgkins Disease (Lymphatic Cancer) about two weeks before so it was very emotional for us. The Smart Bar was below the deck as were the turntables. We were having a blast downstairs but at one point I went upstairs and to me that was the most profound memory. It was absolutely beautiful out, we were motoring along on Casco Bay, and the VIBE was absolutely unbelieveable. Everyone was so blissful and people were smiling and hugging and making out and sharing backrubs and it was just one of those moments...It was like we'd taken our act out of the warehouses and gone first class. Truly magical.

The after-party was also a blast. All of us hung out on Wharf Street waiting as the club was readied. DJ MGee who had somehow missed the boat turned up to spin with Dale. Dale, Chandra (who adored Dale) and I sat at a table talking. In the morning many of us were enjoying the sun (amongst other things) in the patio the club had in the back alley. The most striking memory of the after-party I have is Dale playing a track with flutes that he always used to play (I still have it on an early tape I got from Dale) and Chandra and I dancing to it with complete and transcendental grace. Chandra was so strong, and so, so beautiful.

experience june 1995

Let me tell you about four wild days and nights in June of 1995. Kris Clark a/k/a KC and the Sunrise Gang was throwing a boat party on Thursday June 22. Doc Martin and Dubtribe were touring (Onionz was originally touring with them but dropped out due to some problems he was having) and Kris had booked them to play on the boat. The previous summer Kris had thrown Juicy with Dale Charles on the decks and it had been completely out of this world. I knew Kris was tiring of throwing parties and the increasing drug use and increasingly younger crowd. I did not realize this would essentially be Kris' last party.

I had thrown summer solstice parties the previous two summers that had been a lot of fun even though it had rained both years. I was planning the 1995 edition for Wednesday the 21st when Kris mentioned that Doc and Dubtribe were going to be in town and might be up for coming to Bridgton and spinning. Since I wasn't paying them or anything when I passed out flyers I simply put special guests on the flyer. Now Excellent Drinks was running full throttle at this point in time and I was at the party every Saturday night and pretty much knew everyone. The whole winter and spring of 1995 had been very magical and we New England ravers had a real family vibe going on. While the previous two summers editions had been local affairs, this one was attracting attention from all around New England. It also turned out to be a beautiful day.

A handful of people showed up real early. We had no soundsystem or anything so I lit the bonfires and encouraged people to play drums and enjoy the grounds. I wasn't gonna truly count on Doc and Dubtribe showing up until they actually did. More and more people started to show up and as beautiful of a day as it was, they wanted to be entertained. I was pretty impressed by all the people that were showing up, though. I went out back and was banging on a drum when I saw some decidedly San Francisco people headed toward me. They were here! Kris apologized for the delay explaining they had some last minute details to deal with. I had planned on having them set up out back for privacy but they wanted to play in the field across the street so they could enjoy the view. I remember Sunshine of Dubtribe introducing himself and saying "congratulations" as we looked at the view and I pointed out that I just lived there. He commented that I must have done something right to be living there.

The soundsystem was quickly set up and the party was on. More and more people were showing up as Doc and Sunshine played to the setting sun. An image that people get of ravers (somewhat deservedly so) is blaring techno and raging club-kids but these guys were spinning amazingly beautiful soulful sounds that were echoing back from the hills. Adam Warped whose party Paradise that winter had been my alltime favorite big party was sitting in the field grooving amongst many others. I met Donovan a/k/a Disco D who was doing the lights on the tour who I had a blast with over the next couple of days. As it grew darker even though the scene was truly pastoral I became concerned about the eventual arrival of the police. I told Micheal from Montreal the tour manager that it was probably time to move it inside. My timing was perfect as a bewildered Officer Chadbourne pulled up just as we were heading in. There was a full on raging party brewing on the Burnham Road and he was probably the only cop on that night. I felt honored because I got to carry the legendary Doc Martin's record case inside.

Once inside the party went to another plane. They set up the tables right on the woodstove. It was so beautiful. The house was packed. Sunshine went on first. Plenty of people were still outside but the tunes were in. Donovan found my copy of Not So Quiet on the Western Front and let me in on the secret that Sunshine of Dubtribe used to be the lead vocalist of Intensified Chaos an early 80s Bay Area punk band. The reason I had that record was because Tom Flynn's band Fang had a cut on it and Donovan knew Tom. He told me about Neysa the Earth Girl the West Coast Smart Bar Guru and told me I should be getting my powders from her (he was right, the drinks I made with her stuff were vastly superior to the Durk and Sandy stuff I was using). Donovan later wrote about that party in his tour notes for XLR8R magazine and he described Doc and Sunshine rocking the foundation of the house. When Doc Martin went on it was in many ways a climax of all the living that had gone on in the 10 plus years I had lived at the Farm.

Most DJ sets build to certain crescendos and then break it down only to build back up to a higher crescendo. That night Doc just kept taking it up and up. He played on my Fisher Papa Bear stove for 3 hours as more and more people showed up and danced. My local friends TP and Nillard who had been to the previous solstice parties were blown away by this one. My old friend Kurt was there and completely mystified by our culture. The cops called once to ask us to turn the music down. I passed this on to Doc who chose to ignore me. Soon people's feet were barely touching the ground. It was truly amazing.

Doc finally walked away from the tables and Adam had the sizable task of spinning after him. He played some retro-disco and shortly after someone walked into my kitchen and introduced himself to me and asked if he could spin next. It was the one and only Sir Charlz who had spun at many a party I had been to but I had yet to meet. He is the perfect 3AM DJ and he kept the party going.

Around the crack of dawn the party started to wind down. Everyone had to rest up for the Boat Party after all. After the music stopped people still continued to turn up from the woods and the fields. Kurt sat out on the porch playing his guitar and singing as the sun came up. House music was still playing in my head.

Chandra and I were doing the Smart Bar on the boat. Chandra, who was always stunning, looked exceptionally beautiful that night. While the boat party was fun it never quite reached the height of Experience. I didn't find out till later that the business they had been trying to take care of the day before was that all of Dubtribe's cables (they do live performance, not spin records) had been left in Montreal. James, a promoter from Montreal, was bringing them down for the boat party but had had car trouble. He actually had to take a Water taxi to the boat and by the time Dubtribe played I think the stress had taken its toll and they were not at their best. The after party was at Zoots and was reasonably fun, but I had yet to go to sleep and was ready for bed.

The next night I was on-call at the Epicurean where I worked as a waiter but I was also supposed to do a party in Boston that had been cancelled and rescheduled. While I loved Mike Human and Chris Mellow who were throwing the party I was miffed at them because I had arrived in Boston for the original date with all my money invested in my supplies only to find out through hearsay that the party had been cancelled. So I wasn't gonna cover my oncall shift but when the Epicurean didn't need me I hopped in the car and went. It was a good thing I went, too, because it was in the old Boston Body Works and it was really, really hot and there was nothing to drink until I got there. I sold out very quickly and went to the 7-11 to at least get more H2O and check out the whores and transvestites while I was there. Pete Moss spun an exceptionally good late night/early morning set. I remember Mark Slater a/k/a DJ MGee showing up after the party was over to play his set. We went out to IHOP for breakfast and I caught some Zs at Mike Human's as House Music continued to play in my head.

So I was off to Hampshire College and its 25th birthday gathering. The Hampshire Affair turned out to be a bit of a bust but there was a good time to be had at Mark and Rachel Cook's in Northampton where I chilled with many old friends. I was doing Smart Bar at a party called Decade in New Britain, Ct. (outside of Hartford) and tried to talk them into going but I headed off solo.

Again the party was practically in full swing when I arrived and it was a big one. It was my friend Todd a/k/a DJ Pharaoh and his new wife Fran's wedding party (Todd would later spin at my wedding). DJ Dutch from San Francisco was the headliner and there was some Love from San Francisco going around that was simply the best I'd had since I used to get it straight from San Fran myself. It was one hell of a party and I had a really, really good time. The Smart Bar was jamming busy and I recruited some kid to help me. The girly girls whom I had just met and would later become my Smart Bar staff were there and I remember many smiles and hugs all around. Tall Paul who was a promoter from Boston was I think the only person beside myself who had been at all four parties and we talked in the AM about how truly amazing it had all been.

My sister Beverly and my brother-in-law Rick actually lived in New Britain so I had a short ride to sleeping it off. We had a wonderful BBQ dinner that night and then I headed home. Now I was used to the big party on Saturday and maybe a little dancing at Zoots on Thursday or Sunday or maybe going to Zoom in Cambridge on Tuesday's but those four nights were something else. And you know what? As much as I partied I felt on top of the world as I drove home not the slightest bit hungover or partied out. I really felt truly blessed to be part of such an amazing scene.

the crackshack fall 1995

Now lest anyone think I was so painfully naive about raving that I didn't see the dark-side, let me tell you about the Crack Shack. Of course, I had started out raving at Kris Clark's idyllic utopian Portland, Maine raves. When I first travelled to Massachusetts to Yellow which was Primary's second major party I witnessed Frankie Bones' topless silicone implanted girlfriend deep-throat a snake. I wonder if Eve got it on with the snake when Adam wasn't around. Anyway, by the Fall of 1995 I had been invited by Joey Ventura to do Smart Bar at a party he was doing in New Haven, Ct. called Farenheit. He was actually partnering with Adam Warped who had thrown Paradise with Sugarbear and Laura which was in Wallingford, Ct. and was an absolutely amazing party featuring DJ Dan's first East Coast appearance. Apparently, Joe had convinced Adam to partner with him for reasons that were largely financial. Joe really wasn't a bad guy, but he certainly wasn't like the ravers and promoters I had known before. He actually seemed to know nothing of Kris Clark and convinced me to promote for him in Maine. So I fired up my own info line and he actually shortened Excellent Drinks on his flyer to Excellent which became my promotional name. Some kids eventually started actually calling me Excellent as a nickname which I found fairly amusing. And don't get me wrong, I had a blast at Farenheit. It was just different. It was also the first of five events at the Crack Shack that fall.

The Crack Shack was right off of I-95 in New Haven, around back behind some buildings in a loading dock type area. It had 3 rooms and a back yard of sorts. It was kind of small but man Joe did some numbers in there. One big advantage I had was Joe set me up in a tiny little side room off the main dance floor and the water was out in the back yard and noone could find it. So I set up and I raged. I was working all by myself and I was right out straight and sold out early with lots of cash in my pockets.  By the time the party was over there were those little cello baggies everywhere. When the lights came up I was trying to stress to Joe the importance of sweeping up the evidence and he smirked at me and told me it was nothing to worry about as he paid some older guys driving caddies and lincolns.

Basically, that is why Kris Clark stopped throwing parties. When Steve Gagnon and I threw our series of parties shortly after that we prided ourselves on keeping the old-school spirit alive.  I wound up at the Crack Shack week after week for a while. Now perhaps it was immoral for me to do business in such an environment but I was selling vitamin drinks not drugs. And a couple of parties there were actually pretty good.

The next one was Joe's party Meltdown which was pretty much a replay of Farenheit. It was fun, I made alot of money. The week after that Rob and The Swing Kids lost their space and wound up moving their party Pure to the Shack. I didn't even work that party but by now was promoting for my Solstice Party Extract. The line-up was superior with Dale Charles, Eric Davenport, and Dante. I remember smoking a joint with Eric Davenport before his set and sitting on a couch listening to his set on the monitors and he at one point twisted my mind into a pretzel. Dante played really, really late and I think that about noon I was smoking a bowl with someone when the police came in and told us it was time to leave. Then it was a party called Pangea which was totally cheesy and attended almost completely by weird cracked-out Connecticut kids. We went because it was my friend Scott the Redneck's birthday and Dutch was spinning. Scott really liked Dutch's older house sets and now Dutch played trance but we planted ourselves by the tables and he really blew it up. Lastly, it was Sugarbear's New Years Eve party for which Excellent Drinks was prominently featured on the Flyer. Sugarbear actually hated that space and only held his party there because everything else fell through. It was way way too crowded which was of course good for me. I made out at the Smart Bar, but it was alot of work and the party really wasn't that fun.

If there were anymore parties at the Crack Shack, I didn't go to them. I did do a couple of more of Joe's parties the last of which was the pathetic party The Bomb. I was regularly booked in Connecticut in those days and really the scene down there was pretty degenerate. Every time we threw a party in Maine someone in Connecticut threw one against us and we always kicked their asses. From what I understand the scene in Maine eventually got as bad as the one in Connecticut. The Oddysey 2000/Metropolis where Steve and I threw Deep '96 and Michele and I threw Extra Extra eventually became its own version of the Crack Shack and led to Chief Chitwood cracking down hard. Not exactly what I had in mind when I climbed out of that apple tree and started Excellent Drinks.

exhibit february 1996

I have been meaning to write about the parties I threw as Excellent (w/ a partnership w/Steve a/k/a Pandemonium Productions) for a long time but it is somewhat challenging because as magical as most of those parties were it is hard not to also be a little self-indulgent and egostical in re-counting them. Hey, for that period in my life I was a bit of a big-shot. But there was also something very transcendental and deep about the vibe we New England Ravers were able to create at those parties. Kris Clark was such an idol of mine and that Steve and I were able to pick-up to some extent where he left off and bring such magical parties back to Portland, Maine was such an exciting thing to be a part of.

Immediately after meeting Kris for the first time at Deep back in 1993 in my state of manic euphoria I proposed to him that I would love to hang my paintings in his nightclub Zoots. He responded that he sometimes did show artists in there but it wasn't always a good idea to hang art in a nightclub. Saturday night February 24, 1996 was a very good night to hang my paintings in a night club. That was the night of the party Exhibit which was basically a dream come true for me.

The party had three rooms: the main room was in the old Warehouse space which was once Kris' chem-free club next to Zoots, we also had Zootz featuring my good friend Adam, as well as Chuck and Shannon, and the local boys Laree Love, Pete D and Kay all had the decks in the Elvis Room. Three clubs side by side for our entertainment pleasure. As for the main room, that's where the exhibit was. I had an open call to all artists but it basically wound up being a two man show featuring my paintings and those of Aaron Burns. The room was however the complete culmination of the creative and technical talents of many and the fusion that took place in that room that night was completely mind-blowing. One of the reasons we had come up with the concept of the party was in fact the white walls of that room. At Extract, the previous party which had that room and Zoots David Jury of Jerkyspacebodyoptics and Steve had decided to put the Intellibeams in Zoots because of the challenges of lighting a room with white walls. This time our plan was use the artworks to temper the whiteness. David, who was somewhat of an intense, unbeleiveably talented, lighting genius, spent the whole day programming the lights. Not being a lighting genius I wasn't exactly sure what he was up to, but he was working pretty hard. Steve had gotten his buddy Greg from Strand Sound to bring in the most incredibly loud and clear sound-system you could imagine. Steve himself was playing a little bit of one-upmanship with me. I had put together a pretty damn good line-up for Ecstract but Steve did the line-up for Exhibit, although I wouldn't have done anything differently. The real deal was that the heart of the party consisted of turn-table gods 333, Mgee, Dale Charles and Pete Moss in the morning. Aaaaah, Pete Moss in the morning. We also had the Excellent Drinks Smart Bar set up in there with some combination of Chandra, Jess Webber, Nikki, Sarah, Lynn and Rachel on the blenders. I'm not going to mince words or use any code or double-speak to candy-coat the next ingredient: there was in fact a significant amount of very generous gel-caps of 100% pure MDMA from a trusted source in San Francisco (as promoters we were in no way responsible for it being there, but it certainly contributed to the success of the party). The final ingredient: about 700 of our closest friends from around New England.

Some parties take a little while to find their vibe or kick off but this one took off right out of the gates. As an artist, a raver, a promoter, and a drink maker it all really came together for me on that magical night. To have all those magical people, dancing under all those magical lights, to all that magical music underneath our paintings was truly something to behold. It clicked early and it clicked all night long. It was in fact, a dream line-up for me and on the Strand sound-system they couldn't have sounded better. David Jury's lights absolutely blew my mind. The rythyms and patterns as those Intellibeams danced around the paintings and the crowd were so intricit as to be beyond description. The booming bass rattled the paintings on the walls. Not a soul wasn't dancing or moving. The Earth Girl's Energy Elicksure blended up by the Girly Girls of Excellent Drinks gave the crowd the fuel they needed to make sure it stayed on all-night long. It was in fact, an intergration of all the elements of my life and a night of heights a person can only hope to attain to in this world. Ah, yes, and Pete Moss in the morning. Need I say more?

jason's tapeworm story 1978

In 1977, Brian Beattie, Tom Flynn, and I were the Rhythm Aces in Quick Lick Rick and the Rhythm Aces, a jazz standard band. In the fall quick lick Ricky Schnieder took off for college, leaving us to play jazz on our own. We were also the rhythm section for the Rippowam High Jazz Ensemble. While Brian and I actually liked jazz, Tom liked Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith and pretty much only played with us because we were friends. We were also into fusion and bands like Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever, but we really didn't really have the chops to play that kind of music. We played Chameleon by Herbie Hancock endlessly, as well as School Days by Stanley Clarke, and our own little jam called D-Funk which was an improvisational funk jam played in the key of D (I am not sure if any reference to P-Funk was intended). We eventually started "making fun" of Black Sabbath and playing songs like War Pigs and such, as well as jamming out to the Munster's theme and Apostrophe by Frank Zappa. Jan Staubus, who we had met originally because she dated Quick Lick Rick was now working at Discount Records and datiing Scott Fletcher who wore ties to school and ran in the halls. He was basically Rippowam's only punk. Someone, I think it was Brian's bassplayer friend Wayne Zito, wrote a song called The Spider of the City that was really more metal than punk. Tom and Brian had copies of the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks and the Ramones' Rocket to Russia. We saw some cheesy cover band called Reality and the bassplayer had a Tapeworm decal on his bass. Tapeworm was born! We played the Spider of the City and a number of Ramones songs. T-Shirts were made, Jan's said Groupie on the back. Tom wrote Break My Face and I Wanna Die and we were on our way. By the time we played the Rippowam talent show we were really rocking. Wayne joined us on a $10 guitar which he broke during a blistering Break My Face. We also played the Ramones' Cretin Hop and Rockaway Beach. It was caught on video and a few years later at Hampshire College I edited it into a music video. We lost out to some guys singing Don't Know Much About History but we really ripped it up. We knew a guy named Ray Cipri (Sunshine) who had put out his own single. Somehow we decided to put out our own single. We recorded it in Ray's basement. We then added our nicknames: Brian "Macho Lead Vocal" Beady, Tom "Fuzzbox" Flynn, Wayne "Spider" Zito, and Jason "Jason" Weinberg. For $350 we had 200 copies made. It was all a tremendous amount of fun, especially since we were absolutely the only people at school who liked punk.

I left for college in the fall of 1978. Scott Fletcher took over on vocals and they became Safety Patrol, with a guy named Doug Karger on drums. They were really very good and even played CBGBs. At Hampshire College I played drums in a band called Alpo, which was essentially a supergroup of personalities with very little musical skill, featuring Eric Miller, Ken Feinstein, Claudia Keoze, G. Murray Thomas, Tom Hays and I. We had one song called Women Suck Because They Don't and we lasted one rehearsel. We evolved into MX and the Cruise Missiles which featured Tom, Murray and I. While Tom could really play the guiter Murray just banged on the keyboards as he moaned and groaned the lyrics. We had songs such as Bad Acid Rock (which was a classic written by Murray) and Used To Go To Hampshire which Murray completely improvised. The rest of the Tapeworm crew wound up migrating to the Bay Area in California where Jan lived with her family in El Cerrito. They all lived in a house in Emeryville together. I even lived there with them for a couple of months. Scott had an arty band called Sinequan (named after an anti-depressant he had been on) with Kathy and Jamie. Tom and Brian started playing as a duo called Fang. After touring the country, they went their separate ways with Brian heading back to Texas to form Glass Eye with Kathy and Scott Marcus (the second drummer from Safety Patrol) and Tom staying in Berkeley. Glass Eye were around for years and put out many excellent records. Tom turned Fang into a seminal Berkeley hardcore band (they had songs covered by such notables as Metallica, Nirvana, and Green Day) and Tom's record label Boner Records (named after Bonar Street, the street he lived on) was very successful and influential. All the early Melvins records were on Boner and Tom even played bass with them for a while. When I last saw Tom in 1993 he had an excellent band called Star Pimp which had Jamie from Sinequan on drums.

Somehow, because of the sheer energy we captured on vinyl and the incredible obscurity of it all the Tapeworm single has become one of the most sought after collectible records in the world. I don't know about Brian or Tom, but I was a major nerd in High School.

berkeley, california 1981

During the summer of 1980, after my 2nd year at Hampshire I jumped on a plane to Berkeley to visit my lifelong friend Tom Flynn who had gone to Northwestern in Chicago for like one week and continued on to Berkeley, where Jan Staubus was going to UC Berkeley and living with her parents in El Cerrito. Jan's initial college career hadn't lasted much longer (she later returned to UC Berkeley and was valedictorian) and she was working at Rasputin Records on Telegraph Avenue. I had never really gone anywhere on my own. Tom had his own apartment which was pretty impressive to me. While I was there I ran into Warren Hays walking down the street. Warren was a very smart and somewhat twisted guy I knew from Hampshire who had disappeared from Hampshire that spring after threatening to kill himself with cyanide if his ex Mary Ellis wouldn't marry him. He had just graduated from Hampshire and I think he was supposed to go to grad school at UC Berkeley that fall. I had alot of fun during that visit. Jan, Tom and I met up with my friend Beth Bellman from Hampshire (I had a wicked crush on her- she was a lesbian) and we went to Jello Biafra's birthday at the old Mabuhay Gardens. That little trip must have made quite an impression on me because next thing I knew I was on the phone with my Mom and Dad trying to get permission from them to take spring semester off to go to Berkeley. I was really floundering at Hampshire. It's free-floating lack of structure was very challenging to a lazy suburban boy like me and my supposed graduation date seemed to be hurtling closer and closer and I had no focus or direction. Things were not progressing well. So I hopped into my friend Winslow Hoffman's 1963 VW Bug named Henry and we drove through the winter weather across the country to Boulder, Colorado where I then caught a plane to California. By now the whole gang was living in a house in Emeryville, which is a town along the Bay bordering on Berkeley and Oakland (I believe San Pablo Avenue is the border). From what I understand it is now quite gentrified but back then it was pretty much a slum. Brian and his girlfriend Kathy had one room, Tom had another and Jamie and Scott Fletcher slept in the living room. I don't think any doors besides the front door and bathroom door were actually functional and there was one chair and other than that it was amps and musical instruments. I slept on Tom's floor. It was awesome. I called up Warren Hays who was now living in the real slums in West Oakland in an old Victorian house with a bunch of self-proclaimed witches. Rather than going to grad school he was washing dishes a block from campus and trying on his own to come up with a quantum mechanic theory (as opposed to Newtonian particle theory) for gravity or as he called it a Unified Field theory. This was basically where Einstien had left off. This is where writing about my life experiences becomes somewhat complicated. I have after all given this website address to my whole family and my boss at Starbucks. The fact of the matter is, throughout much of my adult life I engaged in criminal activity. I didn't steal or hurt anyone. I never even so much as smoked a joint or drank a beer while still at home with my parents. But my first weekend at Hampshire College I smoked pot with Warren and Mary. None of the crew from Stamford did anything but drink so I was hoping Warren might have some pot or be able to get some. Warren started saying that he no longer smoked pot and that pot was for lazy people. He did however, have something else, something even more illegal, something that Berkeley and San Francisco were famous for. I had done acid at Hampshire but it had been mostly unsettling and confusing. Not the right time or place, or not the right dose or both. So we headed off to the Berkeley Keystone to see some ridiculous band called the Psychotic Pineapple which was basically a bunch of guys dressed up like the Fruit of the Loom fruits playing acid rock. Suddenly I realized I wasn't in Kansas anymore. I asked Warren if we could go for a walk. The campus (which I became very connected to while I was in Berkeley) was nearby and we walked to an amazing Eucaliptis grove (remember I'm from New England) where Warren proceeded to guide me through a tremendous psychological and spiritual experience that changed me dramatically. To try to describe it wouldn't do it justice. After returning to Emeryville Warren went to sleep somehow and I walked the streets finding a mural on a warehouse wall of people enjoying nature and they were all moving and I just relaxed and watched the whole world melt. When I first arrived in Emeryville I worked with Tom for a while at McDonalds. We were the only white people there. I was working there the day Hinkley shot Reagan. I got a better job (I'm white after all) working at the Marrakesh Express on Euclid Avenue, a half a block from campus. It was a nice Falafel and Kabob place which also had an espresso bar. Things were pretty cool. We were going out nights to the punk shows that were going on at the time seeing Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys, and our favorite band Flipper. Tom and Brian took off on a tour of the country and the house broke up. Scott and I wound up getting a room at a transient hotel on Telegraph Avenue overlooking the People's Park and the People's Park Mural. It was really cool. So here I was, for better or worse, taking care of myself for the the first time in my life. I wound up moving to a very nice 3 bedroom apartment I found in El Cerrito with these 2 guys. I loved El Cerrito. I could quickly hike to the top of the hills and stare at the incredible view of the whole Bay Area. My window looked right out on the BART tracks and the "futuristic" BART trains would go wooshing by. Right across San Pablo was Richmond which was also very slummy but I never went there. Warren's friend Steve Parker and I tried to hitchhike to LA one weekend but we never made it. We turned around and went to Palo Alto and hooked up with a female friend of his who was in a band called the Frigidettes and brought her back to El Cerrito. That night I had my first bad trip. Steve was confusing me with his theory about "random prickly motivational factors" and his friend insisted on turning back halfway up the hills because she wanted a Tab. By the time we returned to my apartment I was having trouble communicating. I came out of it a few hours later. It was a learning experience. I really liked Steve. He was every bit as twistedly smart as Warren but much more relaxed. So I started to lose weight like there was no tomorrow. I was living in California and the fruits and vegetables were cheap and incredibly high quality. I had never drank coffee and now I was drinking straight espresso. I was also getting alot of support from Jan, who was somewhat obsessed with being thin at the time. I should mention that I was crazy about Jan and loved the brief period of time before Tom returned when it was only her and I out there. What's the real significance of this story? Wasn't I just another fool "finding himself" in California?  Was I going to return to Hampshire any more focused or ready for graduation? I remember my Mom crying when she picked me up from the limo from the airport minus 60 pounds. I certainly was excited that girls found me attractive when I returned to Hampshire. When Warren returned to Hampshire to visit he called me the ultimate Hampshire success story. The fact of the matter was that before this trip my life lacked passion. I was almost even sleepwalkng through life. But now life was an adventure. I had learned to love reading and immersed myself in it. I blossomed as an artist, drawing intense psychedelic primitive tribal faces. I changed my major for better or worse from film to painting (many of my cohorts in film went on to be tremendously successful, not to say I would have). I had also developed an intense love for for true nature and the outdoors. I loved to discuss philosophy, society and religion with people and looked at people who I used to think knew more than me as peers. So, yes, as much of a cliche as it sounds, I had gone to California and found myself. Of course I've lost myself many times since, but those are other stories...

jabanga bingelow fall 1982 and beyond

In the fall of 1981, after returning from California minus about 60 pounds, I met Sarah Stodghill who would have a profound influence on my life as well as be an active part of it for many years to come. I had been introduced to her by Pam Dalton, an ultra-hip New Yorker who I had known for a while. I in turn, introduced Sarah to all my friends one night at the infamous Mod 6 and she wound up being really close to all of us. She and I went away one weekend to Bridgton and I had thoughts that we were going out, but it didn't really turn out that way. Not too much later, my friend Warren Hays, who I had just spent alot of time with in Berkeley, turned up at Hampshire and he and Sarah fell something like head over heels for each other.

The following fall, after returning from Alaska even skinnier, I met Madeleine Altmann and you want to talk about head over heels, that doesn't even come close to describing what a perfect match we were at that point in time. I had come along way from the socially awkward overweight kid I had always been. I had really blossomed spiritually, creatively, physically, and was now in love with a beautiful and amazing woman. I was completing my studies at Hampshire with my only basic responsibilities being painting, going to critique classes where everyone massaged my ego, teaching art to troubled kids with Sarah, attending occasional committee meetings (Sarah was on my committee, I was on hers) and having the time of my life.

Sarah's Division III project was something called Bingelow which she had managed to get Aurthur Hoehner to Chair and Joan Murray (Joan is currently a regular customer of mine at Starbucks) and I rounded out her commitee. Arthur was my Chairperson also and Joan and Sarah were also on my commitee. What Bingelow actually was was Sarah's alternative concept to "Art". Sarah worked with found materials and creating environments. She had this spooky old shack by the Enfield parking lot that she did up and named the Bingelow Bungalow. I made an awesome Super 8 film with Madeleine and Shiela Manion-Arts about the spooky spirit (played be me) that inhabited the bungelow. Our trip as a commitee to "evaluate" the bungalow was certainly a surreal event.

Sometime during this period Sarah started giving certain people Bingelow names. I have no idea how this process worked, interestingly enough, Warren did not merit a Bingelow name. I was, of course, Jabanga Bingelow. Madeleine was ChaChaChi. Sarah was Wandaway. Dave/Dave Taub was Brixton Bingelow. Shiela was Stella. A girl I barely knew named Jennifer Spinner was Sally Flake and I think that was it. Just the six of us. Every time I saw Jennifer anywhere she would shout out "Jabanga!" which was just as cute as can be (so was Jennifer). Noone ever really discussed the significance of these names. I always have just assumed the names apply to what is really free in us, our free-being names. That fall I had gone to the infamous Hampshire Halloween party (the raves I would later attend were tame compared to these events) as a sort of beatnik bongo player wrapped in torn pieces of purple cloth supplied by Sarah and I have always considered that persona to be Jabanga Bingelow personified.

An outgrowth of the Bingelow clan was these enamel necklaces that Sarah started making after "settling" (if you can call it that) in California with Warren. My original and

very abstract one I wore for many years. In 1993, when my life again was in state of blossoming and rebirth (I had been turned onto snowboarding and raving simultaneously, as well as having met Chandra Carlson, another powerful influence in my life) these necklaces started getting recognized. Chandra and her close friend Erin asked if they could each have one. I asked Sarah for a few and she sent me a batch of about ten that were spectacular. Most of my close friends were quickly adorned with them. I was doing lots of small playful paintings at the time and I started selling them and Sarah's necklaces to everyone and I'm sure to this day most of my friends from that period still have either a painting or a necklace or both. That spring I went to California and visited Madeleine and Warren and Sarah and made ten necklaces myself. I made two featuring necklace versions of the Golden X painting I had given Chandra that also served as the Excellent Drinks logo, one for Chandra, and one for me.

Chandra and Erin took it one step further than the necklaces, asking me to actually join the Bingelow clan. I called Sarah in San Francisco and she called back a few days later. Shortly after Chandra and I had snuck away to our first Rave, Kris Clark's Deep, I gave her the Golden X painting, a rose, and her Bingelow name: Jolzangi Bingelow. Erin's name was Jo Jo Perroza. I could write a thousand pages about Chandra and how special she was. Let me just say that on May 18th, 1996 my partner Steve Gagnon and I threw a party called Deep '96 and that was the day Chandra passed away from cancer. A powerful thunderstorm passed over that night, striking the building and temporarilly shorting out the light show programming. While I know she is always with me, I miss Chandra tremendously.

I could have let Jabanga go by the wayside years ago. I'm sure most of the rest of the clan has. I can't. Why would I want to? That would be like giving up on my Youthful Idealism.