November, 1993, and I had just been unceremoniously kicked out of a band that I thought was going on to great things. Gregg Dobbs, our guitar player, who wouldn't have even had the gig were it not for my efforts, called me on Thanksgiving eve and told me that I was history. Moreover, he was staying with them. It was sort of a double whammy, and I'm not sure which upset me more...that they'd given me the boot after I'd spent a year with them promoting a CD I wasn't even on, or that Gregg wanted to continue with them, as opposed to further collaborations with yours truly. In the end, none of it mattered, because the band broke up and were quietly ushered into the halls of obscurity by an apathetic public.It was a harsh blow for me, but fortunately luck was on it's way.
Two guys who I barely knew, Mike Christian and Mike Hardwick, approached me about the possibility of forming a band (I can even remember where I was at the time...at a Subway restaurant). They had already recruited drummer Randy Hayes (who had just vacated his slot in the locally popular cover band Warren Peace). Now they were in the market for a bass player/songwriter. They'd seen me perform with my old band, Head, and I guess they were sufficiently impressed to seek me out and offer me the gig.
I had nothing to lose. Regardless of how good or bad the project might turn out, it had to be better than moping around feeling sorry for myself, pissed off at a bunch of guys who, if they cared anything at all about me, would have told me to my face, "Hey, you're fired."
So I enthusiastically accepted the offer. Within a week we were writing new material and polishing it. This band was not going to be like the dime-a-dozen all-cover bands that infested the state. We weren't in it to make money (necessarilly), so we didn't have to do that. We set out to produce and perform unique, original music...with maybe one or two covers thrown in the mix.
It didn't take very long until we had a good 10-12 songs written. GOOD songs. Certainly not what you'd expect from 4 guys who had only been in a band together for about a month. In fact, I'd say that the compositions I worked on with Mike, Mike and Randy were some of the very best I've ever been involved in.
Choosing a name was a trial. It's been like that in every band I've ever been a part of. It's really stupid, if you sit down and think about it. Everyone thinks they have a perfect name, but none of the other bandmembers like it. Round and round it goes, names suggested, names rejected. But though I say it was "a trial", it wasn't nearly as bad as it was with the other bands I've been in. When we decided on our name we were all 100% on the same page. We loved it:
What the name meant was supposed to be kept secret. Most of the younger folks who came to our shows had no idea that Johnny Bravo was the name Greg Brady assumed when he left all of the other Brady kids to embark upon his (short lived) solo music career. But the secret was not kept for too long, as Mike Christian, who was our singer, informed entire crowds of it's epitomology during performances. But so what? We didn't care. Back then we were all too stoned to care about much of anything outside of the band (and getting stoned again).
Our band developed a small cult following in the area, but we didn't go as far with it as we would have liked to (or as far as we were, no doubt, capable of taking it). My bipolar kicked in and I wound up in the hospital. When I got out I was so rattled that I could barely play my bass guitar. We tried to get the groove back, but it was no use. I have to give those guys credit...I probably would have given up hope if I'd been in their shoes. Soon I was avoiding rehearsals. The inevitable finally arrived and Randy made the decision to leave. He'd had an offer to hook up with Warren Peace again, and he took them up on it. I would have done the same thing, had I been in his shoes.
So, with that, Johnny Bravo took the long road home.
Until about a year later, just before Mike and Mike were to move back to Texas (from which they originally hailed). They didn't want to leave Oklahoma without a decent document of the material we had written as a band.
So funds were raised and calls were made. Next thing you know the four of us are together in a nice studio, laying down tracks for about twelve of our songs. By that time I had been able to fully recover from the aftershocks of my episode, so I was back in fine form.
The sessions went amazingly well, as we all missed playing together. We came at it with an extremely fresh approach, a result of the year of inactivity. The resulting album's worth of songs was stellar. We were all happy with it.
But alas, Mike and Mike (they were always referred to in that manner: Mike and Mike) were on their way to Texas. No turning back now even if they wanted to. So we parted company once again.
Who knows why, but eventually they gravitated back up to Oklahoma. I was overjoyed at this, even though there was no way the band could reform (too much going on with Randy, too much distance between me and them, etc.) . All that mattered was that these guys, who had become the best friends I've ever had in my life, were close enough to visit and, on occassion, jam with.
Randy eventually graduated from a Sound Engineering class at Rose State. His final project, the one that would determine his grade, was to re-master and produce the material from the Johnny Bravo sessions. He did a great job and we all have a CD to remember it all by. Who knows why, but we changed our name at some point between all of that. And so we are now fondly remembered as Jimbo & the Festives. Back in the early Johnny Bravo days we used to use the word "Festive" a lot. If something was very good, it was "festive". If the times were high, then it was "festive". The word was used so much that I thought it would be a funny inside joke to use it as the band's new name.
I would love to write, record and perform some more with these guys. But it doesn't look like that will be happening any time in the near future. Hardwick has moved back to Texas (again), Hayes is married and settled down, Christian is involved in two or three bands, and me...oh, I'm just getting old. The old fire has ebbed somewhat and I'm content to bask in the pleasant memories.
Johnny Bravo 1994, Left to Right: Mike Hardwick (guitar)...James Arthur Casey (bass)...Mike Christian (vocals)...Randy Hayes (drums)You can hear some of Johnny Bravo's music (and a lot of my other crap as well) at SOUNDCLICK.
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