Band History

     Several young men of high school age were highly motivated to play rock and roll music.  Some said it was for artistic release, some were looking for a respectable profession for the future, but for most... it was all about meeting girls.  Tom headed off with the brothers Brennan, while Dave and Duck threw in with a rowdy bunch appropriately named "The Corrupters."...

     Dave almost succeeded in getting all of the Corrupters killed in the small town of Craig, Colorado, by suggesting that one of the cowboys in the audience should perform a lewd act on a canine during an extremely loose interpretation of the song "Wild Thing" by the Troggs. That particular road trip ended with the ceremonial dragging of Duck's bright red some-off-brand electric guitar (that's probably now worth a fortune on Ebay) behind his Ford Fairlane for nearly 500 miles on the return trip from Craig to Longmont over Trail Ridge Road.

     The Ford Fairlane met an ignoble end in a nearly head-on crash in the snow just a few months later... on board at the time of the crash were Duck, Dave and Doug (another guitar player).  Dave and Doug were peeved that Duck had crashed the car, and completely forgot the TREMENDOUS favor he was doing by driving them, in the middle of a blizzard, to the sisters they were dating in Boulder.  It's possible, of course that Dave and Doug, COULD have been killed in the crash, but after all, they were guitar players, and this was 1965.  Guitar players could be found on any corner....

     Drummers, however, were a different story.  There were quite a few around, but not many good ones.  The "Corrupters" drummer (who shall remain forever nameless) was soon replaced by a young kid named Jimmy who could really pound the sh*t out of those things.  (He also happened to be Duck's cousin, but that's another story all together).  The down side of this transition is that the 'older' (we mean by a year or so) Corrupters didn't take to well to this sh*t pounder, and wanted to hang on to the old guy.  Duck, Dave, and Jimmy easily persuaded Pete Fenner to toss his hat in the ring with them and the Corrupters were reborn with a new sound.  Duck and Pete traded off on bass, Pete also played a mean lead guitar, while Dave played guitar and Jimmy pounded the sh*t out of things.  Duck also played a '62 Jazzmaster and a Thomas console organ.  It wasn't long before the Corrupters became Mary Jane Bann'd (a sign of the times).

     After a short period of time, a radical change came about.  Dave left for other pastures, and a Boulder bass player Bob 'Stubber' Griffin came on board and the format of Mary Jane Bann'd changed to a power trio (Pete Fenner on guitars, Griffin on bass, and Jimmy Hill on drums) with Duck doing the front work.  An underground newspaper review of the time referred to Mary Jane Bann'd as 'Jim Morrison fronting the Jimi Hendrix Experience'.  We thought that was pretty cool.  Pete picked up the sitar, and Duck added a Hohner clavinet and a harpsichord to the instrumental array.