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The Banana Convention (and the Fun Filled Evolution of the Most Original Band of 2005)
By Scott Baker Currently perhaps the biggest up-and-coming musical group in the Tri-cities, The Convention is fresh off its win at The Westown Battle of the Bands from only a few months back. Catapulting the group into a more serious bracket across the clubs and local scene in general, the win was followed up with two wins during the 19th Annual Review Awards held at Shooter's in Saginaw on May 2, one each for Rock Rookie of the Year and Best Original Band. Completing just over a year's worth of hard work since returning to the live Mid-MI scene, the scattered line-up of musicians that comprise The Banana Convention is beginning to maintain composure and is currently focusing on a new promotional DVD. They have high hopes a debut CD will follow, to be released by the end of the year. "We're coming up with more material now," said Josh Jekel, lead guitarist, known to fans as 'Captain' Tang Apollo. "We're thinking about it. We've done home stuff, but that's not really release worthy. We put out a couple 'just-for-shows' CD's like The Basement EP. They're all demos, really." "We're working on one right now actually," added Matt Nothelfer, known to fans as Thumbs Harvey, the group's traveling guru who appears at occasional shows playing keyboards and bass. "We've got enough songs for a record and right now we're trying to find the right producer." The revamped group sparked again in early 2004 after Jekel found a post on the Sprout and the Orange website bulletin board about the group. He promptly emailed an inquiry to Oily McBride, Jr. (aka Monte Nothelfer) the other guru half of The Banana Convention, who is featured playing tambourine, cowbell and vocals. Each member past and present has their own unique name to match their image. "He said 'we just have a drummer and a bass player"’” stated Jekel. "We don't have anybody else." "I actually founded the band with (former vocalist) Johnny Bravo (Bill Barrett currently of The Misunderestimated)," added Thumbs. As fate would have it, Jekel formed a duo with acoustic guitarist/vocalist Melissa Michalski for a show dubbed 'Jekel and a Girl Named Mel' around the same time he was Emailing 'Oily' regarding the Convention. It wasn't soon after that Michalski notified Jekel that she had sung back up on a basement track for The Banana Convention, unbeknownst to him. Excited about the prospect of having a full band, the duo joined The Banana Convention and played their first show nearly a month later. Fans now know Michalski as Mama NuJahn. "After about two weeks we got a hold of Shar (Molina) to see if she wanted to come sing with us," said Jekel. "Then we practiced for two weeks and did a show opening up for Rev. Right Time at The Arlington. That was like February 20, (2004)."
Molina, dubbed Mighty AfroDytee, along with Mama NuJahn make up The Banana Convention's duel vocalists, 'The Double Bubble Girls'. Up until recently, Molina played in Soundstream as well. "At the time I was going to be involved in (the group) Soundstream," stated Molina. "Three out of five of us decided to leave the band for many different reasons. The Soundstream thing was doing a lot of different stuff I never experienced before in music. It was a brand new door for me to walk through and I was really, really just overwhelmed by all of it. It was a really good thing for me. I learned a lot about myself as a songwriter, trying to be a songwriter." "On the other side with The Banana Convention, who I had been together with close to a year at that point, the work ethic, the musicianship, the opportunities (and) everything else that was going on that you need to have in a band to be successful was here. And that is such a good thing. My musical interest was more along the lines of Soundstream, but everything I wanted to be doing as far as progressing and being successful in music was happening here."
With 'Thumbs' out of town on business for much of the year, bassist/keyboardist Sean Drysdale, aka 'Groovy' Palm O' Poodertoot, fills the low-end slot. Drysdale mixes bass chops with drummer John Brown (aka Tucker Muffin) and is the newest member of The Bananas. Occasionally, Chris Howard (aka Fletch Bohanski) will fill the drum slot. "Matt has to go out of town," said Jekel. "He disappears every once in a while. Sean is pretty much our bass player now, but Thumbs will come back and play on the keys pretty much. They switch back and forth on a couple of songs." After staring the group's career a decade back with less than a handful of shows, the current Banana Convention has already done a few mini-tours trying to get the word out. They travel around in a short yellow school bus dubbed the 'Cool Bus'. "They did like two shows ten years ago," said Jekel.
"We've done a lot of
traveling," added Molina. "The only thing I've ever done playing out of
state or anything musically was choir competition. I've never been a part
of that kind of stuff." "We played the First Annual Motor City Music Conference at the Cork Town Tavern," said Thumbs. "The showcase that evening was 'Eclectic Bands that Defy Categorization.'" "In the Detroit News (we were) one of the 'Best Bets' to go see on Saturday night," laughed Jekel. "There were only eight other acts performing in the area that night and one of them was Snoop Dog." "They also came out and took pictures of us," added Michalski. Spending a lot of money on promotion, posters, and flyers, the group is willing to do just about anything to get the name out when it comes to promoting their live shows. They have gone so far as to even bring other groups into the area themselves from out of town. "We try to bring some bands up that don't ever come around," said Jekel. "We played with the Come Ons. They played a Saginaw Jamestown (Hall) show with us, and then they went and played Chicago and L.A. They were just doing a three show stint right there," laughed the guitarist.
"Matt designed the
website and Monte keeps it maintained," added Jekel. "Both the Nothelfer
brothers and Sean Drysdale are computer proficient to a maximum
degree. It kind of helps."
"That was cool,"
stated Jekel. "We had a good time there, especially with Bongo the
Gorilla entertaining the folks. We have different people (wear the gorilla
suit). It's kind of a hard thing to do all night."
The Convention's
latest promotional CD is a collaboration between Matt, Monte and Sean.
"Right now there are three or four videos on it. We'll pan through a whole
bunch of pictures throughout the years. There's interviews with the band
and stuff like that on the release." "I hope we start bringing in a little bit more of everybody's individual tastes and musical styles and backgrounds," she said. "Because honestly, that's all that this band really consists of. That's why I think it's very appropriate to call us a Convention, because you've got Monty who loves Elvis; you've got me who loves No Doubt and Janis Joplin; Jekel - the roaming guitar player, the homeless man who loves all sorts of music (and) you know Mel follows pretty close behind him, but everybody's got really different backgrounds. John was in a death metal band before he joined this happy bubblegum band," laughed the vocalist. "I'm the new wave kid, I grew up in that era," added Drysdale. "Everyone brings something different to the table and it all fits."
"We are really
across the spectrum as far as age goes, we range from 19 to 35," said
Thumbs’
"You're a Banana
when you get your gold tie," said Drysdale. "That's when you know for
sure." Check out The Banana Convention at the 2005 Review Awards
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