Playing with Bandido/Puro Bandido from the Mission…….
Well, There is where I met Jose Mayorga. Jose heard me sitting in with a band there that night and if I remember right the bands name that I sat in was called, Beluga Wale. So after me sitting in playing a couple of songs I went back to the bar and that is when Jose approached me and said, My band can use a drummer like you. Oh yea’ I said and he said, Yea’! He gave me a tape and his phone number and told me to call him.
One week later I called him after hearing the tape. The band on the tape was Bandido and that was in the winter of 1984.
I thought that the band sounded pretty good back then and this would give me a chance to get back in the saddle playing drums.
Jose was the $ backer and front man and not much of a singer but he sure looked great on stage, the women loved him!! Bandido used to rehearse in the back room of Albert Giles’ mothers flower shop on Mission Street. That was a really cool place. Well that is what happened to me and I could not tell you it was 1999 in Seattle because there is more to come on Bandido and your other questions.
Bandido was the original name. I was with in the band from 1984 to 1997 then I left to Seattle and lived in Seattle from 1997 till 2000 to do my own material land CD, since Bandido was not interested with my songs anyway!
In 2000 I reunited with Bandido. The band had changed there name to Puro Bandido (pure bandido). I thought that was a stupid name and I still do! It was bad enough that Jose was a real bandido. Jose was a cat burglar and drug dealer. I found this out in 1986; I always wondered where the money came from? Jose would get us any music equipment, drugs, SIR rehearsal time and the recording time that we did at Fantasy Studios.
(Jim note; Jose Sierra, a conguero based around the Mission and who played often with Abel Zarate, had also played with Richard Segovia (Bandido timbalero) in a much heralded Latin band called TNT. Also, Segovia was in another much-touted band called Mabuhay, who apparently recorded an album’s worth of material for Warner Brothers that got shelved, due to record company inner reshuffling. Freddie Ancheta; bassist with Cobra was another instrumental player in that outfit).
Yes it is all true about Jose Mayorga, who was also the band leader and founder of Bandido band.It was the recording that was engineered by Fred Catero at Fantasy Studios in 1987. Jose paid for it all. Studio time, musicians, music equipment, S.I.R studio time, food, beer, drugs, and/or anything else we needed.
Jose loved his band. At last, the band finished that project but in 2005/6 the band recorded two more songs at a studio in SF of 3rd Street at Hunters Point. That was done/recorded threw Pro Tools and Jorge Santana got involved and helped write some of the material. (Donny Baldwin of Jefferson Starship recorded Latin Lover and I recorded Casa Bandido and the rest of the tunes. Jim note; both these can be found on Jorge Santana’s Here I Am CD recording, they are really raw, funky Mission style Latin rap and salsafied rock- both cuts are excellent!)
The Puro Bandido CD eventually came out in late 2007)
Yes, the band was into drugs. Shit, I can’t get away from that scene I thought to myself again but there I was!!! The band was a bunch of great guys and some good talent. Bandido did a lot of cool gigs and the band almost broke up when Jose Mayorga was assaulted at SIR Studios one night during one of our practices in 1986. Jose was in a coma for quite a while. He passed away not to long after that.
Jose had a big mouth and the way that he used to dress up was kind of a crossover of drag and/or a pirate look. Men did not like him, is what I seen when we would go out or do a gig. He had a unique way with women though, they loved him and men would not like that. We thought it was great but he did have a big mouth and since he could almost get anything he wanted and or he would push his weight around at times. I myself, along with the rest of the band would some times get so pissed off at him, that all you wanted to do is to punch his lights out, but you never ever did!
Would you believe that the argument was all about a song. Well, this ex-boxer that he pissed off was not a good thing I was there in the lobby of SIR when that happened. Both guys were arguing and you can just see it coming. Jose’s mistake was that he threw the first punch and the guy used his leverage of the fist coming at him. He just threw him over his shoulders and he landed towards the Leslie speaker and hit his head and then that fucker started to kick him when he was down. I started to stop him and this guy gave me look like, you are next. I will never forget that and knowing better I stayed clear and told the guy in charge that night at SIR to call the police and ambulance. Jose Mayorga was in a coma for months at the Laguna Honda Hospital in the city. After about a couple of years, he passed way.
JOSE, MAY YOU REST IN PEACE!!!
We, the band got back together and we carried on but the recording from Fantasy that we did, that by the way, which Fred Catero engineered, got shelved.
The Puro Bandido CD was finally released in 2007/8 titled, “we don’t need no stinkin’ badges”.
I at this time moved to Mexico in February 2008.
They got a new drummer and I do not know who it is for they keep changing drummers from what I hear???
Jorge Santana is on it and so is Johnny Gunn from the Eddie Money Band and other guest musicians.
San Francisco All-Star band was a fucken’ hot band!!! That was in 1985/86/97 round about that time.
We would get together without practicing once in a while when it was possible to do a performance around the Bay Area. Each musician played or worked with other bands so this was really just for fun getting together, we were buddy’s like.
Eric McCann on bass from the Al Dimiola band & Mingo Lewis’s earlier band.
Able Zarate – Guitar & Vocals
Norbert Stachel – Tenor sax & Flute
Mario Sanchez – congas from the Chepito’s band and recorded congas on that album that we talked about (???)
Richard Kermode -Piano
Rolando Sanchez – Timbales – Mario Sanchez, his brother and sometimes Pete Escovedo
Angel Orozco – drums
The last days of David Brown………..
What happened to David Brown! I believe, after all the fucking around and hanging around with no good people from the Tenderloin district or wherever? That is where I saw him two different times when driving thru the city to get to North Beach/Chinatown where I lived. Dave motioned me over from the sidewalk the first time and the second time he was crossing the street, I felt so bad but I kept on driving. David was not looking good. I had heard that he had contracted Aids and the way he was dressed both times when I saw him in real flimsy tie-dye material and lost so much weight that I did not recognize him. That was just right before he died. It was really sad to see!
What happened is that David finally contracted the Aids virus and passed away. It was just a matter of time. When I seen him last he looked so bad that I hardly recognized him.
David Brown passed away in 2000, was it that year? (Yes it was – September 2000 – Jim note) I lost touch with David during his last years. It broke my heart to see him going down and I knew that there was nothing that I can do. I would tell David to stop and get some help, I am and I did! As I mentioned to you in one of the previous questions, I fell back into drugs again and when I saw that I was headed in the same direction as David and knew then that I had to stop or I am going to end up like David and die! (Angel is now clean and sober since 2007, for four years- God Bless you Angel!) My dear old friend David; God bless you.
David’s funeral! That was a very sad day for me. Dave may have been lost in a crazy world of drugs and that terrible disease of aids but I’ll tell you one thing, HE HAD A HEART OF GOLD!!! I don’t care what anybody says; he treated me with much respect at least when he wasn’t lost, you know what I mean.
His funeral was in the city and I do not remember the name of the church or the preacher? It’s on the tip of my tongue.. (Jim note: David’s funeral was attended by both preachers Freddie Stewart (brother of Sly Stone) now with a church community in Vallejo, Ca. plus Leon Patillo, singer and keys on Santana Borboletta recording) Now a much recorded Christian artist and based as a preacher in Las Vegas)
Mike Carabello with Herbie Herbert was there and I think Greg did make it.
I went to the funeral by myself and took the bus that day. I did not go to the Interment in Colma. I was able pay my respect’s to Dave and my condolences to his family.
So relieved I was that Dave did not have to go thru all of that pain any longer. GOD BLESS YOU MY DEAR FRIEND AND MAY YOU REST IN PEACE!!!
Hi Jim! One more thing about 1999; I actually moved from SF to Seattle in 1997. Since I have family and good contacts for musicians, I went for it. Bandido was not interested to do my original material that I had.
I hooked up with Lee Oskar of the original War band and he did some gigs with my band. The band was a 12 to 14 piece band. We did some great gigs. Lee played at the Orozco band’s CD release party, WOW! That was great show. What a cool sound we had.
It rains a lot in Seattle and some gigs would get rained out. The summer time was and still is the best time there in Seattle. I moved back to San Francisco in 2000.
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