disassociate!
History

Disfirst.jpg (47018 bytes)
The oldest group photo, with Lawrence Sux and John Munera WNYU - 1993

2 drummers at one time...A couple of second guitar player attempts..a lot of rehearsal studios
Let us to introduce them all to you, one by one...

1. The Squirt/Smegs beginnings
2. The Lawrence Sux/John Munera days
3. The Tom/Bones 23 connection
4. Bedpad A.D.
5. The Alex Hernandez Dynasty
6. Joe and the Age of Darkness
7. The Dawn of A New Herb
8. Easy come, easy go
9. Bates Motel

 

The first pre-rehearsal/audition was Ralphy Boy, Squirt, Nick from Switzerland, M.M. Fury on Guitar, Roy Mayorga (Nausea, Thorn) on second guitar and Bones mixing sound.  This was the first try at assembling a new band after Jesus Chrust broke up. Squirt (Choking Victim) - The first drummer of Disassociate. The first song was written with Squirt and Smegs,  "Body", in August of 1992. At the time, the band was still jamming in Julian's (Public Nuisance) old loft in Greenpoint by the water. The first licks to the song came from Smegs. The lineup was Ralphy Boy - vocals, M.M. Fury - guitar, Smegs playing second guitar and Squirt on drums. This was the preliminary lineup, but only lasted for 2 rehearsals.  The band still needed a bass player. Ralphy called up his old friend from Connecticut, John Munera (Seizure), and asked if he wanted to check out the gig. John wanted to join a new band after his old band, Seizure broke up, and decided to commute from Ct. and give it a try. The rehearsal sounded good and John agreed to play with Disassociate. The band agreed that they needed a drummer that owned his own drumset, and continued to look. Squirt left with Smegs to start a new band. While Ralphy Boy and Fury were trying to start up the band, Fury had been working with Dank (Infradig) in a project called "Dank Sinatra", a band doing 40's and 50's jazz standards in a grindcore style. The drummer from Dank Sinatra was Lawrence Sux (Dank Sinatra, The Undesireables) a friend of a friend of Fury. Seeing that Disassociate was now drummerless, Fury asked Lawrence to audition. It went well and Lawrence took over the drum seat for Disassociate. After a failed attempt to get a second guitar player (Ted from Damage) the band was set. Lawrence and John played many good shows with Disassociate, and recorded two sessions with the group, the first at John Credo's studio on 2nd Avenue which was never completed, and the second at Redman's Dodge City Studios on 37th Street in the Music Building which was used for the first demo tape, Partytime. Nitebob engineered the Dodge City demo and helped us add additional "samples" and bass tracks and helped us mix it down at his 8 track studio on Van Dam St. All set to play the first big show with Misery and Social Outcast (Thanks to Jason for the band's first t shirt design) at CBGB, Lawrence was apprehended off the street and returned to Bellevue (!). The band never played the show and John decided to pursue his school career full time, leaving Fury and Ralphy Boy with no band. The Grey Zone - Without a drummer or bassist, Disassociate was at a standstill. In the interim during the Summer, Fury played second guitar with The Denied (Steve Chrust (Distraught) played bass in the Denied and Jesus Chrust; Fury and Ralphy Boy left Steve after Jesus Chrust broke up) while Disassociate lay in wait for new members. In August, The Denied opened for G.G.Allin at the Gas Station on Avenue B Sunday June 27th. Also opening the show was Black Rain, whose members included Bones 23 (Missing Foundation, The Plague) and Thom Furtado (Spitters). Shortly after the gig, Ralphy asked Bones if he'd   audition on bass. Bones suggested that both Thom and Bones check it out, and the rehearsal was set. Ralphy also invited Gina, a friend who played guitar player, to also check it out for second guitar. The union of Bones, Thom, Ralphy Boy and Fury worked right from the start. Gina didn't work out. Disassociate continued working throughout 1994. The band rehearsed at different studios for a while, writing the first bunch of songs while experimenting with live portable DAT recording. Soon after, Thom and Bones' house on Hope Street in Brooklyn was set up as the band's rehearsal space, right in the living room where they blasted for hours.This is where the picture on the inside of the first 7" cover was taken. Bones and Thom played a lot of shows with Disassociate and recorded for the first 7" Murder the Mind and the Fukt az Punx comp at Waterworks with Jim Waters engineering and Nitebob again producing the sessions and helping with additional overdubs and mixdown at his studio. Disassociate toured the East Coast only 2 months after Bones and Thom joined. Rob Lee from Virginia was the bands only roadie/driver and helped by using his van to drive the band. Disassociate only recorded one other session with Thom, at the Misery house in Minneapolis. (This session was demos of new material including the first version of the song Peoples) . The Hope Street studio burned down. No rehearsal space and Thom ..John Bedpan (Altercate The Senses, Malignancy) worked at Tower records with Fury. When Thom left the band, Ralphy and Fury asked Bedpan to try out on drums. It worked, and they rehearsed at S.O.S. and Tin Pan Alley to get ready for new shows. Bedpan, unfortunately didn't make it to record with Disassociate but appears on the video, "Years In Question". After time, things started to become shaky again. Disassociate played their Black Metal show with Bedpan, complete with corpsepaint, incense and candelabras. The band wrote some songs with Bedpan but he really wanted to move away to be a chef and left with his girlfriend to New Orleans. During the last couple of months, Fury was jamming on Bass in the Down Low, a band with his friend Joey Down Low and Jeff Fried Free. The drummer that was jamming with Joey and Jeff in the Down Low was Alex Hernandez (Fallen Christ, Immolation). When Bedpan took off, Fury asked Alex if he wanted to check out the drum seat in the band. He jammed with the band and it was all good again. The band played out of town at the punk picnic in Chicago and some cool N.Y.C. shows. The first CD, Controlled Power, was recorded with Alex at World music with Marc Dann and Nitebob engineering. Bob Barry videotaped the recording sessions.  Bob also did the editing and assembly for the Disassociate video, Years in Question, as well as numerous live shows..We mixed at the Cutting Room with David Crafa, assisted by Danny Lilker (Brutal Truth, Hemlock). One day when Alex didn't show up to rehearsal, Bones played drums and we recorded "Live in Singapore". During a show in Albany with Immolation and Darkside NYC, Immolation asked Alex if he would try out for them, because their drummer was leaving. Alex let the band know shortly afterwards that he would be leaving both bands to join Immolation. At the time Alex left, Fury was jamming with Darkside. When Darkside NYC broke up, Fury asked Joe Darkside (All Out War, The Voluptuous Horror Of Karen Black ) if he would like to try out. The band jammed and it worked out. Disassociate played their first show with Joe on only three weeks rehearsal at Wetlands in N.Y.C. with Cathedral. Disassociate toured the United States with Joe in 1996 and Japan right after that.. The second album was recorded again at The Cutting Room with David Crafa and assisted by John Hopkins (Piece Machine).  The second CD was finally mixed at Purple Light Studios in Brooklyn in 1997-8. Joe played drums on the first U.S. and Japan tour with Corrupted and Hellchild, but because of musical differences, left and Disassociate was drummerless again. Joe rejoined briefly, and played a couple of shows while the band looked for a new drummer. Disassociate even did a show with two drummers, Joe and Thom Furtado, drummer #2. That was fun, but didn't really work out. Thom moved to the West Coast and Joe left for good in April. Haroldo Mardones from Denver, Colorado, drummed for the U.S. tour with Corrupted and Hellchild - he played with us live on WNYU and a few other local shows before the tour. Haraldo's first show was at Stalag 13 in Philadelphia and his last show was the Brighton Bar in N.J - Some memorable Disassociate shows included - Ralphy's pink shorts, The camoflage show (which we've done many times now and also in Japan), The orange safety fence show at CBGB, The skinny tie show, opening with Blondie, The techno Pump Your Pussy opening, Bones broke his bass and walked off the stage at CBGB, The videos and the televisions, most notably at the Limelight in N.Y.C. with Crisis and Candiria, The cop killer show on Christmas weekend at Coney Island High with the Christmas angels ,with strobes in their heads, the video rig and the backdrop from the first 7", All the other ones! Bones bought a nice new 1997 White van which was used for 2 U.S. tours and numerous excursions here and there. Drummer number eight, Scott Bates is now in the chair. Disassociate 1998 US tour #3 is over and done with, and it went well. Japan again,  touring with Hellchild and Corrupted, and a new record - CD #3 with Steve Austin (Today Is The Day, Unsane) at his studio in Boston (Played the Titans Of The Underground show at CBGB in September, Steve enjoyed the show, said he dug the band, and asked us to come to his studio to work on our new material.) Christine Lenz did sound for a lot of our shows, and became the official Disassociate sound chick, code named Sista Blaze. MIA RECORDS came and went. We played the Milwaukee Metalfest. Bones and Scott said "Later!". Bones came back to play a few shows. We did a few noise shows with RalphyBoy on mic and sampler, Ricardo Sheets on tape loops sampler and Scot on percussion. Did a noise show at CBGB with 2 drums and percussion by Todd and dummer X03. We did a few shows with Colin Strange? RalphyBoy on mic and sampler Ricardo Sheets on tape loops sampler and Bass. Paul from Kill your Idols came in to play Bass from 2000-2002. Phobia downstairs at CBGB and we did a masks show with Paul upstairs at CBGB  (silver masks) Ralphy and Sheets started up again in 2004. Brian Alien started jamming with us in May 2004. Bones came back in October 2004. Mike Dynamite joined in 2005. Did a video show with music in Baltimore Jan 29 2005 using Lucid01 video stream. Did CBGB show March 2005 busting up computers with sledgehammers, skimasks and strobes playing our noize intro tape, 2 TVs on back of stage playing the Lucid01 video stream. Regrouped with ChazBones and played shows in 2008 and 2009.

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