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Ron Sanchez writes...
In 1988, after playing out for a year or so, I decided that we needed to write some original material and record it. These early experiments resulted in three cassette only releases.
In 1994, we were asked to contribute a song to the first Hit The Hay compilation. I gave Jerker Emmanuelson one of the tracks from an album Colter Langan and I were working on a Rock Opera called Shambaholic. We'd been writing and recording for three years straight, but it was only then did I realize there was a concept brewing.
I wrote three more songs and the album was finished in November. A German EP, a single for Get Hip, a Montana band compilation and Hit The Hay meant that seven songs from Shambaholic had been released. By this point we'd fallen into the routine of recording whatever song someone brought in. Friends and visitors were often handed a guitar and asked to add something. We were just doing it for our own pleasure.With a couple of proper releases, I decided to push forward and see what we really could do. We still work the same way, recording all the time. When itās time for an album, we pick the best of the lot. The leftovers are rewritten, re-recorded, or the basic tracks reworked for future use.
With so many good songs offered up these days, the experimental pieces are more likely to show up as soundtrack music. The GLEA vault probably contains an albums worth of unused songs, and two hours worth of instrumental music.
With The Great Leap Forward and the one that will follow it, we've achieved one of the original goals I had when we started the band: Donovan's Brain as a song writing and musical collective. This has been a long and sometimes messy process, as you'll see when you read on...
For The Complete Donovan's Brain Story, Go To The Official Site