The only group photo of Utopian that I know of: Shawn, Mark, Thomas, Carrie our band mom, Mile T and Mike B on top and Marc on the lower right. I can't recall the name of the guy in the red shirt but he was a friend.




From 1985-1989, Utopian began with Marc Majors as our new drummer.

We had named the band Utopian. This name, I had a hand in. We seemed like the perfect band, so it seemed fitting to take a name from a so-called perfect society.

We were known to practice in public parks and Baseball diamonds, wherever there was a power outlet until someone called the cops!

Later, we finally solidified the group with Mike Thompson, who filled that revolving door second guitar spot. Mike's brother Mark painted the huge banner shown in the image above which we used at shows.

We were saved from our nomadic rehearsal by Nahina, a guy who had a two story workshop in his backyard. This was great except for the fact that it was summertime! So practicing for hours in the Texas heat in that attic quickly got it dubbed the name: "Hell"! Yes we practiced in Hell!




Photo Gallery



Full Length mp3s from oldest to newest:



Thomas'
Songs



Psyche's- Shawn' Songs

Mike Thompson's first song, how awesome is that!



Tried and Convicted
Inside Observation
Fog in the Night


The Mange


Brainstorm


Collision


The Minister's Black Veil


Below is a practice recording of one of the last songs we learned that I wrote.
This deserves to be heard!



Final Darkness


A World's Song


Hummingbird

Things were wild in 86 and life turned on a dimeand all that rehearsal was beginning to pay off big time when we picked up mainstay Eddie as our drummer. We called him the "Tempo Master, because our newest music was fast, very fast, and he was always solid as a rock and as a Bass player we clicked in a big way. Shawn and I were brothers in all but blood and with the two Mike's playing guitar, it seemed that we had the combination we needed to go to the top.

This began the times in our lives that we call the "good old days" (again?). I wrote the most music I had ever written than in any other band. Mostly 50/50 with Psycho and Shawn writing a couple of tunes and alot of lyrics, and one cool song called Fog in the Night from Mike Thompson.

The increasingly difficult pressures of becoming adults eventually pushed the band as far as we could go. Everyone quit the band except myself and Shawn. I wanted to do this as a lifestyle and career, Shawn was a driving force in the local scene. Eddie had a new wife and daughter to tend to and comes back to play drums again later in the story. Mike Thompson went to become an Aircraft mechanic, Mike Bellamy was out of the scene for a fw years until he teamed up with Brian and Marc with a great comeback with EVIL.




Shawn and I take a major musical shift change with Viola Swamp next...