Dead Monkey Lore
Originally known as "Nude Lady with Foam", the band formed in 1978 when Ken O'Keefe transported his drum kit to guitarist Don Carlow's house in Crown Heights, a Poughkeepsie, NY neighborhood. They were joined by Neal Spaulding on the electric bass. Two years later, Carlow left Poughkeepsie for a position at Carvel Ice Cream in Florida. Kevin Quinn filled the void and took over on bass duty while Neal moved into the guitar slot. It was then that the Dead Monkeys began covering material from Kevin's older brother Mike's record collection. A bar band to the local community, the Dead Monkeys were 4 track cassette warriors and managed to make strange sounding, lo-fi projects in whatever space was available. The band played on through 1989 before parting ways. During those last years, they took up residence on a bison ranch in New Paltz, NY and were often joined on and off stage by lead vocalist, artist and thaumaturge Rowan "Dave" Cutler, poet, artist and visionary David Grein, and axeman extraordinaire Krankin' Frank Kara (later of "No Brakes" fame) on lead guitar. They briefly reunited in 1994 to record another project, "Hot Dogs and Belly Dancers" which included several tracks recorded by Pete Weiss at the legendary Zippah Recording Studios in Brookline, MA. The remainder of the Album would be the last of the band's recordings on a cassette 4 track machine. In 2011, they recorded their first CD release: Coochie Kikuchi. Since then, Ken O'Keefe has been making an annual, summer pilgrimage to the US to reunite with Kevin, Neal and their old pal Pete Weiss of Sool and The Weisstronauts to do a few shows and a bit of recording.