A battered four-track recorder sits on a fold-out table with a unidirectional fostex microphone nearby, perched erect by a bundle of questionably off-color socks. On the wall hangs a mysterious curiosity which can only be described as a crayon drawing depicting circles, one inside the next, of varying colors. Like a child's rendering of a tunnel, the directional rotations of the planets around the sun, or psychedelic ripples in a pond. The only place to sit appears to be on the bottom half of a bunk bed, the top permanently cluttered with trays of cassette tapes, pieces of loose-leaf paper torn from a binder, and endless boxes of unstored clothing and books. Against the wall is a large metal locker with a little mirror on it. A television glares in the corner with the sound turned down.

Near the bed is a large electronic keyboard covered by a towel. On the floor is an acoustic 12-string guitar with an electric one laying against the wall. Under the bed sits another guitar case with a bass guitar on permanent loan. On the end of the room is a large bare apartment window, facing a concrete yard 14 stories down, and a little to the left, the roof and terraces of the connecting tenement building. The police sirens and traffic noise from the Bronx River Parkway are constant, barely muffled by the closed window. It is almost always hot in this room - always stuffy without a question. A half hour in this room will either have you thirsty, suffering from a stuffed nose, or losing the feeling in your legs from sitting on the bottom bunk bed with it's caved in mattress.

This room also serves as the main recording studio of The Out Of Bodies.

The owner of this "house of pain" (as it was once dubbed) is one Bronx resident, messenger by day, musician by night, Dan Banic. Not much is known about Dan since he slipped out of the public eye in the late 90s. Rumors have it that he may have finally accomplished contact with the aliens from outer space he had been trying so hard to connect with - and it's quite possible that we may never hear from Dan again. I've know him since my High School Of Art And Design days and all of my ventures with him have been creative, fun, and always just slightly out of control. Okay, maybe more than slightly. We would sometimes affectionately refer to Dan as an "untrained chimp" recklessly flailing his hairy arms about with impervious glee - always running on high energy. Last we heard Dan lives in the same Gun Hill Road tenement apartment building we'd periodically take our lives into our hands just visiting. Dan's uncomplicated life was always one worth admiring in some strange way. While others of us have married, divorced, remarried and have children of our own - Dan chose to steer clear of all those distractions and opted instead to pretty much stay in his room, presumably to record music - although no one can be quite so sure what it is he does. We figured if there was ever a chance for a full Out Of Bodies reunion which included Dan, that it would most likely involve a kidnapping.

Normal by comparison is Joe Vento (a simple man). Now a family man with wife and child, he left his home in College Point and lives in a little cobblestone house in Monroe, New York. Joe (a former New York post office employee who couldn't take it anymore, now a local health aid to the elderly) loves apes, dinosaurs and all aspects of movie makeup and stop-motion animation. Over the years he's collected countless latex masks, alien figures and assorted mementoes of the bizarre - so many in fact, he's currently in the process of converting the detached garage behind his house into a museum of sorts. He's named it the Planet Of The Apes Movie Museum. Joe also likes The Small Faces, a group with a vocal style sometimes similar to his own. A bit of a prankster Joe has been known to attempt sabotage during recordings of his band mates' vocal solos. Other quirks; he is often plagued with the nasty habit of subconsciously slapping his leg while he sings. A big time contributor to this website, he will often adorn letters and cards with a drawing of a dinosaur looking out from the side of his head, saying "have a nice day." He's so damn cordial.

Mark DeGross is the newest member of The Out Of Bodies and also a buddy from my days in Art & Design. Not too long ago, he moved to Valley Stream with wife, child and a mother-in-law in tow. As fate would have it, we've also both worked together in the Creative Services Area within a company so evil - that to even whisper it's name would mean eternal damnation to all around us. But it was within this time period that Mark honed in on his cartooning and Photoshop skills, becoming so affluent with his hilarious creations that he eventually decided to reveal his works with his own cartoon website, Juggernaut Suede and his Laffs Crusade! Mark has always down played his cartooning abilities - but his stuff continues to crack me up. Nobody draws funnier unsavory individuals, amputees, fat chicks, old people, clowns and pinheads like he can! On the musical side, that's Mark singing lead on "She's Got The Devil In Her Heart" and singing along with me on "Mull Of Kintyre" and "Beautiful Boy." Mark also would occasionally fiddle around with a bass guitar he bought - but ended up fiddling his old bass right into Dan's hands and that was the last we ever saw of it!

My longest friendship and an occasional member of the Out Of Bodies is Lloyd Goldfine. Since Elementary School Lloyd and I were always doing something creative together. We converted an old bar into a puppet theater in his parent's basement and amused each other with puppet shows, collaborated on our own comic magazines and sold issues throughout the school for 15 cents a copy. We would spend hours in each other's bedrooms creating improvisational comedy recordings onto cassette tapes - working ourselves into belly aches and asthma attacks with laughter. We'd dress up as monsters when it wasn't even near Halloween and create our own home movies, using chocolate syrup for blood and baked beans for guts. All of this well into our days together attending the High School of Art and Design - and beyond. Hours and hours, year after year, working on one creative project after enough. Frankly, I think we've had enough. Today, Lloyd is way too busy for any of that nonsense. He lives in Roslyn with his wife and three kids, and works, seemingly without much rest, in the movie/television production field and is one of the major players behind such popular crazes as Yu-Gi-Oh! and the new Teenage Mutant Ninga Turtles. Together we also share a deeply rooted dummy phobia.

...and me? What can I say about myself? I wasn't supposed to do this. I asked Lloyd to write this! But here goes nuthin'... I'm Donald Jefferes - a graphic artist for many years and a cartoonist since I was knee high to a midget. (You didn't think being a member of the Out Of Bodies was a REAL job, did you?) A few years back the wife and I moved out of College Point (the infamous, well documented birth place of the Out Of Bodies) with my son and settled into Hollis Hills. Ironically, not too far away from where Lloyd and I met, and very close to the park where we've shot our home-made horror films. (Ah yes, I can still hear the screams...) It was my great undertaking to create this Out Of Bodies website with the blessings of the other fellas, and to all of our big surprise, it actually got some recognition in the America Online All Time Hall of Fame as one of the best member-created websites! Imagine that! They called "Hey Mr. Sunshine" a Grammy winner and refered to our sound as "part Beatles" which was a nice acknowledgement, particularly because I'm such a big time Beatles fan who published my own Beatles fanzine, F.A.B. (Fanatic About Beatles) for almost 10 years. I'm a bit of a nostalgia freak in general I guess (Jim Henson's muppets, Universal Monsters, The Marx Bros, Uncle Floyd, etc) but for all my interests it's most likely cartooning that I've spent the most of my life doing. - case in point, check out Jzero's Sketchbook - Cartoons and Random Thoughts, another little website of mine you're bound to find interesting (I mean, if you like that sort of thing!).

I had a blast putting this little site together for you (well, for the most part anyway)... and before signing off I hope you make sure to visit all the little nooks and crannies inside! There's a lot more to see and hear (including a few surprises to come if we can just get Dan to come out of his room) so make sure to check back soon, ya hear?