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The Out Of Bodies began in the late 70s when two aspiring young artists, Donald Jefferes and Dan Banic, met during cartooning/animation class while attending the High School of Art & Design. In comparison to many of the students at A & D, both Donald and Dan may have been considered quiet (maybe even shy) individuals - so it's unclear what prompted Dan to one day bring his electric guitar into school to show Donald. But during a lunch break one day in the school's cafeteria, that's just what happened. Dan unsheathed his guitar from a case barely held together with electrical tape, and proceeded to amaze Donald with the ending chords to The Beatles' "The Ballad Of John and Yoko." Donald may have been even more amazed if the guitar was attached to an amplifier - but he got the basic gist of it.
Talking further, Don learned that Dan also possessed a 4-track recorder in which he could piece together songs of his own. Having already been recording comedy bits and creating music with his long time buddy from Hollis Queens, Lloyd Goldfine (who also attended Art & Design), he was already thinking about what they could all do together. The end of the school year was approaching fast, however, and the idea of creating musical collaborations took a back seat to other things.
Lloyd and Donald were friends since elementary school and together they shared similar interests. Whatever projects they came across throughout their days in school they'd usually finagle ways in which they could work on them together - regardless if they were in the same classes or not. This included creating and selling their own brand of comic magazines, which they named "Wow Ink-corporated", building their own "muppet" puppets, which they jointly performed with, and a good number of super 8 films they made which were also produced by their "company", Wow Ink. They hand-painted and sold t-shirts, performed puppet shows in their basements for each other's amusement (and/or horror) and took a particular liking to dressing up as monsters, for any reason but never limited to just Halloween.
Arriving at A & D, Donald majored in cartooning while Lloyd gravitated towards film making. As much as they could, schedules allowing, they continued to do those things in which they derived pleasure from. The comics, the movies, the comedy recordings, but most of all - just being silly. Being in different classes and not sharing the same majors, however, their talents strengthened in two different areas. Donald became more serious in cartooning and animation, while Lloyd's interests grew in film production. |
