From the start, Josefus wrote our own music. We had a few early gigs at Houston's famed Love Street, but we also played free shows in parks and parking lots. We just wanted people to hear our music, and pretty soon we'd built a following.
Then someone wanted to put us on a big stage. We opened concerts in Texas for national touring acts. Next, someone else put us in a recording studio, and by the end of 1969 we'd finished our first album, but a little hard luck kept it from being released.
So we came up with a plan, raised some money, and in March we recorded our Dead Man album, released on our own Hookah label. We were indie before indie was cool.
That album got plenty of regional airplay. In the summer of 1970 we drove miles and miles across Texas headlining our own shows and opening concerts for major acts.
But all those miles took a toll. Our bickering became constant. We still did shows, but we didn't practice much because we didn't get along very well when we were together. By the end of 1970 we'd called it quits.
In 1978 we got back together, determined we'd make a new album to help erase the memory of that dismal Mainstream LP that helped break up the original band.
But hard luck struck again. Just when we were trying to get back into it, that "it" wasn't there any more. We had five songs finished, but financially couldn't keep fighting the reality. Disco was taking over, country had always dominated live music in Texas, and not many places were booking rock bands.
As the band broke up once more, we brought back our Hookah label and released two 45s. One of those four sides was Hard Luck, a song that would surface again forty years later.
Josefus had a long history of breaking up and then getting back together, sometimes years later. But in years when we did get back together, we were really together! We had fun. We jammed hard. And a lot of the time we made some good music.
When Josefus formed in 1969, I was only 19. The others were older, had more music experience, and they had plans. I was happy to just be the guitar player.
Now I'm the last man standing from the original band, with a collection of music, photos and videos we made during our many reunions. I'll be sharing those here on this new website along with clips from the upcoming new album.
I'll also be blogging in this section recounting the story of Josefus and how our music evolved over the past 56 years.