Hi there! George Trotter here with "Monkey Bizness"!
"Monkey Bizness" was formed the way most bands form, from another situation of some sort! We started as a four piece called "Four Play" back in the mid 1980's and our lead player was called away for family duty. At that point, "Four Play" became three guys monkeying around, and out pops the name "Monkey Bizness" established the same years and by the same team as "GTX" Studios.
In 1987 the original "Monkey Bizness" consisted of George Trotter on Bass and vocals, Mark Booth on guitar and vocals and Rich Sherman on drums and percussion. We performed classic rock with a bit different taste than we do today and did no country in this situation.
By 1989, Mark Booth and Rich Sherman left the situation for another situation and then enters Brad Pitcher on guitar and Greg Keena on drums performing for over 6,000 persons at a Cobe Laboritories 25 year anniversary party that took place in Baily Colorado at the old "A" Frame in the field to the left of U.S. 285.
Monkey Bizness transformed into a four piece, top 40 Country band late in 1989 adding and changing unique performers as needed for the situations at hand with players such as Chris Whitebread, Keven Lashele, Larry Becket (R.I.P.), David Olsen (R.I.P.), Lou Hammel, Tim Mahoney, Jerry Taylor, Tony Cic, Clint Moorehouse, along with Denny Karrick and Rob Oaks who first started with me as "T.K.O." otherwise known as "Trotter, Karrick and Oaks" as a three piece. Performing at many different clubs around the Denver area but we were based at "The Bonfire Lounge and Grill" (now club Aramonies) located on West Jewell Ave. at Wadsworth, rotating as house band with Mr. Crispy Nelson who is still to this day a respected musician in the area.
"Monkey Bizness" went on performing in the Denver area for over 7 years eventually being bragged about as one of the top ten "Top 40 country bands" in Colorado by the "then" well known "Country Nights Magazine" in their Septembers 1993 issue under an article named "Meet Monkey Bizness" published by Ms. Judy Hinkle. I'll scan a very yellowed (autographed) copy of mine and place it on my "Myspace page in an album I'm going to try to make up,, this is all new technoligy to me,, I'm old school and I'm a bit slow at adding things as I loose where I put things still haha! Just periodically check my page for updates.
See my "myspace" page at http://www.myspace.com/monkeybiznessband
For pictures of persons listed here, I'm going to make up a new album with special pics of special persons I have had the opportunity to work with. I've lost contact with most of these people and I always wonder,, "What are they doing now?" Some have passed on! I miss them all dearly as I gathered knowledge from each and every one of them!
If we could do it again,, it would be even better as we have all acquired more knowledge through the years!
I changed the name "Monkey Bizness" to "Up In Smoke" in 2003 because it explained what happened to "Monkey Bizness" after a very sad auto collision between myself and a drunk driver that put "Monkey Bizness" out of business temporarily! Also, when I formatted to gear up to rebuild the band, I had two other members who had had their own respected situations and they didn't feel it fair to name our new situation after something with primarily, just my name on it so after explaining what happened to my old situation,, Rich Hildenbrant, our new drummer picked up on what I said, "that my seven year band was up in smoke in less than two seconds", and thus the name change and the idea for that change while still having to do all the business as I would in my "M.B." situation no matter what the name was.
The new 2003 "Up In Smoke" situation didn't work! I believe it was because of a clash of personalities. Their good people, it's the constructive critisism that got misplaced somewhere that couldn't be handled. Too many Chiefs, not enough Indians as my Mother used to express such situations.
I regained my sources, went on to continue running sound for a few local bands under my alter ego of "GTX Studios" with bands such as "Horney Sasquatch" and "Mother Pearl" and I ran into a couple of musicians who wanted to jam out and start learning so I agreed to set in with them!
Three months afterwards, I was offered a one night only fill job for another musician who had cancelled their position with "The Castle Bar and Grill", supposedly just a one night event! I invited the people who had been taking the time to learn some of the stuff I had learned through the years and we brought in Dan Howe in March of 2005 to educate him on our style performing on bass. We now had George Trotter on Rhythms and vocals, Randy Kauss on Lead guitar, Dan Howe on Bass and Tomas Brown on drums. I already had thousands of dollars into advertising for the "Up In Smoke" band that had never gotten used such as "T" shirts ect. from the old 2003 edition so we decided to stay with the U.I.S. name because of this. Besides it was only for one night,, right?
The one night event which was the last Saturday of June 2005 I believe it was june 24th of 2005, was a blast and the club invited us back the next month also! I couldn't very well change our name now! After two and a half years of service with this club now, the rest is history and it was the most fun I have ever had as a pro musician. Now I'm hooked again! I swear it's a curse!
The biggest thing I observed about the people at the club, was that the staff and some long time customers did not recognize me by the U.I.S. name but still remembered me by the "Monkey Bizness" name after a 20 year period of time when we returned to this same club when it was originally named "Punch and Judy's and this is why, while were reformatting our situation once more,, I'm changing the name back to a name associated with a "quality" live music situation, "Monkey Bizness" since 1987! A mistake I won't make again!
I'm reforming again with myself, George Trotter, only this time I'm on guitar and vocals, Mark Gallen who joined forces with me in September of 2007 will be performing on bass and vocals and we're still looking for that third personality for percussion and drums!
See you at the party on Friday, June 20th 2008 at "The Fat Frog Cafe",,,located at 2530 W. Main Street in downtown Littleton Colorado. Time start is 8:30PM
Later my friends!
G.T.