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Re: The Magic Christian Music Band (Produced by Andy Johns RIP)
I hadn't heard of Andy Johns prior to reading the following post by Jimmy, but his credentials speak for themselves when you see the albums he's worked on. In a career spanning more than forty years, he engineered or produced records by artists ranging from Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones to Van Halen and Rod Stewart.
The song and message originally shared by Jimmy Ashhurst (Ju Ju Hounds/Buckcherry) in memory of Andy Johns at his facebook page.
Since hearing of Andy's passing yesterday I've spent the night and today revisiting a lot of music. A ton of his work is well known, but I realized that I'm in possession of some that hasn't been enjoyed by anyone but for a tiny few odd persons.
Among those is a sadly-fated recording project that took place sometime in the mid-nineties, a year or so after the unceremonious fizzling out of the Ju Ju Hounds, whenever that was. It was named The Magic Christian Music Band randomly by Chris Robinson after we'd been listening to the Badfinger album called that and were super high. He added the 'Music Band' part... Hippie.
The band was: Mike Stinson on drums
Marc Ford guitars
Paul Rafferty singin
Craig Ross guitars
Ethan Johns - Glyn's son and Andy's nephew. The fuckin kid plays everything. really well. Infuriating.
Rick Richards guitars
...Billy Payne from Little Feat played on some... bunch of people were in and out...playing...not playing...Lots of the latter, for sure.So a bunch of tunes got recorded and all was great and fantastic and
everybody loved everyone and backs were slapped and cocks were polished all 'round. Problem was...there was no band. I certainly wasn't in any position to pay anybody since I was suckin on a shit sandwich myself, and all these guys had way better things to do. There wasn't anyone in town who could have played what they did on those recordings, not for free at least unless they were my buddies, and my buddies had already played it so...no band. No band = no deal."But we made a cool record and it's all done and we paid for it already and all you gotta do is put it out!"- say We (using 'logic')
"Screw you you miserable cunts!!" say They back at us (probably not really, but something that meant that)
So that was the end of that.
Soon after realizing what had happened, and likely also a bit during, I'd made the profound decision to just get really loaded and stay really loaded. Fuck it. That lasted for 7 years. Andy came over once and brought me groceries. He sat on my couch and told me I was gonna be ok since I had a roof over my head...which made a lot of sense then and still does today. Then he raided my liquor cabinet and drank everything that had alcohol in it including the weird asparagus digestive that'd been in there forever and I had to call him a cab, bless his massive heart.
Anyways Andy was there the whole time, produced it, babysat us, allowed himself to be babysat BY us, browbeat and beleaguered us...unbridled hysterics... basically all the while making - as Rick told me over the phone just today- "one of the best memories I ever had"
Soooo...here we are and he's gone and I'm listening to the only copy I have of the stuff now - It's a digitized version of a cassette version of Andy's mixes, complete with a blank spot where I pressed the Record button at a fucked up spot at some point in the last couple decades. I'm wondering where the master tapes are. I'm wondering how many people know what a "master tape" is. I'm wondering if anyone else besides me would wanna hear this stuff if it were made available somehow. If so, I'm wondering what I'd have to do to make that happen ...and then I remember. I remember I had put the Ampex reels in the trunk of the '65 Mercedes I drove to the studio all those years ago. I remember seeing them in that trunk time and time again over the years but never daring to take them out. And I remember that that same car is in my garage right now. - and I'm wondering what those tracks sound like.
ps. Andy is also the only man I've ever met who refuses to play poker unless everyone at the table wears a cowboy hat and a loaded sixgun, and the only man to date to have more than 3 televisions riddled with bullet holes in his backyard at one time.
Re: The Magic Christian Music Band (Produced by Andy Johns RIP)
Im really hoping those tapes get released 
Aside from the awesome song Jimmy already posted (above) this could be a little snapshot of where the Ju Ju Hounds could have headed had they not disbanded.
A second song posted by Jimmy on Soundcloud reminds me of the Hounds, it just has the same kind of groove to it. The fact that Craig Ross and Marc Ford are both on the unreleased album just makes it even sweeter for me as both were also guests on the Ju Ju record 
Re: The Magic Christian Music Band (Produced by Andy Johns RIP)
8 songs have now been posted here on SoundCloud Really wonderful music guys, hope some of you will check it out, it's just unfortunate that circumstances for its release are so sad.
Some noteworthy info about the songs:-
Mexico Way: This one may sound familiar to Buckcherry fans. I brought it with me when I joined the band and Josh and Keith took it in a bit of a different direction. It turned into Carousel [on 15].
Here's what it used to sound like. No comparisons please. I love them both equally.
Darlin I've Been Drinking: This is the original version of a song which later appeared on Marc Fords album "Its About Time", known as "Darlin I've Been Dreamin"
A comment liked by Jimmy on the original Facebook post suggests Jimmy played some of this material to Timo Kaltia (amongst others) as early as 1994. That actually puts it more inline with Jimmys "one year after the Ju Ju Hounds" comment, who disbanded in '93, instead of the 1996 date originally posted.
