It was late winter 1979 when Carla Evonne (vocals, keyboards), Fast Frank (saxophone, guitar, vocals), Lee D’Buddah (lead guitar, vocals), Zirbel (bass, vocals) and Rick Skovron (drums) came together as bohemia.
Their first steady gig was at the club Huey’s in the Rogers Park neighborhood on the far North Side of Chicago. With nearly a year under their belts under the management direction of Robin McBride, who had held a role as vice president of A&R for Mercury Records, producing three songs and creating his own VU Records label to release their debut 10” EP Limited Edition.
With tracks “Automatic Mind” https://youtu.be/uiasunsrml8 and “American Life” https://youtu.be/nRTpneJnG-U getting local airplay, especially on the local music supporting college radio stations, the band started to play festivals and gain a slot as an opening act for the likes of John Cale and the English Beat. Their local popularity also earned them a slot with a track “312” recorded live at ChicagoFest on the WLUP various artist compilation Chicago Rocks.
Preparing to head back to the studio to work on an album, a small personnel change took place with Mark Wallner stepping in to replace Skovron on the drum throne.
With the new album Deviations completed, Bohemia embarked on a national tour playing clubs such as CBGB’s in New York. And with the evolution of music videos, songs “Empty Room” https://youtu.be/6_O5OfjmHMs and “Hydrogenic” were included on director Dan Dinello’s project Radioactive Love.
Their performances were energetic and captivating, ranging from a power pop new wave style to an alluringly enchanting vibe as represented by their single “Empty Room” that featured a smoky sensual sax from Fast Frank and the seductive lead from chanteuse Carla Evonne. With “Empty Room” as a lead single from the album, its flip side “I Wanna Cigarette” was recorded live at On Broadway for WXRT’s UnConcert series. Meanwhile bohemia continued to garner opening slots for national touring acts building their following.
An appearance at ChicagoFest in 1982 turned into a nightmare for the band, as management had booked them in a slot as an opening band for Iron Maiden. The crowd, anxious and overheated after waiting all day in the hot sun, did not take a liking to the style of bohemia and a melee practically broke out, fans throwing bottles at the stage.
From there, bohemia parted ways with McBride and opted for head to L.A. to record their next material at a studio owned by a friend of Fast Frank. Drummer Mark Waller decided he didn’t want to tour anymore, the group replacing his with an Oberheim drum machine. As a four piece, they played their way to L.A. where they lived for three months while working on material for what became their next release No Ordinary Moon. Not getting any bites from major labels, they released the three-song EP on their own Discos de Tinga label.
The band embarked on what seemed to have become their cross-country “perpetual tour,” promoting their new EP playing gigs from Arizona to Boston and New York. On their way back to Chicago, after a gig in Pittsburgh, Lee D’Buddah had enough and he opted to leave the band.
Back in Chicago, bohemia had to regroup and decided to keep performing as a three piece, choosing to fill d’Buddah’s slot with an Oberheim synthesizer that would lock in with the drum machine. Pressing on throughout most of 1983, their “perpetual tour” had them gigging and recording songs at various studios across the country and into Canada.
The fruit of that labor was their next record “All the Way” b/w “Love Turns to Stone” released as a 12” single, again on their own Discos de Tinga label, supported with the release with their MTV-style music video https://youtu.be/qR8hNnFXPt4.
After more touring came that fateful day on July 1, 1984. A show at the Cubby Bear Lounge. Due to tensions among band members that developed from too long a life on the road, it was Bohemia’s last performance even though they had finished a full album of material tentatively titled Red Fish Are Flying. That material remains unreleased.
After Bohemia, Fast Frank dropped the moniker and started using his real name Frank Raven when he became part of the Slammin’ Watusis. In 2005, he released his own solo album Chicago Breakdown and continued to perform locally with the likes of Jim Desmond, currently playing with the Jay O’Rourke Band. Lee D’Buddah also dropped the bohemia name and began being credit under his real surname Lee Budowsky and continued playing on with the Vidiots. He’s currently with The Hightones, a Chicago-based blues-oriented band having released Crossin’ the Blue Line in 2019.
In 1993 Carla Evonne teamed with Sanders Titillo, calling their act Portrait of Strange, releasing a CD project Secret Pictures.
Meanwhile Zirbel (nee Frank Zirbel), released the cassette album Anatomy of a Pig using the moniker Mental Insect. That was followed with the CDs Skull Tracks… in 1990, Two-Headed FLY in 1995 and Live at the Big Horse Lounge in 2005. A visual artist and filmmaker, his independent film Reptillian Calculations had its world premiere at the Paris Short Film Festival in 2018. Zirbel now operates his own studio/gallery at 3034 N. Milwaukee in Chicago.
Discography
1980 Limited Edition (VU VD-23/VD-1023)
Three-song 45 rpm EP and limited-edition 10” EP. Includes “Automatic Mind” https://youtu.be/uiasunsrml8, “American Life” https://youtu.be/nRTpneJnG-U and “Unconventional Boy”
1981 Deviations (VU VD-128124) LP
1982 Empty Room (VU VD-78225)
“Empty Room” https://youtu.be/Z97wBzYdvRo b/w “I Wanna Cigarette”
1983 No Ordinary Room (Discos De Tinga R11129) Three-song 12” EP
1984 Love Turns to Stone b/w All the Way (Discos De Tinga R11132)
