Mad Factory is a band that it's unlikely that anyone else on Everything has heard of. So I'll do the writeup, mostly to get into Everything Quest 4.

I was the bass player for Mad Factory. We started out as MKULTRA, then found that there were at least two other bands with that name, so we changed it. A less obscure reference than we thought, apparently.

We played around the New York City area for about two years and recorded one CD called Street News. We played at places like CBGB - they liked us and had us back several times - the Lion's Den, the Spiral, and so on.

I still have about 400 copies of the CD available (cheap) if anyone wants one. The songs can be heard for free on MP3.com. (More specifically at http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/33/mad_factory.html ) The style is "Progressive Hard Rock" or "Progressive Metal" (if you aren't afraid of the M word), but with a distinct Japanese edge to it.

The story behind the name: While eating at a fast food restaurant, I overheard two tenagers discussing their school and how much they hated it. One said, "That place is a mad factory!"

I liked the image.

When we recorded the CD, I insisted on getting some stickers made up as well, and so we came up with a logo and had some printed up. The logo was a factory building, with smokestacks on either side, and a big scowling face. It was supposed to look "mad", but ended up just looking kind of constipated. It said "Mad Factory" in English and in Japanese.

The band broke up when the guitarist lost a lot of money in the Japanese stock market when that crashed. Since he never got a US work visa, he had to go back to Japan. Since he wrote all the songs, sang, and played guitar, the project ended when he left.

The band was:

Kazu Shiba on guitar and vocals

David Hodges { aka Actuary X} on bass and occasional backup vocals

Steve Loren on drums

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