Saw Majesty Crush numerous times in the early 90’s. What a great band. Remember seeing them at St. Andrew’s and David with his thin build and unique hair was intense and captivating, I remember at that show he had one of those big bottles of wine with the wicker covering from the base going half up the bottle that he would swig from occasionally. My best friend had a big crush on David.

They were different and great, one of those rare groups where all the members had something interesting happening: Odell Nails’ strong and dynamic drums, the lush overdriven layered guitar sounds of Michael Segal, Hobey Echlin with his compelling and melodic musical lines which often times worked notes high up on the bass guitars neck, then David Stroughter…like noone else on the scene at the time or ever afterwards with his great voice, unusual interesting lyrics and his captivating stage presence.

One of things that I love about David is that in a lot of the photos of the band he is behind the rest of the group, not out front like where you usually expect to see the lead singer. My friend who had the crush on David saw them years later around the time Kurt Cobain died and was telling me about a show that they did where they sounded phenomenal. One of those things where you just wish you could go back in time, right? What a group, I still listen to their recordings all the time. RIP David.

“in the early 80’s there was a band called ‘jodie foster’s army’ and although i never listened to the group, i identified with the idea of protecting someone who seemed so vulnerable. when jodie foster plated a child prostitute in film ‘taxi driver’, she inspired a deranged john hinckley to attempt an assassination on then president reagan, who had been a movie actor himself. the irony here takes on laughable proportions. remember, britons, the second amendment in our bill of rights is the right to bear arms. i swear that i don’t have a gun.”

january 23, 1995
david stroughter