Admiration and Respect
Jean-Michel was a very physical painter and would actually walk all over his paintings while working on them, which sometimes resulted in multi-colored footprints. He was really quite flaky when it came to showing up on time for anything. Looking back, I envision Jean-Michel as the John Lennon of our band, and Michael Holman as our Paul McCartney—both artistically aggressive personalities with very opposite personalities.
I remember sitting in the Kiev Restaurant, at Seventh Street and Second Avenue in the East Village, on a crisp September morning after an exhaustive evening at the Mudd Club. I had returned from Australia and was very interested in the new things happening in New York City. It was that night, to my surprise, that Jean-Michel and Michael Holman asked me to join their band Gray.
The band name came from Jean-Michel’s Gray’s Anatomy book, which he used in his drawings. In those days, I saw a young Jean-Michel as an artist who was full of potential and ambition. There were many young artists in New York City at the time vying for artistic attention and fame. I did not think he would have reached the level of fame he reached. Jean-Michel was out to make his mark, by any means necessary. To his advantage, he did have the gift of truly standing out among his contemporaries.
