1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Click on cd above to buy through CD Baby or click on the button below to buy through PayPal Jonathan Powell a.k.a. D.J. Balance- Turntables, sampler, drum machine, tablas Jeremy Powell a.k.a. M.C. Mayhem- Tenor Saxophone, melodica, wooden flute w/effects, wurlitzer -The story behind The Ghosts- Boom, chat chat chat, boom, boom boom boom chat. The vibration is heavily felt throughout the dark club. The wooden floors there seem to sing along with the beat as the crowd of people move their bodies in a trance like motion along with the vibrations. Everyone there seems to sense a feeling of harmony and motivation towards life and each other. To thepeople in the crowd this music is what they have been waiting the whole week for to hear. This is also true for the two people supplying the music and beats to the crowd, D.J. Balance and his brother M.C. Mayhem. This is the time that they have been waiting for all week as well. A time to share their thoughts and feelings with others through their music. A time to motivate other peoples' minds and keep what hope they have inside alive. The club is dark, smokey and wall-to-wall with people, after all it is Saturday night on the Lower East Side, and there is standing room only. After finishing their second set D.J. Balance and M.C. Mayhem decided to take their break outside so that they could get away from the crowd and get some fresh winter air. It is now November and the peak of winter is near. The air is getting colder and more and more bitter as the night moves along so after only a few minutes outside they decide to head back inside club and warm. As they turn towards the club they hear a woman yell a out a painful scream. As they turn towards the parking lot where the scream came from they see a woman with long brown curly hair and a white mink coat running towards the street. As she gets to the street she suddenly falls face first onto the pavement after one of her long red hi-heels breaks. Right after the woman falls Balance and Mayhem see a tall husky man in a black suit grab her by her hair and pull her straight up until her feet are a foot above the ground. "If I ever see you look at another guy that way again, I'll kill you! Do you hear me ya' little bitch!?", he says as she tries to get her hair loose from his tight grip. "But I was just being polite to him you asshole! Why do you always overreact so much when we go out!?" she said as tears started to form in her eyes. "Ya' wanna see an overreaction ya' slut?! I'm done with you! For good! How's that for an overreaction!?" He yelled as he threw her onto the pavement. After seeing this Balance and Mayhem started to walk towards the couple to break things up and calm them down. As soon as they did the man in the black suit started to punch the woman in the face with his ring covered fist. As he pulled back his arm for his fourth punch Balance and Mayhem grabbed him and threw him into street away from the woman. "What the hell are you doing man!?" yelled Mayhem as the man brushed off his Armani suit. "Minding my own business, just like what you should be doin' ya' little prick!" he said as he started to walk towards the two brothers while reaching for something in his pocket. Balance looked at Mayhem while helping up the bloodied woman and saw the desperate look in his eyes. He then saw the man in the black suit as he reached into his pocket. Balance and Mayhem knew that there was a very good chance that he had a gun and that this was a life or death situation. They needed to take the man down that instant before someone lost their life. Balance and Mayhem wasted no time getting to the man before he could get his hand out of his deep pocket. As Balance and Mayhem threw themselves on top of the man causing all three of them to topple to the cold hard pavement, a loud shot rang out from the man's pocket. Everyone's heart suddenly took a giant skip as they looked at each other to try and find out what had happened. When Balance and Mayhem looked into the man's eyes they knew from the deadness of his glare that he ahd been shot. It wasn't but a few seconds before a pool of blood started to form under the man's right leg. By now the woman had run off from the frightful sound of the gunshot and only the three men were left there to decide the extent of the outcome to this now critically escalated confrontation. The man in the Armani had obviously been shot before. It only took him a few seconds after the gunshot had rung out to push the two brothers off of himself and stumble to his feet. The poor sap had so much liqour in him that he couldn't even tell that he had been shot. When Balance and Mayhem saw this they knew that this wasn't just some average Joe off of the street. Judging by the amount of visible gold he had on one hand, his greased black hair and his slightly oversized nose the two brothers were definitely guessing that they had just jumped on top of a genuine mobster. Mobster or not thought they knew that it was either their lives or his. For the next five minutes Balance and Mayhem proceeded to defend themselves with all of the strength that they had, and eventually knocked the man unconcious. They then put the man in their van and drove across the Williamsburg Bridge. When they got off of the bridge in Brooklyn they drove to the nearset parking lot and carried the man's body to a covered spot near the cold water underneath the bridge. they left him there in the cold, moist dirt, barely visible in the high moon's light as it overshadowed the bridges dim orange light bulbs. As Balance and Mayhem drove back over the Williamsburg Bridge towards the club on the Lower East Side, they both could not believe what had just happened. As they watched the many lampposts pass by the side of their van they both wondered how many more days they would both see after what they had just done. "You don't just beat up some mobster and leave him on a pile of mud in Brooklyn man!" Mayhem said to Balance. "We just got ourselves into some heavy shit man. I don't know if we're gonna' see the end of the night." "Don't sweat it man." Said Balance. "We did the right thing and we're still here, that's all that matters at this point. We did the right thing." They both knew that this was true, but as they looked up at the silky clouds clearing away from the full moon's blinding white light, they felt a cold chill come over the van as it crossed into Manhattan. It wasn't a temperature kind of chill though, it was the kind of chill that you only get once in your life, when you know something terribly wrong is going to happen, soon. When they got back to the club they made sure that they parked their van over the pool of blood that was now staining the cold pavement. As they got out of their van they were surprised to see no police officers or detectives walking around questioning people. Instead they found the parking lot looking just the way they had left it. They both figured that the cold night had kept everyone inside to stay warm so no one probably heard any of the commotion. D.J. Balance and M.C. Mayhem finished playing around two the next morning and decided that it would be safer for them to stick around inside of the club for as long as they could. They were'nt sure what was going to happen next. "Where did you guys take that first break, Idaho?" asked the club owner as he was stacking the chairs onto the tabletops. "Sorry about that Jay." Mayhem said as he looked over at Balance and tried to figure out what would make a good excuse for that long and violent break. "Balance forgot some cords back at the crib so we went to get em' but got stuck in heavy traffic." As the club owner locked the doors of the club, the two brothers finished packing their gear into their van and waved goodbye as he drove off. They were now the only car in the deserted parking lot as the high moon's light beamed down inside their van. As they looked up at that same full moon that lit up the Williamsburg Bridge after they dumped the mobster's body, they knew that they couldn't avoid their destiny, whatever it might be. It was now a half past four and the streets were fairly deserted. The two brothers had just arrived at a stop light a few blocks away from their apartment. As a subway train rattled down the squeaky tracks directly above them the light turned green and they proceeded on. "Oh shit, look out man!" yelled Balance. Boom! Before Mayhem could even take his eyes off of the road the two brothers found themselves spinning through the deserted intersection in their van. Boom! A few seconds later their van finally became idle as it slammed into a subway track pole. "Ugh. Man, what the hell was that?" Mayhem muttered while holding his forehand in his hand. "We were sideswiped." Said Balance as he pushed the passenger side airbag off of him. Suddenly they heard multiple cars screeching to a halt along both sides of their van followed by a drum roll of footsteps. "Aah! What are you doing!?" yelled Balance as he was yanked out of the passenger side window and thrown onto the now glass-ridden street. Mayhem looked over to the passenger side and heard a loud crack. Instead of seeing Balance there he saw a large cinder block and suddenly felt sharp pains all over his face. As he looked down at his jacket he saw a large sheet of glass on his lap. The next thing he felt was someone pulling him through the space that once held the windshield and thrown off of the hood of the van onto the sidewalk. "What the hell's going on!?" Mayhem said as he was dragged onto the glass covered street and placed next to Balance. "You boys fucked up real bad tonight." They heard someone from behind them say. "You'll find out what's goin' on soon enough." Boom! They both were out cold. Their bodies were thrown into two of the three black window-tinted Mercedes CL's that had pulled up along the sides of their van. The driver that side swiped their van then dowsed their van with gasoline and threw his cigar onto the van's hood. As he walked back towards his Mercedes the trail of flames slowly crept their way through the van. As the Mercedes dorve off car alarms began to ring out along side of them from the explosion of the van as they drove down the deserted street. The brothers were then taken on a long drive to an abandoned train car off of a run down warehouse in Newark, New Jersey. The drivers parked their Mercedes against a graffiti covered brick wall by the warehouse and popped their trunks open. One driver pulled Mayhem out of the trunk and threw him onto the sharp, gravel covered floor. The other driver proceeded to do the same with Balance as the two brothers were then dragged over the rust and nail ridden train tracks leading up to the abandoned train car. As they got to the back door the two drivers looked back to the other driver behind them. "Hey Louie! Hurry up with that stuff, the boss is waitin'!" said one of the drivers. "Yeah, yeah. This shit's freakin' heavy ya' know!" the third driver said as he proceeded to pull out a giant army bag out of his trunk. "Quit yer wining and be quiet with that thing!" the other driver said. On the side of the bag were the words "Medicine Bag". But judging by the amount of metal clangs that were coming from the bag as it was dragged over the metal tracks it sounded more like a tool bag. Once inside of the train car the men brushed off the few box crates that had survived over the years and sat down and waited. They soon heard another car pull up against the graffiti covered wall as they saw a set of headlights turn off in the dark. The rusty train car door swung open and a man in a mud covered black Armani suit walked into the candel-lit train car. "Yep, these are the punks", he said as he turned their bodies face up on the dust covered train floor with his shoes. He grabbed a rusty old bucket filled with ice cold rain water that had accumulated over the winter and tossed the water onto the brothers' faces. "Wake up my little angels. It's time you pay up for what ya' did to me!" he said as he signaled for the "Medicine Bag" to be brought over. "Where are we?" said Mayhem, as he woke up from the shock of the cold water on his cut up face. He then looked up and saw the man that he and Balance had left under the Williamsburg Bridge looking down at him. "Oh shit" he thought to himself as he soon realized that he was tied dwon to the train floor by his neck looking up at a man with nothing but revenge in his eyes. "Where's my brother?" Mayhem spitted out soon after that. "What did you do with him?!" "He's right here kid. Oh yeah, with that wire on your neck you really can't see anything but me." the man said with a sick laugh under his breath. "Let's get this over with, I wanna get home man." said one of the other drivers as he handed him the "Medicine Bag". As he opened the bag Mayhem knew that this could be the end. To the two brothers it just didn't feel like they were going to see another day. They knew that this ordeal was going to be long and painful, so they did their best to prepare their bodies mentally and physically, for death. The pain that followed was indeed great. The two could not even decipher what was being done to them or where it was being done, they just knew that they had never felt this kind of pain before. The two held on the best that they could, but they soon realized that they were not able to withstand the pain with the meditations that they had learned during their life. After an hour of exruciating pain their souls finally let go and left their physical bodies behind. Their bodies suddenly stopped twitching and now lay in a large pool of blood encasing them like a deathbed. "I think they're done." Said the man in the black suit as he put the bloodied tools back into their old dirty canvas bag. "I sure hope so man." Said one of the drivers. "'Cause it smells like shit in here!" They all laughed at the comment and walked over the motionless bodies through the stream of blood that seemed to follow them to the train door. As the last man walked down the steps he turned back towards the bodies. "What a waste", he said as he proceeded to wipe the blood off of his alligator skin loafers and then the old wooden steps leading up to the train car. The men were soon on their way back to New York heading towards the sunrise off in the distance. A sunrise that Balance and Mayhem would now miss. The two brothers had seen many sunrises though. They had always cherished being able to see one because of its' symbolism and significance to life. "With each sunrise comes a new day full of possibilities and opportunities" they used to say. They always strived to look at each day that way. Maybe even in death their belief in this saying could help their souls live on. In the nearby factory an old man had been staying the night and had heard the commotion coming from the train car. He was a modern day nomad who had hitched a ride on a freight train from Washington D.C. He was on his way to upper-state New York when the cops started to search the train he was on for drugs. He found this warehouse in the middle of the night and decided to stay the night there before he looked for another train to continue his trip on. This modern day nomad was well into his nineties and had seen and done more than many. While he was in his early teens his father was killed by the same mob family that killed Balance and Mayhem. His father was a renowned New York psychic that used to work with the police back in the thirties and forties. His father helped the police put a lot of mobsters away, too many. When that particular mob found out through an inside source that his father was responsible for bustin' the majority of their crime family, he was whacked. He too was tortured to a painful and slow death, a sick trait that that crime family is known by. His soul left his body as well though before his body could give out. Because of his psychic ability and intensive training the psychic areas throughout his life he was able to make contact after his physical death with whomever he thought would benefit the most from his teachings. He chose to contact his son, who was now sitting in the abandoned warehouse contemplating what to do about the result of last night's events. Over his long life his father had visited him many times, in dreams and in spirit when he was alone. He had learned the lessons and ways that his father had lived by and eventually developed the sixth sense himself. His father explained to him that the sixth sense is a great gift that only a few people are able to acquire and only the purest are able to hold onto. His father told him that he must use this gift to help people. He must never abuse this power to take advantage of people or to tell them information that could change their destiny for the worse. So his son also became a psychic in New York setting up his shop in the West Village. Over the next five years he saved up enough money to put himself through school. Six years later he had a doctrine in psychology and had his own practice in lower Manhattan. He soon became well established in the psychology field and received numerous awards for his studies. He also wrote many books that brought him a good amount of money. All of this wasn't enough though. He didn't feel like he was truly helping anyone. The money became too much for him to handle because he knew of the evil and unnecessary power that it could bring to anyone, so he quit. He gave up everything and decided to leave the city. He gave all of his money to charity, packed whatever clothes would fit into his camping backpack and left New York. For the rest of his days he wandered from city to city, town to town, helping people come in contact with lost loved ones. Many of the souls that he had reached over the years were still in purgatory and needed guidance in how to move on in the spirit world. This became his specialty. As he sat huddled in a wet corner of the warehouse he had a gut feeling that he was about to do the same for whoever was left in the train car just a few yards away. As the morning became afternoon and the sun moved into it's highest and warmest position the old man made his way towards the large warehouse doors leading to the train tracks. When he got to the doors he peaked through the small crack down the middle and pushed the two large sheets of metal aside. Once outside he looked from side to side cautiously as he walked across the cold gravel towards the old train car. When he got to the train steps he could see the blood dripping down from underneath the door. He knew that this was not going to be easy for him to do in his old age, but he knew no other way. As he looked at the two brothers on the old blood stained wooden floor he pulled one of the wooden crates underneath him and sat down in a meditative state. He then closed his eyes and dove into the realms of his mind to open up the doors between life and death with the sixth sense. He knew that the two brothers were not killed too long ago so their souls were probably close by. After an hour of looking hard through the realms of his mind for their souls he realized that this was going to be harder than he thought. He took a deep breath and dove back into the sixth sense. When he opened his eyes again a minute later he found himself staring at two ghosts. The pale transparent figures were sitting straight up, extended out of the dead corpses that were laid out on the train car's floor. He felt his heart skip as he fell backwards off of the old wooden crate onto the floor. He then rapidly opened and closed his eyes, not totally sure of what realm he was in. Over his many years of experience he had never encountered genuine ghosts. Most of the time he would reach out to people in his mind through the sixth sense, but never see them in physical reality. As he pushed his old body up off of the floor he took another good look at the corpses and now saw the ghosts rising to their feet, now fully out of their physical bodies. There was a long silent pause inside the train car as the three figures looked at each other in total confusion and fear as the wind outside began to shake the train car. The ghostly figure that extended up from Mayhem's corpse looked at the old man and then down at his corpse. "Holy shit! What the hell is going on?!", he said in total shock. "Balance, are you alright? What's wrong with your skin?!" as he looked at his brother who was now also a pale transparent figure. "I don't know man. What's wrong with your skin?", Balance said as he looked over at Mayhem's transparent figure above his bloody corpse. They both then looked at the old man standing in front of them totally speechless for the moment. "Who are you, and what the hell happened here?", said Balance as he looked around the dusty dark train car. "My name is Keller. Most people call me Dr. Keller." Said the old man in a trembling tired voice. "Doctor? What kind of doctor are you?" asked Mayhem as he looked at the dirt covered old man. "I received my title as a psychiatrist, but for the later half of my life I've been specializing in helping people by using the sixth sense. It was a tool that was taught to me by my father." He explained to the two figures. "So why are you here, and why are we here, and what the hell happened man?!" Balance said as he began to get hysterical. "Calm down" the old man said. "I think I might be able to explain some of this to you. You both should take a deep breath first though." He took one as well and closed his eyes as he pondered the events of that early morning so he could help the two brothers out. "You were killed by one of the most vicious mob families in New York early this morning. They brought you here to this train car and tied your bodies down. They then proceeded to torture the two of you through ways that hurt me too much to even picture. My senses tell me that you both held on as long as you could by numbing your physical senses but the pain was too great. Eventually your souls left your bodies and are now roaming the earth looking for a soulless body to house them. "But why would anyone do something like that to us?" asked Mayhem in a scared and angry voice. "We've never done anything to deserve such pain, even such a death. We've always strived to live a good life by being brothers to all people." "My senses tell me that this was an altered destiny for the two of you." The old man said as he felt a great sorrow came over his tired heart for the two brothers. "What do mean an altered destiny?" asked Balance in an angry voice. "A destiny is a destiny, there's no two ways about it." "I know." Said the old man with a sigh as he looked down. "I've only ran into this situation once before in my many years of experience. My father was killed in the same way you two were by the same mob family back in the late forties. It was not his time to go just as it was not time for you two to go. I too had also believed that perhaps it was my father's destiny, but I later learned through my many visits with my father's spirit that because his soul left his physical body before it could pass on, it cheated my father's true destiny, which was for him to move on to heaven and his own nirvana. It seems that the two of you have also received an altered destiny. You are now ghosts, just as my father was, stuck in between life as you knew it and your next life in your own nirvana." Balance and Mayhem looked at each other in the dark train car as the afternoon sunlight crept through the cracks in the side of the train car. "But why were we killed in such an awful way?" they both muttered out simultaneously. The old man closed his eyes again and fought off the tiredness that was coming over his body because of the extraneous nature of what he was doing. He looked deep into his mind and used the train car as a tool to collect the information that would lead to some answers for the two brothers. He saw the men gathered in the train car early that morning. He then saw the car jacking that had preceded their murders. A cold chill suddenly came over him as he saw a man laying in the mud underneath the Williamsburg Bridge in that early bright moonlight. "That's him.", he thought to himself as he realized that he was on the right track towards finding the motive for their murders. He then saw the same man in another vision, the night before, out with the girl in the white mink coat and the altercation with Balance and Mayhem. He raised his head again and started to speak in a soft monotone voice. "You boys were involved in a fight last night with a very important mobster. You ended up dumping his body underneath the Williamsburg, something that you shouldn't have done. When he later regained consciousness he sent out a search party for you guys. You both were then kidnaped in a car jacking and taken here where you were killed.", he explained as he came back to reality and took a look at the two brothers to see how they would take the news. Balance and Mayhem were both in shock as the memories of the night before slowly came back to them. They realized now that you can pay the ultimate price, even for doing the right thing. "You boys have to listen to me now and listen to me well" the old man said with a stern and comforting voice. "I saw the way you boys lived during your life. I could hear your music in my mind and saw how many people enjoyed it and how much it helped them get through their days of stressful work and anguish. Because of this you both have a chance to reach your own nirvana." He then took another breath as to contemplate how to tell them the rest of their fate. "You must first regain your souls though. To do this you must continue the legacy that you lived by in your past lives, to help people rid their souls of the evils that have continued to poison so many people through time. I have seen these evils take peoples lives too many times in my long life. Sadly enough, we all unconsciously acquire them through time from one another like a never-ending disease. You must use your music to rid people of the racism, greed, lust, jealousy, envy, and hatred that poison our minds. Use your music to rid their souls of these evils and you shall be reunited with your own souls and obtain your nirvana." There was then a very long pause as the old man saw the two brothers sit down alongside their corpses and ponder all that they have heard. They put their heads down and realized that they were now stuck in the human world as ghosts. Their only purpose now was to play their music to help others. "I am sorry that you are stuck in between two worlds, but I can help you make the best out of it.", said the old man as he slowly rose back onto his feet. The two brothers then rose to their feet and followed him out of the rusty old train car leaving their bodies behind. They were heading back into the world for another chance to share their music with others. This time as The Ghosts.

Website designed by Jeremy Powell, Photos and images on this page by Jeremy Powell Story by Jeremy and Jonathan Powell Copyright © 2004-2007 Mayhem Productions All Rights Reserved