How a Joint Changed My Life
“You can use it as a pied-à-terre until he comes back,” Wini said.
I was 23, renting a house with friends out on Long Island, and not entirely sure what a pied-à-terre even was.
“This way, if you’re working late or going out and don’t want to rush back to Long Island, you can just stay in the city!”
The space was a well-appointed studio apartment on 32nd Street. In short order, it went from an occasional crash pad to my Monday-through-Friday home. The missing tenant was a musician I had engineered a lot of material for back in what I longingly refer to as my “music days”: Anguillan reggae artist Bankie Banx.
I first met Bankie at Home Base Studios in NYC (formerly Todd Rundgren's Secret Sound), where I had been hired as an assistant and MIDI programmer. He was a tall Rastafarian in a cowboy hat and boots, wearing a massive metal belt buckle and a cross-shaped pipe around his neck that I don't think I ever saw him without. At the time, I couldn’t have imagined the endless sessions I’d engineer for him over the next few years, tracking and mixing at spaces like Kampo Studios on Bond Street.
Ironically, Bankie was the very reason I met Wini in the first place. She was producing an album for a young artist named Johnie Lloyd that Bankie was guiding, and she hired me to engineer it. The project was meant to take two months; we tracked and mixed it in two weeks. From that moment on, Wini and Bankie were fixtures in my life.
Eventually, I pivoted to audio post-production for the stability—for the steady paycheck, the client dinners, and a burgeoning obsession with digital mixing to picture. That move landed me at Mixed Nuts inside Post Perfect, a glorious space inside the Daily News Building on East 42nd Street.
I was working long hours in the city and dragging myself back to Long Island every night. That’s when Wini dropped her offer on me.
Movies are made about single events that alter the course of a life.
“So, I have this situation,” Wini began, in that classic way she always started conversations. “Bankie got in trouble for having a joint in Barbados and they won’t renew his visa. I’m not sure how long it will be. Could be a few months. Could be longer. How would you like to apartment-sit until he comes back?”
To me, the idea that a Rastafarian could get busted for a single joint anywhere seemed absurd. But here we were.
That apartment on 32nd Street—with its breakfast bar, futon, IKEA wall unit, and Manhattan location—was perfect. It was a mere 10 blocks down from the studio. Entertaining clients late? Crash at the apartment. Out partying with friends? Crash at the apartment. Soon, I was living in Manhattan all week and commuting back to Long Island on weekends with a bag of laundry in tow.
While helping Wini pack care packages and merch for Bankie’s Moonsplash festival in Anguilla, she would share incredible updates: Bankie turning his family's beachfront property into an international venue; appearing on a popular TV show, Jimmy Buffett playing a massive concert at Bankie’s Dune Preserve.
Movies are made about single events that alter the course of a life. In my case, Bankie getting busted with a joint was the spark, but Wini opening that door was the catalyst. Living in the heart of the city forced me out of my shell. It allowed me to build real relationships, entertain clients, and grow into a more fully-formed version of myself.
A decade later, while living in Brooklyn, I turned on my morning commute radio station, WPLJ. Kevin Bacon was a guest, talking about his band, The Bacon Brothers, playing at B.B. King's.
“And we have a special guest with us for this—our good friend Bankie Banx from Anguilla,” Kevin said.
I almost drove off the road.
I went to see Bankie backstage after not seeing him for all those years. In his signature calm, polite way, he took one look at me and simply said: “You got FAT!!”
We lost Wini in 2021 after her battle with dementia and Alzheimer’s. (I penned a tribute to her here at the time.)
Then, in 2024, I received an out-of-the-blue message from filmmaker Nara Garber, who was directing a documentary about Bankie. He had suggested she reach out to me for old photos of Wini to include in the film. When I mentioned that I handle audio post these days, she immediately replied, “Well then, you have to mix this!”
Sitting down to mix that documentary was like dusting off a heavy, long-forgotten box of memories.
As the footage played, I wasn't just reliving my own past—the late-night sessions, the haze of weed smoke, the laughter, and the thunderous bass. I was given a front-row seat to everything that came before I knew Bankie, and everything that unfolded long after I had left his immediate orbit.
And then came a moment that stopped me in my tracks. I had been mixing for quite some time before I truly looked at the screen and realized who I was staring at. The seasoned man on camera—now a beloved Anguillan artist known simply as Springer—was Johnie Lloyd. The kid whose album Wini hired me to engineer decades ago, the very project that set this entire chapter of my life into motion, was right there, carrying on the music.
Seeing the full arc of Bankie’s life put everything into perspective. For years, he traveled the world searching for fame, only to realize that fame would ultimately find him right back home on Anguilla, sitting on the ocean at the Dune Preserve, bringing the world to his doorstep. Icons like Bob Dylan, John Mayer, Justin Bieber, The Bacon Brothers, and Jimmy Buffett didn't just pass through his life—they were drawn across the ocean to his sanctuary.
Working on this film made me reflect on my own path. That apartment on 32nd Street gave me the confidence, space, and independence to build a career that has flourished for decades in audio post. I grew up in that city, in that apartment, off that chance gesture from Wini.
All because of a joint.
Bankie Banx: King of the Dune is screening on September 22nd in NYC as part of MNN Presents. Few seats remain, but if you don’t want to wait, you can watch it on demand here!
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