As Van recounts from his memoirs:

"I remember so many things about those days, mostly about Hollywood and all the crazy people. We were running around and hanging out in all the clubs. Joe was very severe and serious. He actually was a very good jazz guitar player and the rock life style didn't really suit him. I was more or less a street musician at the time, but really wanted to be in a band. I had been in bands all my life and was used to being the front man, but Joe would have none of that! He wanted me to play drums, and I did, for I was actually a very good drummer. Funny enough many years later I found one of the greatest Rockabilly drummers in Sweden, a guy named Callo, who played in my group The Van Orbitson Band. We ended up making real money playing all the clubs in the south of Sweden. Man, Callo can really swing and his meter is perfect, Too bad his wasn't in Hollywood at the time! But anyway, drummers were always hard to come by in LA, they were always the guys who just wanted to be in a band and couldn't really hear the music, so we went through a lot of them. Boy was I frustrated. Then there was Mercy, she was an original member of the GTO's with Pamela DeBarres, produced and created by Frank Zappa. She just couldn't get enough of Joe! And she was a hair stylist too! The hair styles were just unbelievable! She wanted to change the name of the band to Killer Joe and the Weapons. Maybe we should have listened to her because we really went nowhere. Well one time we did have an interview with a producer but I think Joe came off a little weird, or something like that. It just didn't feel right. He was very suspicious of people, with copyrights and the whole thing at the time about original music. Too bad there was no MP3's back then! And then there was the time Little Richard came into our rehearsal room, he was very nice and shook all our hands. I think, looking back, one of the most sentimental memories I have was playing a gig with Gene Clark, from the original Byrds, now he was a very intense and beautiful cat, really loved music.....may he rest in awesome peace.

          Jimmy Reed              Hollywood Joe Nania         Van Orbitson
                          THE DJANGOS

The Djangos were a group that played Rockabilly during the 80's in Hollywood, California. Mostly a creation of Hollywood Joe,
the band struggled on and off for a few years. Joe did the singing while Van played guitar and drums. Joe styled everyones hair. Jimmy has a tile business in LA, Joe still plays on the east coast and Van is currently in Sweden painting watercolors and producing the Misled.The name for the group, of course was inspired by Django Rheinhardt.

Another version of the Djangos with
Johnny T, Andrew 'The Hawk' Thorpe and Joe.
Photo courtesy Hollywood Joe