One day in 1996, a mysterious envelope appeared in my mailbox. The story of how it arrived there is quite remarkable.

One of my friends had a band called "Imagine This". They got signed to a record deal with a label in Nashville, the city I relocated to from Texas. My friend's band was based in Houston, and they recruited Steve Ames to do their mixing in a big Nashville studio. Steve was responsible for recording everything that The Judy's ever released. Knowing this, I weaseled my way into the mixing sessions of my friend's CD, and was able to spend some quality time with Steve and pick his brain about those early Judy's sessions.

Steve told me a lot about those days. Just when I thought I owned every Judy's recording there was, I drooled at the prospect of hearing some of the things that had been recorded but had never come out. Steve spoke of things like a super-experimental "noise album" that David and some friends recorded that never got released. He mentioned recordings of a band called something like "The Big Boys" who David produced and perhaps even put out on his "Wasted Talent" record label. And, Steve mentioned a huge "secret stash" of CD's in David's attic - a fully completed Judy's album that had been recorded and fully manufactured in a cardboard long-box that never saw the light of day (supposedly because David didn't like the album).

David's father (also named David Bean) had visited The Judy's page many times, and he and I have had several nice e-mail exchanges. In light of my recent excitement over the possibility of hearing new material, I wrote "Dad Bean" and offered him $100 for one of those treasured CD's. He didn't make any promises, but said he'd mention it to David.

Time passed, and I pretty much forgot about my hopes of one day receiving this disc.

Then, out of the blue, an anonymous package was laid on my desk at work (which, to this day, I have no idea how they tracked me down there). Being employed as the Music Director of a radio station here in Nashville, that wasn't so odd. Much to my surprise, this anonymous package (addressed from Denver, Colorado if memory serves me correctly) contained a copy of "Land of Plenty"! I wasn't sure who sent the package, but I had a hunch. When writing "Dad Bean" to tell him of my good fortune and of the mysterious arrival, he just said "I guess he thought it would be kind of mysterious." He was right.

Come to find out, Steve Ames had some of his facts wrong. Assuming that "Land of Plenty" was the elusive and mysterious CD that David didn't like, it did, in fact, get released to the public. There were even some record release parties and concerts around Austin and Houston. Enough copies of Land of Plenty circulated to prove that Steve's "project that never saw the light of day" was little more than a good story.

I still believe that Steve may have been right about the noise project, and I know for a fact that David did produce other bands, so Steve's info wasn't all wrong... All in all, my coming across "Land of Plenty" is one of the most pleasant surprises I've ever encountered.

There has been little talk about this project. Land of Plenty came out in the early nineties, and by that time the audience that had grown up with The Judy's had largely dissipated. The band's audience was dwindling, and many would say that the original "magic" that made The Judy's was gone.

Musically, Land of Plenty cannot be compared to the other works of The Judy's. The production is crisp, clean, and slick, the arrangements are intricate and pronounced, and many of the lyrics are far more heartfelt than any heard since the song "Keep Breathing" on David's solo project, "Modomusic".

In spite of the serious tone of some of the record, Land of Plenty still held lots of fun tracks. If this project had been released a few years sooner it would probably have been very successful. Instead, the 90's had come. And with them, adulthood and responsibility. Perhaps the party-hearty frat boys and the full-of-angst teens who identified with the band so well had simply grown up. Unfortunately, Land of Plenty failed to find the audience it deserved.

Many things had changed drastically on this recording. Jeff Walton, who was responsible for a large portion of The Judy's classic sound, had finally departed. David remained as the only original member of the group. True, David was responsible for the largest portion of the band's sound and success, but things had simply changed. The new players; Barbara Donaho of The Dishes on keyboards, guitar and vocals; Darwin Keys on drums; and Lee Malone (brother of Judy's manager and The Dishes bassist Dickie Malone) on bass; were musically adept, but it seemed like this project, overall, just came too late.

Where the lyrics are concerned, the first half of the project contains the fun you'd expect from a Judy's recording. Songs enjoyed in the late years of The Judy's concerts like "Riding in a UFO", "Celebrity" and "Middle of the Road" finally made it to release which pleased lots of hardcore fans. The last half of the project takes a more spiritual turn. In fact, the album's packaging declares "We must learn to live together and love one another." This newfound spiritual side was a treat for me personally. Being what you might refer to as a "Bible Thumper", I was intrigued by the peaceful lyrics found in "Sweet Life", and the blatantly hymn-like, "Jesus be my Airplane". In the past, David had written songs about out of body experiences ("I Project"), had quoted a Buddhist Monk on the liner notes of "Moo", and was now writing songs about Jesus. I was pleasantly surprised.