Bunko Squad

Bunko Squad CD Cover: Tainted

Bunko Squad is a Tampa-based music group comprised of:

Judy Tampa designs a line of women’s clothing, was a Midnighter for Hank Ballard, worked as a high-work painter, did years of time in the new wave music scene in San Francisco with The Beans and Cats Are Clean and vows to never turn her amp up to 11 again.

John McEwen plays a variety of stringed and percussion instruments (some oddball) and sings harmony in what is generally agreed to be an acceptable manner. He once competed in an Oscar Meyer Weiner song contest.

George Pappas graduated from West Virginia State University, plays Seydel harmonicas and once delivered room service breakfast to actor George Kennedy and his wife at the old Ramada Inn at Clearwater.

Harry Hayward is Half Man/Half Wit. Formerly the lead singer of Duckbutter, once stood next to Van Morrison at a urinal. He has been banned from Miami Beach and was almost arrested for wearing a see-through harem girl outfit with nothing underneath. His song I’ll Never Be happy Again currently plays on The Sheild He insists he is not a drummer.

The Website

You can be a fan of Bunko Squad by visiting their website, BunkoSquadBand.com to stock up on lyrics to their original songs and give a listen to a couple of tracks from their recordings.

What the Heck is Bunko and Why Does it Need a Whole Squad?

You may have heard the phrase Bunko Squad if you are a fan of 1940-ish black and white police movies or 1950s television (Sgt. Friday on Dragnet was always being assigned to the Bunko Squad).

A consultation with Random House's online Words@Random website shows that bunko refers to bunco, which is a rigged gambling game played with dice. Thus, to bunco someone is to cheat or steal from them.

Bunco itself seems to be a variant of banca, a Spanish card game similar to monte. The word was Americanized to banko. (Banca has no resemblance to bolito, a favorite pastime of 1930s Ybor City residents. Bolito, "little balls", is a game where numbered balls are drawn at random. Gamblers bet on the order and identity of the numbers, not unlike the official state lottery.)

It seems quaint today, in an era where hundreds of billions of dollars are taken from the economy by banks, with no arrests nor trials, that big-city police departments would devote squads of officers to arrest street-corner gamblers. But hey, reality always seemed more... well, real in black and white.