Myles Hunter (ex Avalon Canada), bassist Martyn Jones and guitarist Rob Kennedy founded MICHAEL FURY (named after a character in James Joyce’s short story, “The Dead”) in 1979. They did the predictable round of club gigs throughout Canada until split up in 1983. Hunter met keyboard wiz Howard Helm (ex Zon) one year later and start to play with him the songs he has been written. Together decided to call Kennedy and Jones back, and with the addition of drummer Dave Mihal reform MICHAEL FURY. An initial demo was picked up by a local small label and the result is “Affairs In Babylon”, released in 1984.MICHAEL FURY toured constantly throughout the country, but they began getting an identity crisis as people mistook the group name ‘Michael Fury’ for Myles Hunter himself. To compound matters the label tried to push the band as a solo act. This didn’t sit well to the group (Hunter included), then a major US label offers a deal to the band and they bought back the rights to the album and signed a new contract. The disc was re-mixed and re-recorded for the most part, and modified with new songs, “Affairs In Babylon” was re-issued under the band name REFUGEE, with new drummer Brian Doerner (Helix). For the re-release of “Affairs In Babylon” under the Refugee moniker, 5 tracks were replaced by 5 new ones, but those 5 original songs were excellent, too.
Initally only released on vinyl and cassette this mega classic Canadian AOR classic get finally released on CD as a limited edition of 1000 copies incl. liner notes by Dave Reynolds and a remastered sound by Anthony Panacci.