... I then came back from São Paulo empty handed with not only zero bookings but also a dilemma, would we keep the same name and face future problems or change it and loose the identity and public we had acquired?
We got hold of Kafka from São Paulo through their label and found out that actually we were formed earlier and our name was registered, but because their album was already pressed and printed and we were not even signed, we thought it would be really mean to fight with them for the name and we decided to choose another.
We wanted to keep the same visual identity and a name that could be associated with Kafka as well with the same literary connection so Tayo decided for a poem from Allen Ginsberg called Kaddish which is also the mourning prayer in Judaism. Being Kafka a Jew it seemed like a good homage to the band name that was lucky to us.
We have no connection to Judaism ourselves and in Brazil the subject did not have at the time the same weight as it does in Europe or America today so it was quite an innocent choice really, no disrespect meant and we did not have any complaints at the time for using a religious prayer as the name of our band, given we had no connection to the religion or race whatsoever.
Kaddish sound continued in the same line as Kafka's, hugely influenced by English bands of the time, dark, somber, melancholic in its vocals and keyboards, however Paulo gave it a very New Order touch with his bass, Tayo a very melodic one with his guitars and Sergio made it all sound a bit tribal, African or Brazilian which gave us an original touch. We started to incline more and more to the Brazilian side going further away from our rock scene at the time but anticipating as visionaries what was going to be the main style in the Country of mixing Rock and Brazilian beats a good ten to fifteen years later.
We played with the letter K for our visual identity creating a further connection with Kafka. Paulo at the time had given up Engineering and started studying Visual Communication and Arts and came up with this beautiful logo. He also put up together with Soter França this amazing press release copying the style of one of my favourite comic book writers Guido Crepax. Don't forget there were no home computers at the time, all the minute writing was painstakingly achieved through transferring adhesive letters one by one and the K's in the logo had to be "cut and pasted" with scissors and real glue then photocopied to get rid of the lines. The picture on the release is from Conde. 
As Kaddish we played even more gigs from 1986 to 1988, continued playing on the radio and were regularly talked about in the press
To be continued...
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