Condo was born in Concord, New Hampshire. He studied art history and music theory at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Throughout his early life he studied guitar and music composition while pursuing his lifelong interest in painting and drawing. After two years at UMass Lowell, he moved to Boston, where he worked in a silk screen shop and joined the proto-synth/punk band The Girls as a bassist,  with abstract painter Mark Dagley, avant-garde musician Daved Hild, and Robin Amos, founding member of Cul de Sac. Their only single, "Jeffrey I Hear You"/"Elephant Man" (1979) was produced by David Thomas of Pere Ubu. Condo met Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1979 when Basquiat's band Gray opened for the Girls at the downtown nightclub Tier 3. After this meeting Condo moved to Ludlow Street in New York City to pursue his career as an artist. He became a founding member of the punk/blues band Hi Sheriffs of Blue in 1980.