SLOWCOACH
BAND
the
page
There have been four different incarnations of the band Slowcoach. The very first Slowcoach band was formed in the seventies. Today a vastly different version of that band is still playing honky tonks across west Texas. This is the evolution of Slowcoach as seen through the eyes of the lead guitar player...
SLOWCOACH 1: Quest for Gigs
The first time I heard the name "Slowcoach" I just fell in love with it. The name just rolls off the tongue. In 1978, in a garage owned by my one of my dearest friend's parents, the name Slowcoach first came into existence. Jerry Fuller, Michael and Sonny Dromgoole, and myself were putting together a band for a gig we'd somehow somehow booked. Of course the band needed a name. Practice could wait. So, the band took a break to think about it! I remember Sonny came up with the name, Rattlesnake Hatband. Yeah, we liked that. And, we almost went with that until Michael asked, "how about Slowcoach?" And, Slowcoach it was. I wish I had pictures of that band but I don't think cameras had been invented, yet. We played a gig at the Student Union Building at Weatherford College and soon thereafter played some gigs at Mr. J's Steakhouse on the Weatherford Highway out close to where Jerry's Chevrolet is now. I'm sure we must have played more gigs but I can't really remember. Jerry? Sonny? Mike? Any idea? Well, I guess I can quote my cousin, Stan Hicks, here. He told me that he once heard a guy at a party say this and I quote: "I've only been to one party in my whole life......but it lasted for twenty years." For some reason that just needed to be said right now.
To add to the above information, Sonny Dromgoole signed the guestbook for this site and recorded the "rest of the story." He said that he remembers the dance at Weatherford College being cut short by two hours because the crowd got out of control. I remember now. The Weatherford police had to come break the thing up and make the crowd go home. Students were bringing ice chests full of BEER into the Student Union Building! This was a major no-no! And, fights were breaking out among the cowboys there. I also recall Jerry Fuller's dad was on the faculty at the college then and we were scared to death he was going to find out. Thanks, Sonny, for jogging my memory! And, that is the "rest of the story" behind the birth of the Slowcoach!
IF ANYONE HAS PICS OF MEMBERS OF THE FIRST SLOWCOACH BAND TAKEN DURING THAT TIME PLEASE SEND THEM TO ME VIA EMAIL!
-MARK
SLOWCOACH 2: TO THE BADLANDS
This section is about the longest lasting Slowcoach band to date. There are lots of good memories and music to tell about here. The beginning came in 1980. My first wife, Paula, and I were living out at Palo Pinto Lake. I was laying carpet during the day at Freeze Carpets in Mineral Wells and playing music on the weekends with a band called Strange Brew. I can't remember the name of any of the guys in the band. Wait, it's coming back.....there were two brothers.....no, I think maybe they were cousins....with the last name Spoon. That's all I can recall. There were a couple of other guys in the band, too. Anyway, we had a steady weekend gig at a little bar called the Sugar Shack just west of downtown Mineral Wells. One night Gary Elser walked in the club and asked if he could sit in and sing a few songs with us. I remember he got up to sing and didn't get down until the night was over. The crowd loved him. To make a long story short, the band fired the lead singer and hired Gary that night. When we came back to the club to play the next weekend, we found that all of the power cords on our amplifiers had been cut! After a little detective work, we figured out that the ex-lead singer was probably the guilty party. He had been seen earlier that day at the club picking up his amplifier on his way back to Oklahoma. With a little electrical tape, we were up and running that night. Looking back, the damage could have been lots worse!
The band continued playing at the Sugar Shack and the crowds kept getting bigger and better. Gary was really enthusiastic and had big plans for the band. This set a fire under me, but the rest of the guys in the band were content to continue things as they were. Gary kept telling me about a drummer I HAD to hear! And, one night Danny "Floyd" Richardson stopped by the club and sat in on drums. I'd never heard a drummer play like him before and was blown away! It was very difficult to play with our regular drummer after Danny sat in that night. I knew things had to change in order for the band to get any better and that opportunity came soon enough. The
band held a meeting and decided to drop the House gig at the Sugar Shack and start looking for other places to play. We all agreed. Gary, being the most motivated, quickly booked a gig at a place called the Corner Bar on Possum Kingdom Lake for the following weekend. We were to play Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night there. When Friday came, I got a call at Freeze Carpets from Gary. He said that the band had called him earlier that morning. Our replacement band that was booked at the Sugar Shack for the weekend had canceled! Gary was then told that the Strange Brew band was not going to play at the lake, after all, but was going to play back at the Sugar Shack for the weekend. Gary told the band that he was going to honor his word and play at the lake. He asked me where I stood. I told him that I was with him! He told me that he had already spoken with Danny Floyd (the drummer!) and he had agreed to play at the lake for the weekend. Gary told me that they were looking for a bass player. I immediately contacted Jerry Fuller, and he agreed to play with us. So, that Friday night, on beautiful Possum Kingdom Lake, Slowcoach II was born. And, we played quite well I might add......
Danny
"Floyd"
Richardson
The band just kept getting tighter and tighter and gigs were plentiful. We started playing several different clubs, but usually we alternated between the Corner Bar on the lake and a place in Mineral Wells called Joe and Ed's. I loved Joe and Ed's. My first wife had a runaway (left me) about this time and Joe and Ed's became my second home. I was there on a daily basis. Slowcoach had big crowds when we played there and we were having a blast. I met characters like Tom (the owner), Randy West (the manager), Allen West (Randy's poolshark brother), and I remember a waitress named Sheila. Sheila had a trailer house right across the street from the bar and lots of times when a patron had too much to drink they were invited to sleep on her couch. I took her up on that offer several times
as did other members of the band. It was about this time that Gary had an artist draw up some sketches for a logo. Soon, the logo pictured below was on T-shirts that we sold and gave away at gigs. Those were the coolest shirts! Especially the black ones! I gave away lots of the shirts myself. Gary put up the money each time we ordered T-shirts and I doubt that he ever even broke even selling them. We simply just gave too many away! During this time I also ran into an old friend Jimmy Slattery and met a terrific harmonica player by the name of Joe Swirczynski. There were several other good bands playing around town during this time. The Flashbacks were pretty popular. Johnny Johnson and his band were the house band at the Saddle Club. Mike Poe had a great band with bass player, Steve Culverson and drummer Joe Wayne Campsey. Coeberry Jam was a cool band featuring a father and his two sons. They were remarkably good. David Best and his sister, Marsha also had a good band. Marsha played bass with us several times during this period when Jerry couldn't make it. Kenneth Doyle and his band played good swing music and were a popular dance band. There were other bands playing around the Mineral Wells area during this time, too, and I'll add them here as I think of them. Email me if any of you reading this can recall more bands or musicians playing around Mineral Wells during that time.
Mark
Gary
Jerry
The logo to the left was drawn by "Big Steve" and must have adorned hundreds of T-shirts across Texas. A female fan once told me that she saw a male stripper in Houston wearing one our T-shirts in his act!
Musicians came and left the Slowcoach band the next two or three years, but the core remained the same: Gary, Danny, and myself were still plugging away. Jerry was living in the metroplex and I'm sure it got tiresome driving the long distance to make the gigs. So, he "retired." He still played gigs with us for years to come
when other bass players couldn't make it. Other bass players that started playing with us include: Steve Culverson, Will Bramlett, Marsha Best, and Bob Wageman. Mike Poe's brother in law, who used to play for Waylon Jennings, played with us some, too, but I can't remember his name right off hand. He only played about five or six gigs. At one point Joe Walker played fiddle and keyboard with us. Mike Dromgoole played piano for a couple of gigs. Some other fiddle player played some gigs with us, I think his name was Paul. Hummmm.... his mother was a schoolteacher in Mineral Wells. But, usually we played four piece, just like we started out that night at the Corner Bar on Possum Kingdom Lake. The band always loved going out west to play in Ballinger, Texas, at the BADLANDS club. That was probably the coolest place we ever played. We played out there at least once every two or three months. The fans in the Ballinger area were probably the best of all because they thought we were "stars." This was partly because Gary bought the band some very nice jackets with our logo on them. They looked very professional and when we wore them to gigs, people took notice. We always played two nights when we went to Ballinger. I know the motels there probably were both glad and leery to see us each time we came to town......
If any readers recall any specific incidents during the time frame above, please email me with a story. I'd be glad to type it up and put it on this page. Send some stories or pics if you have some, please! CLICK HERE TO EMAIL STORIES AND PICS. Bob? Will? Mike? Jerry? Samantha? Any old friends and/or fans out there who saw it from a different perspective than the band??? I'd love to hear some stories!
The picture below is one of the several variations of Slowcoach II.
Clockwise starting at the top: Gary Elser, Bill Eagle, Danny Richardson, Bob Wageman, Mark Hicks
SLOWCOACH 3: Back in the Saddle (Club)
This band started when three old buddies, Jerry Fuller, Randy Erwin, and myself decided to try forming the "perfect" band. A lot of planning and brainstorming went on even before this band played its first gig. Jerry and Randy both came up with lots of good ideas and both were enthusiastic. At one point we even used an office in Ft. Worth to hold formal meetings to discuss band matters . We three had played gigs together in the past but had never been this dedicated. We had a difficult time finding a drummer but finally found one in Chris Sarver, a 19 year old fellow from Mineral Wells. He had never really played in a gigging band before. And, he certainly had not played in beer joints. He was young and green but we broke him in pretty quick. His dad was a cool dude who helped us out a lot and even bought some equipment for us at one point.
Randy sketched and painted this logo (to the right) on a bed sheet and the band used it as a backdrop. Then he took a photo of it, had it shrunk down, and had business cards printed.
It wasn't long before this version of Slowcoach was playing steadily at the Saddle Club in Mineral Wells. This was the same Saddle Club where Slowcoach II had played several years earlier as the house band. It was great being back in that club. It brought back lots of memories. Stanley McCoy and his girlfriend, Kay, were running the place during this time and they were great to work for. Stanley's mother collected money at the door. Slowcoach was pretty successful for a while, but tougher DWI laws seemed to
scare lots of patrons off about this time. The music we were playing onstage was quite a bit different than the earlier versions of Slowcoach. Randy had more of a Willie Nelson style and feel to his music. Gary Elser had more of a Waylon sound. Also, Randy really liked Elvis, so we had some good Elvis tunes worked up. We made lots of new friends/fans and I can remember lots of nights when the crowd from the club would follow the band back to Randy's house to party and listen to even more music. Those were some really fun times. I was living with Randy and we spent lots of time working up songs, recording, and practicing. It think it was a good music learning experience for both of us. Randy mailed me a huge box of cassette tapes not long ago and it was quite a trip down memory lane sorting through them. There were about a hundred tapes of this version of Slowcoach playing live at the Saddle Club as well as recordings we did at Randy's house. As much as I'd like to post the songs, copyright laws prevent that.
Thanks to Randy for sending this pic!
Randy Erwin, Chris Sarver, and me.
Where's Jerry???
SLOWCOACH 4: West Texas Version
Slowcoach is still alive and doing well playing around the Abilene, Texas, area. The story of how this version of the band got together is pretty unique. My wife (Lee) and I had just moved to Sweetwater, Texas, after having lived with my dad in Merkel, Texas for about a year. I was working for the local MHMR while my wife was working as a case manager for a juvenile detention center. One of the secretaries at MHMR and I started talking one day and she mentioned that her brothers were musicians. I told her that I'd like to meet them someday. Eventually, the employees at MHMR organized an "unofficial" company party and the secretary's brother, Carl, was invited. We met at the party and we both had our guitars with us so we started doing a few songs. We clicked instantly. Most of the songs we did that night were songs that I'd played in the Slowcoach band with Gary Elser. Carl sounded a lot like Gary. Actually, the thing they had in common was that both of them liked liked Waylon Jennings! And, they both sang like him.
Carl and I didn't get together for nearly a year after that. But, I knew I wanted to form a band with him as soon as Lee and I got settled good in Sweetwater. Finally, the time seemed right so I called Carl up and he came over. We immediately picked up where we had left off at the party and the music we were making sounded good. We decided then that it was time to form a band. I told him that I didn't know any bass players in the area and he then told me that his brother, Kel, was a bass player. I had remembered that Kel was a musician from earlier talks with Carl's sister, but, I didn't know he played bass. So, we arranged a get together here at the house where we sort of "auditioned"
Kel. He passed. Carl later told me that Kel was sort of leery about forming a band. After he heard how we played together that night, though, he was sold on the idea.
KEL
CARL
At first we went by the name Badd Habitt. My wife added the extra d and t at the ends of Bad and Habit. A good friend of my dad's by the name of Cliff Alexander came up with the name while we were practicing at Dad's house one Saturday afternoon. After we
played a couple of gigs we started having people coming up and telling us an odd thing. They told us that they almost didn't come to the gig because when they saw the name Badd Habitt they didn't think we were a country band. This set the wheels in gear for a band name change. When I mentioned the name Slowcoach, the Tyler brothers loved it. So, once again I was playing lead guitar in a band called Slowcoach. Our first paying gig was at the Lost River Club in Merkel. We call it the Lost Liver Club. We currently play there about once a month. We always have a good crowd when we play there. The band has had several different drummers. Rick Bennett was the first. Then, Shane Winslett played with us for a couple of years. Also, a guy named Steve has played with us several times. I don't know his last name. We really enjoy the gigs when Rabbit Pack plays with us. He really has a knack for playing the right drums on our music. He's played all over the United States in various bands but especially with Ray Pack and the Halfbreed band. That band was made up of Rabbit and his three older brothers. They had several albums out and even got to play Las Vegas. They were my heroes growing up. Excellent musicians and entertainers!
MARK
CARL
KEL
DAD
LEE
RABBIT PACK
This version of Slowcoach decided to do some recording in my home studio. I wrote a song for Lee called Ride With Me Baby several years back and the band decided to record it and see if we could get it played on the local radio station. Well, the local station played it then a copy got to a radio station over in Abilene that specializes in Texas original music. Our song was entered in the "Texas Shootout" contest there and won! For winning five nights in a row, our song was placed on the station's regular rotation, so we were being played during the day at different times with the "real" music by the big stars. It was all pretty flattering. We were also told that we could open any concerts sponsored by that radio station for the next year. We were pretty happy. Also, during this time, the local newspaper got wind of what was going on and came to my house to interview the band. They stuck our picture in the paper, too. We
had another song about to be "released" called Match Made in Heaven. Things were clicking. We thought stardom was just around the corner! But, it wasn't......
The song on the CD to the left is so sad that when I pulled it out of the CD player after hearing it for the first time, a tear fell out of my eye causing the smudge on the label.
Okay, it was a spilled beer.............
You can email the current Slowcoach band by clicking here: Right here, Goofy!
Kel, the bass player, will be handling any questions or comments....
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