Bill the Drummer

My Musical History

These don't include the many pickup casuals I did, and I'm sure I've forgotten some bands.

• The Kenturney Suckers Rhythm Aces: A street band that parodied pop hits. 1968-'70 or so.
• The Four Corners: A quartet playing lightweight jazz and pop standards. Around 1970, with a brief return in '72.
• Carroll Towers aka Easy Street: Lots of blues standards, plus Stones and other dance stuff. Played a lot of frat parties and dives. This was around '70 and '71.
• Jezebel Cain: Cover band, played dives, plus King Richards on Broadway in Oakland and Basin Street West in the City. Lived in Marysville for 6 months while we played 5 nights a week in the dives up there: Eddie's Lounge and the Kabuki Lounge. This was '71 to '72. Got fired.
• Sharon Warren and the Essex Three: More lightweight jazz and pop, and my brushwork got pretty good. Lots of casuals. Dave Sheckner on bass. '73 to '74.
• Fluid Drive: an R&B band on the Longbranch circuit, in '73. Played on the bill with the Rockets, Earthquake, and others.
• Above and Beyond: 3-piece horn section! Did Tower of Power, Chicago, old Stax-Volt, and some really good originals. More Longbranch gigs, plus Big Art's and others. The band included Bruno Coon on guitar and Dave Seabury on bass. This was in '73 and early '74.
• Earthquake: No, I didn't play drums for them, but I did play jew's harp on their recording of "Monday I Got Friday On My Mind." So I'm credited on the famous Beserkeley Chartbusters album. I also played musical saw on "Saga of Yukon Pete", a tune put out by Earthquake under a pseudonym, which included an S. Clay Wilson comic book illustrating the lyrics. The instrumental version got quite a bit of airplay on KSAN in the mid-70s.
• The "pit band" for the west coast premier of "Operation Sidewinder," a Sam Shepard play. We were rolled onto stage on a wagon for 5 tunes.
• Bourbon Street Irregulars: a few dixieland gigs, some on the road. And, played a Warriors basketball game! Band included an ex-Lickette.
• Ana Perez: Never gigged, but we taped a nice demo of 5 of Ana's originals. Eric Lenchner played guitar, Dave Sheckner on bass.
• Solar: ill-fated salsa band trying to add funk capability. I don't recall that we ever gigged. This band included Dave Sheckner, who played for years in Caesar's house band, the premier salsa club in S.F.
• Vic Trigger jam sessions: A series of sessions/parties in Berkeley. Dave Sheckner and Eric Lenchner were frequent participants. '73 and '74.

  

• Recipe: two years of pretty steady work in steak-and-lobster places. That is, 5 hours a night, 5 nights a week. Very slick cover band, starting as a trio and adding a singing bass player. We wore uniforms that would make a pimp blush. Jazz standards, "classic" and hard rock, disco, C&W, show numbers, etc. This was '75 and '76. Patsy Child on vocals, guitar, and alto sax. I sang backups. Dan Garfield on keyboards, replaced by Fred Meggs. Later, Sterling Hardin on vocals, bass, and trumpet. We played 5 nights a week at Joe Scoma's in Emeryville for 9 months in '76.

• The Frisco Fred Combo: an organ trio, Fred Rollins on B3 and, usually, Aldean Adams on guitar. Played at some true dives, like Minnie Lu's Can Do Club (in Richmond's Iron Triangle), The Four Deuces, Sneaky Pete's, and the Squeeze Inn (a Samoan fight bar in the lower Mission). Also played at Ruthie's Inn and at Eli's Mile High Club when Eli was still alive. This band was a ton of fun! '77 to '80.
• Dale Pryor: Country/Western. Lots of dives, plus the Martinez Moose Lodge. '77 to '80. Dale really was from Muskogee and sounded like it.
• The Davis Walker Band: Led by Dave Hodtwalker, a cover band, lots of weddings. A series of gigs at the Presidio officer's club, too. '77 to '81.
• Sean Selgado: Several gigs; a disco queen with a big gay following.
• Andy Edlen: Lots of casuals in officer's clubs, Campton Place hotel (when it was still a dump), Croll's in Alameda, and others.

• The Slicks: one of the best bands I've ever been in, although it only lasted 6 months. Starry Plough and such. Rock, with a strong Steely Dan influence. Emory Joseph was the bass player, under his real name: Derek Sorentino. Nick Robinson on guitar, Scott Fleming on keyboards. This was '82.
• The Mercuries: Power pop, 1987.
• The Insensitives, which morphed into Professional Help: originals and dance covers. 1987 to present.
• Random Dudes: a hard-rock band. Lots of local clubs and one appearance on late-night TV. Around '93 to '97.
• The Waterdogs: sort of country-rock. Around 2000 to 2010 or so. Many gigs, mostly private.
• Off Blue: more jazz-inflected original rock, but never performed in public. Around 2004 to 2012.
• The Quarry Persons: A Beatles tribute band with a twist: we led singalongs. We played the S.F. Free Folk Festival 4 or 5 times and many other gigs. The biggest was for around 500 people at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, with the lyrics projected on a giant screen. We played there two more times to huge crowds. We also played The Starry Plough, The Terrace Room, Kensington Circus Pub, several big JCC venues, and others. 2012 to 2022.