The last few months of '77 were incredibly action packed for a little rag-tag five piece local band called Desperados.  The Hungry I was suddenly packed every night. It became a musician's haven; every night was sit in night at the "I". In late November, we had a hell of a jam session:  Danny, Rusty, Danny from Stoney West, David Crockett from Heaven & Earth, and the guys from Sealy Aston. After the gig, Rusty, RJ, and me went to Judy Mosier's house to watch re-dubbed movies.  

The movie re-dubs were something we did for fun in our spare time to keep up our improv chops.  We would buy super 8 mm movies and replace the voices, music, and sound effects with our own. We made up new plot lines that centered around the band, the clubs we played at, characters we knew, and of course lots of drug and sex references. We got such a great response from them that a year later we would be running them on break at the gig.  We called it "Midnight Movie At 11", and ran the movie on a sheet tacked to the wall. We didn't have surround sound back then, but we DID play our soundtrack through the band PA. But I'm jumping ahead of myself. This night with Rusty was just some early goofing around doing voices over whatever cheap movies we could find at Kmart. We did some really lame stuff, but we had our classics too. More about the re-dubs later. 

Tandy booked us for their Christmas party on the 22nd of December. It was our first- and I think our last - Corporate party booked as Desperados. We were just too busy playing the house gigs to worry about moving equipment around from place to place. On my nights off I felt like I was missing something if I didn't get in my car and hit every club I could before closing time. I couldn't just sit back and relax when a band was playing somewhere in town. During the last weeks of December '77 I saw Phrenz, Rastus, and Avatar.

We kept a pretty rigid rehearsal schedule in those days. We tried to work up at least a new song or two each week. Around Christmas week we worked up Mind Bender (to try to increase the value of that talk box we bought for the one Frampton song), and Swingtown by Steve Miller. We got the news that the original owners of the Collard St. Inn (Broken Spoke), Anita and Harold, bought the place back. They will make it into a nice respectable place again, as well it should be. Maybe even bring back the old Lucky Lady pinball machine that RJ and I used to love to play so much.

I went to a magic shop in Dallas and bought about $80 worth of magic tricks for shtick to use onstage. I also attempted to make the eyes on my cheap ventriloquist puppet moveable - but only ruined the whole thing. (I still have the head to the original Jimmy doll and his eye holes are still cut out. Anyone else would've thrown it all away, but I feel so guilty about botching the surgery that the least I can do is give him a spot in my closet to live in for as long as I have a closet.)  

On November 20th, 1977, we had several featured guests drop by to sit in:   Rusty, Danny, Charlie Bassham, Ray Boles, and Mark Strickland. I made another trip to the bank to get a loan for a $300 snake (PA cables).  Tarbaby somehow got featured in an artsy-fartsy book of photography called "Dallas Nudes".  The book featured local Dallas celebrities, or groups, in the nude.  It was a big coffee table book.  There was a big bash in Dallas to celebrate the book's release. Don Reeder (Tarbaby keyboard player) gave me two free tickets to that event. I honestly can't recall if I went or not. Perhaps the answer will turn up later in my diaries. The scary thing is, and I don't mean to be tacky, is that somewhere out there on a coffee table or bookcase, there is a book with naked pictures of Don Reeder and Leon Ellis!  That's not to say that a nude picture of the Desperados would've been any less frightening.

It was finally made official that Charlie Bassham, Rusty, Gary Owens, and Rick Myrick quit David Day's band and started a new one called Curiosity. They got a house gig over at a restaurant / club in Dallas. Meanwhile, Butch McReynolds from the band TEXAS sat in with us at the "I" on the 27th. That was a highlight. A low point came when my ex, Pam, began dating Rick Jackson from the band Titus Oates. Guys in bands aren't supposed to care about those things, but it always bugged me. I think it really bugged them all, but perhaps the unwritten rule was that we were supposed to be too cool to show it.

Out of the blue, RJ starts talking about wanting to hire sax player, Tony Walls! What? Tony was a nice guy and played well, but we were supposed to be a rock / progressive country band. I never got the point of that one. It never happened. I don't recall why.  I got to have my Hobbit Party, complete with spaghetti  furnished by Judy Mosier and her friend Pat. I helped Judy get her stereo fixed and in return she gave me a Fat Strat pickup.

RJ and I decided to move out into our own place. There was just one problem We couldn't afford a REAL place, so RJ's uncle Harold offered to let us live in his garage apartment if we'd agree to fix it up. So we did.  The place was a real mess, and hadn't been lived in for years. We put up paneling, installed new carpet, and even put in a new ceiling. Still, the kitchen and bathroom was hardly fit for human use. We didn't care because RJ used the kitchen and bathroom at his mom's house next door, and I drove a few miles back home to my parents house to eat and clean up. The living area looked great though. There was only one bedroom and we took turns using it a few months at a time. The other guy would sleep in the nook next to the closet. It was basically a place to party, crash, eat meals from fast food restaurants, and rehearse. I found a silly small glass covered table with three pull-out footstools. It was like Munchkin furniture made out of Muppet fur.  I created a shelf unit / entertainment center out of concrete blocks and 2x4's to hold our TV, stereo, and pong game.  We had a lot of parties there and I was surprised the floor never caved in. RJ's mom never heard us because she lived in a rock house. The people in the house on the OTHER side were really nice and didn't seem to be bothered by us at all.  The family across the street provided hours of entertainment for us, since the old man there was a belligerent drunk and would come home late at night and basically howl at the moon. besides being a great place for a party, it was also perfect for sleeping in after a long night of fun. I fondly referred to the place as "The Shady Rest Behind the Wall." I called it that because the entire compound, including RJ's mom's house and the garage apartment was all set apart from the street by an old, crude rock wall, put up by RJ's grandfather many years ago, at the same time he built the rock house. This was on Lulu Street in Diamond Hill.

The Munchkin Muppet table at our garage apartment.

Thanksgiving came and went, and the Tandy Corporation gave a present to everyone in the city (especially the electric company) by installing giant images of flickering candles on the entire length of their twin tower buildings in downtown Ft. Worth.  It would be Christmas soon; the season of giving and caring and counting our blessings. We tried to get into the spirit of the season, but it was difficult because while bells were jingling and carolers were caroling, way back in a dark corner table of the Hungry I during Happy Hour, four human forms sat huddled closely, talking softly. A faction of the Desperados was meeting to consider another band member change. This would be a biggie, and we weren't happy about having to do it, but at the pace things were moving, we had no choice. Rumor had it that Boogie would be looking for a gig soon. Forget the Christmas Goose; we had to get our DESPERADO DUCKS in a row fast... 

The Coker Chronicles