RAMADILLO - 1990-1992

Plus, 7" split single out now on Between the Cracks Records!

A 7” 45 rpm split single featuring my old band Ramadillo is out now on Between the Cracks records. It features the original song, “Devil’s in the Best of Moods.” Below is a brief history of the band.

Also available at fine stores like Easy Street, High Voltage, or Atomic Genius Records.

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Ramadillo was the first band I fronted. Before that, I played guitar for March of Crimes and then 25th Hour. M.O.C. was straight-up punk rock and featured Soundgarden’s Ben Shepherd on guitar and author Jonathan Evison aka Monkeyseeker on vocals. I never played a gig with M.O.C. I quit before they made their mark on the Seattle punk scene of the mid-80s. That’s another story for another time.

25th Hour was a garage band. Literally. I played my first-ever gig with them opening for Malfunkshun and The Accused. Malfunkshun was Andy Wood’s band before Mother Love Bone, and The Accused featured M.O.C. drummer Steve Nelson. Small world. Even smaller town.

After 25th Hour disbanded, the group’s bassist, Sean Mugrage, and I continued playing together. We collaborated on my first studio demo under the name Pistol Packin’ Pete & the Vigilantes. Sean was also an integral part of Hopin’ for Healin’, a full-length cassette born from a demo deal I signed with Polygram Records.

By the time we were looking to form a band, Sean and I already had a history of making music together that dated back to high school. It was a joy to watch Sean grow as a musician. From the basic rock of 25th Hour, his playing matured to where he could swing with the best of them. He was also inventive with parts, stepping out of the meat and potato realm by adding just the right touch of melody to his bass lines. For evidence of this, check out his killer bass hook on “So I Am Over You (Demo).” Post-Ramdillo, Sean has continued to expand his musical landscapes. These days you’ll find him playing a custom-built hybrid piccolo bass in his group Lowire around Port Townsend, Washington. On Lowire’s sound, Sean says, “We currently are making a shift towards Latin Afro style, but still remain in the vain of funk and groove which lends itself to a lot of improvisation.”

Before Ramadillo, Sean and I played shows as a duo at local open mics and enlisted various drummers for gigs around town. One memorable gig from this period was opening for Mother Love Bone on March 9, 1990. Love Bone was huge in Seattle, so it was a big deal to land the opening slot. This would turn out to be Andy Wood’s final show before his tragic death at just 24 from a heroin overdose. Fun fact: Mother Love Bone’s Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament went on to form a little group called Pearl Jam.

Another future member of Pearl Jam was tangentially related to the formation of Ramadillo. Drummer Mark Boquist had recently arrived in Seattle from Minneapolis by way of Kansas City and was playing in Love Chile with future Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready. Love Chile’s bassist, Vinny Beaty, heard that I was looking for a drummer with “finesse” and thought Mark would be better suited for my group than his. So Vinny passed my number along to Mark, who had coincidentally circled two ads that interested him in the classified section of our local music rag, The Rocket. One ad was mine and Sean’s. The other was our friend Clay Bartlett, who would later go on to play with The Cheap Ones, who are on the other side of the Ramadillo split single. A double coincidence!

Mark fell in instantly. He’s got great feel. He knows how to put the roll into rock and roll. We had a phone call, and Mark determined it was my ad he had circled in The Rocket. Soon, he was on a metro bus heading to my basement bedroom room slash rehearsal space. Mark recalls, “Sean and I locked in easily, it was effortless. We jammed on blues, but it wasn’t typical 12-bar stuff, there was something more to it all.”

We invited him to join the band and scheduled more rehearsals. Mark relocated to New York City in 1997 after playing for Kitchen Radio, another band included in the Between The Cracks series of split singles. Currently, he’s based out of New York City playing drums in his band, Empire Beats, “a real live mix of rhythm & blues, rock & roll, and jazz music for dancers.”

Mark recalls that after one of our first rehearsals, we brought him along to Andy Wood’s memorial service at The Paramount Theater. So this would date the band’s formation to the Spring of 1990, right around the time when I dropped out of Evergreen State College to focus solely on music.

With Mark Boquist and Sean Mugrage in our basement rehearsal space. Ca 1990. Photo credit: Unknown.

In the beginning, Ramadillo was called Straylin Street after my song of the same name. In those early days, we worked as a three-piece. Once we had enough songs to play out, we shot publicity photos and made a demo tape. Mark, who handled booking and promotion duties, handwrote each cassette and began shopping around looking for gigs at local clubs. One of the first venues that would have us was the tiny Jewel Box Theater in the back of The Rendevous, a scummy but loveable dive bar in Belltown. We built up a small but loyal following. Before long, we were packing the place.

Poster from our very first gig. 07/13/90

Our modest success at The Rendevous snowballed, and soon we were playing bigger clubs around Seattle. Even though we were completely out of step with the burgeoning grunge scene of early nineties Seattle, audiences were eating up our brand of whiskey-drenched country rock and roll.

Wondering if we would feel more at home in Austin, Texas, we made our way to the music town. Sean and I traveled by Amtrack train and Mark by thumb. We partied like crazy and stayed in the cheapest motels Austin had to offer. On the train ride home—a mere 76-hour trip—we stumbled upon our new band name with the drunken mispronunciation of armadillo. At first, we were Ramadillos, plural. Then we lost the S and settled on Ramadillo. We had a blast in Austin but ultimately decided to stick it out in Seattle.

After seeing Ramadillo playing as a three-piece at the Central Tavern, Dave Ellis threw his hat in the ring to play keyboards. After hearing how much he added to the mix with his piano and Hammond organ, we accepted and became a four-piece. Dave could fill in and support the song with ease or step into the limelight and tear it up. Most importantly, he knew when to do what. His playing added a much-welcomed depth and dimension to our arrangements. These days Dave is in Montana designing audio equipment.

Ramadillo 7” cover photo by the great Lance Mercer.

In addition to the four core members, we had a revolving door of players join us at gigs and in the studio. The Chicakroos provided backing vocals and included Annmarie Correa, Mia Zapata (of The Gits), Kristen Barry, Erika Porteen, and Krisha Augerot (who later became my co-manager.) Don Pawlak was a busy side musician about town and joined us on pedal steel whenever he was available. Damon Logan lent his guitar skills from time to time while Sean Goodrich added fiddle to the fold. (Sean, Annmarie, Don, and Damon all appear on “Devil’s in the Best of Moods.”)

Our fan base grew steadily. We even broke records for bar sales at The Swan, a club in Pioneer Square. We gigged a lot. Eventually, we branched out and hit the road for shows in Portland and Bellingham. These quick little mini-tours were my first experience on the road. Again, we partied like crazy.

For some shows, our M.C. was Johnny Seattle, aka Jon Evison, from the aforementioned March of Crimes. Mark opened the show with a classic train beat while Johnny took the stage, blowing a wooden train whistle. In between hoots, he’d wind the crowd up with a rousing introduction.

Ramadillo played an ASCAP showcase during the North by Northwest music conference sharing the bill with Pearl Jam just two days after they released their mega-platinum debut, Ten. Labels big and small were crawling all over the city mining clubs for the next big thing. Every band in town with a fuzz pedal seemed to be fielding offers. And while Ramadillo was breaking bar records and packing clubs, no A&R types came calling.

We did join forces with Ed Beeson, the owner of The Backstage—my home away from home in those days—who served as both manager and booking agent. We assembled a press kit featuring some of the positive ink we’d received from The Seattle Times, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, and The Rocket. I’m sure Ed shopped us around to labels, but I don’t recall getting even the tiniest bite.

With no interest from labels, we decided to self-release a full-length cassette album, West of Here. Fun fact: Jonathan Evison used the title for his bestselling novel. West of Here, the album, was produced by the band and the late, great engineer Rich Hinklin at his Word of Mouth studio.

Word of Mouth was in the space that used to be Reciprocal Recording. Reciprocal is a legendary spot on the Seattle rock map. I’m sure it’s been called “Ground Zero for Grunge” before. If not, it has now. Nirvana recorded Bleach there. Jack Endino recorded many seminal Sub Pop records in the funky little triangular building. It’s where Stone Gossard recorded The Gossman Project, which served as Eddie Vedder’s famed Pearl Jam audition tape. Anyway, all that to say, we recorded in a historic studio.

Fun fact: I played piano and slide guitar on The Gossman Project. I attempted some background vocals but we punted on that pretty quickly as I was having trouble nailing my part—yet another story for another time.

Our album release show—at The Backstage, of course—was a high point for the band. Fun fact: Anyone who bought a cassette at that show has a rare version with the incorrect pink color. While we were riding high on headlining what I considered the coolest club in town, things within the group were not running so smoothly. There came a time when I swear we spent more time in band meetings over pitchers of beer at The Blue Collar Saloon than we did in the practice room.

By this time, I think it’s fair to say we were your average dysfunctional band. For me, alcohol abuse was at the heart of the problem. I was drinking way too much, and on New Year’s Eve, shortly after our triumphant release gig, my drinking got in the way of the show. That’s another story for another time. Spoiler alert: Getting drunk before the gig does not pair well with popcorn butter being smeared all over the stage.

As time passed, I was less and less fulfilled being in the band. I did not want to play boot-scootin’ boogie music for the rest of my life. When I started bringing in more mellow material, it was not met with upbeat enthusiasm. Burned into my memory is the response one of my slower songs got. I was told, “They’re gonna leave the dance floor.”

We had a good thing going with Ramadillo. We had chemistry. We had a groove. But ultimately, I quit the band to enjoy the freedom of going solo. And so, just shy of two years after forming, Ramadillo played our last show in February 1992.

And now, 31 years later, we finally got that label interest that eluded us back in the day. Tom Bout has formed Between the Cracks Records to showcase bands from the early 90s Seattle scene that slipped between the cracks. He has collected some fine talent for the first wave of split singles. I’m honored to have my song “Devil’s in the Best of Moods” on the flip side of The Cheap Ones’ “Halcyon.”

Also available now are singles with Lazy Susan & Bathtub Gin, Kitchen Radio & Goodness. More great bands are in the cue as the series continues. Look out for releases by Love Battery & Alcohol Funny Car, Blind Horse & Give, Forced Entry & My Sister’s Machine.

Album art for the Ramadillo limited edition single was designed by Diane Selvey, featuring an image by world-renowned rock photographer Lance Mercer. Mastering for vinyl by Adam Gonsalves. Big thanks to Tom Bout at Between the Cracks Records!

Peace & Love Songs,

Pete