The Northcoasters
(2013- 2017)
I met St. John Hunt around 2004. He had played on an album that we made some cds for, and I went to Coffee, Tea and Chocolates in Eureka to see him. He is the son of E. Howard Hunt of Watergate fame and someone who has been implicated in JFK's assassination. St. is also a writer and has written several fascinating books about his own experiences during Watergate and his mother's suspicious death. Over the years, St. started a local band, St. John & The Sinners. I recorded a few albums with them. The line-up was Jason Trevino on drums, St. on guitar and vocals, Wess Fulton on bass, and Andrew Christian on keys. They had a female singer who also played percussion on the first album we did, but then St. brought in a very young Christina D'Allessandro. Christina was the singer from then on. The Sinners became very popular, playing all over the county. Seabury Gould replaced Andrew over time.
It was, I think, 2013. I was playing with Kingfoot and also Asha Nan. I got a call from St., telling me he was moving to Florida and asked me to "replace" him in the band, as they had regular gigs every month. I hadn't played anything but original music since The Bullets and Paradise in the 70's, but I said yes.
St. moved to Florida, and Jason was replaced on drums by singing drummer Mill Moenke. After a few gigs, Tim Randles replaced Seabury on keys and the band became The Northcoasters. We played with the same line-up for about 5 years.
I started playing with Ghost Train in 2016. The Northcoasters took a gig at a nearby casino with a sickening din of cigarette smoke and grime that permeated the place. The bass played was at the verge of vomiting the whole night long. I refused to play any more gigs there. The pay was good, but not enough to inhale cancer every month for 3 hours! The band opted to take the gig and get a sub for me for those gigs. It didn't make sense for the band to have 2 different guitar players, and the sub they got was a friend of Moenke's, so I dropped out of that lineup. I was in two other bands, Kingfoot and Ghost Train which were a better fit for me anyway.