Biography
Livin' In Doo-Dah
While Sawdust Charley’s popularity continued to grow, it exploded after KFDI-FM program director and on-air personality John Speer began playing songs from the band’s four-song demo of original material. Band members Erhke and Dobbin had hand-delivered the tape to Speer and soon the four songs were featured in the station’s regular rotation. In fact, during one two-week period, the tape was listed as one of the station’s most requested bands. It was during their first meeting that the band and Speer began to hatch plans for a radio-promoted concert.
The Keg Ballroom in Colwich,Ks, just west of Wichita was selected as the venue. For several weeks prior to the show, the KFDI-FM airwaves were bursting with promotion for the upcoming event. Prompted by Speer’s radio promotion, when the band arrived at the gig, the line extended completely around the building. It was estimated that the crowd hovered around 1,000 fans to a roadhouse whose capacity couldn’t house a fraction of the number.
The band was thrilled, but being already disgruntled with the dearth of record companies and recording studios in Wichita, saw this as a forecast that their popularity would soon reach its zenith. They felt they would have to relocate if they were really serious about ‘making it big’, growing their fan base, and getting a recording contract with a major record label.
Two obvious cities to move to were Nashville, and Los Angeles, where the record industry had the greatest concentration. After scouting out the Nashville scene and finding that musicians were ‘living’ off of tips, they packed up and headed off for the West Coast.