THE STEAM DONKEYS - BMHOF CLASS OF 2018

Not surprisingly, the Steam Donkeys got their start in a bar.

 

Anacone’s on Bailey Avenue, to be specific. That’s where singer and songwriter Buck Quigley and drummer John Brady repaired after a rehearsal with the French Ticklers, the Cajun band they were playing with at the time.

 

“We decided we wanted to start a band that was more like ‘The Band,’” said Quigley. “Kind of playing more Americana style.”

 

It was an appropriate start for a band that would become one of Buffalo’s foremost purveyors of honky tonk-style country, delivered with the kind of wit that would help to define the alternative country scene that was taking shape nationally.

 

They were a new kind of country in 1991.

 

The Donkeys were among the early bands nationally in the scene, combining a honky tonk heart with a punk rock spirit (which may be why before Quigley wrote new songs for the band they were known to do things like perform country versions of the Sex Pistols’ “Pretty Vacant” and rocked up versions of country songs like “Tennessee Waltz” (a carryover from Quigley’s late ‘80s band, the Jacklords).”

 

But the band is more than just a cover band and far more than the sum of its parts, as well.

 

Quigley had already been writing songs for the Jacklords, but took off with the Donkeys. Soon on board was guitarist Charlie Quill, who found himself evolving from a Stevie Ray Vaughan-style player to one influenced heavily by Don Rich and the Bakersfield sound.

 

Doug Moody, a classically trained fiddler who could also hit operatic high notes, was soon in the the fold.

 

Brady held down the beat with first Kyle Brock on bass and later Frank Quebral and John Weber.

 

The band’s debut EP cassette, “Songs From a Stolen Guitar,” helped get them on the road. (The title was chosen because the songs had been written on a guitar that was later stolen from Quigley, not one that he had stolen — which seemed to be some people’s interpretation.)

 

Their shows became legendary, held together by quirky humor and an insane ending jam that had pieces of everything from “The Wabash Cannonball” to classical fiddle to the drum solo from “Dance, Dance, Dance.”

 

“The chemistry was great. It just worked from the beginning,” said Quill. “And it was original music. They were Buck’s songs, but we would work on them collaboratively.

 

“I feel like we’ve forgotten more songs that were originals that most people have written,because Buck as a writer is so prolific.”

 

By 1994, the band had released its first CD (“Cosmic Americana”), produced by Robby Takac of the Goo Goo Dolls and with a cover painted by Philip Burke, who was in the midst of his run of paintings for Rolling Stone Magazine.

 

It was country, but with an edge. While the sound was vintage honky tonk, their repertoire included “When the Big One Hits,” a CD cut about romance amidst a California quake.

 

The band played seemingly anywhere and everywhere. That soon meant tours throughout the eastern half of the United States, with the band pulling up to venues in places like Atlanta; Athens, Ga.; Chapel Hill, N.C.; Manhattan; Chicago; Tampa; and Austin, Texas, in a van with “Greater Emmanuel Temple Church, Buffalo NY” painted on the side. That’s who the band bought the van from, and they credited it with saving them from numerous speeding entanglements.

 

But the Donkeys also played relentlessly at home, and their home away from home became the Club Utica, the venerable country music joint on the West Side that had seen its best days a few decades earlier.

 

“The place was so unique,” said Quigley. “It felt like the set of a David Lynch movie. And somehow all these young people started showing up, and the place was packed.

 

“And the Tucci family, who owned the place, are like ‘Hey, this is great … It may not sound like George Jones, but the cash register isn’t complaining.’”

 

In fact, the Steam Donkeys played the last night at the club before its closing and named their second CD, “Little Honky Tonks,” in its honor in 1998.

 

The album was released nationally by Landslide Records of Atlanta, which also reissued “Cosmic Americana.”

 

Around this time the band started Americanarama, a Buffalo music festival that featured the best of the local alt country/Americana performers along with some national acts like the Cowslingers.

 

The festival ran for eight years, starting at the Pierce Arrow on Elmwood Avenue and eventually moving to Mohawk Place, where at the festival’s peak the street was closed for a two-day event.

 

By this time, the band was starting to slow its pace as members were pulled into full-time jobs and family lives.

 

Still, the Steam Donkeys released their “Buffalo, N.Y.” CD in 2003. While the album had a more limited run than their others, it contained the song “If You Lose an Angel.” The song was later covered by Buffalo singer Cathy Carfagna and her version was included in “Nebraska,” a Paramount Pictures film that earned an Oscar nomination for actor Bruce Dern.

 

The band never stopped playing; it kept evolving. Other commitments took Moody and Quill to other cities and Dave Kimball stepped in at lead guitar. Harmonica player Joe Mancuso and keyboardist Dan Delano, who had both played some with the band in the 1990s, rejoined the band as full members.

 

“The band just seems to keep recreating itself,” said Brady. “Nobody ever thought about longevity. We just kept playing. We just like to play.”

The band saw a resurgence when it filled the house at the Sportsmens Tavern for its 25th anniversary show in 2016 and followed with its new album, “Everchanging.” As of Fall 2018, the band was working on its fifth CD.

 

One final note about the band: The members are quick to point out that “once a Donkey, always a Donkey.”  The inducted members may be Quigley, Brady, Quill, Moody, Weber, Mancuso and Delano, but the band has had an everchanging membership.

 

Other members at times through the years have included bassists Kyle Brock, Frank Quebral, Jassen Otto and Erin Snyder; drummer Joe Kross, steel guitar players John “Mudbone” Dieckman, Dennis Mike and Jim Whitford; harmonica player Steve Powell; keyboardist Carol Swist; and saxophonist John Allen.

 

More information on The Steam Donkeys can be found at their website: www.steamdonkeys.com

 

 

Written by: Elmer Ploetz

 

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