There is an unspoken, sometimes very (very) heated debate about which Santa Cruz band has had the most reach, had the most influence outward and still continues to produce music. And for your consideration, with 58 years in the game, is Snail, performing at the Felton Music Hall on Dec. 20.
Snail began in Santa Cruz in 1967, and their name has nothing to do with their cousin, the banana slug, that was running things up the hill at UCSC.
“The late, great co-founder Ron Fillmore came up with the name,” recalls the other co-founder, Bob O’Neill. “He was our original drummer. We had a high school gig, and the bookers wanted to know what the name of our band was. And we all had a bunch of names—Snail was the best, but we didn’t like that either. We used it and said we’ll change it later and we never did,” O’Neill laughs, in between a rehearsal session.
What began as a musical experiment between two local high school kids resulted in two full-length albums on the historic Cream Records label. Soon to become a favorite of Bay Area promoter Bill Graham, Snail toured nationally with Styx and the Doobie Brothers. Snail also charted on the Billboard Top 100 Charts (#93 and Cream Records first time charting) with their song “The Joker.” They also appeared on American Bandstand—“We lip-synched; every band did,” says guitarist Ken Kraft—and played shows with Santana, Taj Mahal and Iron Butterfly, to name a few high points from their long list of accolades.
Original members O’Neill and Kraft still keep the epic stories of touring alive, and their sudden explosion into success, but it was Kraft whose medical emergency derailed the trajectory. “It was a week before my 30th birthday and I had a brain hemorrhage and I was in Dominican for two and half months. There was a year of recovery and everyone in the band still needed to make a living,” Kraft says. Original bassist Brett Bloomfield and drummer Donny Baldwin left to become the rhythm section of the Jefferson Starship.
An interesting, and brutal, side note is that Baldwin physically attacked and hospitalized Starship singer Mickey Thomas and was summarily thrown out of the band. He bounced around with the Jerry Garcia Band, but was notoriously added to the history books under “worst band fights.”
In 1980, the television show that thrust Robin Williams’ particular brand of lunacy into America’s households was Mork & Mindy. In its first year, it was the third-most-watched show in America, with 60 million people viewing each episode. And there, next to the front door inside Mindy’s apartment, just above Jackson Brown’s album cover Running on Empty, is the album Snail, by Snail.
“One of the guys from our record label, who I don’t remember his name, was going out with one of the girls who was involved in the production of the TV show. And they just liked the way it looked. And Robin Williams liked the way it looked. And so they just ended up using it,” Kraft remembers.
Within this thread of minutiae, one might also point out that Mindy’s father, in the show, owned Fred’s Records, and in every third bin one can glance Snail’s album.
Maybe it’s the logarithmic spiral of the shell, the golden ratio of being a band for so long, that keeps Snail together and playing. Their last gig was three years ago, and before that another decade before a reunion took place. If you just listen to the banter between Kraft and O’Neill you get the sense that the years of brotherhood have mind-melded them into one brain.
“We were just starting to grow our hair long,” Kraft begins.
“Yeah. I was a hippie and I’m proud of it,” O’Neill caps.
“I didn’t wear shoes on stage for two years,” Kraft says.
For some bands, the years drive members apart. For Snail, they’ve only grown closer.
Snail will play at 8pm on Dec. 20 at Felton Music Hall, 6275 Highway 9, Felton. $50. feltonmusichall.com
