JOHN E. SOUL & His West Coast Wranglers
Sidney Victor "Sid" and Jonathan Edward "John E." Soul were born and raised in Southern California. These two punk rock surfers were both very gifted musicians that started playing at a young age, John on bass and younger brother Sid on guitar.
Sid and John E. formed their first band, 'JAWS OF TEETH', while still in high school. After they graduated, Jaws Of Teeth performed all along the California coast. It was at the "Whiskey-A-Go-Go" in LA that Sid & John E. Soul met Jose "Refried Rico" Ricardo of the Tex-Mex band LOS FANATICS.
Jose "Refried Rico" Ricardo was the son of a wealthy Colombian coffee plantation owner and a self taught guitar prodigy. By the age of 18 he was an in-demand studio musician, playing on hundreds of flamenco records. But Rico loved rock and roll. He made his way up to LA to play the music he loved.
Sid, Rico and John started writing songs immediately. They brought in Joe Smith, The former drummer from the local Doors cover band 'Roadhouse Blues'. All four had totally unique styles in their approach to music. Adding Pico Vega, from the Santana cover band ABRAXAS, on bongos was the proverbial icing on the cake.
THE SOUL BROTHERS performed their first show in August of 1979 at The Two Bar in San Pedro and were an instant success. The multi influenced SOUL BROTHERS were called "a cross between The Grateful Dead, Black Sabbath and The Sex Pistols" by The LA Music X-Press. They had a very unique sound that had never been heard before and by their 10th show they were signed to Polysutra Records. Their debut album, "ACID TRIP" was released in January of 1980.
"Pure genius. It's the best of Southern Hippie Rock with the anger and aggression of Pure Punk." - Music World Monthly
(Original publicity photo.)The Soul Brothers were preparing to embark on their first tour of Japan & Mexico when tragedy struck. Sidney Victor Soul's life was tragically cut short in a commuter plane crash. Sid liked to write music out it the tall wheat fields. He would ride his motorcycle into the fields lay down and write his tunes. A low flying plane experienced engine failure and was forced to do an emergency landing in that field. Sid Soul died when the plane ran him over two feet before it cam to a stop. No one on the plane was injured.
The Soul Brothers were no more and the tour was canceled as their album was entering the top 40 charts in Japan. The remaining band members performed together one last time weeks later at The Filllmore West as a tribute to the late Sidney Victor Soul.
From the last appearance at the Fillmore West
(l. - r.) John E. Soul, Joe Smith, Refried Rico (not pictured: Pico Vega)
The lose of his brother sent John E. Soul into spiral of depression. John drifted through the American south west, Mexico and Japan in a drug and alcoholic haze for the next 16 years playing bass in many lounge and cover bands. It was while he was playing at the Airport Travel-Logde Lounge in Tijjuana, Mexico in 1995 that John E. Soul ran into Jose "Refried Rico" Ricardo for the first time in 14 years.
Jose Ricardo had become very successful in the export business in Mexico but was longing for the old rock-and-roll days. Refried Rico helped John overcome his depression and started him on the long road to recovery from his addictions. In 1996 they recorded an album, JOHN E. SOUL & REFRIED RICO "Reunion", with Chute Tung Li on drums and Quincy Yam on harmonica. Rico released the album in Japan, Thailand and Malaysia on the Retrend label, and he personally financed the production and a tour for the new band.
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The band briefly toured the far east where they met and befriended KAO BOWIE, an Italian-Native American crooner living in Thailand.
Kao Bowie is a direct descendant of fabled frontiersman Jim Bowie and one of his several native American concubines of the Wopaho Nation (one of the Hudson River tribes notable for admitting Italian immigrants into their society in the early part of the 20th century.) "Kao" in Wopaho means alternately "fragrant" and "face-down on hard wood." His musical training began in New Orleans where he exposed himself to almost every form of music he encountered in this artistically rich quadrant of the US. Kao had traveled to Japan to study Japanese falsetto opera styling.
The three returned to the states and began the process of forming a new band. They met I. C. "Fingers" Flannigan, an electric piano player shortly after their arrival back in the US. They found drummer Shaggy Liebowitz in an add in a local music paper. The new band started of as "The WILD WEST FARMBOYS", but later changed it's name when they began covering old 'Soul Brothers' Acid Trip' songs like "Frustration", "Which Way To The Bar?" and "Closed Bodega Blues".
In March of 1998, JOHN E. SOUL & His WEST COAST WRANGLERS made their debut at CLUB DREAD in San Diego California. The band played all along the west coast for the next several months before John, Kao and Rico decided to move to New York and try and get another record deal. I. C. needed to leave California for marital reasons and joined them, but Shaggy had to stay behind and maintain the string of Adult book stores his family owned.
Kao Bowie live at the "CLUB DREAD".
The band set off on a cross country journey to NY. They made brief stops along the way to jam with other musicians and to record tracks whenever they could find an unattended recording studio. Once arriving in NY, the band moved into an apartment together. I. C. Fingers met percussionist Eugene "King" Elvie at a local bar. After dialing a wrong number in an attempt to settle a bail-bond dispute, Kao Bowie had accidentally reached music producer Harry Slash. He convinced Harry to consider his band for an ECW recording session, and to finish producing the CD that they had started recording,
Harry had met John E. Soul at an ECW show in Florida years earlier. After the show, the two had an altercation at a local bar that resulted in both being arrested. (This happened before John quit drinking.)
Harry Slash decided to give John E. another chance and hooked the band up with former 'Reckless Fortune' drummer Rolland Arrate. The east cast version of John E. Soul & his West Coast Wranglers were in business. The band did a few unannounced shows to work out new material and then entered the recording studio.
After 80% completion of the CD, including the song "The Clap" that ECW used for Scotty Anton, Jose "Refried Rico" Ricardo was arrested in his home for illegal possession of a shot gun, two ounces of marijuana and four underage Mexican house boys. While Rico was incarcerated, King Elvie accepted an acting roll in the road company of 'Victor/Victoria". The situation with Refried Rico and King quitting the band sent John E. Soul on a drinking binge. An attempt to complete the album was made but John's drinking and drug use began to affect those around him. At one of the last recording sessions, John showed up drunk and naked. Co-producer Roderick Kohn had had enough and removed himself from the project. Shortly thereafter, Kao Bowie disappeared. Bowie's current whereabouts are unknown, but recordings for the Norwegian death-metal tribute band "Spark" seem to bear some of his signature nuances. John E. Soul has left NY and is rumored to be in a drug treatment program in Utah. Refried Rico is currently out on bail awaiting federal trial. The current future of 'John E. Soul & his West Coast Wranglers' is not known at this time.
Discography