Wha-sup!

The band recorded a video of an event they played for the Lion's Club of Oakland, MO. A snippet of that is here on the website for your perusement/amusement.

Cindy Scanio asked the band if she could perform more with the band outside of just the special events. We were excited to have her regularly and she will be with us at most of our shows now.

Shawn Barker hooked up with Brown Productions out of Wisconsin and he is now doing Johnny Cash shows all across the country and will no longer be able to do Elvis shows locally. While we are sad to see Shawn leave we are elated for his opportunity.

There are real advantages to recording your material literally in-house. Since we had the master tape of the 16-track recording of our last demo, we were able to place Cindy into our Demo CD. It is now in the can and will be headed out to agents and rooms in the St. Louis Area with the intent to keep us out there working.

Shawn Barker's show on November 5th at Jailhouse Rock in Trenton, IL. was a resounding success. We will now be concentrating on developing Cindy's show with more material. As a result, we feel we have increased the band's versatility and one could justifiably say the band has 3 different shows now.

Something interesting is about to happen for the band. One of the best Elvis tribute artists out there, happens to reside close by (in Collinsville) and The Excelerators are going to back his local shows. His name is Shawn Barker and you can find out more about him at www.shawnbarker.com. We are looking forward to getting the chance to work with Shawn. We shared a stage for 2 songs at a car show we played for the City of Litchfield, IL. and the reaction to the material was astounding. We are in rehearsal for a completely new 4-hour presentation of Elvis Presley material. This show will debut on November 5th at Jailhouse Rock in Trenton, IL.
Click here for a bio page about Shawn.

A most experienced and powerful voice has won a spot with the band and you will be seeing her at selected jobs in the near future. She is Cindy Scanio and you can find out more about her on her biography page.

Mona's husband (Darrel) has All Mixed Up put back together and Mona will be rejoining them. We wish them well.

Another demo is in the can and about to go out to clubs that have not found out about The Excelerators yet.

A new dimension for the band has been added with female vocalist Mona Taylor. Many of you will know her from her work with All Mixed Up. We look forward to working with this little power-house.

On Saturday, April 19th, Joe Miller played his last job with The Excelerators. Here are a few shots of that night.

Joe Miller is moving to Washington, D.C. and Jake Burton is moving to Seattle. Stan's former bandmates from Jester, Jorge Pereira (Drums & Vocals) and Mike Franzel (Guitar, Bass & Vocals) are joining The Excelerators. All will be fully onboard at the end of May.

Not resting on their laurels and with the recent addition of the missing link, the band has recorded its first demo CD in 5 years. Needless to say, it was about time since the previous demo was selling only one member of the band that actually participated in the last recording. The 16 new songs sound great and the whole process went really well. We soon hope to have the final product in the hands of those in charge of hiring the bands in some of the nicer rooms in the St. Louis area. We'll keep you posted as this solicitation process is about to start!

Jake Burton moved on to take on a full time jazz gig at the Chase Park Plaza making us the "Spinal Tap" band of St. Louis. Thanks again to the folks (specifically Mike Adams) over at the St. Louis Music Pages, we were able to find seasoned veteran, Dan Wirick in short order. Dan will be onboard with us for the first time on October 25th and 26th at Set 'Em Up Saloon in Wentzville. Welcome aboard Dan!

Bob Baker lost an important employee to his operation at Aquatic Enterprises. As a result, Bob will not be able to continue working with The Excelerators. Luckily, we were able to find a player who will be able to come in and fill some large shoes in short order. Jake Burton, a 22-year old Bio-Engineering student at St. Louis University came in and played his kit with maturity and taste, far beyond his years. Suffice it to say, he could either play it on the fly or simply knew the material from the start and simply took command of the songs with steady-as-a-rock time and punches & syncopations that showed natural talent combined with years of work in refinement. Wait till you hear us with Jake. He is a natural and we are proud to have him aboard.

Changes have become the norm for The Excelerators over the years, but this spells out how resillient the organization has become. Last Saturday night, Steve Noonan advised that he no longer wants to be part of the band. While this is an abrupt departure, the next jobs scheduled for the band are not for 4 weeks. It appears that Stan and Joe have Steve's replacement lined out with Bob Baker who played with them in Flashbax. We wish Steve well as he is charting a new direction in his life with his fiance' Cheri. The possibility exists that you might see Steve at a future bandjob as we all remain friends. At the same time, we welcome Bob Baker to the fold as the newest Excelerator.

The curtain came up on Brenden James Beatty at 2:03am, March 2, 2002, weighing in at 8 pounds, 8 ounces and 20.5 inches long and a 14" head (ouch). Both Brenden and mom are doing great! Editors note: OK Dad, work him in on the acoustic first.
Congratulation to Brian, Debbie and whole Beatty gang!

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The 5th Version of The Excelerators is here!

Posted 10-25-01

Finally, after numerous auditions, we have the new line-up of the band intact. Wait until you get a load of the new show. On Guitar, with over 200 lead vocal songs available, we are proud to introduce Joe "JB" Miller. Joe comes our way with a vast experience of having worked with some of the finest groups in St. Louis. We are equally proud to welcome and present Stan Gill on Keyboard, Vocals, Flute and Sax. Again, with a vast number of lead vocal songs and an extreme ability to play anything, Stan is an incredible talent. We are tickled and truly lucky to have found such excellent talent for the band. Let the SOCIABLES and Good Tunes roll!!!!

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The newest little Excelerator

Posted 9-16-01

Daniel Russell Searcy made his debut at 11:52pm, September 13, 2001, weighing in at 9 pounds, 11 ounces and 21 inches long. He's got the fingers of a pianist and dad hopes to have him working Differential Equations next month.
Both Danny and mom are doing great!
Editors note: Yep, daddy is just a tad bit proud.

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It was a Real Millenium to remember with The Excelerators at Cutters

Posted 1-1-01

Thanks to all of you who were at the 1999, 2000 and this year's 2001 New Years Eve Party at Cutter's. Some great parties....you bet!!!! We have a collage of pictures for your perusement...take a look. Oh, by the way, we will be back here to Usher in 2002.

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Doug Carson is back

Posted 11-8-00

World renown Doug Carson has returned from yet another Department of Defense tour from the worlds largest cat litter box of Saudi Arabia. Welcome back Doug and thanks to Brian Beatty and Paul Zahn for their recent help in Doug's absence.

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Changes are coming to The Excelerators once again

Posted 9-1-00

With the coming of a new child next year, construction of an addition to his workshop and time spent studying for his Professional Engineer's Exam, Wes Searcy has announced that The Excelerators will be scaling back their club appearances to about every other week in 2001. The current version of the band will complete their schedule on April 28th, 2001. The Excelerators will shut down over the following summer and find players to replace Doug and possibly Jim to rehearse the new band up for the Fall 2001 start. We will miss our current line up who have mastered some fairly intricate material, but the show will continue and announcements of personnel changes will be made as soon as they are finalized.

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Steve Noonan joins The Excelerators

Posted 6-15-00

Steve Noonan, who has known and worked with Wes for over 30 years has joined the band after Dave Sweet joined fulltime St. Louis Band, Fanfare. We wish Dave well and extend a welcome to an old friend to the band, Steve Noonan.

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Thank You Scott Debo

Posted 12-2-97

Scott Debo of the Blackdog Rhythm & Blues Band, recorded our demo in November of 1997. The picture at the left is us laying down vocal tracks in Scott's studio. Our continued thanks to Mr. Debo. We now have those recordings on line, in their complete form via G2 Real Audio. You can get G2 Real Audio for free at the Real Audio website.

Speaking of Scott Debo, Scott is one of those good guys who helps out other musicians, does all the background work for Blackdog, and has made several referrals for The Excelerators to clubs he works at. Truly a gentleman, a perty smart feller (i.e. look at his website), and someone who unselfishly promotes good music throughout the St. Louis area.

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Presenting, The Excelerators

Posted 7-27-97

A fully interactive presentation is available for clubs interested in working with The Excelerators. In the St. Louis area, Wes can visit you at your office or place of business with an audio CD, a "Powerpoint" presentation, and connect to this website with his laptop. This is an excellent chance for you to see and hear one of the best entertainment values in the St. Louis area. If you have the Powerpoint program, you can download a copy of this presentation (2 Meg) that we have online. You can download a plug-in to view this online or save it on your PC. This file should work in Office 95 or 97 versions of Powerpoint.
Powerpoint, Office 95 and Office 97 are trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation.

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Calling all website addresses of Friends of The Excelerators!!!!

Posted 7-1-96

The "Friends" page of this site is devoted to you. If you have a website, it doesn't matter if it's about knitting, a site you maintain for work, or whatever, we would be happy to post a link on this page for you. Just e-mail Wes at: wes@excelerators.net and he'll see to it that your address is linked to this page.

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T-Shirts and hats are available !!!!

Posted 6-25-96

We have hats and T-Shirts for the band. We will let these go for our cost. These are good quality Fruit of the Loom cotton T's with our logo on the front and (on the back) the most requested saying that follows us to each club we play... you guessed it:

"Let's Get...SOCIABLE!!!"

Both shirts and hats are available in red or black and can be obtained at any of our upcoming dates on the "Schedule".

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Newsletter ?

Posted 6-21-96

Snail mail newsletters go out about every 3 months. We also send out weekly newsletters to those of you who are online. You can sign up for these newsletters by e-mailing Wes at: wes@excelerators.net.

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