(l-r) Lee Moran, Kevin Dunn, Bob Britten, Jim Krubeck, Steve Singer,
Jon Stewart, Ed Cook, Jeff Troxel, Jeff Shrin, Bob Raver, Chris LeFevre
Photo by Dewey Vanderhoff

The Powell Tribune
Thursday, October 2, 2003
West The Band
25 Years of Attitude
by K. T. Roes

"We just play some of our favorite songs."

That's Steve Singer's prescription for West the Band and for 25 years, it's worked like magic. Audiences in Wyoming have enthusiastically embraced the skilful playing and energy of the versatile band.

Singer, the band's bass player, had occasion to reflect during the band's 25th reunion at Cassie's last weekend.

West began in Powell in 1978. During its long history, thirteen members have joined. Two of them, Singer and drummer/guitarist/vocalist Jim Krubeck, have endured. The pair were the smiling hosts Friday and Saturday night when Cassie's audiences were treated to some of the best rock and roll to be heard in that venue in years.

Alternately sharing the stage with Singer and Krubeck were drummers John Stewart, Bob Raver, Kevin Dunn and Jeff Shrin; lead guitarists Ed Cook, Jeff Troxel, Chris Lefevre, and Jacob Singer; harp player Lee Moran, and keyboardist Bob Britten. At one point Saturday evening, all eleven living West alumni were on the stage together.

Rock and roll brought the players together but they arrived in Park County from a variety of directions. Singer, Raver and Troxel are Cody natives. John Stewart is a native of Powell. Krubeck and Lefevre played together in North Dakota. Cook and Shrin found their way to Cody, via the West band, from San Diego. Britten came to the band from New Jersey by way of Montana.

Nearly every member of West has been obsessed by music from early childhood. Singer remembers playing country music with a family who were tenants of his grandmother.
"I found music enjoyable and as a child, I was always looking for things that made me happy," Singer recalls. He climbed onto a piano bench as a six-year-old, playing by ear, and then went on to the trombone. He started with country music on the guitar and made the natural progression to rock and roll guitar with the arrival of the Beatles on the North American continent.

By seventh grade, he was in a small rock band with Bob Raver.
"There were guys who were better guitar players than I was, so started hanging out on the bass and I've been there ever since," Singer says.

In 1971, Singer joined the band Aragon with Neil Tweedy of Cody, and James Calkins and Jim Krubeck, both of San Diego. They played in Cody and Powell halls, including a brief gig at The Blue Coffin in Ralston.

"We packed that place," recalls Jim Krubeck, explaining that the club owner closed it down shortly thereafter because of the rowdy crowds, which were "too intense." The drinking age was 19 in Wyoming at the time.

Singer was still in Cody High School and the other Aragon members returned to San Diego. In 1973, the band's "terrible bass player" left the band and they sent for Singer, Krubeck says. They worked three or four nights a week in military clubs, even though they were all too young to drink. The band was a success, appearing on sampler albums produced by a local radio station and making a good living.

In 1975, when Krubeck sold everything he owned and went to Europe for seven months, Singer returned to Cody with then-band members Kim Sturdivant and Richard Augustine, now both deceased. After Europe, Krubeck returned to San Diego, playing in bands during the disco era, and enjoying it. Steve Singer returned to Powell, went to meat cutter's school and worked for his stepfather Max Garner at Max's grocery store.
Krubeck eventually came to Powell from San Diego, not to make music, but to work at Max's. "We were all done with music," he recalled, but requests to play parties and weddings continued and in 1978, West was born.

At the time, Steve Singer, Jeff Troxel, John Stewart and Randy Keller were performing as The Earl Durand Band. John Stewart recalls an urgent need for a name change, when the band was booked to play a party for First National Bank of Powell. The bank had been robbed by Earl Durand in the 1930s and he was killed outside the bank. The band was known as West thereafter.

John Stewart grew up in Powell and got his start in music when band director Chick Peyton put him in front of a drum set at what is now Hedge Music. He took to it immediately and played in a rock and roll trio with Jim Linton for dances and parties. "Our parents had to drive us to the gigs," he recalls.

When Stewart's family left Wyoming, he gave up music until his last semester in college when he abruptly decided to pursue a career as a drummer.
"My parents went through the ceiling but I went back to it," he says. He drifted back to Powell, and joined West. The band was booked every weekend and Singer decided he should leave the grocery business.

The band spent years on the road, with Singer always pushing for excellence, Jim Krubeck recalls. "He would go into a place and tell them, ‘Hire us and we'll pack the joint. They'd say, ‘We've never heard of you' and he'd say, ‘Just hire us." Krubeck recalls. "Then he'd come back and tell us he had promised we would pack the joint. We'd have to go out and put up a zillion posters and get radio ads."

"We said we were the hottest band going and our bus said we were, too. We had attitude and we would pack the place," he says. Singer says it's love of music that's essential to the band's success. "I am just fortunate to have played with the very best musicians around," he says. "I don't know what it is about Cody, but we've always had great rock and roll bands."
"We started because it was fun and it was cool and we could get girls," he laughs. "But we do it because it makes us happy. Lucky for us that it was always music that made us happy."
After John Stewart left the band, Bob Raver joined on percussion, Bob Brittain followed on keyboards, and the band recruited Ed Cook from San Diego. Cook was a "San Diego guitar legend" according to Krubeck. Cook also developed his guitar chops in military clubs and concert stages in San Diego. As San Diego became less safe, Cook jumped at the chance to bring his family to Cody in 1992. Now, he manages Cassie's website, teaches guitar at Northwest College, has written a book on programming drum machines and writes commercials and television scores.

Jeff Shrin eventually replaced Raver on drums. He had played with Krubeck years earlier in San Diego. As a vocalist, the outgoing Shrin fronted West with novelty songs, continuing a tradition of humor that's been a trademark of the band for years.
Now, with Singer's purchase of Cassie's, the band has left the road for good, preserving the band for the future, according to Krubeck says. "If we were still on the road, there would be no West," he says flatly, adding that it's still a commitment. "You can't take your wife out for dinner," he says. "We are the people other folks take their wives out to."

Krubeck and Singer have no plans to stop. "I don't have any plans to quit but I don't plan to do it from a wheelchair either. I'll know when it's over."

West's rabid and faithful fans hope it won't be any time soon.