On December 8, 2023, Bull City Syndicate (BCS) played its final show. We went out with a bang, performing a top-shelf corporate holiday event to 700 enthusiastic attendees. Appropriately, in the city of the band’s birth — Durham, NC — The Bull City. I considered booking a final public show, but after much thought, I decided to retire the band in a more low-key, less public manner.
In November of 2000, I answered an ad from an established local band then known as Soul Kitchen & The Bull City Horns. (SK) I’d spent a year getting my trumpet chops back into shape after a decade in the music business, managing other artists. I did not intend to do anything in SK other than return to my first love: just playing the trumpet. I didn’t want to manage the band and certainly had no interest in ownership. I just wanted to play again. Money didn’t matter. And in those days, even as one of the premier club bands in the Raleigh/Durham market, my share of earnings from a 9-piece horn band rarely covered my bar tab.
For many months after joining Soul Kitchen, I managed to avoid being involved in the business of the band. When asked by band members what I did for a living, I always lied and gave them a different story each time. (I remember once telling them I was in the CIA. Ha!) Finally, after a Sunday night rehearsal, drinking and smoking on the back deck of our original drummer’s house (Dave Wilkins), Dave suddenly demanded, “Baker. What the f—k do you do for a living?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes!”
“I manage bands for a living.”
“WHAT!? Why don’t you manage this band?”
“I don’t want to. I just want to play trumpet.”
At the next week’s rehearsal, Dave handed me a manilla folder that represented the totality of the band’s “business.”
“You’re in charge now,” said Dave.
(Sigh.)
From that point forward, things began to change quickly for SK. First began a radical updating of our set list designed to draw more people to our shows and more dollars for the band. I began to pursue more private events and larger public shows. Some of the original band members were not happy about the extra demands and work required to make the move from a fun club band to a serious special event band, and we began to replace members. With the band growing in popularity, we were able to attract even more versatile and better-trained musicians. We went from being a really good band to a great "horn band," packing out every live performance and fielding requests for those higher-paying private events.
We then began to spin off a few side projects. The first of those was our pop-jazz 4-piece called Cafe Mars. Then, in 2006, we launched an aggressive recording project led by award-winning local producer John Custer. After six months in the studio, “You Make Me Feel” was released in 2007. An album paying tribute to North Carolina songwriters, and for which I’m really proud of the final product. Especially the original tunes written for the album by Custer himself. It was because of that album that Soul Kitchen & The Bull City Horns became Bull City Syndicate. (There were 17 other bands named Soul Kitchen at the time, and with an album containing original music, we didn’t want to deal with any trademark issues.)
When the economy began to tank in the summer of 2008 and into 2009, so many local music venues didn’t survive or cut their live music budgets drastically, and private event buyers were forced to hire smaller bands and DJs. Bull City Syndicate made the decision to add a female lead singer to the line-up — as that was a requirement of so many private event and wedding buyers. Our 9-piece “all dude” band became a 10-piece outfit, and the additional female lead remained a feature of the band for its remaining years.
Anyone managing a 10-piece band knows that turnover is going to happen — even when there’s no drama or interpersonal issues. People move away, change jobs, etc. Life happens. But, somewhere around 2010, there was a particular tumult that caused five of our members to leave, and suddenly, with no remaining original members, Bull City Syndicate became “my” band. We were able to fill the missing spots quickly, and the band really took off. No longer led by a “committee,” I was able to take the band to the next level, particularly as a private event and festival band.
There were many highlights through my time with both incarnations of the band: SK and BCS. My very first gig with SK was an opening date for Kool & The Gang. Our last such brush with greatness was when Dolly Parton joined us onstage performing her classic hit, “Jolene.”
We were honored to be the headlining entertainment for the last two NC Governor’s Inaugural Balls. We performed for some of the largest companies and charities in America: SAS, Glaxo, AT&T, American Heart Association, and too many others to list. We traveled throughout the Mid-Atlantic region for shows — as far north as Maryland and even down to Florida.
Our first spin-off, Cafe Mars, eventually became a 6-piece version of the band called BCS Express. Then, 10 years ago, we added a “yacht rock” version of the band called Captain & The Keels. (C&K) The same line-up as BCS, doing the smooth rock hits from ’75 to ’85, with appropriate foolish costumes.
In 2018 came my most fun spin-off. A David Bowie Tribute act called The American Bowie Experience. (ABX) With that group, we moved our bassist, Randy Ines, over to keys (because of his virtuoso piano chops), and brought my son Duncan in on bass guitar. (Bowie’s son is also named Duncan. Just a coincidence.) Despite the growing popularity and demand for ABX, that band didn’t survive the COVID-19 pandemic after a year and a half of lockdowns. It was everything I could do just to get BCS back to work.
The aftermath of the pandemic was the beginning of the end for BCS. My life began to change drastically. For more than 25 years I’d been a hobbyist political writer and commentator. My writing chops began to take shape in the early days of the Internet. AOL, Compuserve, and Prodigy eventually became MySpace. MySpace became Facebook, where my online following really began to take off.
In early 2020 — long after the four versions of the band had become my full-time job and main source of income — “Two Weeks to Flatten the Curve” became two months of COVID lockdowns, and none of the band projects were allowed to do live performances. It was then that I decided to monetize my writing “hobby,” moving that to the captain’s seat of my endeavors and BCS and its spinoffs to the co-pilot’s seat. By 2022 and into 2023, my journalistic efforts were being rewarded with significant media attention, and my travels were keeping me away from the band and its needs with increasing frequency.
In the summer of 2023, I was approached by Dallas-based Blaze Media to become a contributing writer. I was now splitting most of my time between D.C. and Dallas, and the bands’ bookings were suffering. With that came the hard decision that ultimately led me to retire from the BCS and C&K brands, make the total life transition and reinvention to a full-time writer and investigative journalist for The Blaze.
I’ve been doing music in one form or the other for over 50 years. At 19 years old, I was traveling the world playing trumpet. In the 80s, I was working for churches doing music and promoting contemporary Christian music concerts with the biggest names in that industry. Into the 90s, I became manager to national acts touring around the world — which caused me to put my horns in the closet for about 10 years. By 1999, I just wanted to play music again, and I answered that ad to join Soul Kitchen & The Bull City Horns.
Obviously, this telling is the very short version of that 23-year experience, and what became such a significant part of my life. There were hard times and bad times, but mostly wonderful times with all the guys and gals I was honored to perform with. We played for near-empty rooms and for as many as 40,000 at festivals. We shared the stage with famous artists and many of the best local musicians and bands. I will always cherish every moment.
I want to express my heartfelt thanks and admiration to all the fantastic musicians who made those 23 years unforgettable. And to the fans who continued to show up for our infrequent club shows in the last couple of years. Many who’d been coming to see us for over 20 years!
At our final Durham show on December 8, I stepped off the stage a few times just to watch and soak it in. After the last song, and when we began the final tear-down and load-out of the gear, one of the guys said to me, “You know you’re going to miss this.”
Yes . . . I am.
