Before Internet marketing and networking, there were only a few tools available to bands looking to build regional and national reputations. Groups like the Dave Perkins Band (DPB) performed whenever and wherever they could. Soon after it's inception, the DPB adopted a posture of continuous touring beginning with the Southern cities of Memphis, Nashville, Birmingham, Atlanta, and Louisville. Within it's first year, the group expanded its range to include frequent shows in NYC, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Wilmington, Buffalo, and Toronto. Showcase clubs, college concerts, and opening act slots at larger venues were the typical performance sites for the DPB.
Audiences enthusiastically embraced the band’s hybrid musical identity. Equal parts jam band, Southern Rock band, and New Wave pop group, the DPB combined sometimes-unlikely stylistic elements to achieve a sound and performance identity that, according to fans and journalists was unique among American bands touring at the time. A longtime fan recently made the statement that the DPB was a missing link of sorts between first generation jam bands like the Allman Brothers and later bands like Phish.
The DPB had “near miss†relationships with several major record labels, all of which ended in contract disagreements, changes in label personnel, or decisions by one party or the other to abandon negotiations. Despite having finally won the attention of record labels, the press, and a growing fan base, the DPB ended in a way common to many unsigned touring groups. For the DPB, it was the inability to sustain a constant performance schedule that covered nearly half the United States. If non-stop touring did not, in the end, bring the band the national exposure it sought, it did forge an explosive and adventurous musical chemistry between its members that won audience acclaim and loyalty wherever the band performed. Many of those who heard the DPB remain passionate about the experience and the music.
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