David Maciel responded to a craigslist post in 2003 from Roadhouse, a Grateful Dead tribute band out of Petaluma, CA, that was looking for Marin and San Francisco venues to try and get in to. A comment about two drummer bands led to an audition, and the second drummer slot. Roadhouse was winding down after a grueling three year run, unable to find a replacement lead guitarist for Mark Mitchell, who had been commuting great distances to shows and rehearsals. The last Roadhouse show was in June of 2004.
Roadhouse was Tom Dibell's band. He left the area for a while, and when he came back in 2005, he called Maciel and got monthly Dead jam going at John Frothingham's Music Spectrum in San Rafael. After a couple of jams, they had a half decent working line up. After settling upon the name of Leadfoot Betty, they scored a gig at the Golden Gate Park Panhandle acoustic bandshell during the Summer of Love 40th Anniversary Celebration in 2007.
A couple of more changes would bring in Jimmie Brighton from Stackabones on lead guitar and vocals, and Mike Kearney on bass guitar and vocals.
The Grateful Dead tribute band scene in the San Francisco Bay Area is crowded to say the least, and competition to get into any venue is brutal, hence that band played mostly at private parties and had quietly disbanded by 2010, partly due to geographical dissonance.
But Brighton and Maciel still wanted to play, and still lived close enough to each other to make that happen.
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