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Wacky's: A Place For Trinity Misfits
Image of Trinity band evergreen featured in the Trinitonian, March 4th, 1993.
Rick's, Wacky's Deli, Wacky's Cantina, or just Wacky's - regardless of the name changes, like Eddies, Wacky's became a place for Trinity students on the strip. These students, however, were part of the counterculture of Trinity.
At the onset, Wacky’s welcomed Trinity students, with their first ad in the Trinitonian offering students a dollar off with their university IDs1. As the bar became a hotspot for Trinity students with a more counterculture edge, it also became the venue where many Trinity bands had their first gig.
Wacky's ad from the Trinitonian, November 17, 1989.
Wacky’s even had a “Trinity night” in September of 1992 when four Trinity bands; The Intentions, Evergreen, Coyote Dreams, and Light Baby Strange, played2. The event was organized by Greg Goodman, a member of Coyote Dreams who had a goal of using the night to expose Trinity bands to the San Antonio community. To achieve this, Goodman distributed posters at St. Mary’s University and San Antonio College, and even had the event mentioned on local radio.
Article from the Trinitonian, “Wacky’s Spotlights T.U. Bands," September 18, 1993.
That event was not the end for Trinity bands at Wacky’s; bands continued to perform there until 1994, including the four bands previously mentioned plus The Macaroni Club3, Sexy Grandpa4 and Anti Play5 and many others. Many of these Trinity bands served as openers for other local San Antonio bands at Wacky’s, allowing them to introduce their music to a larger audience.
Article from the Trinitonian,“TU Band Sexy Grandpa comes of age” March 14 1993.
L to R: Abra Schnur, Sanford Nowlin, Astronaut, Sophia Gonzales, and Alex Oshman after the Nowlin's oral history interview.
Wacky's Regular: Sanford Nowlin
Wacky's Regular: Sanford Nowlin
Sanford Nowlin6, a Trinity student from 1988 to 1992, remembers Wacky's opening up in 1989. It was started and started by Rick French, and Nowlin recalls him as a construction worker whose lifelong dream was to run a own bar.
Nowlin, a self-proclaimed Trinity misfit, saw Wacky’s as a place where he fit in. Nowlin did not come from the stereo-typical Trinity background; he did not have an affluent upbringing nor did he fall into popular culture, so instead he looked for belonging on and off the strip.
Nowlin: My dad managed a restaurant. So I didn't go to private school or anything like that. Suddenly, I was here amongst all these [wealthy students], it was kind of overwhelming a little bit. But one of the things that I quickly found was the St. Mary's Strip, because that was where you could go to experience music, live music...It was all sort of these mom and pop businesses. And some of what happened on St. Mary's I liked. Some of it was a little bit more to the mainstream crowd, I guess you could say. But after I discovered that, I started venturing off from the St. Mary's Strip. And there was a club called Taco Land that was, gosh, three or four blocks off of St. Mary's. And so I started hearing about stuff going on there. And that sort of became a hangout. And there were various other, I would say, venues in the orbit of St. Mary's that I think probably wouldn't have become what they did if there wasn't a critical mass on St. Mary's...It was interesting because I think there was sort of a perception that the Trinity students would go to certain places. But I didn't feel like I was unwelcome when I'd go to Wacky's or Taco Land. 6
While at Trinity, Nowlin worked for the student newspaper, the Trinitonian, holding the positions of Entertainment Editor and Managing Editor. Despite his love for the music scene, Nowlin struggled to get his staff to go out and write about it.
Article written by Sanford Nowlin on local band Stunt Child for the Trinitonian, November 2, 1990.
When talking about the staff, he said, “just seemed like they were not out to explore.”6 Only wanting to write about the mainstream, they could not understand the strip’s importance to the local music scene; an understanding that it gave everyday people a place to love music just for the music, regardless of whether you were a local musician or everyday patron.
Nowlin credits him becoming a local musician, playing in the bands Evil Mothers and Boxcar Satan for influencing his writing about the arts, since it allowed him to see the music scene from a different perspective. An experience he would not have gotten without a place like Wacky’s.
Nowlin: [The] first group I was playing in would have been around 1990. And we started playing gigs. And I started to see the mechanics of how bars operated and how people who were presenting live music...And then I started to also understand how grassroots so much of it is, in terms of promoting music, in terms of booking bands from out of town, and making sure they get paid, and have a place to stay, and all this kind of stuff. And that's, I think, always been at the core of what I've tried to do when I've written about music, is to understand that [for me]...[it's not about making it]...once I realized that, it was a very freeing thing for me... [And] just seeing all of these these sort of entrepreneurial handstands that these people were doing. They were doing it because they really felt like, for whatever reason, they wanted to do it. Whether it's just to open a restaurant, or present live music, or own a bar. And I felt like most of the stuff on St. Mary's at the time, it was very much people who were just passionate.6
Looking back at Wacky’s and the St. Mary’s Strip, Nowlin sees it as a place that allowed him to grow as a musician, journalist, and a lover of San Antonio. Wacky’s gave a home to bands that were considered unusual by mainstream standards and allowed young musicians to hone their skills. And most importantly, Wacky’s was his jumping off point to explore San Antonio music scenes and subcultures.
Notes:
Wacky’s. Advertisement. Trinitonian, 3 March. 1989. Trinity University Digitized Publications
Nelson, Leah. “Wacky’s Spotlights T.U. Bands.” Trinitonian, 18 Sept. 1993. Trinity University Digitized Publications.
“People, places and things.” Trinitonian, 6 Nov. 1992. Trinity University Digitized Publications.
Butterfield, Lana. “TU Band Sexy Grandpa comes of age.” Trinitonian, 14 March. 1993. Trinity University Digitized Publications.
“Live Wire.” Trinitonian, 2 Dec. 1993. Trinity University Digitized Publications.
Sanford Nowlin, interviewed by Abra Schnur, June 25, 2026, audio, St. Mary's Strip History Project, San Antonio, TX.
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