Sharing their moniker with the legendary NBA great who famously turned a headband into a fashion statement, Slick Watts lit up stages from Chicago to Cali.
Multi-talented guitarist/vocalist/songwriter and bandleader Don Mackie followed his rock ’n’ roll true north forming Slick Watts with his high school chums, recruiting his brother Brian on guitar, Bruce Coppock on bass, and drummer Joe Seely. The newly minted combo ground it out in the competitive Rockford, IL scene, where they scraped together enough coin to fund their 1983 debut single, “Title Town” b/w “Rock Party.” Recorded at Opus Studios in Gurnee, the 45 found release on the private press label, Lightning & Cloud.
Steady gigs and their first single created a buzz that eventually caught the attention of Jeff Schultz. The Houston entrepreneur ultimately picked up the tab for their full-length LP, Are You Ready!!!!!!. Schultz wasn’t afraid to spend some bank on the project; with producer Bob Monaco (Rufus, Three Dog Night, Wild Cherry, Tina Turner) at the helm, the eight-song opus was recorded at a potpourri of the Chicago area’s finest studios: Studiomedia in Evanston, Solid Sound Studios in Hoffman Estates, and Remington Road Studios in Schaumburg. The record went on to be mixed at Chicago’s Paragon Recording Studios, Mad Hatter Studios in Los Angeles, and then the iconic Sound City Studios in Van Nuys where Illinois rock legend, REO Speedwagon famously crafted their sonic identity.
At the height of their momentum, Slick Watts achieved a claim to fame few can touch; as reported by the Rockford Register Star: “Few area bands can say they’ve opened for Los Lobos; only one can say Los Lobos opened for it.” This went down in Santa Cruz, CA, right as “La Bamba” was topping the charts and an expected crowd of 5,000 swelled to 15,000. The band couldn’t have hoped for a better time to film their upcoming video. It seemed the quartet was primed to follow in the footsteps of another Rockford, IL, sensation with some live footage that topped the charts: Cheap Trick at Budokan.
But as happens to so many rising phenoms, the wheels came off when Brian Mackie broke his wrist, Joe Seely tied the knot, and Bruce Coppock up and quit. While the band split, their rare 1987 LP became a sought-after crate-digger classic. Today, that high-octane slice of ’80s three-chord rock ’n’ roll has found a permanent home with Fervor Records where the label’s reissue of Are You Ready!!!!!! propels the legacy of Slick Watts into a new era.
Fervor connected Don Mackie with famed producer/engineer Ralph Patlan (Megadeth, Kiss, UFO, Rick Derringer); in 2026, Mackie journeyed to the Valley of the Sun where they are working on Don’s upcoming release at The Bunker Studio in Tempe.
– Liner notes by David Hilker
