Root Boy Slim - Sex Change Band

Sex Change Band

Mackenzie adopted the stage name of Root Boy Slim, and formed a blues rock band, which he dubbed "Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band." His backup singers were called the Rootettes. The band members were stridently different than most club fare. Root Boy was fat, had greasy hair, and almost always seemed to be in a drug- or alcohol-induced stupor. The band was a fixture in the mid-Atlantic Blues/Rock scene, and favored a mix of Memphis-style boogie rock/blues.

Root Boy and company traveled the club circuit, until a self-produced recording caught the ear of some A&R representatives at Warner Bros. Records. That song was called "Christmas At Kmart" and it landed the band a $250,000 contract with Warner Bros. That tune and the follow-up LP demonstrated Root and the band's penchant for writing tunes relating to pop-culture.

Their most famous recording was "Boogie 'Til You Puke" from the debut album Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band with the Rootettes (Warner Bros. Records, 1978), which also featured "I Used To Be a Radical", "I'm Not Too Old For You", and "(You Broke My) Mood Ring". Most of the songs were written by MacKenzie, guitarist Ernie Lancaster, and bassist Bob Greenlee. The lyrics often satirized society and mixed in autobiographical elements from MacKenzie's storied life. Warner mismarketed the LP, and the band found themselves without a label—but not without a having had a European tour, in which Root Boy became enamored with his forefathers' homeland: Scotland.

During the same year, the band played a date at the Varsity Grill's Back Room in College Park, Maryland, which was one of the main bars popular with students at the University of Maryland, College Park. A riot broke out in the bar and outside on U.S. Route 1, which later led the College Park City Council to ban the band from future engagements in College Park. The ban was lifted in 1980, and Root Boy and crew triumphantly returned in a concert in the University's Ritchie Coliseum.

Miles Copeland III's record label, Illegal Records was a spin-off from I.R.S. Records, and Copeland signed the band and they produced their second LP, ZOOM on I.R.S. in the U.S., with distribution on Illegal Records in the UK. Despite the use of strong marketing efforts, the LP was just as commercially unsuccessful as the previous one, with the band being dropped by the label. Despite their disappointment, Root Boy Slim And The Sex Change Band continued playing the bar circuit along the Atlantic Seaboard and released four more LPs: Dog Secrets on Congressional Records, Don't Let This Happen to You and Left for Dead for Kingsnake Records, and Root Six on Naked Language Records.

Eventually, most of the original band members went their separate ways, reuniting mostly for recording projects. For nightclub performances, Root Boy was backed by a series of other bands, including Ron Holloway and Cryin' Out Loud, New Hope for the Criminally Insane, Capital Offense (featuring Wayne Tomlinson, Tommy Lepson, Tim Biery, Ron Holloway and Dominic Vigliotti), Barbecue Juiceheads, and the Humans.

Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band's fifth anniversary took place in 1982 at the PsycheDelly in Bethesda, Maryland, and featured home movies of Root Boy, who wore an orange and white checkered 7-Eleven clerk's shirt and a white 10-gallon cowboy hat throughout the concert. The band's 10th anniversary concert took place at The Roxy, a club in downtown Washington. A line formed hours prior to that show and the club's three levels were standing room only. By the time the fourth set began, there were at least 25 musicians on the stage who had recorded or played clubs with Root Boy during his career. That show was also the debut of the "Rich White Republican," a biting satiric attack on Republicans that prophesied the eventual election of George H.W. Bush to the White House. The band sold bumper stickers that read "Root Boy Slim owes me money."