South Florida’s club scene in Broward and Dade Counties seemed to never go through a weekend without a standing-room-only appearance by the hard working Tampa Bay bands Autodrive, Stranger, and the Bobby Friss Band at Fort Lauderdale’s Art Stock’s Playpen South, The Button South, Rosebuds, and Summers on the Beach: the days of rocking with the female-fronted Femme Fatale, Gypsy Queen, and Lady Sabre, along with Canaveral, Cypress, Fury, Paradise Alley, Race, Rockerfellas, Rock Street, and Split Image.

There was no grunge-inspired “alternative” scene, yet, with Marilyn Mansonesque moody shock rockers, Collapsing Lungs creepiness, or Jack Off Jill promiscuities. Straight ahead, honest and entertaining, kick ass rock ‘n’ roll—with well-written, radio-made songs—was the name of the game.

No one was better at that game than Autodrive: no venue was too big or too small, as you could also see Autodrive at South Florida’s less-hectic, intimate beer joints, such as Bangers, The Keg ‘n’ Can, and The Port Hole. No matter the size of venue or crowd: Autodrive worked the room as if they were on stage at a 15,000 seat venue, relishing their stature as the toast of MTV with a #1 single on the charts.

Autodrive’s incessant touring—booking anywhere from five to seven shows a week, with contracts requiring three sets of cover to one of their all-original sets each night—crisscrossed The Sunshine State, taking them from points north to Pensacola and Jacksonville in the panhandle, down to the furthermost points south in Key West, Florida, where they became one of the most popular bands booked at Rick’s Key West, as well as one of the most requested bands on the island communities’ dominate rock station, WAIL-FM 99.5. Their shows at The Button South were gigs of legend: equal to the glam-rocking bombast of Fort Lauderdale’s own hometown, hair-metal heroes Cryer, Saigon Kick, Tuff Luck, and Young Turk—all of which walked away with major label records deals.

Autodrive—as is the case with the rest of the bands on that nifty, drop-down blog archive to your right—should have been huge. The talent was there. The songs were there. The stage show was there. The crowds and the radio support were there. Yet, the all-important record company contact . . . never came (or it did and the company screwed them, royally). At the very least, in 2025, we should be able to log into the digital marketplace and find a copies of Autodrive albums alongside Saigon Kick and Tuff Luck relics—and relish the memories of Autodrive as we downed a bucket of five-beers-for-five bucks served by a well-endowed waitress with the biggest of perms (named Stacey). Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.