This is the true story about how The Losers Night Club became the Number One Rock and Roll Night Club in Florida and the nation. Rock bands performed concerts every week promoting their original music. Losers provided a great venue and large Tampa Bay Area audience for bands that were looking to get signed to a record label and for bands to promote their new records. The Losers * Tampa relates the story of how David Poppe, the club designer and artist developed an over the top rock and roll décor perfect for live music. The Losers * Tampa chronicles how the most successful rock and roll night club of the early 70s evolved – and includes the individual stories about the bands, the people and the employees.

Dave Tex Anders the club owner and author of The Losers * Tampa recounts in his own words the many experiences of leasing a former donut shop, and surrounding himself with dedicated employees to operate and expand the club. Dave Tex Anders was a former college football coach who inspired people to do what they do best – which led to turning Poppe the artist loose to create comfortable décor, dance floors, concert stages, lighting and acoustics which quickly made The Losers the icon rock and roll club. Entertainment was always number one and employees were hired first as actors and second as bartenders and waitresses. Employees provided a performance as they mixed and served a drink. Tom Cruise in the movie Cocktail had nothing on the Losers bartenders with their performances every night.

The Losers * Tampa story continues as the disco dance era begins and live bands find themselves competing with the disco. Poppe adds discotheque lighting and sound with Bobby Stoner the most advanced disco DJ of the era spinning records when the bands went on break. The club now had it all with rock and rollers and disco dancers – mixing the cultures of whites, blacks, straights, gays and Latinos - all getting along peacefully during this exciting time of music, alcohol, free sex, and drugs. Bands were drawing thousands of people nightly, but there was no guarantee that their original music would be danceable or could compete against DJ Bobby Stoner’s high energy and consistent disco dance beat. The Losers * Tampa chronicles this era of change with 95 pages of wonderful pictures of bands, dancers, club décor and architecture.

The Losers * Tampa includes Dave Tex Anders stories of working with the agents and bands - like when he was contacted by Capricorn Records to provide a play date for a new band called Lynyrd Skynrd. And the times when members of Traffic or when Ted Nugent would stop in to jam. Read about the performances by The Outlaws, Eric Burdon, White Witch, New York Dolls, Mother’s Finest and more. And the time when Randy California of Spirit just stopped by asking if we could play his test pressing of Spirit’s new album Tampa Jam to see how the Loser’s audience would react to Spirit’s new music.

The Losers * Tampa also documents the humorous day to day events that made the club a vibrant place to be. One of the stories recounts entering the Losers boat into the Gaspirilla Day Pirate Invasion (annual event in Tampa every January) and the efforts to outdo the real pirate ship with a specially decorated boat, animal vested guys looking like Norsemen and scantily dressed lady sailors. Another event covered is the largest club raid in history, when the Sherriff’s Department raided the club and put the area under Marshall Law, helicopters, news advisories, with no arrests made, and no charges levied. And the funniest story about the arranged date for two Southeastern Conference Football Coaches with two of the most beautiful women in Tampa. The kicker was they were not women but young men with long beautiful hair, implants, etc. Dave Tex Anders was an ex college coach and did this as a joke. The story will have you laughing as you visualize the surprise that the coaches found. With these true stories, all the interesting patrons, bands and the continuing excitement of the era, you can easily imagine how The Losers * Tampa story could be adapted to become a sitcom or movie.

The Losers Night Club was renamed the “Losers Performing Arts Center” after the drug raid and continued to be the premier exposure club for up and coming rock and roll bands and was the place to be during the beginning era of high energy disco. Disco eventually killed the live bands and the book The Losers * Tampa chronicles the changes in music culture that happened during this era.

The Losers * Tampa includes 95 pages of great pictures including the club architecture by artist David Poppe, famous bands that played the club, employee entertainers, dancers, drag queens and over a million patrons. The Losers * Tampa is the documentary of the music scene in Tampa in the 70s and with all the pictures you get to see what it was really like at the Number One Rock and Roll Club in Florida and the nation.