Richard Filaccio first came to local notice with the late 70s/early 80s band Puppies, whose song "Mechanical Beat," a popular gig number, originally appeared on the Puppies six-song EP Fun Is Right, released on their own High Rise Records label at the end of 1980 (dedicated on the back cover "to the memory of John Lennon").

In September 2016, Jimmy Fallon spotlighted the Puppies on the Tonight Show, in a Do Not Play segment that featured both an album cover and a portion of the song "Cat Food," which the house band played with Questlove on vocals. "The Fallon thing was such an out of the blue thing," Filaccio told the Reader. "We all loved it. And he was kind to us, where he usually makes fun of these one offs.. And having The Roots do a piece of it was thrilling."

Summer 2017 found Filaccio recording a new version of his 1986 solo track "The Night of the Hunter," which he described as "A tale of a nightmarish escape scene from a vampire, running and hiding, but also realizing it is too late. Things have happened. Horrible things...it has a very late '80s vibe intact, influenced by bands like Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy."

Filaccio released a new lo-fi rock single in late 2018, "I have played a few solo gigs down in SD over the past couple years, getting back on stage after decades away," he said at the time.