Rudy Baker & The Vegetables
Let me start by saying that it was never my intention to use this series as a platform to talk about myself. But enough requests have come in to cover my Vegetable days that I finally decided to do it. For me, the summer of 1970 was a time of great change. I had just graduated from High School and was soon to start college as a Saxophone Major at the University of Delaware. My previous group, Pump Productions with Dave Bennett had disbanded as Dave had left to join Snakegrinder & The Shredded Field Mice. There was something new to do in Newark, Delaware, a coffeehouse called “Eat At Joe’s” was started by a group of volunteers at the Newark Presbyterian Church. It quickly became a favorite hangout for young people. Though a year had passed since the festival, the sounds of Woodstock were in the air constantly. At first, the coffeehouse folks only played records but were willing to consider live bands playing there. One night I sat with a group of friends, Bill Blough, Rob Sollazzi (who I had only just met), and former Pump drummer, Bill Dube. Rob remembers that night well, “I came on faith and the fact that me and Billy Boy [Bill Blough] were buds. Even though I really didn’t know [Hangnail Phillips] yet, I knew from the Pump “spectacle” that he was the leader and had that Frank Zappa off the wall mentality.” Rob was a lead guitarist looking for something new. Bill Blough and Bill Dube had been in the Pump circles of musicians and friends. Bill Dube had just returned from a summer in Maine where he had studied drums intensely with his cousin Craig and was itching to get a new band started. Bill Blough had not been in a band before but was an active part of the Pump crowd and a creative musician. So from the ashes of Pump Productions grew a new seed. It was obvious that the four of us had all the ingredients of a band. The chemistry was there. We were laughing and getting along so well that we decided right then and there to form a band. First things first, we batted names back and forth getting more ridiculous by the moment [Irving & The Amplifiers, The Knobs, among others] until someone said Rutabaga & The Vegetables (ala-Frank Zappa) and then one of us upped it to:
Rudy Baker & The Vegetables.
Bill Dube said he wanted to be Rudy so Rudy he became. A flurry of short-lived other corny names were brainstormed like Tom Aito, Zuke Einie, Broccoli Rob, and so on, but only Rudy Baker stuck. We needed a place to practice so Bill Blough arranged for us to practice at The Newark Unitarian Church where he and his family were active. The agreement was that we would clean up after Sunday gatherings in exchange for Sunday afternoon rehearsal space. It gave us a large hall in which to work. We even had our own locked closet for band equipment. This became our home base for the next three years.
The first song I wrote for the band was “Tossed Salad” and, no, it didn’t mean that then.
I was thinking we needed a theme song like “Hey, Hey, We’re The Monkees”. Soon after, I wrote “Of You”, “I Saw A Lie” and others. One song called “Tandi” based on a dream I had became the instrumental, “Antenna”. Later “Antenna” would be the first movement of “Electric Symphony # 1 in Dm”.
By October 18, 1970 we were ready to play out. Our first gig was at Eat At Joe’s. Not much is remembered about it now but it was the beginning of our illustrious career. At first we played things like Santana’s “Soul Sacrifice”, Alice Cooper’s “Fields Of Regret”, “Love Potion #9” and “Secret Agent Man”. The latter became a show favorite because of the kick we all did during the chorus. It wasn’t long before the crowd would kick along with us. Early on we started bringing a grocery bag of vegetables to throw at the crowd during our last song, Earth Opera’s “The American Eagle Tragedy” which had a drum solo. During the drum solo we would reach around behind our amps and throw carrots, lettuce, broccoli, and cauliflower. We knew that there would be return fire so we didn’t want anything too soft or hard. Naturally all hell would break out. Everybody loves a good food fight. Lettuce and broccoli was good because the more action it saw the less harmful it was. At one point, “Eat At Joe’s” actually made us sign in our contract with them that we wouldn’t throw vegetables in our show. True to our promise, when the drum solo started Rob turned around and came up with a watermelon which he threw ka-plop in the middle of the dance floor. After we all had a good laugh and everyone left, we cleaned it all up without a trace. The staff at “Eat At Joe’s” was not pleased but they got over it.
As time went on, we expanded our horizon’s to two other area coffeehouses, “The Side Door” and “Goldie’s Doorknob”. Rudy Baker’s drum set grew constantly as he incorporated more and more drums, cymbals, bells, squeeze horns, hubcaps and even a Va-room bicycle motor. As we made the rounds to the coffeehouses we realized that we actually had a fan base following us all over New Castle County, Delaware.
My studies at the U of D Music Department led me to write “Electric Symphony #1 in Dm”. Hardly a symphony, it was a twenty minute rock instrumental with four movements. [A tape was made of this set and played on local AM station WNRK. Their equipment was not properly maintained, though, and magnitized heads damaged the recording.] Though we were often compared to The Mothers we never actually did any Zappa music. We did love Alice Cooper though, and at one time had at least tried the entire “Love It To Death” album. At one point we were described in a local news article as “Delaware’s Da-da Rockers”. Our band equipment was a bit less than desired, though we’d all love to have it back now. I used a rare Gibson 330 and a Fender Temolux and of course my signature Rickenbacker 360-12 for rhythm guitar. Rob used a Gibson SG with a Fender Twin through a Big Muff pedal for lead and Bill Blough played a Hagstrom eight string bass through a Haines Bass King amp (which later was replaced by a Standell bass amp with 2-15” speakers). Our PA was terrible. To get over the racket we used big University Sound horns for vocals. I shudder to think what we used as a PA mixer amp in those days (I think it was home made).
Though I wrote the bulk of our original material, I can’t stress enough how much we all contributed to everything about the band. Bill Dube’s drumming was a driving force as were his ideas and theatrics. Rob provided ripping guitar solos that always added a heavy metal edge to our music. Bill Blough nearly always magically came up with just the right bass parts to give the songs what they needed.
We soon acquired Pat Roby as road manager and side man. Pat was older, had a van, and played Hammond Organ. He was a great addition to the team, as his sense of humor rivaled ours for absurdity. After nearly a year of making the rounds to the coffeehouses, we were invited to perform at the Rockford Park Music Festival in Wilmington (Summer 1971). In preparation for the show, we painted Bill Dube’s green Corvair Van to look like a giant ear of corn. A close band friend, Leslie Hornberger, designed and made costumes for us. For Rudy Baker, a black cape with red lining and Batman-style cap. Rob got red, white, and blue hot pants with an embroidered tank top (“M” on the front for Captain Meatball his new persona). I don’t remember why I didn’t wear my green and orange Hangnail Humanoid space suit to the show but I didn’t (maybe it was too hot). Bill Blough, quite convincingly, went in drag as Trisha Nixon. The show was a smashing success and soon everyone was talking about Rudy Baker & The Vegetables. There were over a thousand people there that day to watch a dozen or more Delaware bands. We made fast friends with many of the other bands and were soon being invited to play shows with them. One band, Socco (later Shakey Jake) invited us to play at the Dover Armory with them which opened middle Delaware as a new frontier for us.
In the following year, we continued playing gigs and saved enough money to replace our old equipment with Acoustic amplifiers even our sound system was Acoustic [Acoustic amps from Acoustic Control Corporation were very powerful and state of the art]. Our music was becoming more progressive as we were listening to groups like (early) Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Hampton Grease Band, Captain Beefheart, and Family.
With our new costumes came skits that we performed between sets. The skits were an ongoing story much like in comic books or Saturday Matinee Shorts. Every week we would have to write the next episode of the story in hopes that fans would follow to see what happens. Basically, there was a villain, “The Nefarious Doctor Baker” played by Bill Dube and his android “Hangnail Humanoid”, played by me, versus superhero “Captain Meatball” played by Rob and his bungling sidekick “Bimbo” played by Bill Blough. The skits worked to amuse the crowd and made us something different. Eventually we stopped the skits and just played music.
There was a TV show out of Philadelphia called “The Dr. Shock Show”. Each week he would host cheezy old sci-fi horror movies. During the breaks Dr. Shock would have guests and do skits. We had the opportunity to borrow a Sony Porta-Cam (a reel-to-reel video tape system that you wore on your back). So we decided to do a video. Bill Dube and I wrote a song, “Please Take Your Teeth From My Neck” which Rudy sang wearing his black cape. We dressed up and taped ourselves doing the song along with a group of friends. This was before the days of VHS tapes and it was recorded on a small reel of video tape. We sent the tape (the ONLY tape) to Dr. Shock and never heard from him about it. Months later we were playing at the Jersey shore and a girl came up to us and asked, “Weren’t you on the Dr. Shock Show?” It was news to us. We had apparently been aired and never knew it. If the tape still exists somewhere I don’t know how anyone would play it, but we would love to have it back!
Notorious for our antics and crazy costumes, there was no funnier moment than the night that we played Newark High School as “Rudy The Goldfish & The Frogmen”. Bill Dube made a giant paper-mache’ goldfish head to wear. The rest of us dressed as scuba divers wearing tights and leotards, mock air tanks, goggles, and even flippers. Playing in all this proved to be a challenge but worth it. A special skit was written to tell the story of Rudy The Goldfish.
Fortunately for history’s sake, local friend and photographer Bob Sienna was there throughout taking promo photos of us and developing them in his own darkroom. All of the studio pictures of us were taken by him. Rest In Peace, Bob.
Our team grew by two more Vegetables, John Van Camp and Brian Bennett who worked lights and sound as well as assisted with props and equipment. With a sound crew, we were able to incorporate taped sound effects into our show. In the summer of 1972 we were asked back to another Rockford Park Music Festival. This time we played in street clothes and didn’t do any skits.
On Friday the 13th of October, 1972 we took advantage of a wonderful opportunity to record in a new professional recording studio called Venture Recording Studios in Princeton, New Jersey. It was a 16 track studio owned by producer/arranger Tony Camillo. Tony had been with Motown until just before this and had built this studio underground behind his home to continue independently with Barry White and Gladys Knight. We were happy to act as guinea pigs to help them prepare the studio for upcoming sessions. We recorded originals “On The Dark Side Of The Moon” and “So Many Wires” [preceding Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon” released March 1973]. Sadly these tape recordings have suffered somewhat from age and lack the luster that they once had.
The Vegetables suffered a crippling blow during the Winter of 72-73 when Bill Blough announced his departure from the group. Without Bill, the spirit of the Vegetables changed and was never quite the same. Bill, however moved on to incredibly greener pastures by teaming up with local bluesman George Thorogood just before he and the Delaware Destroyers became world class rockers, a position he holds to this day.
With the machine still in place, we shortened our name to The Vegetables and enlisted Rob’s previous bandmate Charlie DeBrabander on bass. Charlie was a very skilled bassist with a Fender Jazz Bass, a Rickenbacker 4001 bass, and a killer Acoustic 371 bass amp. He had been a long time friend of the band and proved to be a great asset in our final months.
On April 6th, 1973, one of our very last performances was at Smith Hall, a large 250 seat classroom on the U of D campus. For the show we performed my newly finished “Electric Symphony # 2 in A Major”. For the piece we added a horn section, a classical pianist, and tenor Mike Calanan. The added musicians were named the “Para-sympatheic Symphonic Ensemble”. Though we continued to gig until Summer, the zest just wasn’t there anymore and we disbanded as best of friends and brothers forever.
Rob Sollazzi, originally from New York, has been living in Staten Island since the eighties.
Bill Dube continues to play drums with the Alicia Maxwell Project. He has also been Johnny Neel’s drummer of choice for decades and still sits in with him when Johnny is in town.
-Hangnail Phillips 2022
