The Rustix

The Rustix were a super popular R&B band during the late 1960's in the western NY area particularly in Rochester. My experience with the band began in early 1967.I had been drumming for a band named The Invictas. I was becoming bored with the style of music played by The Invictas and coincidentally a new, up and coming group, The Rustix, had lost their drummer,Bobby Blandino, to the armed forces. The two groups had been playing at the same club known as the Varsity Inn. The Invictas played the night gigs while The Rustix played the Sunday afternoon gigs. Members of The Rustix would stay to listen to our group and one day Chuck Brucato,the leader, came up to me and asked if I'd like to play for the Rustix. I thought about it for a few days and decided to play with the group knowing that The Rustix's R&B sound with good vocals was what was "happening" at the time and "Buble Gum Rock" was out. The Rustix had a rigid practice schedule.These guys were determined to be successful and instilled in me the desire to improve my drumming and self discipline. We began playing at small local clubs in Rochester to meager audiences.In the summer of 1967 I arranged an audition with the owner of The Airport Inn in Lake George, a club I had played at with The Invitas. There we worked for about $900. for a six night week! The pay was short but our mission was to "get tight" musically. We played there for the whole summer(1967&68) and our name began to spread around New York state. A Rochester businessman ,Charles Leone, heard the group during one of those summer nights and offered to manage the band. Later on he brought in Ferdinahd J.Smith a Rochester DJ as promotion manager. We came back to Rochester that fall of 1967 with our "tight" sound and began playing to ever growing crowds all over Rochester. We were drawing the largest crowds at Brighton Bowl on East Ave. The owner offered to build a club just to accomodate the crowds. He called it Club 45. During this period we recorded with various labels including Columbia Records and Chess Cadet Records. Those records never did much but they helped with popularizing the band and also caught the attention of some people at Motown who were developing a subsidiary label for white bands.The label was Rare Earth.Motown sent a producer,R.Dean Taylor(Indiana Wants ME)to listen to the group. He became our producer for the Bedlam album. The album sounded good but Motown people had decided to add a symphony orchestera to our original tracks which changed the authenticity of our sound.Although the album reached the Top 100 Billboard List, we never got the elusive hit we desperately wanted. We than decided to go back to Detroit to record the "Come On People" album but we wanted to produce it ourselves. The album didn't do as well as "Bedlam" but it did capture a more authentic Rustix sound.The year 1969 was our best year. We went on the road to support our album and opened concerts for bands such as Emerson Lake & Palmer with Procol Harum in Pittsburgh, Jimmy Hendrix Experience,the Four Tops,Rare Earth, Mountain, Vanilla Fudge,Grand Funk Railroad,The Rascals and many others.By 1971 the stress of being on the road and conflicts within the group created disenchantment between some members. I decided to return to college and the band continued on with another drummer for another half year or so. They recorded "We All End Up In Boxes" with another Motown producer but that record was never released to my knowledge. Soon after, the group disbanded. The members and former members of The Rustix were Chuck Brucato and Al Galich (frontmen), Bob D'Andrea (guitarist 1966-1969)), Ron Collins(base guitar 1969-1972), Vince Strenk(organist 1968-1972),David Colon(drummer 1967- 1971)Bob Sohner(base guitarist 1968-1969),George Cochini (lead guitarist (1969-1972) Kit Nelson (base guitarist 1968). David Colon Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.