The Smubbs - The Last Album (Reissue) (2018)

One of Lake Ronconkoma, New York's contributions to mid-1960s rock and roll ... For a long time I knew little or nothing about this outfit (other than a basic discography and the limited material found on their sole 1969 LP). Lo and behold band member George Utter was kind enough to take the time to send me some information on the group.

The Smubbs story is an epic saga but I'll give you the basic facts. We started in 1964 at St. Anthonys, an all boys catholic high school. The original members were Rick and Michael Segall, a drummer who's last name was Mollinelli, myself and Jimmy and Al Braunreuther. The "Smubbs" nameplate reflected our last initials, ( Mollinelli who was quickly replaced by Al.) We stayed together until the winter 66/67 when the Braunreuthers left and new guitarist Jerry Davis and a new drummer Vinny Villany joined. In 1968 Michael our bass player had a nervous breakdown and was replaced by Steven Shene. Rick and I were the only ones who were in the group from beginning to end. Most of the songs on the album were recorded with Rick, myself, Jerry, Vinny, and Steven although "I Remember Sunday" had Mike on bass and backing vocals and Jimmy on guitar.

The group broke up in 1970. Rick and his wife Barbara and their son "little Rick" went to Hollywood. Little Rick was on the final season of the "Partridge Family" as the neighbor little Ricky, who came on every other week or so and sang one of his dad's tunes. They performed together as " Family Portrait". Steven and his wife Susan and I formed a folk/rock trio called "Day Olde Tradition" and played the Hamptons during the summer of 1971 and then the Adirondacks for a winter before breaking up. He and I still record tunes on our own though he lives in Florida.

You mentioned in your review that if we had one or two more keepers we might have made it. There are a dozen more keepers locked in a vault in Brooklyn and held by our manager at the time with whom we had a nasty separation. Actually there are somewhere around 40 tracks or more in that vault. I recently got together with Rick and started compiling cassette and reel to reel copies of some of those tunes. I'm thinking of calling the manager and trying to get the 1" multi-tracks to transfer to digital. Rick has had no success with him.

Chow ,
George Utter
March 2005