Gary Gebler learned the trombone at a very young age. According to Gary, around 1970 “I went to adjudication where all the musicians would go and get judged and I turned out to be the best trombone player in the state of Maryland at that adjudication so I got to play with The Baltimore Symphony. That made my parents very proud, proud enough to where they said OKAY since you did that you can play the drums.”
So, Gary learned to play drums. He went on to play in bands including Ishmael Day circa 1973.
Tim Buckley learned to play clarinet and saxophone as a youngster, then later took up bass guitar.
Tim and Gary had been childhood friends and decided they wanted to get back together and form a band. This led to many jam sessions in the basement playing rock covers of Brown Sugar, Venus, Three Dog Night and Grand Funk songs…
They took out an ad looking for a guitarist. Jack Rosendale answered the ad, auditioned for, and joined the group. A photo of Jack with B. B. King sealed the deal!
The trio began practicing in Tim’s basement. Tim’s dad, Pat Buckley, financed buying the PA system and other band equipment. Mr. Buckley said “the biggest thing I remember is the noise every night… the roaches and I would have to leave for the evening.” Tim recalled that he and Gary “had the core, and when Jack joined us that’s when it really took off, then we played with every musician in Baltimore.”
It was now 1977 and the music scene was exploding with raw sounds of punk bands like Dr. Feelgood, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols… Gary: “we liked that energy, and we liked those bands, but we also thought that they couldn’t sing, and the three of us actually could sing pretty well together. So, we decided if we could take that energy of that music and really put some harmonies and really concentrated on the vocals we would have something new and unique.”
The newly formed band they called Bum’s Rush. It was a rock band with punk-rock stylings but with harmony vocals.
Other members of the band included Mark Edmunds (guitar), and Bill Fisher (bass).
Bum’s Rush performed covers and originals at venues including Seagull Inn, Nelson River Watch, Marble Bar, Eight by Ten, the college circuit including Franklin, Marshall, Towson State, Johns Hopkins… They opened for Nazareth for a New Years Eve concert at Painter’s Mill Music Fair.
The band’s antics included in the middle of the Flamin’ Groovies song “Teenage Head” they would keep playing, but they would switch instruments to others that they usually did not play: it would be Gary on bass, Jack on drums, Tim on guitar. In their 2017 YouTube documentary they all admitted it was pretty bad! They were also once kicked out of a charity benefit battle of the bands in Towson.
Tim “I remember it was exhilarating, it was it was a fun time and it was a scary time… we were booked in those biker bars, once we were booked in a country-western bar and we didn’t know until people started asking if we do Mel Tillis, Dolly Parton, and of course Jack knew every song!” Jack recalling meeting B. B. King said “one of the many memorable things there was that he told me to listen to everything. Good advice.”
Gary: “One smart thing we did… we went to the studio and in probably about an hour laid down eleven songs. We paid by the hour, so yes, we were pretty speedy! (laughter)”
The group celebrated a 40th anniversary reunion concert at Club 66 on October 15, 2017.
