Bob Solberg - The Tourists/The Royals

Solberg when he was 8 months old circa: New Years Eve of 1953 in Staten Island, NY.

Solberg with his father on the Staten Island Ferry.

Solberg’s father’s service station, Finn's Service, in Mine Hill, NJ circa: mid 70’s (Also Below.)

Art work by: Bob Solberg.

Staten Island NY circa: 1961. Solberg in 4th grade sporting his orange vest for Halloween.

Bob with his brothers Rick in chair and brother Ron circa: early 60’s.

Born and raised in Staten Island, NY, on the 5th of May 1952, Bob was 1 of 3 kids. Early on in 1974 my band Gangster opened a show for Frampton’s Camel at our local amusement park in NJ. I was 22 and we shared the small dressing room with the band. Frampton’s band were great guys. We got them feeling good, but Peter didn't participate in that haha. With Gangster, we were playing cover music in the local bars around North Jersey.

Gangster: Bill, Tommy, Fergy, Rick and Bob Solberg opening for Frampton’s Camel circa: 1974. (Next 4 photos below.)

In 1975 I went out to San Francisco in my van with my drummer friend Paul Ferguson and stayed out there for a while living in the city and going to the Haight on Sunday nights to the open jam at The Cat's Cradle which was a club on Haight St. I got to jam with Barry Melton from Country and Peter Kangaroo who was Jorma's brother. Can't spell their last name… We also played with Peter Albin from Big Brother and other musicians from out there. While I was there we would read The Village Voice from NYC and I noticed that some clubs were opening up catering to original bands such as CBGB's and Max's Kansas City and a few more, so I moved back to NJ and put The Tourists together with help from Steve Peerb, the drummer for TV Toy who was a high school friend of mine.

Solberg with drummer Paul "Fergy" Ferguson crica: 1975. They played many a bars and others hows together from the early 70's to the 2000's.

Solberg with his Gibson circa: 1976. Photo: Peter Miners.

In the recording studio circa: 1976.

“I Need My Music/Let The Bombs Fly.” Vacation Records circa: 1977.

TV Toy.

TV Toy was already hitting the NY scene. We had a pretty healthy scene going on in Morris County, NJ. To back track a little, I started playing accordion in the late 50's since my parents didn't want me to play guitar, or sax. Rock n’ Roll was frowned upon in those days. I didn't pick up guitar till high school. What really influenced me was going to the Fillmore East in NYC. I got to see a lot of the great bands of that day in their prime, such as The Who, Canned Heat, Santana and Mountain. Many times I got to see the original Allman Bros. with Duane twice, Derek and The Dominoes, Humble Pie and many more. I really wanted to play, so fast forward. The Tourists ran its course and I put together The Royals which was a heavier version of The Tourists.

Solberg and his friends at The Fillmore East circa: June 26th of 1971 during the closing weekend.

Flyer for The Royals first gig circa: 1977.

The Royals circa: 1978.

The Royals.

One of the great shows I played in was opening for The Ramones in 1977. They just released ‘Rocket to Russia’ and were skyrocketing themselves. We shared the same small dressing room with the boys and they really had no roadies that night, so we helped Arturo Vega and the guys bring their amps in to set up. I walked into the dressing room and there sits Tommy the drummer on top of his drum cases. We say hello and go back out to play Joey in pinball which l was The Ramones vs The Royals. At this point one was in the club accept bands and workers, so The Ramones do their sound check and we were sitting in the front and they kick into Surfing Bird. Man I was in heaven.

Solberg posing with his Royals jacket circ: 1978.

The Royals at The Showplace circa: late 70's Neil Kessler and Solberg. Photo: Ron Solberg.

Newspaper article featuring The Royals circa: 1977.

Just us and The Ramones. What a night! The Ramones usually did 2 sets in the clubs, but that night some motorcycle goons came into the club looking for some one and began beating on people, so the 2nd Ramones set was cancelled haha. What a night, so The Royals opened for a lot of bands at the Showplace which included Blackfoot in1977, Cyndi Lauper when she was in Blue Angel, The Real Kids from Boston, etc. The Royals went thru some personal changes and that band was done by 1979, so Steve Peer goes to England that year because he was being invited by Bill Nelson from BeBop Deluxe to be in his new band Red Noise and Steve went over there for a year and played with Red Noise leaving TV Toy for a while. When Steve got back, TV Toy resumes with some personal changes and I get a call from Steve asking if I would join TV Toy so I said yes. We disbanded in 1983-84.

The Royals & The Ramones Showplace circa: 1977.

Lets see my Buddy Miles connection… I was friends with the guys in Mountain and I got invited to see them in NYC at the Beacon Theatre in the early 90's. Noel Redding from Hendrix was playing bass that night in Mountain, so I went to the show and in the dressing room where Noel was I met his friend David Kramer. We hung out all night long and remain friends to this today, but during the mid 90's he was managing Buddy Miles in the NYC area and David knew I played in a band called Rock n’ Daddy at this time and brought Buddy out to my place in Lake Hopatcong, NJ.

Various flyers with the legendary Buddy Miles.

My wife made dinner and we went to play and jam at a local bar where my friend was the manager. There was no practice for the gig, so Buddy would call out some blues songs like Mustang Sally and he would play drums and sing. He would also play guitar on some jams as well. He was one of the easiest people to jam with. We played for a few hours, so I made some money for Buddy and free beers for us haha .We jammed in a number of clubs at that time and Buddy would come to our house on Lake Hopatcong and stay over at times either for pleasure, or to play. We remained friends until he passed away in Texas in 2008. We had a lot of adventures together and his band and my band would play Yasgur’s Farm in 1996 on the big stage.

Solberg, Buddy and Solberg’s son Rob on Yasgur’s Farm

I had a lot of great memories with Buddy. He was always up for a good jam whenever he was playing in NYC with his regular band and he would always invite me up to jam with him.

Dakota Brown