Judie's was started by accomplished rock guitarist/bluegrass fiddle player from Annapolis by the name of Bill Smith. He recruited Vaughn Keith (Ben Wah) vocals, Bill Sutherland (Brian Jones) bass, and I'm not sure who the original drummer was but he was soon replaced by Craig Stinchcomb (Dick Goezinya). Bill Smith went crazy, left the band, and soon after died of a heart attack. When Smith left , Bill Sutherland became the guitarist and they got Wayne Murphy (G.C. Murphy) to play bass. Not so long after, I joined the band (Fido Fetch) as a lead guitarist. That's the line up , with or without me, most people know from the Marble. After I left the band they had Henry Cross on bass and then Jay Turner.
Many stories from the Marble era are hard to recall in that a lot of our energy at the time centered around taking as many drugs as possible without actually killing ourselves. Some of the stories I do remember however are: Hearing the Bad Brains play at a party and convincing Roger to let them open for us. They trashed the dressing rooms and pulled a knife on someone. Roger was extremely unhappy with us for a while.
Another was Fast Freddie (bartender) showing up at our house one night with a large box. He said he had to leave town for a while and thought we'd like to have this. After he left we opened it to find about a hundred full sheets of blotter acid. Needless to say our parties thereafter took on a slightly more bizarre tone.
One night driving to a gig at the Marble, Vaughn and I saw Bill Sutherland's car pulled onto the shoulder on Ritchie Highway. We stopped and found Bill on the nod behind the wheel. We called his girlfriend and asked if she could come down and drive him to the gig, which she did. When he got there we began to play. After a short while he fell right over onto his guitar (an old and very expensive Les Paul Goldtop) driving the bridge into the top of the guitar. Without missing more than a beat or two he simply reached over for another guitar and continued playing. I'm not even sure if he was aware we were even at a gig.
A bunch of carpenters we knew from Annapolis got so inspired by us that they cut out plywood guitars and sang all the instruments parts into a tape recorder. They called themselves the Oral Fixation and used to open for us. Over time they slowly mutated into the Motor Morons. Craig Stinchcolmb from Judie's plays drums with them.
There was Frank Yates or "Big C" as he was known, our manager. Frank was a huge red haired , one eyed, manic depressive who helped contribute to the constant chaos surrounding Judies.
Judies also spawned the Monuments which played at the Marble Bar. They consisted of Bill Sutherland, myself or Russell Stone on guitar, Jay turner on bass, Cindy Borschardt, vocals and different drummers.
There was a lot of drinking and drugging. A lot of parties. Many fights not the least of which came from people "gobbing" us. We never could stand that. Vaughn used to wear clear plastic pants and bleed at every gig from ripping open beer cans with his teeth.
Vaughn ended up dying of aids. Maybe Bill Sutherland finally got clean. I ended up getting clean. The rest seem to be doing OK.
Sincerely,
Tim Campbell
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