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About the Band
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REVOLVER 7.0 IS:
John Yeara - guitar/vocals
Doug Campbell - bass/vocals
Vinnie Randazzo - keyboards
Dave Greenly - Drums/percussion
Don Mancuso - guitar/vocals (when available)
Revolver now performs music of the 1960s and early 1970s including the Beatles, Monkees, Rolling Stones, Cream, Yardbirds, and more.
Revolver History
Revolver 1.0: 1976-1980
John Yeara (Drums), Bruce Hummel (Bass), and Mark Guarino (Guitar) met in while in high school. John met Mark on a summer little league team where Mark’s older brother was the coach. They found they had a common interest; The Beatles. John introduced Mark to his friend Bruce Hummel, who was also a Beatles fan. Mark had the instruments and amps and knew a little guitar. Bruce & John couldn’t play a lick, but worked very hard to learn their instruments. Later in 1976, John saw a Peter Frampton concert that inspired him to step out from behind the drums and play guitar w/ the help of Mark.
Greg Tadaro took over on Drums and later was joined by Dan Saltzman on Keyboards. Their first gig was in June of 1977.
Shortly after Bruce left and Mark switched to bass. Matt Peterson took over as lead guitarist. Early in 1980, Chris Akuncous took Matt's place. This version of Revolver broke up in early 1981.
Revolver 2.0: 1996-1999
John was performing with the Connectors who were splitting up and Mark was performing with Ruby Shooz. Mark was leaving the band to spend more time with family and the two decide to reform Revolver this time as a Beatles only tribute band. Two other guys; a drummer & guitarist soon joined them. The group enjoyed a lot of success as a four piece performing more concerts and special shows than just clubs. The act was in 3 sets; the first as the Cavern Club Beatles, the second set was 1963-1966, and the third set was the Pepper Beatles through the end.
Revolver 3.0: 1999
Scrambling to fill spots for an important gig, John called on his old friends Mark Salvaggio (Drums) from the Connectors and Tim Coon (Bass) from Joe Puma & The Panthers. He also got Tom Mancine to play guitar as well. The group played one lucrative show at the Rochester Yacht Club.
Revolver 4.0: 1999-2007
With another RYC gig coming, John called Tim & Mark back to rejoin. He also contacted Rich Bunce, the former keyboard player with The Connectors. John’s good friend Garrett Crumb (lead singer form Johnny Smoke) also joined them on vocals and acoustic guitar. Later, they guys still wanted another singer and guitarist. Tim contacted J.R. Grant who he had performed with in Red Creek. Tim, however, had serious family matters and had to depart. The guys contacted their bass player from the Connectors, Doug Campbell. During this time, Rich left and was replaced by Vinnie Randazzo. Around 2004 JR left to attend to family matters. He was replaced briefly by singer Frank Shrout (also from the Connectors). Frank was most well known as the founder of the East Coast Connection. To finish off a couple gigs as Revolver in 2004, Garrett Crumb also joined them again to help out. At that point, John, Doug, Mark, and Vinnie joined Frank Shrout and Cryssi Ferracio as the new East Coast Connection
Revolver 4.1: 2007
After performing for more than 2 years with East Coast, John, Doug, and Mark decided to get JR and Rich Bunce again and do a short reunion. These shows were in the late spring through early fall of 2007. At this point, John had figured Revolver had run its course and planned this to be the end of Revolver.
Revolver 5.0: 2010-2012
John had run into the first bass player from Revolver, Bruce Hummel, at of all places a couple of funerals in 2009. They talked and decide to try playing together again. In searching for a drummer, they had an ad answered by John Borrelli, who shared their love of Beatles music. They wanted a fourth member and the search would take most of 2010. Finally, Bob Mondy (Ruby Shooz) who had filled in with John’s previous group NBT on Keyboards agreed to come down and jam with them. The chemistry between them was great and Bob enjoyed the music they were doing so Bob agreed to join the band. As John & Bruce were 2/3 of the founding members of Revolver, and the band was originally formed to perform mostly Beatles, they decided Revolver still had another chapter at least.
Revolver 5.1: April 2012-November 2012
After 2 years, Bruce Hummel & John Borrelli departed within a week of each other. Fortunately, JY and Bob knew musicians who could take over. Starting in April w/ only 10 days of rehearsal, Ed Smith took over on Bass/vocals and Nick Russo took over on drums/vocals. Nick had performed for years in Ruby Shooz with Bob, and Ed had performed years ago with JY in Grey Haven. At this point Revolver is working on a 2 set, all Beatles show to do special performances. We will still be performing other music of the 60s/70s in when we play in nightclubs.
Revolver: 2013-Present
Just when it looked like Revolver was finished (again), Tim Coon, Pete Nowak, and Don Mancuso joined to help with some gigs that were already planned.Things went very well and the quartet enjoyed great success performing at least twice a week for almost 2 years. In March of 2015, Pete had to leave due to family obligations and was replaced by Tom Savastano.
For the next year, Revolver was extremely busy, especially during the Summers. During that time Revolver performed at The Lilac Festival, Charlotte Beach, The New York State Fair, Dunkirk, New York’s Music on the Pier series, Bands at Barnard, and The Oswego Harborfest, as well as many of the popular clubs in and around Rochester, New York.
2016 marked the 40th anniversary of Revolver becoming a band. June 11th of the following year was the 40th anniversary of their first professional performance (see the Multimedia page for the ticket from that show….btw…we didn’t make them!)
In October of 2017, Tommy had to leave and our new drummer would be Dave Drum (really!) joined. This brings us up to now…..
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