Ultimate Rhoads

If you haven't heard it yet, you gotta check out the high quality soundboard cut of the Kalamazoo 82 show. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4ilQrLuM1w )
If you look in the description, the band jam is called "The Man on The Flying Trapeze". I have never heard anything about this whatsoever. Does anyone know anything about this??

Thanks. Surprised this wasnt posted here sooner, seeing it was uploaded back in April. This is great. Not a lot of views which is sad.

I started reading about the band jam being called that by the band members 20 some odd years ago, but Band Jam is the only thing it’s ever referred to on bootlegs.

Never seen it called that, interesting stuff

I met a bootleg dealer around 1993 who made this claim.

I'd see him at record conventions, and he alluded to some kind of personal association with the Rhoads family, and inside knowledge, etc. I was skeptical, but I played along and bought some tapes. He also claimed to be the original taper of the shows he was selling, which seemed pretty unlikely (they were from all over the country).

Anyway, he told me that the band jam was a joint composition between Randy and Don Airey called "The Man on the Flying Trapeze," and that it would've been on Ozzy's next studio album had Randy lived. This was the one claim of his that I thought might have some merit.

So I asked Rudy Sarzo about it via email a few years later, and Rudy wrote back to say that the band jam never had a title -- it was just a link piece between the guitar and drum solos, and a segue into "Goodbye to Romance." I was happy that Rudy wrote me back, but disappointed to learn that the jam had no title. It didn't even seem to be regarded as a real song.

Also, I later found out that they'd already been playing the jam with Lindsay Bridgwater on the initial European leg of the Diary tour, before Don joined for the U.S. tour. So that cast doubt on the Don Airey co-write claim as well.

As for "The Man on the Flying Trapeze," I think that the dealer made it up himself, and it got into circulation through the tapes he sold on the convention circuit.

Cornelius wrote:I met a bootleg dealer around 1993 who made this claim.

I'd see him at record conventions, and he alluded to some kind of personal association with the Rhoads family, and inside knowledge, etc. I was skeptical, but I played along and bought some tapes. He also claimed to be the original taper of the shows he was selling, which seemed pretty unlikely (they were from all over the country).

Anyway, he told me that the band jam was a joint composition between Randy and Don Airey called "The Man on the Flying Trapeze," and that it would've been on Ozzy's next studio album had Randy lived. This was the one claim of his that I thought might have some merit.

So I asked Rudy Sarzo about it via email a few years later, and Rudy wrote back to say that the band jam never had a title -- it was just a link piece between the guitar and drum solos, and a segue into "Goodbye to Romance." I was happy that Rudy wrote me back, but disappointed to learn that the jam had no title. It didn't even seem to be regarded as a real song.

Also, I later found out that they'd already been playing the jam with Lindsay Bridgwater on the initial European leg of the Diary tour, before Don joined for the U.S. tour. So that cast doubt on the Don Airey co-write claim as well.

As for "The Man on the Flying Trapeze," I think that the dealer made it up himself, and it got into circulation through the tapes he sold on the convention circuit.

That's a damn cool story, man. Thanks for sharing that. What is interesting, is that I commented on the video asking about it and the uploader says that it was written down on the setlist that night as "The Man on The Flying Trapeze". Who knows really. Either way I think it is a fitting title and sounds/feels really cool.

Yeah, I liked the title -- I thought it fit with the music pretty well. But if Rudy Sarzo tells me it's not true, I've got to go with that.

People just like to make shit up, especially bootleg dealers at record conventions in the '90s. "Yeah, this is copied straight from the master tape, guaranteed" when it's obviously ten+ copies away from it. "I'm great friends with [some rock star] and he gave me these outtakes personally" Okay, pal. Worse than carnival barkers.

I’ve always thought that if they recorded it that it would have ended up being played at sporting events, minus Tommy and Randy’s solos.

I can imagine that easily. A studio version with Diary-quality production (original mix) would've been fucking incredible.

I'm beginning to doubt the uploader. He says copied from the master. I hear tape warble in places though and an overall hiss/minimum lack of clarity that I'd think would be present. I guess his tape could have degraded, but I'm skeptical of his comments now.

xk319 wrote:I'm beginning to doubt the uploader. He says copied from the master. I hear tape warble in places though and an overall hiss/minimum lack of clarity that I'd think would be present. I guess his tape could have degraded, but I'm skeptical of his comments now.

I understand that. It apparently sat in a box with old clothes for a few decades, according to his comments. I'd be really interested in seeing a photo of that setlist to see if it really is written down with that title... either way, it's one of my favorite diary boots and the best quality I've ever heard of it.

stress2stress2 wrote:

setlist.jpg

nice. what night is that from??

If you listen to the DVD/MTV version of the band jam with Brad Gillis, you can hear what sounds like a Tarzan call, probably played on the keyboards. I had always wondered what on EARTH that was amd why it was there, so that title could make sense and the story could be legit. I believe it’s right before the triplet section that was part of Randy’s previous spotlight solo. Question is, who named it that and when. I don’t recall hearing it on any recordings.

Cornelius wrote:I can imagine that easily. A studio version with Diary-quality production (original mix) would've been fucking incredible.

Every few years things like this pop up for the soundboards. All they are doing is tweaking some frequencies. I have done this on a couple shows myself as all of the existing recordings can be cleaned up. I am no audio engineer but I have all the software to do this.

At a minimum the white noise in and hum should be eliminated from all shows. It makes a HUGE difference and is really easy to do. I tried pinging the audio forum awhile back and but one seems interested.