What RR Means to Me
Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2011 8:20 pm
Kind of a crazy story about what RR means to me...
I started playing bass guitar around 1988 (at the age of 12) and after a few years I heard Tribute and was mesmerized by the guitar work of Randy Rhoads. I live in California now, but grew up in a suburb of Chicago, and I always remember being very terrified of the cover of an Ozzy songbook (which features him in a black cape, but he has either a noose around his neck, or maybe a devil horn coming out of his head??). I used to see this book at the "Flip Side" music store in the Woodfield Mall in the mid 80's. Anyways - it always reminded me of the evil guy in Time Bandits (the movie) which always seemed very DOAM to me. Well, to make a long story short, I got really into the whole BOO DOAM and anything with RR over the years and purchased several bootlegs at record shows (these were the cassette days) and listened to Tribute, BOO, and DOAM over and over and over again.
I found myself having some success with my music career around 2008 when my band received a record deal with a small Independant label in Chicago. We toured throughout 2009 (you can look us up under "Holding Mercury" on My Space - yes, I am/was the Nikki Sixx looking bassist with the long black hair) and I always found myself thinking about how guys like Randy must have felt on the road. Obviously, Randy achieved an "official" rock star status, but there were moments when my band would do radio interviews or perform in other cities for bigger audiences than we expected, and I thought - "is it possible that someday I might be able to drift away after a tour and (through my "rock star" connections) maybe try and meet some folks who knew Randy and receive some inspiration from their words?" I envisioned holding one of RR's actual guitars someday and being able to see if it could give me some special powers! lol.
It was thoughts like this that brought the legacy of RR to a closer place in my life. For one particular show, I found polka-dot cloth and completely covered the front of my bass cabinet with it (it looked really professional too). I remember looking back at my cabinet and thinking that RR would think it was funny.
When my folks moved out of their house about 10 years ago, I remember finding an old library book in my closet (a Dr. Suess book actually) that had a check-out date of 3/19/1982 (I never returned it to the library - oops) . How weird is that? On the day RR died, I was at a libray as a 6 year old kid and checking out a Dr. Suess book. Of course, I had no idea who he was at the time.
BUT....., by far the *weirdest* thing ever for me was when I went to see Eric Clapton in concert in 1990 at Alpine Valley Music Theater in Wisconsin, and a man by the name of Stevie Ray Vaughan was the opener (actually, Robert Cray was first, then SRV, then Clapton). But I remember waking up the next day and my friend Jim O'Toole (who went with me to the show) said that Eric Clapton had died in a helicopter crash and I was like "Huh??? What????"
But I reflect back on that now, and can't help but wonder if me seeing SRV's last concert kind of "links me in" to some other dimension where RR once existed. It's very weird, I know. Here I am an RR fan before I see SRV, and leave the Clapton/SRV gig and now I've just seen the last show of another legendary guitarist. I am willing to post pics of my Clapton ticket stub for those who do not believe me.
I am no longer a "rocker." I left the band in early 2010 and even though I still own a ton of gear, I never really play it. But every now and then I see a pic of RR or hear a tune on the radio and think - how sad that this kid had such a small catalog of music to share with us.
I started playing bass guitar around 1988 (at the age of 12) and after a few years I heard Tribute and was mesmerized by the guitar work of Randy Rhoads. I live in California now, but grew up in a suburb of Chicago, and I always remember being very terrified of the cover of an Ozzy songbook (which features him in a black cape, but he has either a noose around his neck, or maybe a devil horn coming out of his head??). I used to see this book at the "Flip Side" music store in the Woodfield Mall in the mid 80's. Anyways - it always reminded me of the evil guy in Time Bandits (the movie) which always seemed very DOAM to me. Well, to make a long story short, I got really into the whole BOO DOAM and anything with RR over the years and purchased several bootlegs at record shows (these were the cassette days) and listened to Tribute, BOO, and DOAM over and over and over again.
I found myself having some success with my music career around 2008 when my band received a record deal with a small Independant label in Chicago. We toured throughout 2009 (you can look us up under "Holding Mercury" on My Space - yes, I am/was the Nikki Sixx looking bassist with the long black hair) and I always found myself thinking about how guys like Randy must have felt on the road. Obviously, Randy achieved an "official" rock star status, but there were moments when my band would do radio interviews or perform in other cities for bigger audiences than we expected, and I thought - "is it possible that someday I might be able to drift away after a tour and (through my "rock star" connections) maybe try and meet some folks who knew Randy and receive some inspiration from their words?" I envisioned holding one of RR's actual guitars someday and being able to see if it could give me some special powers! lol.
It was thoughts like this that brought the legacy of RR to a closer place in my life. For one particular show, I found polka-dot cloth and completely covered the front of my bass cabinet with it (it looked really professional too). I remember looking back at my cabinet and thinking that RR would think it was funny.
When my folks moved out of their house about 10 years ago, I remember finding an old library book in my closet (a Dr. Suess book actually) that had a check-out date of 3/19/1982 (I never returned it to the library - oops) . How weird is that? On the day RR died, I was at a libray as a 6 year old kid and checking out a Dr. Suess book. Of course, I had no idea who he was at the time.
BUT....., by far the *weirdest* thing ever for me was when I went to see Eric Clapton in concert in 1990 at Alpine Valley Music Theater in Wisconsin, and a man by the name of Stevie Ray Vaughan was the opener (actually, Robert Cray was first, then SRV, then Clapton). But I remember waking up the next day and my friend Jim O'Toole (who went with me to the show) said that Eric Clapton had died in a helicopter crash and I was like "Huh??? What????"
But I reflect back on that now, and can't help but wonder if me seeing SRV's last concert kind of "links me in" to some other dimension where RR once existed. It's very weird, I know. Here I am an RR fan before I see SRV, and leave the Clapton/SRV gig and now I've just seen the last show of another legendary guitarist. I am willing to post pics of my Clapton ticket stub for those who do not believe me.
I am no longer a "rocker." I left the band in early 2010 and even though I still own a ton of gear, I never really play it. But every now and then I see a pic of RR or hear a tune on the radio and think - how sad that this kid had such a small catalog of music to share with us.