Re: r rhoads
Yeah, I was 13 at the time, he was 24, I think.-? He was cool, and we came from similar areas. He came from Los Angeles, I came from San Diego. I never met Jake or Zakk, but would have loved that. The first time I heard Randy play I thought Eddie Van Halen was on acid or something, I kid you not! LOL! But when I found out it was a totally different guitar player, I was hooked, I had to find out who the guy was. I never heard the Quiet Riot records (with Randy) and never really cared, but now it just seems like a useful piece of trivia just to know about them when Randy was in. hahaha! I was just not that big a fan of that group. I wish his mom well.
Re: Re: r rhoads
I was just hanging out in the bookstore, not really finding anything worth reading, so I went to the music section, and started checking out different rock star bios at that time--Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, people like that--and after about an hour, someone walked up and started thumbing through sheet music. It turned out to be Randy. It was funny, because I thought he was somebody's kid, because he was so small physically, and with all that hair hanging down in a mane, well, you know. My family is a bunch of readers and music lovers, so I had gone to the store with them, and was just really looking for something to buy. I was thinking like, a collection of Edgar Allan Poe's stories, something like that. But when that didn't happen, I went to the music part, and Randy came along afterward. I think I was looking at a history of music in cinema and where it was going in the 20th Century, and once I saw a hand pick up one of Paganini's scores, I looked up and back out of the way. Let it never be said I would get in the way of someone wanting to explore music, you know. When I made my comment about Beethoven, he started right up, slow at first, but willing to talk. And he was a really bright guy, he talked about scores and guitar scales, how Bach was not nearly appreciated enough(You do have to remember this was in 1981.), or at least to Randy he wasn't. He made a comment about Bach and pentatonics on the guitar as a theory, but he didn't like Van Halen doing it. He was a fan of Eddie's, true enough, but he didn't like how Eddie abused Bach's structures on his guitar.
What happened after? Well, I did go on to learn to write songs, but in 1987, after I graduated high school, none of the local bands were good enough to go anywhere. I should know, I roadied and wrote songs for a long list of bands and singers, but nobody ever really liked the idea of using material from an outsider, even though the outsider was in good with the band. Grrr!
I still have a bunch of old songs written from those days, but I don't see myself getting into another band anytime soon.
continuation......
Re: Re: Re: r rhoads
That's actually the funny part of it all, because I didn't know WHO Randy was until the day after the concert, when I picked up a review of the concert and saw him in the picture, standing in the middle with Ozzy. That was hilarious to me at the time. I kept trying to imagine it, I was talking to a world-renown rock star in a book store a couple of days before and I didn't even know who he was??? I can only laugh now.
I heard about the accident like everybody else did at the time, on MTV. I mean, news about the accident was everywhere. It was no great secret. It was all over the local news channels, cable, I mean everywhere! And when I heard Randy had been killed as well as others, I thought to myself, "I met that guy last year. I TALKED to that guy last year!" They kept running footage of the scene where it happened, and they had interviews with Ozzy and Sharon, and you could just see how devastated he was. I mean, the poor guy looked like he'd just had a building fall on him! I still remember that very clearly.
Yeah, I still have copies of Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman myself, they're still the Ozzy albums I really like. Not giving Zakk Wylde the brush-off or anything, but I only bought a couple of more recent Ozzy albums with Zakk playing in the last ten years. "No More Tears" and "Ozzmosis", I have those.
No, I haven't really seen any episodes of youtube after hours. What is that? Kind of sounds like "Playboy After Dark" or something! hahaha!
I play the guitar and write also. I have a cartoon that I do episodes for here on youtube, maybe you've seen it. "Stick Rider". I've also done plenty of animation and short films that you can catch on here if you ever get a little time. Nobody really comments on anything I do, so it's good I don't count on that, anyway. LOL
I'm not in a band either, my knees are NOT what they used to be, and with me being a dad, well, you know, certain responsibilities come along. But I still play and write songs. Maybe someday I'll freak myself out and join a band again, like when I turn 50 or something, just for the laughs. But for now I'm here, where I'm needed most. Hope you have a good one! Talk to you soon, dude!
codym.
