I called Kelle to tell him that Kathy & I had to fly out to CA at the end of May, and that we would have some time to finally get over to the Musonia and see him and his mom.
Kathy and the kids and I had to leave Philadelphia at some awful hour in the morning, which meant we had to get up at 4:30 am,... which is something like an hour before I normally go to bed, so I was pretty fried when we left for the airport.
Luckily the fight was uneventful, except for the fact that I had to look at back of this man's head and the real boring haircut he was sporting, for most of the flight.
My Dad, Jim Kane, Sr. met us at the airport, and we headed to his house. Neither Kathy or the kids had ever been to California before, and I had moved back East in the late 80's, so everything looked totally different, and we all look like a group of tired tourist in Lala land.
After a few days of getting settled and some business out of the way, my Dad drove my son and I over to Mount View Cemetery in San Bernadino so I could spend some time at Randy's grave site.
We arrived early in the morning, and the weather was perfect. I so happy to see that Randy's Mausoleum was in pristine condition.
Every flower, plant & bush and the surrounding grounds were spotless, and even the main driveway looked like it had been swept clean that morning.
My Dad and Son were really great about giving me plenty of space and time to wrestle with over 25 years of mixed emotions ranging from sorrow, joy, anger, and greatfulness,.... a real heavy cocktail of emotions.
I can't really go into the dark and heavy details of what I dealing with inside of my heart and head, but suffice it say, I literally destroyed about 30 McDonald's paper napkins while standing in commune in front of Randy's grave.
It seemed like I just stood at the gate forever, holding onto the bars, while having a quiet breakdown, and wishing I could just go inside and bang on the marble and wake him up and scream at him, "why in the world did you get on that stupid plane,.. why, why why!!!!!"
It was really hard to pull myself away, and for a while I just walked around the monument in circles. After about a half an hour of pacing around the thing, and then sitting and sobbing, and then more pacing, I noticed the whole marble structure was literally covered in lipstick kisses!!!
Girls must come there and really load up their lips and plant these red kisses all over the thing!! I noticed the first set of "Kissing Lips" on the lower column base...
I thought that was really cool, and it helped me to get my head together. So I looked around to see where else these kisses left for Randy might be.
When I looked up at the very top, where the name RHOADS is cared out, I noticed some chic must have climbed on top of the monument, hung themselves upside down while leaning over the edge, and planted a red listick "kiss" smack in the center of the "O" in Rhoads.
I was really fascinated by this lipstick kisses thing, and My Dad and Son who were waiting a respectful distance away, could see I was coming around and out of the catharsis I had been dealing with, so they came over to check it out too.
My Son asked about the letters, flowers, and guitar picks left inside the barred sitting area, and I explained to him about how people leave stuff there as a remembrance and offerings. I guess since it was so early in the morning it was too soon in the day for when people leave a bottle of Vodka or toss a joint in there. I was glad to see that wasn't the case (at least at 9am) as I have heard Mrs. Rhoads voice her displeasure when people leave "other things" in there.
We all kind of stood there in silence for a bit, and then my son asked me if I was going to leave a guitar pick too, I told, yes, but it would be sad for me, as that would mean it was time to go. So I tossed it in, and my son took another picture of it sitting in there, and I headed towards the car, unable to look back.
We aborted the plans for the rest of day, as the plan was to head over to Asuza, Ca and visit the original location of Wayne Charvel's repair shop, and the birth place of the Charvel "Super Strat", just to see what was there today, and to soak up any residual 80's vibe which might be still lingering about after all these years.
The other thing I wanted to do, was to go down the road to the San Dimas post office, and get a picture of the actual front of the old Charvel P.O. box, number 245, (the most famous p.o. box in the history of heavy rock music), just so the next time some guy comes in the music school guitar shop and starts talking about Charvels and Jacksons from the "San Dimas Factory", and blah, blah, blah,.... I could whip out this picture of a brass post office box and key hole, and say,... look THIS is your famous San Dimas "factory", and THIS (being a pic of the real Asuza shop) is where the guitar neck you are drooling over came from. LOL!!!
Anyway, we scraped the rest of the trip in the valley, as I was just too drained and just wanted to crash at the hotel and go into a deep sleep.
I have to say one last thing about my time at Randy's grave, and that is, after more than a quarter of a century of carrying this giant onus of utter sorrow concerning Randy's death, I now, for the first time felt liberated.
It was as though by making the trek to the grave site, I was ALLOWED to come to terms with his death, I finally able to accept the fact that there will be "no new music from the Master",... and now, all these years later,... that is okay, because life really is for the living, and no matter how long you mourn , and no matter hard you cry at the loss, the music has stopped, as "all things must pass." I felt a wonderful sense of release at the end of it all.
The next day was a MUCH happier day among the living members of he Rhoads family.
Dad once again drove us back into Hollywood the next day, as we were to go see Kelle and Mrs. Rhoads. Of course Kathy made him take Rodeo Drive LOL!
Along the way, I had him "cruise Sunset", just so I could do some "time travel" and point stuff out to my wife, whom I didn't meet until 2004, and she really doesn't know much about the L.A. 80's metal scene. Though my wife didn't find the stories funny, my 20 year old son was cracking up.
I was pointing out the Rainbow, the Roxy, The Seventh Veil,... and Dad was so busy dodging the bums walking across Sunset, that he totally missed the Whiskey a-go-go (The Red building seen just outside his drivers side window)
By the way, for those of you who don't know, THIS is the famous GIL TURNER'S LIQUOR STORE (That Delivers) on Sunset,... and if you happen to be the former front man of the heaviest British Black Magic Metal Band, and you are out on the skids, holed up in a darkened L.A. hotel room, sleeping on old pizza boxes, and auditioning local hot shot guitarists, THIS is the place that delivers your booze on daily basis.
It is real easy to get to the Rhoad's from the strip in Hollywood,... just take Sunset to Laurel Canyon
Enjoy this very famous windy road as you travel "Over the Mountiain" to the top, where Mulholland Drive meets Laurel Canyon.
Continue all the way down the hill of Laurel Canyon until you hit Tiara St, turn and arrive here:
Here is the front of the original farm house part, which Mrs. Rhoads and three men turned into Musonia School of Music:
This is the addition part, of what Mrs. Rhoads refers to as the "special room". She usually mean in terms of its acoustics,... but this is also where she does here teaching, and as you have all probably all seen before, houses all the wonderful gifts and "Randy things" everyone sends her in remembrance.
This alley way runs down the side of Mrs. Rhoads studio, to the back of the school and parking lot. My entire family waited in the car here for over two hours while Kathy & I sat with Mrs. Rhoads.
Here my Dad gets out to "look the place over". The bank of "Stables" were formally all extra teaching studios, but since the State of California stopped funding it's art & music programs in the public schools, there just are not that many students taking private lessons in things like sax, cello, trumpet, and so forth. - Nice move ARNOLD,... the music school TERMINATOR.
A better view at the stable style teaching studios. The big cinder block structure behind the stables is the back of a Midas Muffler shop.
If you can see the doorway in the corner which connects the "stables" to the original "farm house," that door leads right into the main hallway of inside teaching rooms, and Randy's old teaching room would be just on your left (going in), and Kelle on the left. I imagine Randy probably smoked a ton of Winstons right outside the doorway here during breaks between students.
As I said, Kathy & I sat with Mrs. Rhoads for a very long time. I really don't want to go into all the details of the conversation, but it was a wonderfully joyful and reflective day. It ws the full gamut, we laughed & cried, she tols us very special things about Randy I had never heard eluded to before, and we got to answer all her questions about our music school, and then She I talked music, students, and teaching for quite some time.
It was kind of funny though, the three of us sitting together in this big room, knee to knee, having this pow-wow in the corner. LOL!
Mrs Rhoads said one thing that really just cracked us up. I knew that she used to make Randy play in the music school band at Musonia when he was young, but I wondered if she ever let QR play or rehearse in the "special room", to which her eyes got real big, and she said,
"OH NO,.. they had a rehearsal room just down the road at a rental studio of their own,.... AND IT WAS A REAL PIT!!!" LOL!!! Well, Kathy, Mrs. Rhoads, and I just laughed and laughed at how harsh she said it LOL!!!!
At some point later in the afternoon, Mrs. Rhoads' piano student showed up, so Kathy & I went to meet back up with Kelle, who took us down to his teaching studio to hang out and talk there.
ON the way to Kelle's studio, we passed Randy's old teaching room. There we met a really cool and very nice guitarist Tony DiPinto. Tony offered to let me use his guitar some I could go into Randys' room and play.
Okay,... obviously this was another VERY heavy moment. For a time I just sat with the guitar and felt the room, and did nothing else. The odd thing about being in Randy's old teaching room is that you can feel remnants his presence, but with so many people coming in and out of the room over the years, just to 'vibe' it, well, there is ALOT of extra energy in the room,... belonging to other folks.
Anyway, I finally looked at Kelle, and said, 'I guess I have to play, huh?".
Kelle just gave me this quirky smile that said basically,... "like we could stop you." LOL
So I played the opening bars to DEE, stopped and then laughed, and I said, "I bet eveyone who plays guitar in front of you plays that!!! LOL!!!.
He said, "yep,... that, or the riff to Crazy Train."
I thought about it for a minute, and then played 'Diary of a Madman'. Now when I got to about the 12th bar, the oddest sensation came over me, sort of like this warm, wet, blanket was suddenly draped around my body.
It was very surreal and I had goosebumps literally on my scalp. I tried to ignore it, but my hands started to shake, and the combination of playing THAT piece of music in THAT room was just too intense for me.
I just stopped playing all at once, and tried to get Tony to take the guitar back, but he was trying to be so nice and said, "oh yeah.... no, no,no,.. keep going man, keep going, you're nailing it." and I am totally stopped at this point and standing and wanting not to have all these gossebumps and shakey hands LOL!!!
Kathy knew what was up with me, and Kelle could tell I was bit freaked out, so we escaped to Kelle's paino studio, and hung out there and talked all about composing and teaching.
We about many things besides music and we were so wrapped up in other things, we really didn't talk about Randy at all, and then Kelle started the tape of the bed tracks (Background wash of strings and horns) for the upcoming movie about Randy.
Kathy & I listened and then Kelle got up and sat at the piano and announced he was going to play for us live, on piano, what he had composed so far for the film score. This was truely awesome, and a totally unexect treat, a private recital of the film score by the composer, at his own piano.
After he finished we talked about some of the parts and motifs, but again, It was the heaviness of being in Kelle's room, hearing the 'still in progress' score by the compoers hand, which just bowled my over.
After that I asked Kelle if we could do some singing together, and he was totally up for that, so he lead, and I harmonized, we moved them around a bit, just to create some frequencies together and experience the blend of our individual selves in creating one sound,... and I finally got the opportunity of a lifetime,... to make original music with the other great musician named: Rhoads.
For those of you who don't know Kelle, well. you are missing out on knowing an awesome musician, composer, and person.
Well, I hope you guys who haven't made the trip yet, or can't make the trip enjoyed sharing ours - Thanks for the read. - Jimmy
