Today is the 26th anniversary of the death of Randy Rhoads. What better way to remember him than an 8 minute guitar solo from the Quiet Riot days? You’ll find a lot of familiar pieces in this solo. Enjoy - and RIP Randy.
I also have pictures of the grave site from a trip I took back in 2005. You can find a lot more at the Diary of an Axeman web site - the definitive site on the net for Randy Rhoads “stuff”.
Tagged with: death, Guitar, Music, rhoads, Video
Tagged with: Bookmarks, rhoads
I just finished reading Off The Rails by Rudy Sarzo this last week. Overall, I would say I liked it.
I’ve been a fan of Randy Rhoads since first hearing the Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of Madman albums in 1983 or so. He was a unique player for his time and these two albums are of the sort that they sound just as fresh today as they did when they were released.
As a Rhoads fan, I’ve always picked up any and all information I could get on him. Every guitar magazine he’s been in, I probably have or have had it. Each article or magazine never really gave you enough, as a fan, as to what Randy was like.
Off The Rails was written using Sarzo’s daily diaries that he had kept during the Blizzard of Ozz and Diary tours between 1981 and 1982 (at the request of his accountant) and gives you an interesting glimpse of what was going on in the band at the time. While this book is probably the most detailed about Rhoads as a person, the book for me seemed to focus more on how screwed up Ozzy and Sharon were during this time, which is actually the stuff I wound up getting more interested in as the book went on.
After reading this book, you will be amazed that Osbourne has gotten to where he did, and that he actually produced the music he did over the years. Rumors have always abounded about his alcoholism and wild antics, but Sarzo gives you a very detailed glimpse into the amount of abuse Ozzy exposed himself and everyone around him to during the early days of his solo career.
Most interesting to me was the circumstances around the planned live album that became Speak of the Devil and Randy’s resistance to doing the album. Given where the band was at the time, with two albums of solo material, its easy to understand that Randy did not want to do a live album of Sabbath material, but the most telling is how Ozzy reacted and treated Randy when he refused to do the album initially.
Over the last twenty some years, we’ve heard a lot of positive things about the relationship between Ozzy and Randy. This book, if nothing else, gives you a glimpse of the “real life” circumstances on the tour and paints a much less rosy picture of the time that the band spent on the road.
That is not to say at all that Off The Rails is negative. Sarzo manages to detail all of the goings on during this time without giving the reader the feeling of reading a “tell-all” book meant to smear the participants for the sake of making money. Rudy does a great job of reporting what happened in a very balanced way that manages to get the reader to close the book and walk away thinking.
Bottom line, the book is excellent. Sarzo does a good job of reporting the daily goings on in the tour, giving you a glimpse into the life of guitar hero, and doing it in such a way that it does not feel exploitative in the least. I would definitely recommend this book to those who are Rhoads fans, or even those who just want a third party addition to the biographies already out there on Ozzy and his crew.
Tagged with: Books, ozzy, reviews, rhoads, sarzo
Photo by rbieber
After a long wait , I finally received my copy of Off The Rails by Rudy Sarzo, his diary of his time on the road with Ozzy Osbourne and more importantly, Randy Rhoads. This is the only book with detailed information on Randy out on the market, and has been waited for by fans for years.
Tagged with: Books, Music, ozzy, rhoads, sarzo
I received an email yesterday from someone letting me know that Rudy Sarzo’s long awaited book, Off The Rails is now available at Amazon.com. The book chronicles his time with Ozzy Osbournes Blizzard of Ozz band, featuring the late great Randy Rhoads.
From what I’ve heard, this book is a one of a kind. I actually headed over to Borders yesterday to pick it up, only to find it listed in their computers as out of print. I guess I will have to forego my need for ‘immediate satisfaction’ and wait for Amazon to deliver it.
Rhoads fans have been waiting a long time for this release. I’ll let you know what I think once I get it.
Tagged with: Books, guitar-heroes, Music, rhoads
Plane Crash Kills Rock Guitarist
A small plane crashed into a mansion and burst into flames Friday, killing the lead guitarist of the Ozzy Osbourne rock group and two other people, police said. The plane twice buzzed the house, where the rock group was staying, and on a third pass clipped the rock group’s tour bus and a tree, then slammed into the two-story colonial home, officials said. Killed were guitarist Randall Rhoads, 25, pilot Andrew Aycock, 36, and Rachel Youngblood, 58, the group’s makeup artist and hairdresser, said Lake County Deputy Sheriff Mike Smalt. All were aboard the plane. Osbourne - known for such stage antics as biting off the head of a live bat - was in the bus but was not hurt, Smalt said. Several other group members escaped unhurt from the mansion before it was gutted by flaming gasoline that spewed from the Beechcraft Bonanza, officials said. Rhodes and Ms. Youngblood were from Los Angeles, Smalt said. Smalt said Aycock lived at Flying Baron Estates, the wealthy, private airport community about three miles east of Leesburg where the crash occurred. The group was staying at the mansion before a concert scheduled for Orlando today. Members of the group quickly left the crash site and it was not known whether they would perform. Jack Barker, Atlanta regional spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the FAA flew an investigator to the scene Friday. He said the National Safety Transportation Board also would investigate. The bus - outfitted with plush chairs, video games and a stereo system - was punctured by the wing of the aircraft.
I found this Behind the Music video on YouTube and thought it was cool.
Article text courtesy of the Day The Music Died.
Photo by rbieber
A picture of the Randy Rhoads section of the book "Stairway to Heaven: The Final Resting Places of Rocks Legends"
I found a book called Stairway to Heaven : The Final Resting Places of Rock’s Legends. This is such a cool book of photographs of the grave sites of many of rocks departed.
I had such a kick going through all of these pictures. Not sure why, but this kind of thing has always facinated me.
Tagged with: Books, deaths, graves, rhoads
Jonna had mentioned to me the other day that the beta for Google Earth was over and that you could now download the application. I had tried to grab it during the initial beta, but was not allowed to download it.
Well, I finally got a copy of it, and have been playing with it for a bit this morning. One of the first things I wanted to do (aside from the normal “Hey I can see my house from here” exercises) was find the Randy Rhoads grave site on it, with the directions that Jonna had gotten Tom the Architect and I when we were in California.
Typing in the address didn’t quite do it, which I’m finding quite a bit on Google Maps and Google Earth. In each, typing my home address puts me down the street a ways. Luckily, the pictures of our neighborhood are recent enough that our fences are visible in order to identify the house.
Anyway, I did some “flying around” San Bernardino and I think I found the actual location and marked it. So, if you’ve got the application installed, go to Randy Rhoads Grave on Google Earth. If you do not have it installed yet, go get it. It’s quite fun to play around with and adds a whole new dimension to mapping.
Additionally, some quick Googling around got me to a place where someone has done the work to find the Bruce Lee grave site as well. The actual Keyhole placemark can be found at this link directly, but I would recommend reading the whole posting. It’s pretty cool and has a Quicktime VM look around the grave site included as well.
Tagged with: google, graves, rhoads
I received an email from the Diary of an Axeman Club forum, referring to another forum in which the moderator posted this message:
GOOD NEWS!!!
Just heard back from Rudy and he says the book is only delayed.
He says Amazon made a poor choice in wording the emails.
He appreciates everyone’s interest and support here.
The full message thread can be found on the randyrhoads.tk board. This board, according to the info in its rules section, is also frequented by members of Randy’s family and others like Kevin Dubrow, Kelli Garni (former bassist for Quiet Riot and Randys childhood friend), and Rudy Sarzo, so the source seems credible.
This is good news for Randy fans. I know I’ve been looking forward to the book since it was announced.
In May I reported that Rudy Sarzo had a book coming out called ” Off the Rails - My Adventures in the Land of Ozz”. It was due to be released in September and was available for preorder when I found it on Amazon. So I preordered it.
This morning, I received the following from Amazon:
We are sorry to report that the release of the following item has been
cancelled:Rudy Sarzo “Off the Rails - My Adventures in the Land of Ozz”
Though we had expected to be able to send this item to you, we’ve
since found that it will not be released after all. Please accept
our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience we have caused you.We have cancelled this item from your order.
Your credit card will NOT BE CHARGED for this item because you only
pay for items when we ship them to you.Your order is now closed.
I’ve looked around for announcements as to why the book is not being published but can’t find any articles yet. There isn’t even an announcement on Rudy’s site. If you run into any, please send them over.
I’m sure there are a ton of Rhoads fans that were really looking forward to this one. This would have been the only book to chronicle Randy’s life, up to and including the night of his death.
Needless to say, for me, and I’m sure for all Rhoads fans around the world, this is pretty disappointing.
For those Randy Rhoads fans out there, the Diary of an Axeman site has Suicide Solution as their June video download.
Unfortunately, I missed May’s download, which was ‘I Don’t Know’ from the Blizzard of Ozz album. I checked the site sometime in May but I guess it was updated later on in the month. I’ll have to be a little more diligent in checking the site out if I want to keep building the Rhoads video collection.
This site is great and I think it’s really cool that the guy running it is keeping it up despite the bandwidth problems and cost that it takes to make this stuff available.
Actually, as I was writing this I found that the maintainer of the site has a Yahoo Group you can subscribe to to get updates on when the site is updated. Needless to say, I signed up.
Dio and former Quiet Riot and Randy Rhoads era Ozzy Osbourne bassist Rudy Sarzo has a new book coming out called Off the Rails - My Adventures in the Land of Ozz, which is available for preorder from Amazon.com.
According to this article, the book is culled from Sarzo’s detailed diaries and journals that he kept while on tour. In it he also attempts to describe the details of what happened, from his perspective, on March 19, 1982 - the day of Randy’s death.
The book is due to be released in September 2005. Billboard.com has an article about the book as well.
Piggybacking on yesterdays post, I found a great site called Diary of an Axeman that has rare audio and video downloads of Randy Rhoads.
The April video download is Mr. Crowley (rated #1 in my top 10 guitar songs last January). I have to say, it’s pretty damn cool actually watching him play.
The site also has some radio interviews in multiple segments which are pretty interesting to listen to.
They’ve had some bandwidth problems recently, and are limiting downloads to one video / audio clip per month.
Tagged with: rhoads
Tom and I are in Anaheim, CA on a business trip. Since we were somewhat in the neighborhood, we thought we would initiate a pilgrimage to the grave site of Randy Rhoads, one of my favorite guitarists. This visit, like the Bruce Lee grave visit three years ago was another one of those “things I need to do before I settle down for a dirt-nap” list items.
We did all of the pretravel prep and flew into Anaheim. After checking into the hotel, we hit the road to visit the site.
When we did the initial mapping of our route, we mapped the name “Mountain View Cemetery”, printed out the directions and never had a second thought about it. Until we got to Beaumont, CA, just outside of San Bernardino, CA.
Well, after a lot of driving and asking of directions we finally found the Mountain View Cemetery in Beumont, CA (there is one), but Randy Rhoads wasn’t buried there. We then figured, “well, maybe there is another Mountain View Cemetery in town”, so we asked around, stopping at a fire station (which was empty), and finally querying a local policeman after he finished issuing a ticket.
There was indeed another cemetery, and Tom put the pedal to the metal to get there before we lost daylight for picture taking. We got to the cemetery at the end of a dead end road, and, once again, Randy wasn’t buried there.
At this point, we needed someone with an internet connection so we called my lovely wife to figure out where the hell we went wrong. She confirmed that we were, indeed, in the wrong town. Since daylight was gone, we started the 60+ mile drive back to Anaheim. Needless to say we were a tad disappointed that our quest went unfulfilled.
On Sunday, after the conference sessions, we embarked on another attempt to find the grave site, this time with directions that Jonna was sweet enough to email to me last night. A short 50 minute drive later we pulled into the cemetery in San Bernardino, CA, found the monument (which is right inside the gates) and paid our respects.
The grave was something to behold, most of all because it’s quite obvious as you look around that people visit there pretty frequently. It was reminicent of the Bruce Lee grave visit, as we found incense and fresh flowers there as well. This monument was covered in lipstick left by fans (I’m assuming female), and there was even a note left inside the monument under the bench. It was a very cool experience.
As we were heading back to the car, after taking all of our pictures, a car drove up and stopped in front of the monument. A young couple got out of the car with their small son, and walked up to the grave and also paid their respects. I just had to take a picture of it from the car, I thought it was so cool. After 23 years, people still stop just to pay their respects to this young guy who made such a mark with his playing, and his love of the instrument.
We got some great pictures, which I’ve posted in a photo set on Flickr. We also learned a valuable lesson:
Make sure you know where you are going, EXACTLY, before you print out directions. If you aren’t 100% sure, ask your wife. Left on our own, the original road trip that Tom and I went on was extremely reminicent of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.
Find the site on Google Earth.
Tagged with: goals, graves, rhoads
I found the latest issue of Guitar Worlds Guitar Legends magazine at Borders this weekend. It’s a full on issue about Ozzy Osbourne and his career. The best part about it, however, is that there is a ton of content about Randy Rhoads, Osbournes first guitarist, who died in plane crash on May 19, 1982. Along with two great articles, one on Rhoads himself and the other with former Quiet Riot basis and Rhoads childhood friend Kelly Garni, this issue also includes a transcription of a guitar clinic Rhoads had just before his death.
Also included in this issue are transcriptions of the following songs:
Being the first day of my vacation yesterday, this issue came out just in time. I spent most of the day upstairs with my guitar just noodling through the tabulature. Aside from Vai, Randy Rhoads has always been one of my favorite guitar players (Mr. Crowley, if you remember, rated number 1 on my top ten guitar songs).
If your a Rhoads fan, this is definitely a magazine to pick up.
Tagged with: Guitar, magazines, rhoads, tabs
