Hi folks. I'm listening to early Iberian organ music, trying to break, at least temporarily, from my daily Wagner habit, which has transfixed me for over two years now ("Parsifal"and "Lohengrin" mostly). I just finished watching one of the best documentaries I've ever seen, music or otherwise, about Lee Kerslake, the great Uriah Heep drummer who became even more well known as part of Ozzy Osbourne's first band, which was initially supposed to be a band (called Blizzard of Oz) and not just an Ozzy solo vehicle with backing players. The documentary focuses on the last few years of Kerslake's life, as he battles cancer and substantial physical difficulties, but what shines through all of that is his indomitable spirit. I must cut in here to say that he had the same birthday as me. We Aries are incapable of giving up, no matter how grim the going gets, but the thing about this guy is that he was even more unstoppable than most.
The storyline is largely about his "bucket list" desire to record and release his first solo album, which he begins working on at age 70 (his cancer in remission). He hopes to complete it before he dies. Old friends like Ian Paice and all the members of KISS visit him during this time.
Besides being a great drummer (Ian Paice compares him to John Bonham), Kerslake was also an all-around musician who played piano and was known as a fantastic harmony singer. As a former choir member myself, I very much appreciate harmony singing, and it's interesting about Uriah Heep...their album, "Sweet Freedom" was one of the first I ever bought when I "graduated" from Top 40 radio to "serious rock". I bought it with my paper route money in the Summer of 1973. Later that Summer, I met Pat Forducci, who was a huge Heep fan. I liked them, had the one album, and also knew their classic songs "Easy Livin'" and "July Morning", and I thought David Byron was an incredible singer, but it wasn't until about 2020, when I bought "Demons and Wizards" and "The Magician's Birthday", that I realised how great this band was. On a side note, I used to play their music (along with Canterbury bands like Caravan) for Pearl to energize her when her dementia was bad. The last album we ever listened to together was "Demons and Wizards". You can read about it in "The Summer of Green Parrots".
Listening to these records, almost 50 years after they were released, I began to finally appreciate Uriah Heep, who I now think should be included with Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath on the list of all-time hard rock greats. Their strength was songs, rather than flashy playing, but they also had superstar musicians including Gary Thain, one of the most fluent and unique bass players in rock history. In fact, the rhythm section of Thain and Lee Kerslake was what made them so powerful and provided the backdrop for the organ of Ken Hensley, the standout vocals of Byron (the best of all the classic early hard rock singers), and the guitar work of Mick Box, the last original Heep member who is still alive to this day.
Anyhow, watch this documentary (available for free on Tubi). It's great just for showing the power of music. You don't have to be a Uriah Heep fan to enjoy it.
Sorry I haven't written for a while. It's been a combination of being busy writing my next book (the shocking "Diane's House") and being affected by the revelations within it, which are new to me since 2024, due to deliberate memory blocking by bad guys and my own (successful) efforts to retrieve those memories through self-hypnotic meditation. You know how that works. Anyhow, I've gone through a bit of an anxiety-related depression. I've recently felt precarious in my life, and of course that's not a subject I wish to blog about, nor would you wish to read it (unless you are a bad guy, in which case it might make your day).
At the moment, I'm just coming off a five day span when I was without electrical power in my apartment. As if my life wasn't weird enough, right? At first, the outage was in my unit and the three surrounding mine on both floors. The other 27 units in the building were not affected, and the three others that did lose power (besides mine) had it restored in less than 24 hours. For some reason, mine took five days. DWP said that a certain type of coil burned out in the main switching box and had to be specially ordered.
The late, occasionally great Steve Jennings had a saying that I've never forgotten. He said there are certain situations in life where the only prudent answer is "oh."
That was what I thought during the five days I was sleeping (and spending parts of my evenings in) my blacked-out apartment. I just thought "oh." I have learned by trial and error not to complain too much. Look up a guy named Paul Bennewitz.
Anyhow...I hope you had a nice Ritchie Blackmore's Birthday. Can you believe he is 81? My electricity was fortunately restored in time for me to watch the livestream video posted by his wife and bandmate Candice of a birthday interview with Ritchie that she moderated, 54 minutes long. It was so popular that RB fans clamored for more, and they ended up doing an additional two interviews, both also near an hour long. That's almost three hours of Ritchie answering questions, including great insights about Edward Van Halen, Tommy Bolin, Rory Gallagher, Brian May, and many other guitarists and musicians. They're on Youtube if you wanna check 'em out. Ritchie has health problems that he mentions late in the first clip, and in the early going he appears tired. But he warms up after that and when he does, he becomes the great rock n' roll storyteller that he's known for being. And very funny. Ritchie is one of the great dry humorists in rock or anywhere else.
Speaking of guitarists, I went to see Uli Jon Roth on Friday April 10 at The Canyon in Agoura Hills. Grimsley drove. It was an improved experience over the 2024 Uli show at The Whisky, which was also quite good but in a sardine-can club that lacked a video screen for Uli's visuals, which contain replicas of his Star Wars-inspired oil paintings, and are an integral part of his show. The sound and visuals at The Canyon were top notch, as was his band, which features two additonal guitarists who sometimes "triple up" on Uli's lead breaks, creating an effect that is sonically breathtaking for the audience but seems like a walk in the park for the musicians.Uli played his standard 3-hour show, two sets, the first unaccompanied, playing classical pieces on his Sky guitar to backing orchestral tapes. On a side note, it is unfortunate that a musician of his stature has to play this type of music in front of an audience who, in the SRO areas near the bar, are drinking with friends, and are much more interested in their ongoing conversations (which are shouted over the music) than they are in what is emanating from the stage. Drunk people who talk over the music at concerts is a modern day phenomenon, but all-too regular and tolerated. Sigh....(but I am still glad I went).
I had a nice birthday lunch at Bubba Gump in Universal Citywalk, treated by my sister Vickie. I hadn't been to Universal since the Rush Clockwork Angels concert on November 19, 2012. The Gibson closed ten months later, on September 6, 2013, to make way for the Harry Potter attraction at Universal's theme park. So, 13 1/2 year's since I'd been there, but it was fun and the food was great (a gigantic order of fish n chips for me).
That's about all I know for the moment. I'll try to write more often. Gotta get my mojo back...
Thanks for reading. Tons of love as always.
