Crazed Fanboy's Most Memorable Moments, 2000--2009 As submitted by PCR writers, compiled by Chris Woods20,000 LEAGUES INTO THE TOILET
From 2004, ED Tucker's story of greed, deception, and corruption in the Magic Kingdom.
This is morbidly ridiculous. We're in another period of relentless obits. After years of saying goodbye to my pop-culture heroes, it doesn't get any easier.
A few days ago, I heard the news of the passing of rock/heavy metal legend Ronnie James Dio at age 67 from stomach cancer. It came as quite a shock.
There are less than ten instances in my life when a piece of music so impressed me, I actually remember where I was and what I was doing when I first heard it (Led Zepplin IV and Van Halen are two examples). Hearing Dio sing with Black Sabbath is one of them. I had started my rock band, Blade, in the late '70s as, basically, a cover band meant to pay tribute to rock legends of the day, with an emphasis on Heavy Metal. Without going into intense detail (which would serve only as a needless digression), I was lying in bed relaxing early evening around summer 1980, pondering my band's set-lists and such while listening to 98 Rock's Album Hour (or some such title). Suddenly, this goliath voice jumped from the speakers backed by incredibly heavy guitar riffs. Reverse-engineering my aging memory, it was almost certainly tracks from the album Heaven and Hell. I was only half paying attention up to that point, remembering Sabbath as being non-relevant after the exit of Ozzie Osbourne. Listening to the radio host's ramblings made me aware that this new singer was Ronnie James Dio, formerly of Rainbow. Dio revitalized Black Sabbath from back-burner status to the top of the heap.
When the Heavy Metal movie came out (1981), the chilling sounds of The Mob Rules ("Taarna" sequence) totally transfixed me. When 98 Rock played The Sign of the Southern Cross from the same album, it was so transendental, I changed my set-list to include exclusively Dio Sabbath material (save for Ozzie's Paranoid, War Pigs, and Iron Man, of course!). I remember thinking it doesn't get any better than this. (Ian Gillan's stint with Sabbath was impressive, but Dio was the shit.)
Now, I remember hearing him on Rainbow's Man on the Silver Mountain, and that was great (I probably wasn't even paying attention to who the singer was at the time, I was a guitar-player), but this was different....huge....gothic...mystical and cavernous. All from a diminutive man (5'4") from upstate New York.
His earliest recognition came from blues-pop band Elf, and I still have a cassette tape of them somewhere. I continued to follow his success with Dio (his own band, and the only time I saw him in concert), and hits like Rainbow in the Dark and Holy Diver. I thought it was great when he came full circle to rejoin Sabbath in recent years with their new touring iteration called, appropriately enough, Heaven and Hell.
Despite being diagnosed with stomach cancer last summer, Dio kept touring and intended to exit his chemotherapy with more recordings and tour dates. Alas, it wasn't to be. He died at home May 16, 2010. We've lost one of rock's true greats and he will be sorely missed.
Capped? Well, sort of. Siphoning. Still leaking. And the clean-up. We wait and watch in Florida to see if the Gulf currents bring any sludge our way. More later.
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Nolan B. Canova