Ronnie James Dio...You Can't Fight Heredity

The birth of an individual like Ronnie James Dio takes place, the only possible explanation can be the convergence of musical cosmic energy with some type of super potent glam-rock radiation from the sun or something. An event so epic in it's scope, one has to question the validity of Nostradamus for not prognosticating it. The lead vocals, and namesake for the Thrash metal band Dio, Ronnie's roman candle of stardom was lit in 1972 and has burned ever since. Built upon the age old platform of Good vs Evil, Dio's numerous albums have featured such titles as Holy Diver, Lock up the Wolves, Killing the Dragon and We Rock. I like this last one particularly because it lays to rest any thinking that the band may not rock.

But like all things in this universe, the Ying to Dio's superstar Yang was about to reveal it's ugly head....literally. The karmic energy of their mega fame was about to be balanced. In 1981 as the band was touring through the Bible belt, they lodged at a Super 8 motel in Kansas city MO. A booking error forced Ronnie to have to room with fellow band mate Simon Wright. The morning routine started the next day like always, Ronnie hopped in the shower and began to towel off as Simon prepared for his shower. As Simon went to step into the shower he stopped short. "What the hell is that" he asked pointing toward the drain. Ronnie dropped the towel and fell face first into the tub in his scrambling to pull the long rock infused hairs from the drain. Simon looked down upon his weeping twisted body and asked "dude, are you losing your hair"? An emergency band meeting was called. Ronnie wore a knit hat, but the tear streamed face was too much to hide. "I need to tell you all something" he choked out. "I've been seeing a doctor for several months now, and....there's no easy way to say this so I'll just say it....I'm suffering from male pattern baldness" Rudy Sarzo's quick reflexes were the only thing that kept Scott Warren from doing a faceplant into the coffee table as he fainted. As order was restored in the room, and Scott regained consciousness the talk turned to what the band was to do. The first suggestion was that Ronnie should kill himself and allow the band to split the life insurance policy he held, but this was defeated when a call to the insurance company revealed a gap in the policy that doesn't allow for suicide due to hair loss. Talk turned to developing a wicked comb over or perhaps using a toupee, but the degree of physicality in Ronnie's personal style of on stage rocking wouldn't allow for this. Forehead painting, chia forehead, extreme face lifting, all of these ideas were considered and ruled out. "Listen you guys....I have to go, there's no way around it" Ronnie said with a brave determination etched in his face. And with that, he turned and walked out.

There was a somber feeling that night as the band prepared to play it's gig at the Horny Sailor bar and grill. Ronnie had come along to help the roadies move equipment. As the band began to play, the crowd was noticing a definite lack of singing. Some got up and walked out, some started to jeer and make comments like "I wish they had a singer". As the crowds rage continued to grow they started lashing out violently. Bottles were thrown, bras and panties that had been thrown to the band members were taken back by their owners, cigarette buts were flipped at the musicians. The band members looked over at Ronnie with "what do we do" looks in their eyes. And right at that moment he realized something....he could sit there sidelined by his hideous condition, or he could get back in the game and give male pattern baldness the finger! He stood up straight, and with stoic heroism he took off the knit hat.....and walked out on stage.

So where is he now.....
The ORotW wasn't able to track down any of the six remaining fans from the crowd that night for comment, but I think we can all visualize what it must have been like to have been part of that historic event. Ronnie James Dio continues to tour and make the music we have all come to love. But he also wears another hat....no, not the knit hat of shame, but an imaginary hat of not being ashamed to have a receding hairline. He always finds time when on tour to appear at local support groups for men with this most fiendish of afflictions. Stopping men on the street with combovers or really obvious toupees and giving such words of encouragement as "Rock the dome bro", or "Bald is beautiful man". Finally, our insiders from the biz tell us that Ronnie is planning to attend and host a hairline intervention with Donald Trump at the unveiling of the Trump towers in Las Vegas, we'll have more details as they emerge.

Jon Oliva.....beyond the porno-stache

It's Thursday, so lets once again whip this pony we call the ORotW. If you aren't readily faimiliar with a little band called Savatage, then you have clearly been living in a hole, on an asteroid, in a different, galaxy, that hasn't even passed through the milky way, with your fingers in your ears, and your mind closed to the psychic vibrations of the best rock of all time. For the rest of us, rocking out to Twisted Little Sister from the bands debut album Sirens, probably consumes between 78 and 83% of our day. I never understood the lyrics, but from the title we can only assume it might be about the sister of someone who may or may not be twisted, and the celebration of said entwistulation.

Enter todays ORotW spotlight....Jon Oliva. A founding member (HA I totally said member....but there's no time for that now!), of Savatage, Jon took the reigns of the bands Vocals, Keyboard and Pianist upon it's creation in 1981. At this point I have to ask all of you to please suspend your logic and just take what I'm about to say on faith, for it may well be the least believable thing you have ever heard. The gods of musical talent blessed Jon with such prodigious skill that at times he was know to both play his keyboard, and sing...AT THE SAME TIME!!! "But that's not possible The Flying V....You're clearly lying to us the Flying V....You're eating the mushrooms that grow in the back of your closet again The Flying V". Oh really fools....then maybe you would care to explain THIS.?!? Incontrovertible evidence that this man, this supernova of musical talent, did in fact at least once manage to pull off this seemingly magical feat. Can you imagine being in the crowd? "Dude...did he just sing AND play the keyboard"?!? If you could convince yourself that this wasn't some contact high induced hallucination, you would have the most cherished moment of rock history indelibly tattooed in your brain. You could go to that happy place any time you wanted like when your probation officer is totally bugging you for the five zillionth time about whether or not you did your 5 hours of community service at the retirement community for trying to steal beer from the 7-11 by drinking it before leaving the store thereby leaving no evidence of your crime except the beer cans on the floor and the surveillance tape of you drinking them while hiding behind the Street Fighter game that has your initials 5th from the top on the High Score page because of that time you were totally in the zone and no one could beat you and then you tried to bail through the back door when the guy working behind the counter saw you but it turns out there isn't a back door so they locked you in the stock room till the cops got there like 3 days later cause it was a holiday weekend....like then.

So where is Jon now? After the gig in which Jon blew the collective minds of the musical community with his multi musicalism, he had to disappear from society as we know it. A humble musician, Jon knew he was not ready to wear the mantle of glam-rock superstardom that destiny had appointed. OroTW fact checker and head rock sleuth, me, has a acquired a piece of underground rock knowledge that may shed a little more light on this story. The Hutu tribe of central Africa speaks of the existence of a "White Music God". It is alleged that this diety has the notable talent of being able to sing WHILE playing the Uhadi.....sound familiar anyone???

Falco, the Mozart of music

My fellow rockonauts, I crave your pardon for the neglect to the blog lately. As you well know, there is no work in which mankind is presently engaged that is more important than that which we do here. That being said.....it's once more in to the breach dear friends!

The black arts. Some say they're evil, and shouldn't be tampered with. For those of you uninitiated to the embrace of the dark mother it includes such things as staying out way past dark, running into cemeteries and touching tombstones, playing mortal kombat, and seances.....yes, seances. The practice of gathering spiritually attuned individuals in an effort to commune with the dead, a seance absolutely requires that only true believers undertake this most blessed of dark events. So, when I logged into the online seance room on AOL, I asked anyone who doesn't totally believe to please leave. The leader of the seance
(Whosurdaddy _69) called for us to dim the lights in our respective rooms and light the candles we were instructed to bring in the mass mail we all received. I didn't have any candles so I broke one of the pieces of my headboard off and dipped it in lighter fluid. The room was momentarily filled with a fireball of light and a strong smell of burning petroleum based products. As the blaze dwindled to a small flame I read on. The seance had begun...the leader was typing various incantations, and as I tried to recite them on my own I could feel something almost dis-perceptible change in the air. I was seeing my room through different eyes. The collection of heavy metal eight track cassettes, the denim jacket, my collection of candles, I saw all of these as if for the first time. Yet they seemed vaguely familiar. The leader of the seance said that some of us may be experiencing paranormal activity by this point, and maybe even be channeling spirits ourselves. I asked the question aloud "is someone there"?. "FALCO!!!!" boomed a reply. The response had come from my own lips, yet in a voice that was clearly not my own. "The luck dragon from The Neverending Story"?? "No jackass that's Falcor!! I'm the departed soul of 80's rock Icon Falco" the spirit raged. "Ohhhh...You mean the Rock me Amadeus dude" I asked. As if beyond my control, my own hand reached up and slapped me hard. "I mean the Austrian music sensation who created MANY musical masterpieces that included Rock me Amadeus fool" I said to myself as I poked myself in the eye. "But you died in 1998, I remember cause the newspaper they let me read in juvey said so". I bit myself on the hand. "You must immortalize me on your righteously kick ass blog". I ripped a chunk of my hair out. "I'll do it...I'll do it, just stop making me hurt myself"!! "Uh....I'm dead genius, I can't make you do anything".

So anyhoo, although the mystery of why I continued to beat on myself for the next 20 minutes remains unsolved I do think we should raise a special "herb brownie" to our Austrian homey Johann (Hans) Hölzel, who went on to be come Falco. Not just because I have a fear that he could return and haunt me till the day I die, but because he really did know how to rock the house! Oh, and one last thing....when I sat back down to write this post a few minutes later, the modem wasn't even plugged IN!

The Ballad of Ben Thomas

My dear friends, today the ORotW rose has truly lost it's thorn. Our Night has lost it's dawn. Our Cowboy has lost his sad sad song. Ben Thomas, the cookie crunch to this Twix we call the ORotW, has left us. Like an Albino tiger in a Las Vegas act, the penal system which keeps us safe has turned on me and denied me the privilege of our dear friends future companionship. You would think that with people Jay walking left right and center or packs of teenagers flagrantly loitering where signs specifically prohibit such felonius activity, that a good samaratin buying a few 6 packs and some Camels for some 12 year olds could go about his business without becoming the target of the local federalies and their obvious anti rocker discrimination. So one of these kids happens to be the son of the local District Attorney....does that make this any different from the dozens and dozens of times we have hung out at the Junior High and offered to buy kids beer??? Of course not! But my friends I tell you this much, our friend Ben wasn't going to let "the man" simply get away with this type of facist BS. In a display of heroism the likes of which I have never even heard of, Ben stood defiantly before the judge and in a raised voice full of passion and fervor sang "We shall overcome....we shall overcome" time and time again. The courtroom errupted in an emotional outburst of crying as the entire galley of onlookers (me and some homeless guy who hangs out in the courtroom) begged for the judge to show mercy. As order was restored and the Judge fixed his cold hard gaze upon the proud face of our hero the air seemed to be sucked from the room as he handed down the sentence....."A twenty dollar fine and 3 hours of community service" Was this some horrible mistake? Had the judge perhaps mixed up the files and mistaken Ben to be some homicidal maniac? How could such a miscarriage of justice happen in a great country such as this? Feeling as though I had been punched in the stomach by that guy who bit the ear off the other guy, not the grill one, the one that has the high squeaky voice and says he'll eat people's children, I nearly collapsed and dropped my Mountain Dew Slurpee. As I watched a solitary tear roll down Ben's cheek and disappear into his goatee, I heard him utter the phrase that would rival Bravehearts "FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOMMMMMMMMMMMMM" right before they chopped his head off in it's display of bravery, "Your honor, I choose not to pay". Now, I knew that Ben could no sooner come up with 20 bucks than fly to the moon, but that judge sure didn't. The shocked look on his face as he remarked "Well, I'm in a good mood....lets waive the fine and drop the community service to 30 minutes of weeding in the park" was priceless. Again..."Your honor, I choose not to pay, and further more I will refuse to pay any fine you should impose even if it's only Fifty dollars", which I have to admit kinda confused me. But the message was clear. Somewhere in the distance I swear I could hear Twisted Sister yelling "We're not gonna take it....we're not gonna take it ANY MORE"

So, here we find ourselves. Free to come and go as we please, while the bravest man I'll ever know rots in some festering minimum security facility working as a telemaketer for Sprint (which can totally help you reduce your monthly long distance bill by the way) for the next 18 months. I'm hoping that gives him enough time to earn the $2800 for the fine too, but they only pay him like sixteen cents an hour so we'll see. But every day I carry my ghetto blaster down to the jail from 11:20 to 11:40 and turn it up as loud as it will go while he has his 20 minutes of rec time in the yard. Because if I know anything I know this....You can put the rocker on the rock, but you can't take the rock out of the rocker!

Here's to Tucking it, Turkey Burgers, The Tuck N' Roll, a free X10, Immitation Crab, and the 50/50. You will be missed. Good luck Bro!

Just in time to say goodbye

As we meander down this path called life, sometimes we chance upon a fellow traveler whose company makes the trip a little more pleasant. The roses smell a bit sweeter, the penne rustica tastes a little more rustica and the Coke from Mi Ranchito is a bit more refreshing (well actually it pretty much always kicks ass). They stand out like a shiny quarter tossed amongst the pennies in the wishing well of humanity. Those of us at ORotW would like to raise our Rum spiked Hawaiin shaved ices to one such individual. His joyous nature, so infectious it would stick to your soul like the cheese to a burger wrapper. His beaming visage would shine forth splitting the darkness of human suffering like a lighthouse that was only supposed to be using a 1000 watt bulb but instead was using a way higher wattage bulb.....so it's like way way bright. He is one of god's truly special people, and plus I heard he can bench like 600 pounds.
Many of you may ask "What the hell does this have to do with rock"? And admittedly I don't have an answer to that. But I can say this...Websters Dictionary defines "Obscurity" as the act of being obscure. And when you put those 2 together you get "Obscure Rocker", and if I live to be a thousand years old I'll never meet anyone who embodies that spirit more. Shine on you crazy diamond!

I'd like to close by quoting a passage from J-Dawgs favorite song...

'Cos tonight for the first time
At just about half past ten
For the first time in history
It's gonna start raining men

From: It's Raining Men: Kelly Clarkson

We'll miss you bro!
V, Ben, and the Homies

The Spiral of Shame

First, our loyal reader(s) have every right to expect an appology from us. The degree to which we had lost sight of our original goal is shameful to think of. What began as a spiritual journey of obscure rocker recognition and celebration, was polluted by what I have dubbed the root of all evil...money. In an effort to defray the enormous cost of maintaining a high traffic blog such as this, your friends Ben and V added a link to the top of our page for Google Ads. Suddenly within a matter of a few short months we find ourselves making 1...2...3 dollars! Looking back I can now recognize the early warning signs that eluded us at the time. Trips to the pawn shop to shop for things to BUY rather than fence. Talk of "real foods" we would like to try when we cash out. The heady fantasies about what a real zig-zag must taste like. The roots of greed had penetrated our very hearts, and injected their poison of not caring about obscure rockers any more. Our empire was expanding so rapidly we were losing control of the mechanism by which it was established. But life was about to deal us a crushing blow that would rock the foundation of our lives.
Christmas morning had never held the type of magic that seemed to crackle in the air as Ben and I made our weekly walk to the library to use their computers. "I'm tired of living like this dude....lets just cash this thing out and hit the army surplus store". In another life Ben must have been one of those time share salespeople, cause you just can't tell him no. "Let's do it bro" I replied, and we walked inside. Looking back I don't know what I expected to happen, but the thought that money can't come pooring out of a computer hadn't occured to either of us. So when the website asked for our bank account info so it could deposit our earnings, a knot in my gut tied itself so tight I actually blacked out for a few minutes. When I came to, I was standing in the periodical section, and Ben was balled up in a corner biting his knees (he does that when he's upset). We didn't have a bank account, nor did we own an ID to open one. Our plans lie in ruin. But life was about to toss us a life preserver.
As I escorted a bloody kneed Ben out the doors, the light seemed to blind us. It was like we were seeing the world for the first time. We were barely aware of the kid riding his bike past us when he yelled out "Hey, aren't you the *blankin, blank-faces* that do that *blankin* retarded blog? The shout startled us back to reality. As Ben and I looked at each other, tears filled our eyes, and we gave eachother the most emotional fist tap in the history of fist taps. Yes...we we're those blankin blank-faces, and we would be those blankin blank-faces till we die! We had found our way back. Tempered by the fire of greed, we knew that never again would our resolve to share our love of obscure rockers with the world waiver.
So please accept our humblest appologies. Keep on rockin!

V

It's time to drop the Schier-Baum

She looks so hot! You didn't even know you could tease bangs up that high. Your denim jacket with the W.A.S.P. decal on the back looks righteous on her. She looks like an innocent and slightly less trashy Lita Ford in the moonlight. Your mouth is dry. Your palms are sweaty. You've only got 2 or 3 drags left on the smoke you stole from your step dad's dresser just hours before. If you're gonna make your move, you better do it soon stallion. Then it happens. The radio bursts forth with the most make out inspiring thrash trumpet solo the world has, and will ever know. Forever Young, by German based Alphaville has busted the proverbial move for you. I'm not saying your unlaced hightops and black skin tight jeans didn't set the mood there cowboy, but the fact that NASA scientists couldn't tell where one face ends and another begins right now is due to one man, and one man only.....Hartwig Schierbaum.

In 1983 Alphaville would offer a gift to the worlds hormone driven teenagers that was so great, no price could be placed upon it. That gift was a chance, even if ever so slight...to score. The song was as good as Spanish fly wrapped in fake compliments to the ladies. They were defenseless. All signs of resistance gone, the dudes saw their chance, and broke for the goal line like a kick-ass trans-am on a quarter mile run. Locker room "high fives" reached an all time high as reports of "scoring" flowed through high-schools like a flash flood. But sadly, Schierbaum's legacy of helping awkward teens gain access to the bra contents of their sisters best friend would outlast his own fame by many many years. The man who was at one time estimated to be responsible for 87% of all teenage pregnancy from the years 1983-1991, would be relegated to a life of obscurity within 27 hours of the songs release to the public. Industry analysts would later say "If this dude wanted to be remembered, he should have chosen a better name". By the time Ben and I had pointed out it was highly unlikely that Schierbaum had named himself, the 2 minutes we could afford to purchase of the industry analysts time was gone, and no further insight could be garnered.

So where is he now? Schierbaum realized that life is far more than the dizzy success of 27 hours at the top of the rock pyramid of god-dom. It's about helping desperate teenage boys make out for the first, and more often than not, last time. He spent a brief period of time working with engineers at the Ford motor company develop a line of make out friendly cars featuring triple sized back seat. But the idea was mothballed when the popularity of motorcycles spiked in the mid 80's due to Fonzy's reckless attitude and disarming way of saying "ehhhhhhhhhhhh". But Schierbaum truly found his calling when he opened the Chicago based "Center for dudes who are never going to make out" in 1996. The center teaches our nations youth to accept their fate, and not turn to that desperate place where so many of us had to go to get a kiss for the first time....Forever Young.