Evangeline 'We're Alright Down Here'

On Monday I found out that Kevin DuBrow (lead singer of Quiet Riot) had died. Then on Tuesday morning, I heard that Sean Taylor (Safety for the Washington Redskins: my favorite NFL team) had died. And today, I got word that Evel Knievel had died as well.

Kevin DuBrow and Quiet Riot… I was never a big fan. I heard the song “Metal Health (Bang Your Head)” when it came out and thought to myself… Yeah, that’s an all right tune”… And that was pretty much my fascination with them. It was the kind of tune that got into your face and you couldn’t ignore it. But I could see the reasons why guitar ace Randy Rhoads had left them to rise to greater heights with Ozzy Osbourne. Quiet Riot just didn’t thrill me.

I remember when I first heard “C’mon Feel The Noize”. I couldn’t believe that Slade had finally broken through into the mainstream of American radio. Quiet Riot’s cover was so dead on that I actually thought it WAS Slade.

I was pretty much the only kid in Greensboro who possessed an album by Slade. For the record, it was Slade ‘Alive’. I picked it up after reading about the glam rock band in a magazine before QR ever waltzed into the limelight. I picked it up at a used record store and over the years I purchased some of Slade’s other releases.

In my opinion, Quiet Riot were more or less a Slade tribute band. Their own penned songs, with the exception of “Metal Health (Bang Your Head)”, just weren’t that memorable. My mother bought my copy of the ‘Metal Health’ LP because I spoke about their Slade cover.

Quiet Riot hit the charts once again with another Slade cover entitled “Mama Weer All Crazee Now”. And much like their previous cover, it didn’t deviate from the original. If Slade could do it overseas, by God, QR could do it here with another song unfamiliar to a lot of Americans. And QR also tried again with the song “Stomp Your Hands, Clap Your Feet”, but it failed miserably. It seemed that Americans finally realized what was going on with Quiet Riot and their pilfering of the Slade catalog.

The only other QR album that I own is ‘QR III’ where Kevin DuBrow was replaced with Rough Cutt vocalist (also plays the “rock star” along side Howard Hessman in the film This Is Spinal Tap) Paul Shortino. The only reason I purchased it was because my friend and the drummer in Krakkin’ (our rock band) begged me. He just wanted to tape it because for some reason, he liked Quiet Riot. I think it was because Frankie Banali is considered a great hard rock drummer. Tracy Thornton used my love for Rough Cutt against me knowing that I’d be interested to see what Shortino could do for QR. The bastard.

‘QR III’ sucked. No surprise there.

I'll write up my thoughts and feelings about Sean Taylor tomorrow. Stay tuned!

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