craigb

Not a vocal strip, but I had just picked up a TC Helicon Voice One (to go with my Antares AVP-1 - think "Cher" auto-tune!) and was dying to have some fun messing around with vocals on it when I lost everything (in 2009)... I had already set up patches to make me sound like a variety of voices from Barry White to a little girl with some minor variations that I intended to use to make background (or even choir-like) vocals. Oh well! It would have been fun.

I only make 'C' movies... ?

Lots of stuff by Kansas was pretty heady too. When I get the time I'll have to track some down...

Yes, yes... That's right. Just keep telling yourself that it only looks smaller. ????

Gives me flashbacks to the time I ran game servers. I had a T1 line going to my home (unheard of in the 1990's) and had the second-most popular game server on the West coast called n2o's Gas House (my gamer name was n2o, the chemical formula for Nitrous Oxide - my tag line was "You'll die laughing!" ?). Quake I, Quake II, Half Life, Counter Strike and mods of those were featured. I was working as a consultant to Verizon Wireless at the time which was only about a half-mile from my house so I, along with a few friends at work, would pop over at lunchtime and after work to play together. We were in leagues with two teams (which my team would typically win) for Counter Strike. My friend had mods for Quake which changed the bots into Simpsons characters or naked women and I created two popular maps for Half Life. At one point in time, there was a database of 340,000 Quake I players and I was ranked in the top-25! My friend and I had perfected using Expert trackballs (see pic below) and, since we sat right next to the servers, we had VERY low pings! We were the definition of LPB's which gave us a huge advantage. We were constantly branded as cheaters in league until the required match videos were watched. It was fun pwning kids half our age. ? The only screenshot I could find quickly from a random Counter Strike match. The Clan Tag "MiE" was something I always kind of thought was stupid that my friend (who went by the gamer name of Pigg) came up with. It was short for Militia Elite. Ok, whatever! Fun times!

Micro Chip League - New York

My last 30 hours have been brutal too (I'm too tired to type the whole story)! Glad your issue appears to have only been annoying!

Aerosmith - Back In The Saddle

Tones On Tail - Shakes

Or it's hermano, Hell Taco.

You sure Captain D's isn't a house of prostitution?

They used to have him standing on boxes out of the shot for some scenes.

What, you don't like plug-ins? ?

Starship - Jane

Thank Bob the pubs remain open, ya??? ?

Now Paulo, don't wake people up so early. ?

Black Sabbath - Iron Man

It's actually my birthday today (for another 12 minutes - lol) and LOTS of the conversations I've had today have brought back a ton of memories! Oh well...

Ok, back on topic! The Cure - Hot, Hot, Hot

Craig was in Rough Cut for a bit over a year I think (into 1983? after he replaced Jake E. Lee who left to replace Randy Rhodes with Ozzy), then he was in Foolish Pleasure which just gigged around San Diego for a bit. I played that second guitar guy who hides in the back for three gigs: A kegger house party, at a roller rink and, the big one, where we opened for Blue Oyster Cult at the Bacchanal in 1984. Craig then went on to help start Guiffria before moving on to Dio (replacing Vivian Campbell). He's two years older than me and, when he was allowed to stay at home, lived two blocks away. Most of the time though he lived in his car or slept in the music store where he gave lessons. Tough life! Oh, and he was already out of Rough Cutt when Metal Heart came out (in 1985). Interestingly, the second guitarist in Rough Cutt at the time was also part of Mickey Ratt. My friend in school (same grade) was Michael Grove who was one of the early drummers for Mickey Ratt and also the drummer for Foolish Pleasure (who is NOT the Foolish Pleasure band that came out later in the 1990's). Unfortunately, I never got to see Mike after that because I found out at our high school 10-year reunion that he passed away (cause unknown) in 1987... I only played in two bands and only for mere six weeks and yet FOUR of the drummers involved died! Talk about Spinal Tap! Heck, one died after a gig we did at the Tom Cat bar across the street from Miramar Naval Air Station when he tried to cross the busy street drunk and got hit by a car only to be decapitated by a second car?! One died like Bonham drowning in vomit, and the other one committed suicide by drinking excessive alcohol with lots of sleeping pills after his girlfriend left him... Yikes! Memories! [Edit: Just thought of this... I think the main connections were that Ronnie James Dio's wife (Wendy?) was the manager for Rough Cutt.]

Knowledge bomb: Boxing day has nothing to do with pugilists! ?

The band that other Craig was in for a bit! (My guitar teacher, Dio's Godson and very short time bandmate. ? )