RANDY CARR
Posted 07/14/05
If I had the nerve to speak at Randy’s eulogy,

A drummer in his natural habitat: The Olde Ship Pub in Fullerton.

I would have summed him up with this remembrance: When the New Radical’s CD came out, it was the first time in years something musical had moved me. I loaned the CD to Randy in hopes of enlightening him, and of course he hated it (If it wasn’t Cream or Hendrix, Randy was a tough sell.) I didn’t want him to miss this great moment in musical history, so I started riffing about the CD, ”It’s like this guys been holed up with old Todd Rundgren records, and...”, with Randy holding his head still the whole time, not saying a word, giving me that sarcastic grin he gets. I continue to ramble another five minutes until finally it’s his turn to speak: ”Catron, they’re crap.” End of discussion. He’s still got that same grin on his face. That pretty much sums up Randy. He was a huge curmudgeon, always honest to a fault, and that’s part of why everybody loved him.

I first saw Randy play when we were in a Battle of the Bands together. He was in a band called Outer Limits (sort of a fusion of Devo and The Mahavishnu Orchestra if you can imagine) that played and nobody noticed. Except me. I always made it a point never to watch other bands, but I went back by the soundboard and watched their entire set. Randy was the best technical drummer I’d ever seen in person, and he hit HARD. Plus it was fun to watch the way he’d lord over the set and fling his head and arms about. In short, Randy rocked.

My musician friends have never enamored my wife Vicki, but she loved Randy. He’d tell me, ”Say hi to V-Baby for me” when he’d sign off the phone, a nickname derived from Internet porn queen C-Baby. Vicki thought this was hilarious.

At Randy’s eulogy, there were a bunch of kids he taught drums to who took turns talking about him, all crying, and all basically saying the same thing: Randy was blunt, sometimes a pain in the ass, and easily the coolest guy on the planet. He would have loved it. He wasn’t sentimental at all, but I remember his friend Kirk throwing him a 40th birthday party that lots of people came out of the woodwork for. There came testimonial hour when everyone took turns with their favorite Randy stories. He cringed the entire time, though you knew he was digging it deep down. He was that Don Imus guy, hard shell outside, a softie on the inside. Very missed, that Randy Carr.