randulo’s non-blog

Started a new Remembering Paul site for people who'd like to contribute to his memorial

On the night of our 30th wedding anniversary I learn of the death of Paul Lagos, a man who had a tremendous influence on me musically since our first meeting in the early 70's. Paul and I were born on the same date, but different years.

Paul played with Kaleidoscope and recorded with Leo Kotke, did a lot of recording in L.A., played in the Johnny Otis Revue and then went on tour with John Mayall, John Klemmer, did a bunch of gigs in Los Angeles with jazz and blues players. We toured together in the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1972.

Yes it was a long time ago, when you got on stage with instruments; drums, guitars and a sound system and made music, sounds you heard in your imagination and then translated through your limbs to skins and guts.

Paul taught me about Miles and Coltrane and Joseph Schillinger, about Joe Henderson and Thelonius Monk. We were kids, Victor Conte and I, and we lived in his basement with his flea-infested Great Dane, "Gretta", and we were privileged to meet the likes of the brilliant saxophonist Richard Aplanaugh and Don 'Sugarcane' Harris - who, with Dewey Terry, wrote "I'm Leaving it All Up to You", one of the most played songs on the radio for years. Paul was a GIANT, I'll miss him.

The last time I saw Paul was on a tour for my own CD in about 1995 in France and Switzerland. Ironically, Paul and I played in Geneva in 1974 with a band called the Curtis Brothers. That gig was the inspiration for my song "Woman In White" which was linked to by a nurses' site but in fact the woman in white wasn't a nurse but a powder. Oh, the irony of the Internetz...

Paul, I didn't get to tell you that I loved you man, and now I can't even find out how to contact the woman you lived with to tell her how much your life and advice meant to me. Maybe someone will read it here.

We shared a short period of music nearly 40 years ago, I feel "we hardly knew ye". Thanks for Trane, Miles, Bird, Monk and yes, the blues I feel tonight in learning of your passing.

Please take a moment to listen to this song. It isn't Paul on drums, he would have played it a lot better, but he was there when this moment took place and we laughed about it many times - because we survived it.

The Woman in White

I had a dream
In the blue of the night
I was caught in the scheme
Of the Woman in White
Long ago
Through the mists of the past
She blackened my soul
It all happened so fast

Down Cadillac Valley
I copped me a dime
Did it in the alley
To save a lotta time
When I almost died...
As I slid to the ground
I heard kind of cry
Like a siren sound
And I remember
Moments of bliss
The scent of a smile
or the color of her kiss
But seeds of sorrow
Lay buried deep within
And I'm never going back 
Never goin' back there
Ever again
I woke with a scream
In a stone cold sweat
I know that means
That I'll never forget
That she got my money
Nearly took my life
It's time I stopped running
From the Woman In White
And I remember
Moments of bliss
The scent of a smile
or the color of her kiss
But seeds of sorrow
Lay buried deep within
Never going back 
Never goin' back there
Ever again

"I hate jazz." said one of the girls we were able to lure backstage in
some town on some road in some state some year in the 1970's.
 
"Why?" I asked, having to try to keep the party going and get it got to
the conclusion we were hoping for, Victor and I.
 
"Because it's so repetitive." said Bambi.
 
We always had stuff playing and at that time it was a tape of Ron Carter with
Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter and Tony WIlliams. The baddest of the
bad, together. They played some kind of crazy stuff so creative it
scared me. As the above exchange was taking place, Ron and the boys
launched into the head of a tune, played it twice, and then took off on
15 minutes of improvised solos. Although improvised, at this level there
is structure and if you listen you can hear it. It's the best kind of
structure, not contrived but perceived and shared on the fly.
 
So after 15 minutes of beauty from chaos, the band played the head of
the tune again. Bambi said: "See what I mean? Too much repetition!"
 
Ironic that she actually was able to recognize the melody (thanks to
repetition through the changes of the head) and yet couldn't hear the
music.
 
Imposing order on chaos doesn't guarantee quality, but at the worst, at
least it's a sign of good workmanship.
 
Turning chaos into beauty is a miraculous thing, like a spider web. It
takes a human being to perceive the structure and with it the beauty of
the creation of great art, great music, great food and great wine.

I have been running my own company since 1989, but in the past, I've had a lot of different ways of bringing home the bacon, which I don't eat anymore:
 
American Petrochemical: Lab assistant in a plastics and paint factory
 
Chicken Delight: Cole slaw maker, blow torch operator, delivery boy
 
Vincent Van Go-Go: 6 night a week bar gig (all day free at the beach)
 
various music gigs in Twin Cities
 
USAF: Cryptographer (not fun)
 
various music gigs and recordings in California
 
John Mayall tours to Europe and Asia
 
Various blues and jazz gigs with John Lee Hooker, John Klemmer
 
Laser Images: Laserist and Laserist manager in Van Nuys, CA.
 
Universal Studios: Radio technician
 
KMEX: video technician
 
Générale des Eaux: programmer for small systems, then mini-computers
 
GTIE: CAD/CAM manager
 
Intergraph France: Liaison for software developed in France (We were on the Internet in 1987 using things like rpipe and telnet.)
 
Independent, then founded the company
 
Of all the stuff on the list, only a few things really stand out, things that when learned early in life can serve you well. For example,
 
- after working in fast food, I can tell you: you should never eat things made be teenagers unless they live with you. Even then, you probably wouldn't want to.
 
- you should be thankful there is no obligatory military service, although you learn a lot from the experience which basically amounts to incarceration. Fortunately, I did not get sent to 'Nam.
 
- I learned a lot about computing by taking advantage of the training a DEC for operating systems like RT-11, RSX-11 both running on the PDP-11. I took home each of the 20 volumes of documentation of each system and read them through.
 
- earning your money as a musician is "fantastically awesome" during the time of your life when you can say those words with conviction. After about 35, it's not that great. Good money (when you can sleep in a room), lots of chicks and playing is a great expression of emotion. Seeing what the guys become later in life is another story. Several of my musician friends are dead.
 
- one of the most memorable moments I had was working as a laserist at Griffith Park Observatory. On a few rare nights, the entire L.A. basin was covered in clouds and the observatory was above them. I looked out over a white, fluffy sea of clouds, covered in the bright moonlight from a small island that was to top of the hill. Unforgettable! Someone must have photographed this?

One of the awful things about a long life with a lot of different careers, lifestyles and and endless stream of cities, towns and countries is that you begin to notice people dropping away. Here's a short shout out to to those who fell by the wayside, leaving this mortal coil.

 
He got a lethal disease that some say can be caused by sulfites in the white zin he drank to excess. Most wine lovers would say that drinking any amount of white zin is an excess. He was horribly politically incorrect, making fun of people with deformities, handicaps or any other thing he could grab hold of. I met his dad, who was blind and I guess this is where that came from; RIP Lou.
 
He was a Navy fighter pilot who died of AIDS in his 40's, a creative and intelligent guy. He also pissed me off when as my boss, he yelled at me for no reason. Then I quit. RIP Gene.
 
He was larger then life, yet never fulfilled the potential because of drugs which eventually caused him to need an oxygen bottle to drag around. He was found dead kneeling at that bottle trying to adjust the valve. RIP Don (see the Unforgettable Sugarcane Harris)
 
With Don (above) he co-wrote a song heard literally millions of times in so many versions: "I'm Leaving It (All) Up To You". Don is "Harris" and Dewey was "Terry" on the song credit. These guys got totally screwed out of all the royalties of the song, which made zillions. Here's a bit more about Don & Dewey.
RIP bro, you were a good man.

 He was a prolific painter, father of three boys and a musician. As a painter, he leaves behind many works considered to be some of the most brilliant work in the genre of "fantastic realism". I hope you've found peace, Judson. Here's more about him and an idea of his work.

I remember him as a sweet guy if not a good musician. Easy to get along with, great looking Portuguese girlfriend. Chuck, a drummer I played with years ago blew himself away in a shed, depression got the best of him.

My uncle Harold just passed away a few days ago. He has no wikipedia entry, nothing on the Internet at all I'll bet, but he was a good man and an inspiration to me. Funny, in the last part of his life, he suddenly wanted to be called Charlie. I'll always remember him as Uncle Harold.
 
My step father, my oldest step-brother (listen to doctors when they tell you how not to kill yourself), my father and then my mother all left the building that is this Earth where I've spent 22,300 days.

In around 1993 I had the good luck to assemble musicians from Tower of Power and Herbie Hancock's Monster Band, including Nate Ginsberg on keys and Victor (Balco) Conte on bass to record some of my tunes. Drummer Ronnie Beck, also of the TOP rhythm section, was a part of the mix and my buddy Coleman Head is on rhythm guitar. The song I link to here is called "Log Jam". I loved doing this music with these guys, and there's a lot more of it burt this particular one is special.
 
These guys are remarkable musicians. We has a few minutes of tape left from the session of other, more structured songs we had actually rehearsed. I showed them the chords, the intro and the end, and we ran the tape and that was it.
 
The Log Jam
 
Generally, the music you hear has been rehashed, produced and remixed for weeks, sometimes months. This tune was recorded with the ambient energy, rough mixed in an hour or so and what you hear is what you get. That's important to me. I hope you'll enjoy it.
 
There's sometime about the raw creativity that happens in a session like this. Kinda breaks the mold.