Dio's dead

After the existence failure epidemic of 2009 wiped out everybody I knew who used to be on television, the hand of doom has turned its eye to musicians - (Ronnie James) Dio died this weekend. I admit that actual knowledge of the Rainbow - Black Sabbath - Dio era isn't really a strong point for me, but it has to be recognized that he had a major influence on most of the music that I enjoy today.

Most notably, it would seem that he pioneered the practice of putting together fantasy music videos that look more like submissions to Beadle's Hot Shots, perfected by Rhapsody in the modern era - watch the one for Holy Diver and witness a full minute of lingering atmospheric shots of some branches followed by five minutes of him stalking around a ruined castle dressed like a hairy Richard O'Brien whacking people with a plastic sword. Also note the way that they run out of video halfway through and then just confidently use some of the previous bits a second time for different parts of the song despite the chronic lip-sync issues that this obviously brings up, and the monster made out of one side of a cardboard box painted black and stuck in front of some stock footage of an erupting volcano.

Thanks, Dio. Thio.