Dio's dead

[davidn]

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.

Comments

[kjorteo]

As I had said before, only Dio could storm Castle Shadowgate armed with naught but his wits, a cheesy sword, and enough footage for about half the video before looping, and make it so surprisingly-not-terrible. (Though, to be fair, that did give him a distinct advantage over the actual Shadowgate protagonist, who, of those three items, only had the sword.)

Truly we have lost a legend, but so long as we have the likes of Rhapsody, Hammerfall, etc., he will never be forgotten.

[davidn]

the actual Shadowgate protagonist... only had the sword

And Dio never once accidentally hit himself in the face with it, or died by walking past the eagle without arbitrarily dealing with it first!

[kjorteo]

Dio had the ability to look at common household objects without feeling compelled to kill himself with them. In Shadowgate, that would have almost qualified as a superpower.