Revisiting the early days of QUIET RIOT with the first time ever reissue of the band’s two first albums featured in exclusive here at plotn08, it’s also necessary to listen to this “The Randy Rhoads Years“, a compilation album done by the band in the Nineties. As both ‘Quiet Riot I & II’ still remained officially unreleased outside Japan, Kevin DuBrow decided to re-work the Seventies material and release this album as a Randy Rhoads tribute.
“The Randy Rhoads Years” features previously unreleased material and some re-mixed / re-worked songs from Quiet Riot’s first two albums. None of the tracks on ”The Randy Rhoads Years” are the same versions that appear on the original two Quiet Riot albums.
At the request of the Rhoads family, longtime Quiet Riot vocalist Kevin DuBrow remixed all the tracks, except the previously unreleased “Force of Habit” as its multitrack master tapes had been lost.
Kevin DuBrow’s lead vocals were re-recorded on all tracks except the aforementioned “Force of Habit”. In one case, he re-wrote the lyrics with ex-Rainbow drummer Bobby Rondinelli: previously titled “Mama’s Little Angels” on Quiet Riot I, Kevin re-wrote what he thought was a juvenile lyric. (It was about trashing the house playing a game of “indoor baseball”.) Bobby Rondinelli, who was working with Kevin on a Quiet Riot album called Terrified at the time, helped him re-write the tune.
The drums on all tracks but “Force of Habit” were re-sampled, and the guitar tracks were played through Carlos Cavazo’s Marshall amplifiers to duplicate the sound that Randy Rhoads achieved in Ozzy Osbourne’s band. According to DuBrow, Rhoads was never happy with his guitar tone while in Quiet Riot, but very satisfied with his tone while with Osbourne as he could afford better equipment by then.
The song “Trouble” was sped up as DuBrow felt the original was too slow. DuBrow also added wah-wah to one guitar solo, playing the pedal himself through the original guitar tracks. Again, Rhoads could not afford a wah-wah pedal at the time of recording, but wished he had played the solo with one.
“Killer Girls” had some minor tampering, a blast of guitar where previously there was nothing.
“Afterglow (Of Your Love)” from Quiet Riot II was stripped down, leaving just Rhoads’ acoustic guitar in an “unplugged” arrangement. DuBrow used triangle samples to disguise background noise that could not be removed from the track.
The sole live track, “Laughing Gas”, features an extended guitar solo that was spliced together from two separate recordings. It featured pieces of Rhoads’ later songs “Goodbye to Romance”, “Dee”, and perhaps his best known song, the hit “Crazy Train”. It also features parts of the “RR” solo outtake that was lost and found during the mixing for the 2011 Expanded Legacy Edition for Blizzard of Ozz and was put on the reissue as a bonus track.
The unreleased tracks “Picking Up the Pieces” and “Breaking Up is a Heartbreak” are two of a kind. Kevin says these come from their “proto pop-metal” period after the second album, just before Randy was off to work with Ozzy.
They were getting more desperate for hits, and wrote these two melodic, radio-ready tunes. Both are excellent. Much like “Trouble”, these two songs are world-class. Kevin re-recorded the vocals and so on just as he did with the other tracks. At this time, bassist Kelly Garni had left the band and Randy played bass himself.
Lastly, the other unreleased, “Force of Habit” is the only bare, untampered song. In the liner notes, Kevin says they lost the original master tapes, so he was unable to remix or re-record any of it. I think it’s an excellent heavy song on its own. In fact, Ozzy Osbourne must have thought so as well, since parts of this song later became “Suicide Solution”!
The very good work DuBrow did with these old tracks and “Laughing Gas” in particular were enough to convince the Rhoads family to go forward with the release this album. If Kevin hadn’t done this, undoubtedly we would never have seen this release.
Kevin had planned on a second volume, including such treasures as Quiet Riot’s metallic cover of “The Mighty Quinn”. He had also mentioned a home video, including the extended “Laughing Gas” guitar solo.
Sadly DuBrow, will never get to complete these Rhoads reissues.
1. “Trouble” (remixed version from Quiet Riot II)
2. “Laughing Gas” (Randy Rhoads Guitar Solo) (Live 1977)
3. “Afterglow (Of Your Love)” (Acoustic version)
4. “Killer Girls” (remixed version from Quiet Riot II)
5. “Picking Up the Pieces” (Previously unreleased)
6. “Last Call for Rock ‘n’ Roll” (Original version titled “Mama’s Little Angels” from QR I)
7. “Breaking Up Is a Heartache” (Previously unreleased)
8. “Force of Habit” (Previously unreleased)
9. “It’s Not So Funny” (remixed version from Quiet Riot I)
10. “Look in Any Window” (remixed version from Quiet Riot I)
Kevin DuBrow – lead vocals, triangle, wah-wah
Randy Rhoads – guitars
Kelly Garni – bass
Drew Forsyth – drums
Kenny Hillery – additional bass
MP3 FLAC