Paradise Lost

On the 20th Anniversary of The Tooners' Rocktasia CD I'm writing about the three co-writers of three of the CD's tracks. The third one is Gary Gladstone AKA The Mix Doctor and writer of the song Paradise.

Gary owned a small eight track recording studio in the early 80s when my band Womanizer came in to record a demo tape to use to get some club gigs. After recording our demo he offered to record and press a 45 RMP single for free if we'd arrange and record one of his songs as one of the sides. Unlike CDs, 45 RPM, 7 inch records had one song on each side. I chose his song Paradise which had already been recorded and pressed onto a record by the hard rock band Attitude. Theirs was a very different take on the song.

We recorded a version of Paradise but Gary went on the road with the band The Busboys who had a hit on the soundtrack album to an Eddie Murphy movie and we never did get our single finished. Years later I used the basic guitar tracks to rerecord Paradise for inclusion on The Tooners' Rocktasia CD.

Gary and I kept in touch over the years and I attended a few of his birthday parties which included comedian friends like Bob Zany and Judy Tenuta and he came to Womanizer and then The Tooners shows over the past twenty years. Gary came to our Rock & Roll Rehab Shows and shot some video which we now use for our online version (click here) and when I saw him last year he complained about a chronic shoulder pain which my wife was also going through. He told me if he didn't get some relief soon, the VA weren't helping him, he was going to kill himself. I thought that was just a figure of speech as my wife was saying the same thing. This Frozen Shoulder Syndrome is extremely painful and lasts for months. But he wasn't kidding and he owned a gun.

Gary was around from the beginning and was always a part of our scene. We all miss him. but his classic song, Paradise, will live on.

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