Gary Gladstone, AKA The Mix Doctor, shot himself a couple days ago due to unbearable chronic pain. According to his landlady the pain was in his shoulder and may have been the result of a recent facial laser peel treatment.
There seems to be an epidemic of extreme shoulder pain with victims that include not only Gladstone but The Tooners’ drummer Pat Meehan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone who both recently had shoulder surgery and even my wife Sarah who suffered for months with a condition called Frozen Shoulder and now has a reoccurrence she believes was caused by a flu shot in the upper arm. She claims that the pain is so intense and so constant that she understands why Gary killed himself. This is yet another prime example why it’s a bad idea to keep guns in the house. Suicide has been described as a permanent solution to a temporary problem and certainly there are other ways to control physical pain.
I met Gary Gladstone in 1980 when my Newwave band Womanizer hired the eight track studio he owned in Hollywood to record our four song demo tape. He liked us enough to make us a very generous offer; if we would arrange one of his original songs he would give us free unlimited recording time to record it and one of our songs. He would then release them as a single ( a seven inch, 45 rpm phonograph record) on his own record label. He had made this offer to other bands and I own one of their records.
I chose his song, Paradise, which he described as having been written for a singer with whom he was smitten. Feeling rejected by her, he felt that turning the love song he had written for her into a hit would suffice. I arranged the song which I had only heard as a folk style song recorded by him on acoustic guitar in the style of a song by a band like The Moody Blues, one of the most romantic of Classic Rock bands.
Paradise became the most popular song, among the ladies, of our live shows but he never made good on his promise to record one of our originals because a much more popular group, The Bus Boys, took him with them on their national tour.
The Bus Boys had a huge hit with The Boys Are Back In Town that was used in the Eddie Murphy movie 48 Hours and Gary had recorded their demos. He toured with them as their soundman and he mixed their performance on Saturday Night Live so I never held it against him that he left before recording us.
We kept in touch over the years and I would occasionally attend his birthday parties where I was always pleasantly surprised at his large guest lists that included well known professional comedians among his friends.
He had been working on a sound processing system over the last few years and turned from audio recording to video recording working with the Meatballs Of Comedy troupe and our show, The Tooners’ Rock & Roll Rehab.
His recent facial touch up worked would indicate he was not in a mood to give up on life and having seen him recently at our shows, at dinner and for a video demo he was taping for this sound processor always showed him to be in his normal upbeat, busy and optimistic frame of mind.
Gary Gladstone was one of those people who was a unique character which is increasingly rare and a fellow adventurer in the world of Rock & Roll. Ironically, Gary was the first one to record my band many years ago and because of Pat Meehan's own shoulder problems the shows Gary just videoed for us may mean he is also the last one to record us. The songs he wrote himself as well as the songs of others he recorded are what he's left behind to live after him.
There seems to be an epidemic of extreme shoulder pain with victims that include not only Gladstone but The Tooners’ drummer Pat Meehan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone who both recently had shoulder surgery and even my wife Sarah who suffered for months with a condition called Frozen Shoulder and now has a reoccurrence she believes was caused by a flu shot in the upper arm. She claims that the pain is so intense and so constant that she understands why Gary killed himself. This is yet another prime example why it’s a bad idea to keep guns in the house. Suicide has been described as a permanent solution to a temporary problem and certainly there are other ways to control physical pain.
I met Gary Gladstone in 1980 when my Newwave band Womanizer hired the eight track studio he owned in Hollywood to record our four song demo tape. He liked us enough to make us a very generous offer; if we would arrange one of his original songs he would give us free unlimited recording time to record it and one of our songs. He would then release them as a single ( a seven inch, 45 rpm phonograph record) on his own record label. He had made this offer to other bands and I own one of their records.
I chose his song, Paradise, which he described as having been written for a singer with whom he was smitten. Feeling rejected by her, he felt that turning the love song he had written for her into a hit would suffice. I arranged the song which I had only heard as a folk style song recorded by him on acoustic guitar in the style of a song by a band like The Moody Blues, one of the most romantic of Classic Rock bands.
Paradise became the most popular song, among the ladies, of our live shows but he never made good on his promise to record one of our originals because a much more popular group, The Bus Boys, took him with them on their national tour.
The Bus Boys had a huge hit with The Boys Are Back In Town that was used in the Eddie Murphy movie 48 Hours and Gary had recorded their demos. He toured with them as their soundman and he mixed their performance on Saturday Night Live so I never held it against him that he left before recording us.
We kept in touch over the years and I would occasionally attend his birthday parties where I was always pleasantly surprised at his large guest lists that included well known professional comedians among his friends.
He had been working on a sound processing system over the last few years and turned from audio recording to video recording working with the Meatballs Of Comedy troupe and our show, The Tooners’ Rock & Roll Rehab.
His recent facial touch up worked would indicate he was not in a mood to give up on life and having seen him recently at our shows, at dinner and for a video demo he was taping for this sound processor always showed him to be in his normal upbeat, busy and optimistic frame of mind.
Gary Gladstone was one of those people who was a unique character which is increasingly rare and a fellow adventurer in the world of Rock & Roll. Ironically, Gary was the first one to record my band many years ago and because of Pat Meehan's own shoulder problems the shows Gary just videoed for us may mean he is also the last one to record us. The songs he wrote himself as well as the songs of others he recorded are what he's left behind to live after him.
Gary was the nicest, kindest, most unique character I have ever met. I had just seen him 2 weeks earlier and he had bright hopes for the future. This is so shocking and unexpected. I will miss him. I hope he is in a better place now. Greg Piper
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