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Thread: I have some very sad news...

  1. #1

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    Default I have some very sad news...

    Greetings folks,

    I hate to be the bearer of bad news, poster Kay-gee has passed away.

    I know he really liked it here, and I registered today for that reason, so his suddenly not posting would not be a mystery to the community and friends he had made here over the years would know what happened.

    He was great friend, a friend from childhood.

    In the earliest days, late-'60s...it was drums for both of us, with The Great Debate: who was the better drummer, Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees or Ringo Starr of The Beatles.

    We lived just two good stone throws apart for so many years and then came his first marriage and his moving to Southern Ontario, and then in 2006 to the Bahamas.

    I can share more when time permits, if you like, but right now on I'm on supper break from work...

    https://www.sootoday.com/obituaries/...-kelly-1197317

    God Bless, you folks. I knew him well, and I very much doubt he was a member of any other online board.

    He liked it...right here. His constant posting and sustained interest confirms this.

    Take care,

    Ron
    Last edited by RonJ_60; 04-12-2019 at 11:08 AM.

  2. #2

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    I have no words. It's like losing a family member. Ron, thank you for letting us know.
    I look forward to more of your stories about KayGee. We were all jealous of him living in the Bahamas! LOL
    Rest in peace my drumming friend.

    Kay-gee's reply to my New Year's resolution post:

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    kg.jpg

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  3. #3

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    Speechless. Rest in paradise my friend. Always loved reading your posts and your compliments. I never had the chance to meet you but I can tell how much of a good guy you were. We’ve lost quite a few on this forum. But it’s more than a forum. Friendships are formed here. I’m sorry I didn’t see this thread sooner. Thank you so much for letting us know Ron.
    Quote Originally Posted by rickthedrummer View Post
    There is intelligent life out there. The problem is that there isn't any here.

    -Mike

  4. #4

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    Rest in peace Kay-gee. You will be missed ...

  5. #5

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    There were times over the years where we went back and forth on something. There was never any anger, sarcasm, whatever. It would always be some funny repartee' that never ended in anything negative.

    I will miss him. DAMN
    YOU MESS WITH THE DEVIL YOU KNOW.

    YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE DEVIL YOU DON'T KNOW.

    VAE VICTIS

    ONCE YOU HIT A CERTAIN AGE, YOU BECOME PERMANENTLY UNIMPRESSED BY A LOT OF CRAP.

    I HIT THAT AGE 20 YEARS AGO.

    IF DOGS CAN'T GO TO HEAVEN, I WANT TO GO WHERE THEY GO

    WILL ROGERS

  6. #6

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    This is sad news. It’s hard to really know someone well through an Internet forum, but I always felt he represented the best in all of us. Kind, courteous, sincere, funny and respectful. His New Years resolution quote that Drummer posted sums it up. He will be greatly missed, but not forgotten.

    RonJ_60-
    It would be an honor if you would share some stories when time allows. Please give condolences to his family on behalf of us all. Let them know that there is a community of people they have never met who’s lives were blessed by Kay-gee’s friendship.
    -Brian

    "Too many crappy used drum stuff to list"

    Play the SONG......not the DRUMS!!!

    "I think that feeling is a lot more important than technique. It's all very well doing a triple paradiddle - but who's going to know you've done it? If you play technically you sound like everybody else. It's being original that counts." ~ John Bonham

  7. #7

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    AMEN to that^^^^^^^^^^^.
    YOU MESS WITH THE DEVIL YOU KNOW.

    YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE DEVIL YOU DON'T KNOW.

    VAE VICTIS

    ONCE YOU HIT A CERTAIN AGE, YOU BECOME PERMANENTLY UNIMPRESSED BY A LOT OF CRAP.

    I HIT THAT AGE 20 YEARS AGO.

    IF DOGS CAN'T GO TO HEAVEN, I WANT TO GO WHERE THEY GO

    WILL ROGERS

  8. #8

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    Wow, very sad news. RIP.

  9. #9

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    Oh Man this is horrible! RIP KAYGEE, he always made my boring posts much more interesting and you can tell he was genuinely a good guy! He will be missed here for sure.
    Ludwig Classic Maple 22x16,10x8,12x9,16x16
    7" Moon Gel Practice Pad
    Sabian HHX Legacy

    Decide whether this is love for the craft or simply an ego thing

    http://www.redskymary.com/ NOT MY BAND, JUST A GREAT LOCAL BAND WHO SHOULD BE SOOO MUCH BIGGER IMO

  10. #10

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    Very sad news indeed. RIP. You will be missed.

  11. #11

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    All the best
    Quote Originally Posted by rickthedrummer View Post
    There is intelligent life out there. The problem is that there isn't any here.

    -Mike

  12. #12

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    oh man.. I loved how he always had something to say about anything and everything!
    RIP KayGee

  13. #13

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    very sad..thank you Ron.

  14. #14

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    I’m stunned! My best to those that knew him as a family member and a friend. Sleep well Kaygee. You will be missed.

  15. #15

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    Wow, this is indeed sad news. I met him, when he came back to Toronto one visit, he came down to the bar to watch the band, gave me the beginning of my Bahamas vacation fundkay2.jpg

  16. #16

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    Bummer. He was one of the fixtures around here.Opinionated but totally mellow.

  17. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by funkyruss View Post
    Wow, this is indeed sad news. I met him, when he came back to Toronto one visit, he came down to the bar to watch the band, gave me the beginning of my Bahamas vacation fundkay2.jpg
    ^^^^^^^
    That is totally awesome!
    -Brian

    "Too many crappy used drum stuff to list"

    Play the SONG......not the DRUMS!!!

    "I think that feeling is a lot more important than technique. It's all very well doing a triple paradiddle - but who's going to know you've done it? If you play technically you sound like everybody else. It's being original that counts." ~ John Bonham

  18. #18

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    That is sooo cool, funkyruss!

    I'll hop on later to share some stories, some history and stuff.

    My frustration right now is not having - at my fingertips - a great photo of Kelly behind his Gretsch or the one where he's strumming his Gretsch Tennessee Rose guitar.

    There's a Library of Congress worth of photo albums, but it's a needle-in-a-haystack deal. It's unfortunate I didn't snap more pics when I had the chance...

    A '70s pic would be great, but back then, pics were seldom taken outside of special occasions.

    I'll see what I can dig up, and return.

    The service yesterday was nice and heavily attended. Kelly touched the lives of a lot of people!
    Last edited by RonJ_60; 01-20-2019 at 10:29 AM.

  19. #19

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    Ya you know we would love to see pics Ron! and thanks for letting us know,otherwise we would have really wondered what happened...:(

  20. #20

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    Thanks, Russ.

    Eyes are misty. Saw a lot of red eyes and smiles yesterday.

    I shared comments with a couple of Kelly's brothers and his Mom. They loved to hear of his comaraderie here!

    Your Toronto gig/visit and cool j-peg will be shared, too.

    Thanks for the wonderful comments, everyone. They're absolutely wonderful to read.

    Until a bit later, Ron.

  21. #21

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    I can't recall the first time I met Kelly. It would have been in the mid-60s.

    What I do remember is that at first, the friendship centred around drums.

    He had got one of those colorful toy kits a couple of Christmases before, and I, too, had been gifted one the year previous.

    There was a bass, and two toms clipped to the bass at three- and nine o'clock. A skimpy bass pedal with a plastic 'maraschino cherry' beater on it, lol.

    The skins were quite like office paper, maybe two sheets thick. Not built to last, and they didn't!

    Kelly had been bitten by the music bug. He wanted to build a band and get to making hit records, asap.

    We salvaged what was left of the two toy kits, and an overturned lime-green waste basket served as the floor tom. The snare...can't remember what we did about that, but I think a magazine on top of something solid was the answer.

    Jams were at his house. Kelly wrote and sang lead on our first two basement hits, Elevator Door and Marshmellow Girl.

    Guitar players...played without the benefit of a real guitar. Homemade ones had to do.

    I learned fence wire is quite unsuitable to catch that Beatles' sound, or anything musical-sounding...

    I'll ever forget our pestering his Mom to take a break from post-supper housework to come hear our band.

    She came downstairs, was all ears, and we kind of froze. Stage fright, lol.

    ---

    Later, Kelly took drum lessons at Killoran Academy, and this transitioned him from kid stuff to an official gateway into learning music and sharing knowledge. It was 1970, I think.

    Around that time, his Dad bought him his first real kit. It was a 4 pc import kit, aqua-marine sparkle; think vintage Premier aqua, but pale or faded.

    They cost $125 from a downtown surplus store.

    Not long ago, we discussed those early days and Kell said, "it wasn't that the drums were bad, I mean they weren't great, but the cymbals, they were terrible. After playing on those I was determined to get some real cymbals."

    I didn't know until reading a post online under the announcement thus week that Kelly took that kit to our public school and played Wipeout for the Grade 8 class.

    He was confronting that stage fright, square on.

    In ensuing years, he displayed the same reluctance to fold his tent when faced with obstacles; it served him well.

    ---

    A couple of years later, I got my first legit kit, a Sears kit, deep blue sparkle.

    (Still love that super-deep blue sparkle, that I see on vintage Slingerland kits)

    Getting that kit for Christmas in '72 followed a year of playing one of those red sparkle 'Mastro' drums. I'm ready!

    I had pleaded for a real drum set, and my Mom had finally answered the call.

    Set them up in the living room. Put on "I Can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash, about as loud as the stereo could go, and discovered....I couldn't play.

    Kellllllllllly!!!!!!!!

    ---

    Needed my buddy's help, badly. My Mom couldn't afford drum lessons.

    There were informal lessons at Kelly's place. The 4/4 ride-snare-bass pattern was worked on first, to serve as a foundation.

    I wanted to do rolls, badly, and did, but would sometimes, no make that many times, come back to the groove wrong and Kelly's admonitions...they were on point and all, but he'd never admonished me for anything before so they were startling, at first.

    Sometimes, the animated "no, no, no's!" cracked me up, and the smirks didn't help fuel his teaching fire. I sensed I had to smarten up and bear down, I had to quit listening to voices in my head and listen to him. I did, fortunately.

    His musical universe was expanding. He was into Grand Funk and Creedence and I was only distantly aware of them. Doug Clifford's for-the-song style was something that came up many times in our drum discussions, about as often as Buddy or Bonham or anyone else.

    At one lesson he grabbed a music mag and pointed out a drummer who was apparently a giant. "This guy...Ginger Baker..."

    Ginger WHO? What???

    ---
    In the late '70s, Kelly sought better drums and better cymbals. He had so often wrote away to have Ludwig or Sling catalogs delivered and we'd both drooled over truly professional kits that looked...too good to be true.

    He found an ad for an East Coast store where he could order singles and snares and cymbals.

    It was Drum Emporium (?) in...Maryland (?)

    Cannot recall the name, but he put aside money from his gas attendant job and ordered up some real McCoys...

    > a Ludwig Supraphonic
    > a 24" Lud black Vistalite bass
    > a 16x18 Lud black visty floor
    > 14" New Beat hihats
    > couple of Zildjian crashes, one was a killer 18"
    and a Speed King pedal.

    He didn't order a Lud rack tom, opting to convert a steel Premier 10x14 marching snare into a rock rack.

    It was an excellent setup!

    He would use this kit for the next five years; it'd be the one for his first local paying gigs and countless jams.

    Those jams took a quantum leap upward in intensity and daring when Kelly hooked up and became a close friend of guitarist Eugene Boyer.

    Eugene was truly a monster player that could play anything.

    "Just playing with Eugene...I'm learning so much," he told me (many times). "The guy is so great and yet he's so quiet and humble! I feel lucky to play with him."

    ***

    I'll stop here for today. There's much more to share, and it's all good, ya know?

    I'll give it a rest but refuel and return soon with more, and a pic or two.

    Take care, everyone, and thank you for the warm reception.

    Ron
    Last edited by RonJ_60; 01-22-2019 at 02:01 PM.

  22. #22

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    OMG...…………….awful news...…………..one of my Gretsch buddies ?

    KayGee only knew of one maker of drum shells -- RIP, my friend.
    Gretsch USA & Zildjian
    (What Else Would I Ever Need ?)


  23. #23

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    This was taken in Sept, 2013.

    We're up top of the lighthouse at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, Whitefish Point, MI.

  24. #24

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    ya I bet there were a lot of red misty eyes.. I hope your stories about us crazy drummer types put a little smile on peoples' faces, showing what a good guy KG was....

  25. #25

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    May He Rest In Peace. I missed "shouting" back to him by one day...he will be missed.

    1.jpg
    Last edited by late8; 01-22-2019 at 12:58 PM.

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