I'm a bit behind the flow on this one, but I needed a few days to digest it. Randy "Biscuit" Turner was found dead in his south Austin home shortly after making the cover of the Austin Chronicle. In fact, the guy who wrote the article and did the interview discovered him there after he'd been out of circulation for a few days. The paper reported that the preliminary autopsy results point to, well, forget the medical jargon...Biscuit blew out his liver from drinking. He was 56 years old.
I knew him back in the day when he was the front man for seminal Austin punk funk band The Big Boys. Back in the early 80's. I loved these guys and would go see them at Club foot every chance I got, which amounted to almost everytime they played there.
I'd make small talk with him and the bass player, Chris at the bar. They probably don't remember me, just one of 1000's that made small talk at the bar, but I remember those times like it was yesterday. It was because of them and countless other bands of the day that led me to Club Foot and led me to cut off my hair, and start getting tattoos, and immerse myself into the punk scene in Austin, and even pushed me more than any other reason to start a band. The Big Boys had a motto, I only remember the last half, on thier records and it said "now go start your own band"! It was D.I.Y mindset, and they got me.
Beyond that, he was an artist...a crazy ass artist ( go read the article at the chronicle...shit,just check out the cover photo) who lived by his own rules and actually had some measure of success by doing so...wow :), imagine that!
Anyway...Biscuit has left the building, and took a little bit of me with him. I bet he's up there in "heaven" playing "Let's play god" with the all stars...and even though god should be pissed, he's smiling at this gem of his...if you believe in that sorta crap, and in this case, I'd like to believe it.
That's Biscuit...second from the left.
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