“I once saw Rick Gazlay soundlessly perform onstage with his guitar and a Kabuki mask with only prerecorded tapes along a bizarre line and a grand piano he did not play but instead hid beneath while sucking his thumb,” says Reader columnist John Brizzolara.
AKA Slam Buckra, the frontman for the Super Barracudas died in January 2011, at the age of 53. He had been battling throat cancer for around six years.
“Ironically, I was in the studio with his former bass player the night he passed away,” says guitarist Wayne Riker. “Rick was a major force in the blues rock scene here, back in the early 1980s on. We worked the same bar circuit when I was in the rock scene then, particularly many gigs at the Silver Fox. Rick and I had many great sit in jams together back then. Although he left the area in the 1990s, he left a strong musical mark and legacy here.”