In the late 1970's, as a lonely high school kid, I thought The Cars were the coolest. Their debut and Candy-O lived on my turntable. There was something aloof about Ocasek. He seemed to be above all the craziness of rock stardom (he was about 10 years older, in his mid 30's, than everyone else). Great chords, flashy solos by Elliot Easton, quirky seemingly interchangeable vocals of Orr and Ocasek. It was all brought together by the stellar production of Roy Thomas Baker, who produced Queen's greatest work.
The Cars were the first band I ever saw live, although technically it was the opening band, XTC. We were in the last row of the Nassau Coliseum. We were still buzzed from a bottle of Canadian Club and I remember they chose a weird song, Shoo Be Doo as the opener. They were not flashy, and I am not sure if they were an ever meant to be arena band and I never did connect with the Panorama album - the one they were touring on. But it was not a bad show.
They really took off with the Shake It Up and Heartbeat City records, and those records were good, but I was moving on to other music.
Ocasek put out a few uneven solo records, reunited the group after Ben Orr's death. I was not really listening anymore. The memories will always be good though, and always there.
A few years ago, his daughter in law owned an art gallery in the Short North and put on a show of his work, which I did not really connect with. He was here for the opening and I was walking south on High and saw him and his family (including his wife Paulina) coming toward me. He was in black, black and white tie tied loosely around his neck, dark sunglasses on. He did not look much different than the late 70's. I was too stunned to say anything. I was stunned to see the news of his death cross my social media tonight.
Rest in Peace, Ric. Thank you for the music.
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