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Guitar keeps rocker’s memory alive

Guitar keeps rocker’s memory alive

By Jack Johnson

Boulder City Review

The small music room in Kelly Garni’s Denver Street home would be heaven on earth for any heavy metal fan. Old record jackets adorn one wall like a rock ‘n’ roll patchwork quilt. Old concert posters line the top of another. A picture frame holds a photograph of a 12-year-old Garni and 12-year-old future guitar god Randy Rhoads at a birthday party in their Burbank, Calif. neighborhood — three years before Garni and Rhoads would form heavy metal band Quiet Riot. Framed on a wall is a clay statue of Garni, made by Rhoads when they were 13 — approximately 10 years before Rhoads would leave Quiet Riot to play with Ozzy Osbourne. Above the statue, tucked into the frame of a picture of Garni playing his bass guitar, is a backstage pass from a 1981 Ozzy Osbourne world tour, on which Rhoads had written, “Kelly” — the year before Rhoads was killed in a plane crash, ending his short career and carving out his place in rock ‘n’ roll history like so many before him….{+}

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