m***@intergate.com
2005-12-08 17:41:06 UTC
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~cruekiss/84.htm
8/12/84
Vince throws a barbeque at his house in Redondo Beach to celebrate the
start of Mötley's next album. Members of the Finnish band Hanoi Rocks
end up partying with them for days, as they are on their month-long
first US tour, supporting their Two Steps From The Move album. A couple
of girls with apartments in the complex also party with them, along
with Vince's neighbour, who is an NBC anchorman.
A couple of days into the party after taking some Quaaludes and
drinking Jack Daniels and a mix of Brandy and Kahlua, Mick Mars has
enough of the abuse dished out to him by his girlfriend Linda. He walks
out of Vince's house onto the beach where he wades out into the water
with his drink, intent on drowning himself to end it all before he
blacks out. Vince later spots him washed up on the beach in his leather
pants, jacket and boots, but Mick just wants to be left alone.
Meanwhile Vince asks who wants to head to the bottle shop with him in
his new red '72 Ford Pantera sports car to get some more beer. Twenty
four year old Hanoi Rocks drummer, Nicholas 'Razzle' Dingley
volunteers first and they soon leave, picking up a couple of hundred
dollars worth of beer and other alcohol, which Razzle holds in his lap
during the ride back. At 6:38pm and about four blocks from his home,
Vince's car slides sideways in a wet spot on the road and he loses
control, doing 65mph in a 25mph zone at the time. The car heads into
oncoming traffic approaching a rise on the beachfront Esplanade
northbound lane and collides into the passenger's side of the only
oncoming vehicle: a VW driven by eighteen-year-old Lisa Hogan. Her
twenty-year-old passenger, Daniel Louis Smithers, is injured in the
crash, as is Vince's friend and passenger, Razzle. Vince is concussed
and has cracked ribs and minor facial cuts when the ambulance arrives.
When Tommy Lee arrives at the scene on foot after hearing sirens go by
Vince's house, he sees Vince sitting on the kerb with his head in his
hands, and also sees Razzle's Converse sneaker in the middle of the
road. Vince's blood alcohol level reads 0.17 when given a
breathalyzer on the scene - well above the legal limit of 0.10. He is
read his rights and taken by police in their squad car to the nearby
city of Torrance, due to Redondo's jail being given its yearly
painting.
Razzle is taken to Redondo's South Bay Hospital while Tommy drives his
wife Candice, Vince's wife Beth and members of Hanoi Rocks there. After
a long wait, a doctor advises them that Razzle died at 7:12pm, after
his severe head injuries were too much.
Lisa Hogan is rushed in critical condition to the intensive care unit
of Little Company of Mary Hospital where she remains in a coma until
the end of the month, with a broken arm and two broken legs. Her head
injury leaves her liable to fly into psychomotor seizures as a result
of some brain damage. Daniel Smithers is taken to South Bay Hospital
suffering a broken leg and some brain damage. The driver of a third car
involved is uninjured.
This date is ironically the first day of USA National Drunk Driving
Awareness Week.
===========================================
from the Razzle tribute site
http://freespace.virgin.net/dead.girl/death.html
I created this website to celebrate Razzle's life, not dwell on his
death, but that event had lasting repercussions for all of his friends,
family and fans so here is how it all came to end.
On Saturday 8th December 1984 Sam Yaffa, Andy McCoy and Razzle rocked
up to a party at the beach-front home of Motley Crue singer Vince Neil.
Hanoi and the Crue had befriended each other when the Crue were in the
UK for the Donington festival and, as Hanoi were enjoying time off in
LA while Michael Monroe recovered from an ankle injury sustained at a
recent show, the two groups naturally hooked up. Although only early in
the evening the booze had apparently started to run low and so at
around 6pm Vince and Razzle, who had both been drinking, set out in
Vince's shiny new red 1972 Ford Pantera and headed for the liquor
store.
On the return journey the inebriated Neil, speeding, went through a
puddle and lost control of the powerful car, going into a slide across
the lanes, the passenger door impacting on the front end of another
vehicle. Witnesses claimed they saw Vince standing by the car, foaming
beer bottle in hand, claiming "everything's okay" but things were far
from okay. Tommy Lee (Motley Crue's drummer) has spoken about hearing
the crash and rushing outside to see what had happened. He saw Vince
sitting on the curb and Razzle's sneaker lying forlornly in the middle
of the street. The 2 occupants of the other car were seriously injured
but Razzle took the worst of it. He was taken to South Bay ER with CPR
in progress but was pronounced DOA at 19:12, which would have been 9th
December GMT as his headstone reads. Vince was arrested under suspicion
of Driving Under Influence and vehicular manslaughter and taken to
hospital to have minor injuries treated, he was later charged and
released on $2500 bail. Eventually, in July 1985, Vince was sentenced
to 30 days in jail (which was commuted to 20 days, during which time he
washed cars in a minimum security facility) and was fined $2.6 million
in compensation fees. Apparently the Judge stated that in order for the
amount to be paid Vince had to continue as a musician. For all his
subsequent claims that the accident cost him a dear and close friend,
some feel Vince's true 'closeness' to Razzle can be summed up by the
comment in first editions of Motley Crue's The Dirt book, where he
describes how much he misses Razzle's Finnish accent!
Meanwhile, in mid-December, Razzle's body was flown back to the Isle of
Wight, where the funeral service was held on a fine, sunny day in a
packed church and he was later cremated, wearing his favourite white
suit. His ashes were laid to rest under a small memorial stone in the
churchyard at the Holy Trinity Church, Binstead.
Giving statements for the press, a spokesman for the band said "Razzle
was having a great time. All he'd ever wanted was to go to LA. He
thought it was the best place in the world. He got there, and he was
enjoying himself up till the last second." In the January 1985 edition
of UK music paper Sounds Razzle was voted #5 in the Drummers category,
one place above his beloved Rat Scabies. That was an honourable
footnote to a tragically unfulfilled potential but Razzle died as he
lived, with his mind on a party and his next beer. The impact of this
tragedy on so many lives is too deep to do justice to but, if fate had
to take Razzle prematurely, he at least went out on a high.
8/12/84
Vince throws a barbeque at his house in Redondo Beach to celebrate the
start of Mötley's next album. Members of the Finnish band Hanoi Rocks
end up partying with them for days, as they are on their month-long
first US tour, supporting their Two Steps From The Move album. A couple
of girls with apartments in the complex also party with them, along
with Vince's neighbour, who is an NBC anchorman.
A couple of days into the party after taking some Quaaludes and
drinking Jack Daniels and a mix of Brandy and Kahlua, Mick Mars has
enough of the abuse dished out to him by his girlfriend Linda. He walks
out of Vince's house onto the beach where he wades out into the water
with his drink, intent on drowning himself to end it all before he
blacks out. Vince later spots him washed up on the beach in his leather
pants, jacket and boots, but Mick just wants to be left alone.
Meanwhile Vince asks who wants to head to the bottle shop with him in
his new red '72 Ford Pantera sports car to get some more beer. Twenty
four year old Hanoi Rocks drummer, Nicholas 'Razzle' Dingley
volunteers first and they soon leave, picking up a couple of hundred
dollars worth of beer and other alcohol, which Razzle holds in his lap
during the ride back. At 6:38pm and about four blocks from his home,
Vince's car slides sideways in a wet spot on the road and he loses
control, doing 65mph in a 25mph zone at the time. The car heads into
oncoming traffic approaching a rise on the beachfront Esplanade
northbound lane and collides into the passenger's side of the only
oncoming vehicle: a VW driven by eighteen-year-old Lisa Hogan. Her
twenty-year-old passenger, Daniel Louis Smithers, is injured in the
crash, as is Vince's friend and passenger, Razzle. Vince is concussed
and has cracked ribs and minor facial cuts when the ambulance arrives.
When Tommy Lee arrives at the scene on foot after hearing sirens go by
Vince's house, he sees Vince sitting on the kerb with his head in his
hands, and also sees Razzle's Converse sneaker in the middle of the
road. Vince's blood alcohol level reads 0.17 when given a
breathalyzer on the scene - well above the legal limit of 0.10. He is
read his rights and taken by police in their squad car to the nearby
city of Torrance, due to Redondo's jail being given its yearly
painting.
Razzle is taken to Redondo's South Bay Hospital while Tommy drives his
wife Candice, Vince's wife Beth and members of Hanoi Rocks there. After
a long wait, a doctor advises them that Razzle died at 7:12pm, after
his severe head injuries were too much.
Lisa Hogan is rushed in critical condition to the intensive care unit
of Little Company of Mary Hospital where she remains in a coma until
the end of the month, with a broken arm and two broken legs. Her head
injury leaves her liable to fly into psychomotor seizures as a result
of some brain damage. Daniel Smithers is taken to South Bay Hospital
suffering a broken leg and some brain damage. The driver of a third car
involved is uninjured.
This date is ironically the first day of USA National Drunk Driving
Awareness Week.
===========================================
from the Razzle tribute site
http://freespace.virgin.net/dead.girl/death.html
I created this website to celebrate Razzle's life, not dwell on his
death, but that event had lasting repercussions for all of his friends,
family and fans so here is how it all came to end.
On Saturday 8th December 1984 Sam Yaffa, Andy McCoy and Razzle rocked
up to a party at the beach-front home of Motley Crue singer Vince Neil.
Hanoi and the Crue had befriended each other when the Crue were in the
UK for the Donington festival and, as Hanoi were enjoying time off in
LA while Michael Monroe recovered from an ankle injury sustained at a
recent show, the two groups naturally hooked up. Although only early in
the evening the booze had apparently started to run low and so at
around 6pm Vince and Razzle, who had both been drinking, set out in
Vince's shiny new red 1972 Ford Pantera and headed for the liquor
store.
On the return journey the inebriated Neil, speeding, went through a
puddle and lost control of the powerful car, going into a slide across
the lanes, the passenger door impacting on the front end of another
vehicle. Witnesses claimed they saw Vince standing by the car, foaming
beer bottle in hand, claiming "everything's okay" but things were far
from okay. Tommy Lee (Motley Crue's drummer) has spoken about hearing
the crash and rushing outside to see what had happened. He saw Vince
sitting on the curb and Razzle's sneaker lying forlornly in the middle
of the street. The 2 occupants of the other car were seriously injured
but Razzle took the worst of it. He was taken to South Bay ER with CPR
in progress but was pronounced DOA at 19:12, which would have been 9th
December GMT as his headstone reads. Vince was arrested under suspicion
of Driving Under Influence and vehicular manslaughter and taken to
hospital to have minor injuries treated, he was later charged and
released on $2500 bail. Eventually, in July 1985, Vince was sentenced
to 30 days in jail (which was commuted to 20 days, during which time he
washed cars in a minimum security facility) and was fined $2.6 million
in compensation fees. Apparently the Judge stated that in order for the
amount to be paid Vince had to continue as a musician. For all his
subsequent claims that the accident cost him a dear and close friend,
some feel Vince's true 'closeness' to Razzle can be summed up by the
comment in first editions of Motley Crue's The Dirt book, where he
describes how much he misses Razzle's Finnish accent!
Meanwhile, in mid-December, Razzle's body was flown back to the Isle of
Wight, where the funeral service was held on a fine, sunny day in a
packed church and he was later cremated, wearing his favourite white
suit. His ashes were laid to rest under a small memorial stone in the
churchyard at the Holy Trinity Church, Binstead.
Giving statements for the press, a spokesman for the band said "Razzle
was having a great time. All he'd ever wanted was to go to LA. He
thought it was the best place in the world. He got there, and he was
enjoying himself up till the last second." In the January 1985 edition
of UK music paper Sounds Razzle was voted #5 in the Drummers category,
one place above his beloved Rat Scabies. That was an honourable
footnote to a tragically unfulfilled potential but Razzle died as he
lived, with his mind on a party and his next beer. The impact of this
tragedy on so many lives is too deep to do justice to but, if fate had
to take Razzle prematurely, he at least went out on a high.