Raybeez Remembered 1961-1997

Warzone, Photo: Ken Salerno

It's been eleven years since the passing of Raybeez and I gotta say, the more years that pass, the more people I meet that really loved this guy. Personally, I only met Ray once. He was working at The Wetlands club in NYC and worked there one of the nights that my old band Mouthpiece played. I remember seeing him standing around when we played. After our set, while I was helping the rest of the band load equipment back into our van, Raybeez came up to me and asked if we needed any help loading out. At that point we only had a few pieces of equipment left to load out, so I told Ray, "Thanks, we should be good", be he insisted. Said something along the lines of, "Trust me, I know what it's like, take the help". We loaded the last couple pieces and I said thanks, Ray said, "No problem, I've heard a lot about you guys (Mouthpiece), it was good to finally see you". At this point I'm thinking to myself, "Wow Raybeez has actually heard of my band and knows who we are!". It was one of those surreal moments where you're mind just gets totally blown for a moment. Actually, I shouldn't say a moment, because truthfully I still think back to him telling me that and it's still hard for me to comprehend. Sorta along the lines of when Roger Miret from AF called my house in the early 90's, looking for Mouthpiece to play a show. Total mind fuck, but that's another story for another time. But yeah, that very brief encounter with Raybeez was pretty cool and the guy really couldn't have been nicer. Although he's passed, there's no question that his memory and music will live on forever. - Tim DCXX


Warzone, Photo: Ken Salerno

Raybeez was always really cool and friendly. He got me into shows at the Ritz when he worked there and always had a shirt for me and my girlfriend when we went to see Warzone play. One time I went to see them play at the Pyramid not too long after Jay joined the band and they had some new songs. After the show they were going nuts, dogpiling on each other, yelling and just reacting to how great they felt after playing. I was the only one there (downstairs) who wasn't in the band and after a few minutes they noticed me standing there and realized I was probably feeling a little uncomfortable. So they broke up the party and we talked for a minute and I said my goodbyes and then they just went right back to going crazy. They looked like a really close family, only a few other bands I've know have been like that with each other. - Jordan Cooper / Revelation Records


Raybeez's boots on display