Randell here. My part of the story goes like this; Student at UCSB (me) hears punk band called The Spoilers (featuring Chris Hickey) in 1978 and is so inspired he goes home and stays up all night writing 10 songs with his roomate Jeffrey Foskett. They form a band called The Pranks with drummer Bo Fox and have a blast playing those songs (and a bunch of other ones) around Santa Barbara, LA and Salt Lake City for a couple of years before breaking up after Foskett joins the Beach Boys touring band. Despondent at the breakup of his beloved band, Randell moves to LA and gets a record deal for himself on IRS records, but that's not good enough - oh no.
He forms another dysfunctional band called Show Of Hands (which we now call Show Of Hands (USA) because there's another band from across the pond by that name that started after us but managed to stay together all these years) with LuAnn Olson and Chris Hickey which releases one record produced by David Kershenbaum on IRS in 1988. They tour the U.S., Canada and China, record a self produced second record in 1990 and break up on the eve of it's release on Polydor records. LuAnn and Randell are married by now and, despondent at the breakup of their beloved band, start having children - which turns out to be a lot more fun than being in a rock band. They spend the next 23 years raising six children, writing songs, kissing and doing dishes.
Read more...