Hello, I'm Rob Dwyer. I'm currently 33 years old and grew up in Upstate New York. I relocated to Atlanta in 1990, where I met my wife of 7 years, Suzanna.

I originally moved south to attend classes at Atlanta Institute Of Music for advanced guitar studies, but decided I preferred the milder climate to the harsh winters of the Northeast! After 15 years of being a dedicated guitar player and working at other jobs that I despised, I finally found a worthy vocation in computers. I currently work as a systems technician for a modest Atlanta medical sales firm. But no matter how "geeked out" I get on computers, music has always and forever will be my first love. Besides my wife, of course :)

My own Heep odyssey began with a box of old and rather overplayed cassettes which I inherited from my Uncle Gary. This was 1983 and I was just barely 14 years old at the time. Mixed in between copies of Deep Purple's MACHINE HEAD and Yes' CLOSE TO THE EDGE were tapes of a band I'd never heard. The fantasy oriented cover of DEMONS AND WIZARDS somehow reminded me of the YES album cover art. With my interest piqued, I decided to listen to a well worn copy of LOOK AT YOURSELF during a long car ride with my Dad. Regardless of how bassy and out of phase this tape was, the music was heavy enough to satisfy this young Black Sabbath fan. And the lyrics of songs like "July Morning" and "I Wanna Be Free" spoke to me in a deeper way than anything I'd heard from my other hard rock faves.

I was eager to share my discovery with another close friend named James, but he was already under their spell! James was a prodigal, yet extremely rebellious young man who was very influential to me at the time. He lived way out in the country and spent his time writing poetry and experimenting with various drugs, but LSD was his clear preference. Unlike most of the kids that I knew who experimented with pot and alcohol to become disoriented, James was looking for some deeper meanings to our existence. While his fearlessness scared me sometimes, I too was looking for alternatives to the reality that my parents and school teachers were trying to sell to me. And so it was that James became "The Wizard", a theme song he proudly adopted! It wasn't unusual to find him listening to DEMONS AND WIZARDS at any given time of the day.

It was around this time that I had my own sort of epiphanies. While listening to BLACK SABBATH'S "Lord Of This World", I declared that I wanted to be a guitar player! And from there on, I began the long journey of discovering the magic of those six strings. It was when James played me the song "The Magician's Birthday" that I became absolutely sold on Uriah Heep. I labored for several years to learn how to play Mick's solo note-for-note!

When I tried to find Uriah Heep's albums in my local record store, it turned out to be a mightier task than I could have ever imagined. Much of their back catalog was out of print in the States during the early 80's. Finding Ken and David's solo albums was next to impossible. So, that is when my grand scavenger hunt began! Luckily, I knew people cool enough to own vinyl copies of stuff like INNOCENT VICTIM and WONDERWORLD, so I got to hear those early on. While combing local garage sales, I would occasionally be lucky enough to find a copy of something like SWEET FREEDOM for $1. I have all of their stuff on CD now, but it took me years! The thrill of the hunt was something that I savored for a long time!

By then, I had converted most of my other high school buddies to Uriah Heep fanatics, although I'm sure I was always the most fervent! In 1985, my friend Phil brought over a brand new vinyl copy of EQUATOR for us to check out. I was confused by it. While I did like "Rockarama" as a sort of guilty pleasure, this sounded nothing like the band that I originally fell in love with. What happened??? I didn't put EQUATOR on for too many future spins, but I did stay loyal to Heep and began researching the band's history.

Once again, this task would prove to be a tough one. Most of the so-called rock literature that I found was rather cynical towards the band and provided me with little details about David's death or why he left the band (for instance). Learning about Uriah Heep became a part time mission for me. There was an element of mystery in now knowing all of the facts about this great band that I loved.

Back in 1994, I wrote a letter to Ken Hensley, hoping for at least a little illumination. My letter (which I will share in a future posting) was at least a 10-page thank you for all of his great music. I was thrilled when I woke up one Sunday morning to find a brief, but very polite note from Ken. He had acknowledged that there was some sort of Heep documentary filmed around the time of WONDERWORLD, but that he was still looking for it.

While visiting a friend in St. Louis during '95, I obsessed over trying to find Ken's place of work so I could finally meet him. On the last day of my visit, we finally found St. Louis Music. I was feeling very nervous and excited as we entered the doors of the store. I asked a woman at the counter if Ken was available. She politely told us that Ken was out for the day, but would be back tomorrow. Augh!! I would have to leave tomorrow, so my one chance to meet Ken was botched.

The biggest turning point in my search occurred in 1996. Another good friend named Adam brought me to a local library and introduced me to the Internet! This was important to me in more ways than one, since this is when I initially started learning about my current field of work.

I was also floored to discover an entire community of people who were dedicated to the task of sharing information about Uriah Heep!! I remember writing to Jesse Lowe way back when to ask about his collection of bootleg tapes. I printed out everything I could and began absorbing all of this new information.

I know this has already been very long winded, but I have few other things to mention:

My favorite Heep albums: DEMONS AND WIZARDS, WONDERWORLD, THE MAGICIAN'S BIRTHDAY

Favorite songs: "The Magician's Birthday", "Weep In Silence", "The Easy Road"

Favorite members: They're all special!

Other artists I enjoy: Deep Purple (see photo above with Ian Gillan), Yes, Frank Zappa, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin & too many others to mention I have never had the good fortune of seeing Heep live. Why does it seem that all of my favorite bands seem to avoid Atlanta?

While I have remained a peripheral member of the Heep community until 2001, I recently felt I should raise my voice for the first time. Maybe I needed a little confidence that I had something to offer to the Heepsters On The Web?!  Over the past year that I have participated on the Heep newsgroup, I have been pleased to meet some of the nicest people I've ever encountered on the Internet.  I have talked about music and life with these Heepsters on almost a daily basis ever since.

And it was thanks to the Heepsters On The Web that one of my dreams finally came true.  I decided to fly to Trenton, NJ for Heepvention 2003, where Uriah Heep were scheduled to play 2 nights at The Patriots Theater as the headliner for the Classic Rock Festival.  I spent weeks learning about 2 dozen Heep songs to play with the Heepsters at the Heep Jam, which took place at Slackwood's Fire House in Lawrence, NJ on 10/5/2003.  It was sheer joy to be playing some of my all-time favorite songs with people who enjoyed it just as much!  Halfway through the night, all 5 members of Uriah Heep unexpectedly arrived and we found ourselves performing for the the band themselves!  Playing "The Magician's Birthday" with Mick and Lee watching us had to be one of the nicest "rock experiences" I've ever had!  Two nights later, I was with them onstage with a Gibson Les Paul for their encore of "Lady In Black", along with all of my other Heepster friends.  It was a weekend I'm sure to never forget!

I am also an avid music collector and have amassed quite a collection of Heep related live material and rarities to share.   My main project right now is a Black Sabbath related web site and book, which can be visited by clicking the logo below.

Thanks to everyone on the list for making me feel so welcome and for sharing your rarities and knowledge!
Cheers!

Rob Dwyer - December 16th, 2001 (Updated on 3/15/2002)

Rob's Music Trading Site

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