American drummer (1901-1962). Real name:
Raul Mogollon. Born in
Los Angeles to an
alcoholic mother and an
absentee father, he taught himself to play
drums by watching
older kids play
drums and then imitating what they did on his mother's
pots and pans.
He got picked up by an
L.A. swing orchestra in 1925 -- the
band leader insisted he change his name to something "less
foreign." Flash was quickly picked up by a larger
orchestra in L.A. and then made the
jump to the
big time, playing for two different
swing bands in
New York, where he appeared on four different
records.
Unfortunately, the
swing craze didn't last forever, and the
stock market crash wiped out the
meager savings he had accumulated, and Flash returned to Los Angeles, where he worked in small
clubs. He also turned to
drinking and
cocaine, and his
musical skills became more
erratic.
After missing out on a number of
gigs, he tried to
clean himself up. For a while he was able to stay
sober, working as a
session musician on records for
Frank Sinatra and
Tony Bennett, but that small taste of
success started Flash back on the
white powder. He
stabbed a stranger to death in a
bar in 1955 and got sent
up the river. He got out of the
joint in 1960, went to work in a
grocery store, and stayed
sober.
In 1962, he tried his hand at
drumming again (the first time since he'd been sent to
prison) and was so
disappointed in how he sounded that he did a
swan dive out his tenth-floor
apartment window and killed himself.
This is all fiction.