In Rememberance
Christopher Scott Shaw was born in July of 1965 in Chicago in the Lincoln Square area. As a child Chris went to Transfiguration grammar school and Amundsen high school.From a young age, Chris was always listening to music, and then in the late 1970’s he began playing guitar. A few of the bands of the sixties and seventies that influenced Chris included Cream, The Doors, Hendrix, Santana, Deep Purple, Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Journey, and UFO. These influences provided a great foundation to produce top of the line riffs and leads. When the late seventies arrived, Chris began playing guitar; at the same time the rock and heavy metal scene was producing guitar players who took the instrument to heights that no one had ever seen or heard before. As a guitar player, Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Michael Schenker, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Morse, and Andy LaRouque were his main stylistic influences. After bouncing around a few different bands in the early 1980’s, Chris began to jam with Faris and Jimmy Berg in “Prevailer” during the fall of 1986. During this time they developed a writing style much in the vein of progressive power metal. Only two practice tapes exist that are posted on this website. Chris departed “Prevailer” in the winter of 1987 to focus on his drum playing in hopes to play drums for Zoetrope (Chicago street metal band), which never came to fruition. In fall of 1989 Chris joined Faris in “Das Krieg.” During the course of the following year they wrote and played shows with hopes of going into the studio to record their first album together. In late 1990, Chris left “Das Krieg” to join Sacrament , a progressive thrash metal unit from Chicago with Dave Baboorian on drums, Bob Dietz on guitar and vocals and Doug Irwin on bass . One performance and photos , recorded at the Thirsty Whale, is all that exists of Chris’s time with “Das Krieg”. Life for Chris was not easy, his father was never a part of his life. Chris lost an older brother in Vietnam when he was very young and then lost his Mother to cancer in the early 1980’s. In contrast, Chris’ grandmother was quite a resilient woman; losing a grandson, daughter, and sadly the loss of Chris in 1991. On a hot summer night in June of 1991, Chris was attacked and left for dead in an alley in Chicago. A person walking their dog found him, called EMS, and he was taken to Illinois Masonic Hospital where he remained in a coma for three weeks, caught pneumonia, and passed away just weeks before his 26th birthday. He was survived by his grandmother, his brother, and his wife Pam. I wanted the world to know about Chris Shaw, who was a great influence on me and a close friend who provided comfort to me when my life was in turmoil. An extremely talented musician who loved to laugh, jam, and party like most entertainers. I have never gotten over his absence on the planet, I think of him quite often. When I stumble on riffs and leads I feel came from his influence on me, I silently thank him for being a part of my life no matter how short it was. This page is a tribute to a man who I believe had his time cut way too short and the world lost a great person and musician.RIP Christopher Scott ShawFaris