Herp a derp. Best Buy decided to capitalize on the "Who the fuck is Justin Bieber" comment from a recent interview with Ozzy Osbourne. And capitialize I mean during the Super bowl by once again portraying Ozzy as a doddering old idiot in a Tron suit. Here. Watch this.
Hahahahaha. Everyone is so cool because they can poke fun at themselves. Except the commercial was not funny. This is why baby Jesus cries and the Middle East hates us.
Thanks to Jimmy from HBIH, Draeden and I journeyed to San Jose to catch Ozzy Osbourne in concert.This would be second time seeing Ozzy in concert the first being way back in '96 for the Retirement Sucks tour. This also was essentially the second time for seeing Slash though the first time was with Guns n' Roses. Overall there was some highlights and lowlights so after the jump let's go back and you can see some of what we experienced.
When we arrived to the HP Pavilion in San Jose of course there was the obligatory holy rollers outside. What started as one person quickly expanded to about half dozen or so. Here is video of us heckling the one guy. This wouldn't be Devil Music without this.
So now we get to the venue. This was my first trip to the home of the San Jose Sharks and if you've been to one indoor arena you've been to them all. Turns out our tickets were on the floor level seating area probably about 15 rows back almost dead center. So really good seats for more then one reason. More on that later.
Now I would like to take the time to formally admit defeat. My droid work phone is absolutely garbage and for future shows I may need to purchase a real camera or get my own smartphone with better audio and video quality then this. My pictures sucked ass as you can see here.
And to top it off while the video is not bad the audio quality on these Droid A1's is horrific. As seen here. I think this was the opening song by Slash.
Therefore any further video clips will be provided by other people that were there last night. Photos will be provided by Draeden. Case in point here is a much better quality video of 'NightTrain' then what I ended up with.
Overall Slash's band put on a decent show. There were a few numbers off the solo album,and quite a few songs from Appetite for Destruction. Notably most of my favorites and a couple of standards. Myles Kennedy did an admirable job of fronting the band though he did appear to strain on some of the G n'R songs. Slash's guitar playing has never really impressed me. I always thought he was overrated and it was the signature top hat that always made people think he was better then he was. It was evident in spots last night as he was really sloppy on some riffs and solos. But a decent hour of tunes was played.
And now for the main event. Ozzy Osbourne. I do have to give him props for being the age and physical condition he's in to still continue to go out there and put on a show. Even if it's basically the same show he's done for the last 30 years. Ozzy does love the crowd and it shows every time. The first time I saw him it was a shortened set due to stomach issues or something but this time it was an hour and a half set filled with the same tired Sabbath songs. With the exception of Fairies wear boots. And mostly the same tired Ozzy solo songs like Mr. Crowley and this.
Here is the set list for Ozzy to enhance what I'm saying.Though there were a few songs like Fire in the Sky and Shot in the Dark that were pleasant surprises for me.*Note* I do realize that this is labeled for L.A. It's the same damn thing and I don't entirely remember the order of the songs.
There were a few sound glitches such as feedback throughout the night. The rest of the band played ok though it was hard to tell due to the heavy bass over the sound system to really get a feel if the usual nuances of the songs were present.
There was a long guitar solo by Gus G and though Draeden is enraptured with the guy to almost man crush levels I was not impressed with him last night.For somebody who is supposed to be a guitar whiz he did not have a flow to his solos and was not very fast or accurate with scales. Mostly hammer on and pull off tricks. The drum solo was one of the atypical drum solos just on a elevated drum rig.
At the beginning of the set Ozzy looked clean and dry but as in so many of his other shows it doesn't stay that way for long.Observe.
Which then devolved into a firehose contraption that he sprayed on himself and the first 5 rows of a foam substance.
Hence why I'm glad we sat back where we were and why he looked absolutely drenched in that first video.
I miss the days though when you could do whatever the hell you wanted once inside a venue short of fighting or throwing dangerous items on stage. To the floor person in last night's show I'd like to say this. After the headliner comes on, who gives a flying fuck who is sitting where and if you're standing in front of your designated chair? Stupid bitch proceeds to squeeze her fat ass in front of me as I'm taking video and ask me which is seat 6 and when I told her it was sort of behind me motioned me to move over and then grilled the hot girls next to me on their seats. The second song wasn't even done during this. Fuck you and go back out in the aisle.
Overall it was a fun night and though Ozzy has lost a step or two it was nice going to see a legendary figure that is so loved by so many people still go out and entertain people.
What the fuck is going on now a days. Thanks to Metalsucks, my world has just been turned upside down. Apparently, Ozzy Osbourne will do anything for money and no price is too low to make him lose his dignity. It's been reported that The Ozzman is going to do a commercial on Superbowl Sunday for Best Buy with androgynous queen of suck, Justin Beiber. Maybe all the drugs he took throughout his life did more damage than we all thought and he fried the braincells that control common sense? Who knows. Either way, this story makes me a sad panda.
This Ozzy/Beiber collaboration is just as horrible, if not worse than THIS travesty:
Please visit and spread the word about these Links:
Ozzy, I really don't want the site to be all Ozzy all the time but you make it difficult.
Apparently there is a new commercial with a Claymation Ozzy out and I swear its what he would look like if he ever had plastic surgery. It's not even particularly funny just creepy. Have a look.
Ozzy turns 62 today. And while we've had our disagreements over the years and I still wonder how the fuck he's still alive when others have passed, here is to a continued long and productive life. And now for the obligatory song....of sorts.
File this under the WTF department.So in order to get people to pay even more ridiculous prices to attend a concert Ozzy is including a Hasbro Ouija board with the purchase of a VIP ticket to any future shows.
So for between 300 and 1000 dollars depending on what VIP package you purchase you can watch Ozzy sweat, clap like a monkey, yell "Come on, I can't fucking hear you!", and get water dumped on you while listening to an hour and a half of hits and then get some cool stuff including a Ouija board game. Personally for that amount of money and something as stupid as an Ouija board game it damn well better play 'See you on the other side' as the piece is moving around the board.
Gene Simmons must be pissed he didn't think to get this trademarked.
Enjoy the Powerglove cover to This is Halloween. And for a palate cleanser to Draeden's Ozzy video here is Bark at the Moon. Have a safe and tooth rotting Halloween.
Ok, so I was trolling through the On Demand music videos on Comcast the other night and came across this gem. Let me first go on the record: I love Ozzy Osbourne. I will always worship him as a God among men and one of the reasons why Metal is the way it is today, but...
This is seriously, one of the stupidest videos I've ever seen. The animation is crappy.. The massive amounts of plastic surgery he's had done makes the animated creatures they've superimposed his head on even more fake. The song is sub-par. But I had to share it... It's just so bad, people need to see it... and mourn for the loss of the Ozzman..
Well, I had gotten halfway through both releases on this head to head and for some reason the draft did not save so I could continue with this today. That pretty much fucking sucks because I really don't feel like going back over this thing again. I even verified that the draft was being saved last night too. Oh well, I guess technical difficulties are bound to happen, I just wish it would have hit an article with less work put into it.
Let's just say the record was 5-2-1 in favor of Black Label Society by the time the post crashed. Here are my impressions of each album after the jump.
Order of the Black: It's a Black Label Society cd pure and simple. It's straight forward southern tinged metal and if you liked the previous albums you'll find good stuff on here. Otherwise if you're bored with BLS already this won't fix it. Zakk continues to put about 3 songs too many on his albums as they start sounding familiar. There are some good catchy punishing tunes with one treading on stoner metal territory. I think the sobriety shows though because his playing is cleaner across the board though I could have done without three of the five overly sappy ballads on here. The pinched harmonics are obviously back and in one track more then ever. I honestly think it's a habit he can't break. It's a good solid album with Zakk Wylde's stamp on it and I think he's doing fine without having to worry about Ozzy's camp as well.
Scream: With the exception of two tracks this album is boring. Ozzy is using vocoder effects too much and the messages in the songs are the same tired shit he does every time. We get it...mankind is violent and you're having epiphanies all the time. A couple of the songs were just embarassing in their lyrics like in the opening track "Let it die". Gus G. is a good technical player but there is no feeling. Some of the tracks you could tell it has Zakk's writing all over it because it was the same guitar tone. At this point I don't think it matters who is on guitar because Ozzy honestly should have stayed retired years ago. There is no creative juices anymore.This album is for diehards and fanboys only. Anybody new to Ozzy is not going to like this.
I'll listen to more of these albums and get a more complete idea of them later but at 15 and 13 tracks respectively and I got over halfway with these impressions, something tells me my opinions aren't going to change much. Zakk got the better end of this deal as far as artistic merits go. Again I apologize for not having this laid out the way I wanted to with a track by track breakdown like last time but it couldn't be helped. Next time I'll paste the text in wordpad instead of relying on blogger to save my work like it's supposed too.
I just finished reading Ozzy Osbourne's book "I am Ozzy". In a nutshell it's an entertaining read. Especially from the perspective of a 60 year old British addict. To say Ozzy has lived a charmed life is an understatement. There really isn't any rational reason why a dyslexic and ADD diagnosed guy from a industrial town in England that ingested so much drugs and booze in 40 years could become so famous, rich,and still be alive. He should have been a victim of the early 80's list of casualties honestly. Ozzy can't type nor write very well so he enlisted the aid of Chris Ayres to basically take dictation on everything Ozzy could remember or remembers being told. And that's how the book reads. It's like sitting across an old man that regales you with tales of "Back in my day" stories. The words are laid out like an overlong 12 year old's essay just with naughty words.
And the British slang is in full force. You might have to look at urban dictionary U.K. to get some of the references. Apparently pissed means drunk instead of being angry. Fag means cigarettes obviously. And fuck off is casually used to just mean leave.
It is a pretty in depth story from Ozzy's perspective but there are a few omissions of note. Jake E. Lee is barely referenced other then to say he was a new guitarist and then that he had left. Even Zakk Wylde is barely mentioned other then a couple of stories. Also the feud between Sharon Osbourne and Iron Maiden is not mentioned in here.
Ozzy stripped bare is pretty unremarkable. My impression is of a unintelligent,lovable, ordinary man put in extraordinary situations and ingesting tons of substances to cope with those situations. And survived.Getting mad at Ozzy for anything as I did in one of my earlier columns is useless because whatever situation it is it's usually out of his control. From the Black Sabbath days to now it's always been someone else handling the affairs because Ozzy has never had the capacity to handle anything on his own.
I'll leave this by saying that I recommend picking up the book. It's a must for any hard rock and metal fan. What ever preconceived notion you have had about Ozzy (or Sharon for that matter)may or not be changed by this book.It's definitely an entertaining read and I'll be extremely surprised if it's not made into a feature film down the road.
Gather 'round kiddies. It's storytime. It's the story of a quest to meet a legendary vocalist in the metal world and the trials and tribulations along this journey. And there will be a moral of sorts at the end. Everybody got their Snuggies on and ready? Good coz here we go. So everybody by now should know that Ozzy Osbourne had written an autobiography not too long back. Well he rambled and someone wrote it all down would be more accurate but I digress Ozzy had a book out called "I am Ozzy". So with any book of this magnitude there was the inevitable book signing tour. Lo and behold there was a date for a San Francisco signing. Was I going to pass up on this? Surely you jest.So I called up my friend Draeden and he agreed we'd be stupid to pass this up. So we ordered our books for pick up and waited for the day to come to go and meet the famous Ozzman.
So the day arrives and mind you that both Blabbermouth and the book store's information said that he would be appearing from 1-3 p.m. So we arrived at around 10 in the morning figuring that a line would be starting. When we get there we noticed the sign you see there stating that he would be appearing at 3 o' clock. What the fuck? The guy behind the counter tells us that there was an error in the information and that he would indeed be appearing at 3. I then ask him the important questions like"When will the line start forming and from where?". I don't think this douchebag had ever been involved in a book signing like this because he acted like we can come back to the store whenever and pop the book in Ozzy's face to have him sign it. Uh, no jackass he's not going to be sitting all lonely for 2 hours while pople just wander by and ask him to sign a book.
Great,so what do we do for 5 hours in increasingly wet and rainy conditions in the middle of San Francisco? I guess we walk down to Fisherman's Wharf and putz around for a few hours. And it's raining on us. Luckily there was a street vendor there selling 5 dollar umbrellas. These guys know their tourists. So we end up at Pier 39 and are messing around some of the shops. I forgot to get some pics of some cool t-shirts but hey, here's some pics of related material at another shop.
So then it was time to grab a bite to eat before trudged back to stand in where ever the fuck the line was going to be at. Oh look!
Now I've been in a few Hard Rock Cafe's in my day and they're ok depending on which one. This one was pretty basic in comparisons but there were a few things of note on the walls.
Eddie Van Halen guitar signed that was given to Jason Becker.
Kerry King Flying V
Slayer Flyer for a concert on a wall
And a No One like You video by the Scorps on Hard Rock Cafe TV.
So we said our goodbyes to Hard Rock and journeyed back to the ferry terminal. By now the wind had also kicked up along with the rain so not only did we have to get umbrellas but also pick up 5 dollar ponchos from the Alcatraz Cruise shop. When we get back to the signing area look at what we find.
Not so cavalier about this now are we Mr. Bookstore salesguy? So after trudging around and then getting into this line at around 1 we were in for another 2 hours of standing and waiting.Then at last almost on time Ozzy arrives.
Draeden tried to get pics of him exiting the SUV and going in but you'd think it was a high profile witness for the Mafia being ushered in. No luck with pics.
Now comes the interesting part. We knew the rules going in or so we thought.
No memorablia to be signed. No posed pics however you could take pictures as he's signing your books. No personalized autographs
That's fine let's just get in there and get this done.Well as it turned out they first had a guy assigned to go along the line reminding people that memorablia was not going to be signed. Then as you got close to the door to get in the building they had another guy telling you what page he will be signing and to make sure you have it opened at that spot ready to go. Ok fuckwad, let's be even more anal about this,k? Then as you got close to the door of the bookstore you had another guy taking your ticket and repeating the part of having the book ready to go.
And there is.
Keep in mind this was the only good picture we could get between two cameras. People were being hustled along and the book taken out of your hand and placed on the table and as he signed was then folded back up and shoved back at you with the words "You need to move sir, we need to keep the line going". The woman on the left was the condescending bitch telling me good job for taking the picture as my friend gets his signed. So in short Ozzy never looked up, no time to even say hello, and ended up with this after 6 hours of grueling bullshit.
I'm ecstatic, can't you tell?
Overall they should really have had him to do a private signing and then just shipped them to customers because I know for a fact that most of those people in line went well out of their way to make it there to see him and all they got was a glimpse or two, rained on,aching feet and legs and a signed book for all of their trouble.I was hoping to make amends for some of my harsh words about Ozzy in the past and this did nothing to fix that.
So if you ever happen to go to one of these things make sure you call the location and get as much information as possible including correct times and exact rules of engagement otherwise you to could end up with 6 hours of your life you won't get back.
I was asked if it was worth it. In the immediate no, but Ozzy is a living legend and in his sixties so in the long run I'll probably look back on this and be glad I did it. But I won't do this for anybody else again, I don't care who it is.
So there you go, a book signing day in pictures. Hope you enjoyed reading it more then I had living it.
*Update* I saw these people going around filming and I guess we were not awesome enough to appear in the final cut. But here is the vid that was recorded for this signing.
I love the editing on this thing to make it look like it was the greatest day ever. So based on this if you're a child under the age of 12 and/or a woman at the front of the line, you had a fantastic time.
Before the Osbournes tv show shit all over Ozzy's legacy there was this little gem from 1995.
Apparently Jim Henson Productions made a cd called Kermit Unpigged. And this was one of the tracks from it. I think I like Ozzy better when he's mumbling and stuttering then this trainwreck. If you listen close to the end it sounds like a Miss Piggy sex tape on par with Paris Hilton's.
If this had been a live skit on t.v it could have been funnier but there is no way in hell I'm playing this track around my impressionable kids.
Ok. I'm rested and refreshed and ready to tackle the next 25 on this list of metal albums blessed by the gods of Olympus. Let's do it.
50. PARADISE LOST - "Icon" Melodic thrash stuff. I reeeally tried to like this group. Musically it's not as good as Opeth and his vocals fall short on both clean and cookie monster for me.
49. WHITESNAKE - "1987" Odd. I didn't realize they had a album titled this. If it's the self titled album from that year.....it's not metal. Whitesnake is and has always been hard rock.Period.
48. ANATHEMA - "Alternative 4" I should probably check these guy out since they're compared to Katatonia. Speaking of. Where is Katatonia on this list. Come on Greece.
47. NEVERMORE - "Dead Heart in a Dead World" Cool. More Nevermore goodness though I wish their albums would be ranked higher on overseas polls. They're starting to really hit the underrated territory.
46. ACCEPT - "Restless and Wild" Interesting this album ranks higher then "Balls". It's good though for old school straight up metal.
45. PANTERA - "Cowboys From Hell" Classic stuff. This was a transition album that got people noticing.Pantera was getting away from the spandex and hairspray crap into thrash. A bit of both on this album.
44. OZZY OSBOURNE - "Diary of a Madman" Ozzy makes a appearance here solo finally. Ah the good old days when he was stoned, drunk and out of his fucking mind. I like this album better then Blizzard.
43. SLAYER - "Seasons in the Abyss" My favorite Slayer album. Songs like Skeletons of Society is the kind of thrash I like. Mid tempo with cool riffs and vocal phrasing instead of just constant shouting like on later releases.
42. CANDLEMASS - "Epicus Doomicus Metallicus" Wake me up when we get to 41.
41. JUDAS PRIEST - "Defenders of the Faith" My favorite Priest album. Everything else after sucked until Angels imo. Go ahead and bitch at me in comments.
40. JUDAS PRIEST - "Sad Wings of Destiny" Whoa back to back entries.Some classic tracks that get covered on in here like "the Ripper" and "Victim of Changes".This was when they were more prog then anything else and trying to find their identity. They're still looking.
39. SEPULTURA - "Arise" this got the boys from Brazil noticed and my second favorite album by them. Good guttural chugging thrash here.
38. OPETH - "Blackwater Park" Nice...Opeth finally makes it on here. Interesting that this is ranked above some serious classics. Mikael had finally started refining his grunts where they were more coherent. And music structures were getting more complex if that's possible for Opeth.
37. SAVATAGE - "Gutter Ballet" Great album. This pretty much set the tone for how 'Tage would be for the rest of their careers. Prog and power metal mixed but done well.
36. SYSTEM OF A DOWN - "Toxicity" Some nu metal besides Slipknot finally on here. Though their sound is more hardcore and punk influenced. Saw them once live and they were nuts.
35. EXODUS - "Bonded by Blood" Classic but I don't like it. Nice to see some other Bay area pioneers on here.
34. DEEP PURPLE - "In Rock" Influential but nowhere nears as popular as some of their peer's albums. I don't think there is a track from this album that gets radio play. At least here in the states. Odd that this is so high up.
33. DREAM THEATER - "Images and Words" DT's best selling album. Dropped right at the end of metal's existance on old MTV. Such a kick ass album.
32. HELLOWEEN - "Keeper of the Seven Keys Part II" Classic and must be more popular here then back at home. Otherwise I can't see why it ranks so high.
31. IRON MAIDEN - "Iron Maiden" Intro to Maiden with Paul Di'anno on vocals. I couldn't get into it because Di'anno was such a shitty vocalist.
30. RAINBOW - "Rising" Wow the Greeks are all over the map in what they like. Some of these albums are all but forgotten over here but they get top 30's there. Classic Dio stuff.
29. IRON MAIDEN - "Somewhere in Time" One of the best albums by them. Back when they had the power to write concept albums in one song.
28. IRON MAIDEN - "Piece of Mind" Double duty and a crap load of Maiden in this batch. This album is awesome except for the track Quest for Fire. God that song sucks.
27. OZZY OSBOURNE - "Blizzard of Ozz" Surprised that this doesn't rank higher but then again I shouldn't be. The Greeks are a bit bizzare I think.
26. MANOWAR - "Hail to England" The power these dudes hold in foreign countries is truly amazing. Especially since they're from the Bronx.
Ok. This is more work then I thought. But we're almost done. Check back later for the top 25 drunk on Ouzo selections by these wacky Gracians.
I'm trying really hard to not make this a Ozzy site but there are times the man makes it difficult to do.
Saw this on Blabbermouth today and I feel I need to respond.
So Ozzy had the show at Blizzcon the other day and I posted about the 9 year old kid that got the honor of joining him up onstage.Now for those people that don't know what Blizzcon is, it's a convention Blizzard Entertainment put together a few years back celebrating their list of games they created or are creating. Anybody that's ever played Warcraft,Starcraft,or Diablo knows Blizzard and mostly World of Warcraft gamers flock to this event every year.
Last year Ozzy did a commercial spot for World of Warcraft and therefore it made sense from a marketing perspective to have him play at the convention. Here's the t.v. spot.
Fast Forward to this year and he had this to say of the performance:
"Coming here (unintelligible) to the show tonight, I thought, 'They're all gonna be like scientists and fucking brain brain (unintelligible) fucking audience,'" he said. "Glasses-wearing spectacles and coke bottles. I didn't know what the fuck to expect. I kept saying to my wife Sharon, 'Sharon, do you think you'll like me? Do you think they'll understand what I'm about?' And it was even better than some [regular] gigs I've done. It's a gift that I've had a good life through music."
As a former World of Warcraft player of over 4 years let me say with great gusto...Fuck you Ozzy.
If you thought that it was going to be a bunch of fucking gaming nerds(which I'm not denying there were)with no concept of who you were appearing at the show then why sign up for the commercial last year? Oh that's right, a paycheck. Let me fill you in on a little secret Ozmodeus,many WoW players not only have heard of you but also listen to music more brutal, heavier, and technical then all of your back catalog combined. 7 or 8 million subscribers WORLDWIDE say that the odds are good that some of them have heard of you. Hell your own kid looks like what you've got perceived in your head appearing at that gig and he's got his own record label. Probably games too.
For years we've had to put up with songs of how he's so misunderstood and no ones going to push him around and everything said about him is lies. Funny how that doesn't apply to anyone else. Glasses and coke bottles and scientists in the audience? What the fuck Ozzy...what kind of people do you honestly expect to be at your shows? Bikers,felons,drug addicts and functional retards? Come to think of it those descriptions seem to apply to you from the audience you're playing for these days.
Wasn't there a crappy show about you and your family that proved to be popular for a couple of years.....on MTV? By now who the fuck doesn't know who you are? You've bridged 3 generations with your music and other bullshit.To have this preconceived notion that you'd be facing a crowd of absolute genius dorks straight out of Revenge of the Nerds with no concept of who you are is so godamn ignorant and insulting on so many levels.
Oh well I'm done. You've probably forgotten all about the gig by now, or is that a stereotypical comment I just made about you, Ozzy?
Zakk Wylde is being replaced not by the cheesy Firewind guy at Blizzcon tomorrow but this little dude.
No, not really but he is supposed to be jamming to Crazy Train and maybe something else at the event. All I know is, Japan has a guitar god in the making on the way.
*Biting the head off of bats update*
Here is a vid of the rehearsal for 9 year old Yuto Miyazawa's appearance with Ozzy at Blizzcon. This is just so awesome for him there's no words. Ozzy's camp sucks ass but this is probably the coolest thing for anyone let alone a very talented little kid.
And here's the big moment. Ozzy sounds like tired and shit but the kid is having a blast. Thankfully he can't understand alot of English because apparently Ozzy can't keep his mouth clean in front of young ones. Still awesome for Yuto.
So in the first article Ozzy says he doesn't want enemies that he's too grown up for all the slagging as he puts it. Yet he's making an enemy of Iommi by suing and then basically firing Zakk through the press without talking to him first? Ozzy's publicist needs to be fired because how can you have conflicting things come from the Osbournes camp like this and expect them to be taken seriously? If nothing else there is a glaring peek into the fact that Sharon and Ozzy are not on the same page with this stuff. He talks as if there is no lawsuit when asked about Heaven and Hell.
It's sad to see this kind of stuff go down to coincide with the weak releases over the last 20 years or so. Ozzy was a legend in my eyes back then but now has become a sad parody since then.
The big news over the weekend is apparently Ozzy is suing Tony Iommi for a share in the Black Sabbath name and any royalties. Check the full story here.
Now I'm not a lawyer nor will I pretend to be. Mainly because what is written down in law books isn't necessarily right for the situation at hand. So I'm not going to pontificate on whether or not Ozzy should sue and will or won't win. But from a fan perspective this is complete bullcrap. Reading some of these claims that Ozzy makes is almost laugh out loud funny.
Ozzy claims that 100 million records were sold worldwide with his involvement. Really? So Black Sabbath ranks up there with Michael Jackson, The Beatles, and Madonna for album sales? From everything I read they had to fight persecution throughout the 70's for their brand of rock and it wasn't until a few years after the first album received did they get any real recognition. In fact the last two albums featuring Ozzy in the 70's were experimental and panned by fans and critics alike. So where is this 100 million in record sales coming from?
In comes Dio( at the suggestion by Sharon Alder, before she snagged Ozzy as her minion) and both studio albums did better then the previous two with Ozzy. And Sabbath would have been a powerhouse throughout the 80's if egos had been kept in check.In my opinion Ozzy did well in the 80's because he was surrounded by talent that could write killer songs with great riffs around his limited range. Plus his over the top persona due to drugs and alcohol also generated sales. The very stuff that got him fired from Sabbath led to success solo. And he had absolutely no involvement in Sabbath (but his father in law did as a manager) throughout the 80's. Iommi wanted to write solo records but was told they wouldn't sell without the Sabbath name. So he did. And they failed. Because he listened to Sharon's old man. So why should Tony be punished for decisions he didn't make?
To me over at least the past two decades the name that has been synonomous with Sabbath has been Tony Iommi. That reunion a decade ago? Was a poor decision on Tony's part and a money grab by the Osbournes. There was no intention of reuniting forever. Iommi even reunited again with Dio and changed the name to Heaven and Hell because he was told Ozzy's involvement with Sabbath was coming and didn't want to confuse the two. Well that hasn't happened because Ozzy is too busy being a reality star and writing the same old tired records with the same old tired themes. Meanwhile Heaven & Hell debuted with a new album at # 8 which is outstanding.
Anyways I hope Iommi wins out on this. He has been with that band since day one when everyone else around him was fired or gave up on Sabbath. Give the man his band. I'm sure he will hook up Geezer and Bill Ward regardless of what Ozzy claims.
I was tossing around some ideas for some posts and I figured I'd post some clips of movies involving metal artists that I've either seen or heard of. Most of these are good for a Halloween theme because lets face it, what's more metal then monsters and evil wizards, right......right? No? Whatever, enjoy these clips.
First up is the classic "Kiss meets the Phantom of the Park". A cult classic of the cheesiest kind, I remember seeing this a long time ago on the late night Creature Features show(yes I'm dating myself). If I remember right Kiss' acting was so bad they had to do voice overs for these guys in here. It didn't help.
Next up is The Dungeon Master starring Bull from Night Court and featuring W.A.S.P. as the evil band of choice. I vaguely remember seeing this crap on late night cable and the only reson I watched it was for W.A.S.P. I was actually able to find a clip from it, Youtube rules.
Here we have Alice Cooper killing some dude with a bicycle in John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness. This movie was supposed to be good but turned into a boring mess at the end. Satan as a tube of green liquid huh? Sure. Why not.
Want the perfect movie to go with this months theme? Try 1986's Trick or Treat on for size. I think I saw this at the theaters when it first came out. Seemed like a good idea at the time because 16 year olds are easier to please but yeah.....it sucked. Ozzy as a bible thumping preacher was kind of cool though to counterbalance Skippy from Family Ties. This pretty much killed the band Fastways career which was a shame though.
Let's flash forward a bit to 1998. Dee Snider decided to bring his character from the song "Captain Howdy/Horrorteria" to life and produced a movie called Strangeland. I have never seen this movie but I guess I should. I loved the Stay Hungry album and this song was really good and creepy but even moreso now apparently with this flick. Here is a clip someone put together combining the song with the vid. Yes thats Dee Snider looking even worse then he did in Twisted Sister's glory days.
Caution graphic scenes of nudity and violence.I like boobies but this is sick and you may not be old enough.
Here's Dokken's video for Dream Warriors for the Nightmare on Elm Street 3 soundtrack. They weren't in the movie but heres the crappy tie in just the same. Deal with it.
Well that's all I could think of for now so if anyone has some suggestions let me know. I'll close with a little number I like to call.....the Timewarp.
*Update* Apparently Ozzy was in Little Nicky, which goes good with the theme of this site. Too bad I didn't see it because 9 out of 10 people recommend this movie be forgotten in Adam Sandlers career.
And here is Dexter from the Offspring getting scalped in Idle Hands. Another movie I neglected to see but this time I don't know why. Yes I know they're not metal but it's close enough, you elitist snobs.
*Update of a Update*
Anybody remember Wes Craven's Shocker? About the guy who was sentenced to death and became electricity or something and killed people? Anybody? Well no matter...here is Megadeth doing a cover of No More Mr. Nice Guy from that soundtrack. And yes the video is just about as memorable.
