Get well Tony Iommi!

Today I was informed via a friend that Tony Iommi has been diagnosed with cancer. According to his www.Iommi.com, "Tony has been diagnosed with the early stages of lymphoma, his bandmates would like everyone to send positive vibes to the guitarist at this time. Iommi is currently working with his doctors to establish the best treatment plan--the “IRON MAN” of Rock & Roll remains upbeat and determined to make a full and successful recovery."

This is very sad news and believe me I am sending Tony all the positive vibes that I can right now and will continue to do so until he manages to slay this bloody cancer dragon that has already taken down one of metal's finest and bravest warriors, former Black Sabbath vocalist Ronnie James Dio. I am sure Ronnie was able to at least permanently injure the cancer dragon, thus hopefully giving Tony a slight edge towards a speedy recovery.

The fact that this comes as Ozzy, Tony, Geezer and Bill Ward are writing and recording their first album in 33 years makes this news all the more sad, but hopefully after beating the cancer and taking care of his own health first, he will be able to carry out the plans and even tour. However, the important thing is that the mans gets healthy first, everything else is secondary.

Here is a very unprofessional photo I took of Tony and Ozzy via a disposable camera at Ozzfest 1999

Now I am going to go put on some Sabbath and start sending those positive vibes Tony's way. For the record, last time I saw Black Sabbath was at Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver BC, at Ozzfest on July 16, 1999. I almost did not go to that show due to some personal problems at the time, and as a long time Sabbath fan I was very stressed that I was probably going to miss the reunion with Ozzy, however, a friend stepped up and bought me a ticket. I still owe him for that one as it was a great show and Ozzy was in excellent form. Slayer also played on that bill and Black Sabbath is probably one of the few bands that can successfully follow a Slayer set. In fact, I once left a Judas Priest concert after about 5 songs because my energy was so high after a ferocious Slayer set that I could not handle late 80's Priest after being totally and absolutely Slayerized! I don't think I need to say that of course, I regret that decision now.  Anyway, Black Sabbath are one of the most important bands in the history of rock and roll period, and this is not debatable.

This was also probably the most expensive concert I attended up until that point in 1999. At the time $70.00 to see Sabbath and Slayer seemed like a lot of money, but in hindsight it seems pretty reasonable now, but I still miss paying between 5-25 bucks for a concert.

The Devil's Music: A personal history of the beginnings, illustrated by the forgotten cassette tape

"Those records are the devil's music and no son of mine's going to listen to them" -SNFU

AC/DC

My first tapes were AC/DC tapes given to me by my brother (The classic shit, Back in Black, Highway to Hell and Dirty Deeds) and I seemed to really take to them compared to the other music he listened to. I remember many a morning being awoken by the sound of bells coming from my brothers room as he put side one of Back in Black on his turntable and feeling excited by the sounds that came up from my heater vent. Still, I for some reason preferred the Bon Scott stuff as it seemed more real, less forced and even a little funny at times. He was always singing about booze, tattoos, women, balls and being a rocker. All this new information was sort of shocking to my young fragile mind (I was only in about grade 2), but it was also intriguing due to the fact that it seemed dangerous, wild and free. I have no idea why my brother gave me those tapes and he does not remember himself, but I played those tapes almost everyday for about a year or so, mesmerized by the music and the lyrics.  AC/DC became the foundation to build on.

I'm on a Highway to Hell!

TWISTED SISTER

When I bought my first tape with my own money it was like I had discovered the holy grail. I stood on the grass that day dumbfounded why on earth someone would want to sell something so valuable. I was not bothered in the least bit when the older kid asked me with clear resentment, "why do you want this crap anyway, no one likes this crap anymore".  I was puzzled why this older kid had suddenly decided that this tape stood between him and his new found hip status, especially since the tape had not been out long, but it didn't matter because all I knew was: this was definitely not Wham, Culture Club, Phil Collins (*no offence Phil, early Genesis is cool), Platinum Blonde, Michael Jackson or any other garbage my classmates were listening to, it was something different and when Dee Snider sang "you're going to burn in hell" I really thought he meant it and it was exciting! Even though Twisted Sister took a back seat to the much better AC/DC tapes, it ended up on steady rotation for about a year.  True metal or not, I am no longer embarrassed to be a Twisted Sister fan. Truth is they were a pretty decent rock 'n' roll band, and I like that rock 'n' roll and I don't care what some fat kid that lives in his mom's basement in Norway thinks about it. As funny as it may seem now this shit was pretty scary and hardcore to me as a forth grader. Luckily, Dee Snider looked like a clown on the cover which some how lightened the impact a bit, otherwise I am not sure I could have taken it (no pun intended).

See No Evil?

Here are a few ticket stubs from shows I went to where Dee Snider palys Twisted Sister tunes. Great times were had by all, except unfortunately a shitty band named Nickelback opened up for one of the shows. Nickelback were in their, "Pearl Jam" phase because you know it was still cool to be grunge if you had hopes as a paid musician. I don't like to talk shit about working bands normally, but they were horrible and even condescending and I remember everyone in the venue booing, yawning, sleeping and wallowing in their beer until they finally left the stage. They even had the nerve to talk a little shit on stage about Twisted Sister which i'm sure didn't help win over the crowd or me.

IRON MAIDEN

Anyway, after discovering Iron Maiden's, Self titled album and Number of the Beast, I sort of forgot about Twisted Sister (for years and years actually). Maiden took it to a whole new level for me, intelligent lyrics, solid musicianship and amazing artwork. I used to stare at the cover of Number of the Beast for hours. Even though that album was the first one I heard, I always sort of liked the first album the best. In addition to their own great music, Iron Maiden also opened the doors to the NWOBHM scene for me and I also checked out other great English bands like Judas Priest, Saxon, Tygers of Pan Tang and Diamond Head. It is probably largely due to Iron Maiden's musicianship that I later became interested in Rory Gallagher, Thin Lizzy and other great bands that were before my time.

Children of the Damned!

BLACK SABBATH

My buddy and I were going on a camping trip and he brought along Ozzy Osbourne's Speak of the Devil cassette for us to listen too. He bought it the day before and told me I should check it out. I was absolutely stunned by what I heard. We had discovered something beyond words that I still have trouble defining, it simply sounded like hallucinatory, drugged out hymns to the devil. Combine that with Ozzy's rants about starting riots and getting high, I sincerely thought that maybe I should not be listening to this shit if I want to lead a normal life, yet the next day I went out and bought Sabbath's Self titled, Paranoid and master of Reality albums anyway. Obviously, I found that the songs were even better in their original context, but minus Ozzy's ranting. Sadly, I no longer have the first Black Sabbath album on cassette, so I put the LP in the photo instead.  Black Sabbath are one of the most important bands in the history of rock and roll period.   

Satan's coming around the bend!

MOTLEY CRUE

I resisted Motley Crue at first, it did not do anything for me when I first heard it, but one night at my neighbors birthday party (we are talking grade 4 here, give me a break), her older brother pulled out Shout at the Devil and something clicked. I was really impressed with their imagery and sound, it had the danger of AC/DC, but the music was very different. They really had their own thing going on, it was heavy metal or maybe better termed party metal, but one thing is for sure that album kicks ass. Mean riffs, thundering drums and nasty attitude. I don't really consider Shout at the Devil a glam metal album, but this is what glam metal should have been. I soon found out that Too Fast for Love was a great record too. Though, they eventually found bigger commercial success, it is too bad that beginning with Theatre of Pain they began to lose most of what made them great. That record is decent, and really isn't as bad as the masses would have you believe.  However, I can't really listen to anything they put out after that album.

He's the blood stain on the stage...

VENOM

Discovering Venom later that year was like discovering Satan himself. Every time I played Black Metal I turned the volume down and when Buried Alive came on, I turned it down to a whisper, I was worried my parents would hear it and put me in a mental institution. I am not kidding, Venom scared the shit out of me and other kids, but we loved it! At some point, I got a Venom Black Metal shirt, but it went "missing" in the laundry one day. My parents were pretty laid back and cool about my music choices, but I think my mom was genuinely concerned about that Venom shirt possessing me one night in my sleep or leading me down a path into hard drugs and suicide. Instead, Venom with the help of Banzai Records led me towards the extreme metal underground.

Lay down your Soul to the God's Rock 'n' Roll!

METALLICA

Metallica were the band that sort of cemented everything together, as overused as the saying is, they became the soundtrack to my life. I first discovered Metallica when I took a summer job selling chocolate bars for a charity. One of the older kids that worked there was cool and into metal. He wanted to show us some of his tapes and one that stood out immediately was Ride the Lightning on Banzai records. The image of the electric chair and the lightning really made the tape stick out from all the others scattered around his room and I could not wait to hear what it sounded like. When he put it in the tape deck I was in absolute awe of the powerful riff that kicked in after the acoustic intro, it sounded like no metal I had heard up until that point. To put it into as few words as possible, Fight Fire with Fire was a musical revelation, I had no idea music like this existed. Sure, Venom were fast and similar, but this was something different. Faster and heavier than Iron Maiden, but more talented and serious then Venom. I soon bought both Ride the Lightning and Kill 'em All and the latter became my favourite tape in my growing collection. This dude also introduced me to Slayer and a few other bands. Sadly, he also told me that Metallica were playing in Vancouver soon and that he was going, but I had to miss the show as my mother made sure that I was not allowed to go to any concerts until I was in high school. Thus, I never got to see Cliff Burton play, and I also had to miss the Master of Puppets tour. I had tickets to this one and was planning to sneak to it, but my Mom found out I had tickets and made me sell them or she was going to throw them in the garbage. Anyway, I still am proud to say that Metallica are my favourite band and they have my respect forever even if I do not always agree with some of their unusual career decisions.

The leather armies have prevailed, the phantom lord has never failed

Okay, so I tell you all this not because I think my story is more important than one anyone else has to share, I just would like to share items from my collection with others that have the same passion for the music and share a few stories and provide context for the blog along the way.  I am not here to brag about my connections with so and so or bloat my own self esteem, I'm just a regular fan.