Yes, when I was a teenager in the early 70s, I loved these guys. Their whole career was encapsulated in the 1st album, track 1. To many hand-wringing conservative parents of the era, this band was the penultimate "devil music". I could care less about the gothicness, but for a lover of H.P. Lovecraft, there was a tenuous connection to be made.

What I loved was the sheer heaviness of the music. What was strange was that the first album was more of a collection of extended jams rather than songs. In any case, I loved the first five albums -- after 1974's "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath", though, the dissipation really started stting in.

Was this a legitimate great hard rock band, or just another of the easily-parodied bands which became part of the formula for Spinal Tap?

PS I was admittedly part of the generation that partook of the subject of "Sweet Leaf", along with several more potent chemicals, while jamming to these guys LOL.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-10-07 02:17 by bassplayer617.

black sabbath...vol.4....paranoid....master of reality....great....also enjoy past lives (live)....have you heard that boot from france '70?...think it was a tv show...awesome performance and excellent quality.........Iommi's sound on "sweet leaf" amazes me every time...i remember seein em on "don kirschners rock concert" when i was a kid...scared the shit out of me...they had a crucifix in the backround covered in foil!!!....my better half got me back into them fairly recently...if i didnt cooperate she'd dump my ass...theyre her all-time favorite band



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2005-10-07 02:21 by Leonard Keringer.

Thanks, Leonard. I have NOT heard that boot, but I DID see these guys in concert in 1977. By this point, though, both the band and the majority of the crowd were too stoned and laid back to generate much excitement. What a crazy dichotomy -- Ozzy singing about devils and war pigs while everyone was flashing the old "peace-victory" signs, a la ex-prez Richard Nixon. Truly bizarre. We were so naieve, and so out of touch with the real world.

Both Sabbath and Deep Purple were awesome bands for the first half of the 70's. Purple had disbanded by 76 or so and Ozzy said one of the reasons he left Sabbath is because a young Van Halen opened for them in 78 and he said they just blew Sabbath off the stage!
Glad that both bands have reunited over the years, though. Probably introduced them to a whole new generation of fans.

seen them in 71 & again in 74 in philly,,, they were both very good concerts ,,i still cant beleive they didn't do' wheels of confusion ' @ that 74 show ,,when that 1st album came out in 70 it was like super cool stuff,,,, every1 was sayin their playin with out of tune guitars,,,,those 1st 4 albums are all great ,, but live in concert their not even in my top 10 ,, mayb in top 30 ,,but this is just my 2 cents

the original Sabbath were an AMAZING band. up until the last two Ozzy albums anyway. by then they were lost in a fog of drugs n booze

amazingly for me. i only got to see the original 4 for the first time a few months back. they did an Ozzfest warm up gig in a small 800 capacity venue here in England

i still can't believe how good it was. i expected Oz to be stumbling around looking befuddled, but he was sharp, in excellent shape and in great voice too

chippy Wrote:
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> seen them in 71 & again in 74 in philly,,,
> they were both very good concerts ,,i still cant
> beleive they didn't do' wheels of confusion ' @
> that 74 show ,,when that 1st album came out in 70
> it was like super cool stuff,,,, every1 was sayin
> their playin with out of tune guitars,,,,those 1st
> 4 albums are all great ,, but live in concert
> their not even in my top 10 ,, mayb in top 30
> ,,but this is just my 2 cents

"Wheels of Confusion" is playing as I write -- as for the '77 live performance I saw, it amazed me that the band was so QUIET -- they started with "Symptom of the Universe", and the soundboard guys must've been asleep -- Tony sounded as if he was a mile away -- what a letdown. I expected a thundering metallic roar, but what the Charleston WV audience got was a meow. It never really picked up until "Paranoid", which was the encore.

saw the "last supper" sabbath dvd.....was it '96 reunion tour?...anyway, i was impressed at how powerful and vital they sounded on this one....iommis guitar sound was as nasty as ever

Legitimatly great hard rock band. It is easy to look back and sort of laugh, but the fact is, the stuff still sounds really, really good. I saw them in 1977, at the first Ozzfest reunion (without Bill Ward) and again the next time they went out (with Bill). I don't remember a lot of the 1977 show. It was my first concert, I was only 13, and it was a long time ago, but the two recent shows were really good. Geezer Butler is a helluva bass player, too.

Always (with Ozzy at least) and still a great band. Too bad Ozzy can't handle the strain of a full tour anymore.

Bollocks, lets face it Dio can sing the pants off Ozzy any day of the week, plus I got a soft spot for 'Born Again' with Gillan on vocals. come to think of it Tony Martin Wasn't bad, nor the album with Glenn Hughes on vocals.

Now this is an argument I have down my local rock pub every now and again with some of my mates, but I maintain that Ozzy leaving Sabbath was a good thing! why? becasue Ozzy went on to make some great solo albums, as well as Sabbath making some great albums with some fine singers - way I see it was that you got double your money. I could go on but can't be arsed.

If you wanna discuss it some more, meet me down the pub tonight and we can shoot the shit over a few pints!

The first 4 albums are GREAT

I always have to giggle whenever anyone brings up Van Halen, even after all these years some people dont get it ,they are,were and always will be dogshit. A good rock band, needs a drummer,i've heard dozens of roadies who play better than Alex Van Halen. Live they are a joke.

IMO Sabbath with Ozzy great up to Sabotage, eveything afterwards worthless.
Deep Purple good when your 12, otherwise hahaha

Monkeytonkman you need to lie down

Sabbath with ANYONE (especially an american dwarf with no charisma) but Ozzy just aren't Sabbath. that shit they released once Ozzy left is embarrasing on the respected BS name

there's only one Sabbath, and they're 4 men from Aston

andy - who wrote the killer riffs and majority of the music for Black Sabbath? Tony Iommi, he was still preent when Ozzy left and managed to still crank out some monster riffs, and if your trying to tell me that Ozzy is a better singer than Dio, then you need to get your ears cleared.

The last few years, Ozzy has been an embareesment, a puppet of Uber bitch Sharon. The reunion shows in Birmingham in 97? I went to was a huge let down, same as every Ozzfest at the Bowl, such a let down. Dio however, never puts in a bad performance over recent years, and his voice is as strong as ever.

nostaligia is a funny thing, and a lot of the music industry over recent years has made Ozzy out to be some sort of God, but without the three other men from Aston - who to my mind were the real genius behind Sabbath, where would ozzy be.

Can you honestly say, that if Ozzy had not had the Fortune to hook up with the other blokes, then he would still have been revered as a rock god? or even for that matter, got out of birmingham - he's not a great singer. he is in fact in his own words -'The luckiest son of a bitch on the planet'

Everyone I knew in Jr High thought BS were lame, but re proto-metal icons, Why not Blue Cheer? The White Stripes played the whole debut Cheer album pre show (no one else recognized it) & it still bashes & slams w/ the best of Sab, & the big dif seems to be timing - '68 vs '70. In '68 an album that reached # 11 could still go o.p. & be lost 2, 3 years later, whereas anything big in '70 had a more sophisticated industry behind it, younger A&R, etc.

Hi Humanriff 77. Roadies better than Alex VH? He's one of the best rock drummers of all time! Always rated near the top with Bonham, Moon, Paice, Peart, etc. Try playing Hot For Teacher or even Right Now.
Van Halen were THE best American rock band of the early 80's. The constant touring from 78-84 made them one of the biggest draws. I remember in 82 their whole tour was sold out, despite North America being in a big recession. 1984 made them huge media stars. Only hard rock band as popular as they were in the early 80's was AC/DC and Def Leppard to a lesser degree. Didn't like VH nearly as much when DLR left, though.
The only hard rock bands to sell more albums than VH are Zep, Aerosmith and AC/DC.

Dio as a singer absolutely demolishes Ozzy in every way...it's not even a fair comparison, but those Ozzy-era Sabbath albums can't be topped, regardless of Ozzy's limited abilities.

There's an eerie, other-wordly quality to his voice that gives those albums a great atmosphere. Sabbath were just a generic metal band once Dio joined.

Bassplayer617, I love Sabbath, too. What furthermore impresses me about your post is you say you're also a fan of H.P. Lovecraft! I only discovered HPL a few years ago, while I fell in love with Sabbath at the dear age of 12, when I heard The Wizard on the radio, then saw the incredibly gothic cover of their first album, just released then...
I have never seen them in concert, though in the summer of '71, I tried like hell to connect with that specific chum who was attending it and everything. I didn't make it, and soon after that started to get into so many other different rock acts I sort of fell out of it.
My daughter, when aged 16 or so, made me rediscover Sabbath (the Ozzy years/she can't stand the Dio era) and I really enjoy their first six LPs. My favourites are the 1st and Master of Reality. Why? They have a sound, and it's not the one of the band next to 'em!

"posted by Odd- Beat What furthermore impresses me about your post is you say you're also a fan of H.P. Lovecraft! "

This is a subject best discussed elsewhere. Write me at gehiggin@hotmail.com

PS I just realized you were speaking about the band H.P. Lovecraft, right? I was talking about the author LOL ("The Festival", "At the Mountains of Madness", "The Colour Out of Space", etc.)




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-10-10 06:08 by bassplayer617.

wrong site but they are a classic. first band i loved was zepp then stones then sabbath. its my older brothers fault

I got a copy of "Past Lives" from, of all places, the public library. Some great performances on this two-CD set, culled from shows in 1970, 1973 and 1975. This is a great sampling of Sabbath during their peak as a live act.

bassplayer617 Wrote:
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> I got a copy of "Past Lives" from, of all places,
> the public library. Some great performances on
> this two-CD set, culled from shows in 1970, 1973
> and 1975. This is a great sampling of Sabbath
> during their peak as a live act.


hey bassplayer617....if ya email me yur mailing address...i'll burn ya a copy of the paris '70 boot (dont have the artwork)....Len... rubytsdy@sbcglobal.net

Leonard Keringer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> bassplayer617 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I got a copy of "Past Lives" from, of all
> places,
> > the public library. Some great performances
> on
> > this two-CD set, culled from shows in 1970,
> 1973
> > and 1975. This is a great sampling of
> Sabbath
> > during their peak as a live act.
>
>
> hey bassplayer617....if ya email me yur
> mailing address...i'll burn ya a copy of the paris
> '70 boot (dont have the artwork)....Len...
> rubytsdy
> 4;sbcgloba

> 8;.net

Thanks, Leonard. E-mail is on its way.

So are any other Stones fans here die-hard metal fans?

I started my musical obsession with the Stones, the blues and hard rock (AC/DC, ZZ Top, Aerosmith, etc.)

But for the past few years I've been pretty much exclusively a metal fan: Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead, Sabbath, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Kreator, Sodom, Annihilator, Exodus, Death, Bruce Dickinson, Halford, Iced Earth...

Anyone with me here?

Motorhead...YEAH BABY!!!! ... Lemmy gargles with tacks & puts whiskey on his cereal....GREAT VOICE!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-10-14 03:47 by Leonard Keringer.

Not metal but heavy rock:

King Crimson, Captain Beefheart, Purple, Sabbath, Zeppelin,
Heep; and loads of Hugarian groups: particularly P. Box, P. Mobil,
Dinamit & I worship the István A Király rock opera.

If you crawl upstream or backwards in that rock source,
you sooner or later bump into American garage rock 1965-68 circa.
There are oceans of names, but my time´s too short to in to it now.

The names above are the fathers of metal bands.

sabbath has a great sound that transcends the otherwise silly genre of metal, which it helped to found. Still I have a hard time listening to them for more than 5 minutes at a time.

cc

Leonard Keringer Wrote:
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> Motorhead...YEAH BABY!!!! ... Lemmy gargles with
> tacks & puts whiskey on his cereal....GREAT
> VOICE!!!
>
>
>
> Edited 1 times. Last edit at 10/14/05 03:47 by
> Leonard Keringer.

Hell yeah! I've had to the pleasure of meeting him. Quite an intimidating person, but he was very friendly and more than willing to chat with fans. A man amongst men, no question.