And at long last...

The band that truly started it all for me, and the ones that could indeed to this day,
school the thousands of clones and pretenders who have come and gone over these many years.

Black Sabbath is the True Apex; the Empyrean Rulers of the Heavy Metal Genre as a whole,
and the TRUE Innovators of that which simply did not exist before them.

Let me make clear my intentions from the very start:
Sabbath WITH Ozzy IS and WAS - BLACK Fucking SABBATH.
Anything else or less is ...anything else ...or less.

Sabbath WITHOUT Ozzy is all fine and dandy, but will NEVER compare -
and you can beleaguer me for the all of the days leading up to Kingdom Come and I WILL NOT BUDGE.
I was there; I saw it with my own eyes, and my ears were witness even more so.

Therefore, this feature will focus exclusively on the years beginning with the album
Black Sabbath ~ and ending with the album ~ Never Say Die


Part I - Sabbath and me: SABOTAGE

Sabbath first made their mark on me when, at the tender, impressionable age of 11 -
I found something...

I was at a party thrown by my Father and Stepmother and as usual, was growing a bit bored and restless.
The party was being thrown at my Step Grandmother's house, where there also lived my Step-Uncle, Steven.
Steven was quite a bit like me, just older; a black sheep, a loner, and a thinker - ...and heavily into music.
Steven was not home that day.
As I wandered into his quarters to admire his Gibson Bass, the stack of records in the corner caught my eye...
There in front sat what must have been his 'Album of the Moment'.
The brand-new, just released empty cover of 'Sabotage' rested there,
beckoning me, as its intended contents did likewise on the turntable above.

There they were; the ominous yet slightly comical images of three long-haired maniacs in very odd clothes,
along with their seated and rather conservative looking mate -
all in front of a mirror which reflected their images...
but the mirror images were also facing me!
I was instantly intrigued.
It had to do with the way the 'eight of them' were just staring at something off -camera...



The mystery of Sabbath has now already entered me.
The band's name was quite familiar, the music as-yet unknown.

::click::

As the opening random little sounds suddenly gave way into the abrupt and crushing intro to 'Hole In the Sky'
- I was all at once shocked, mezmerised and unquestionably changed forever.
I had heard 'heavy music' before, but I was not at all prepared for this assault.
The heaviness, the Wall of Sound, the deadly-serious music, the enchanting voice of Ozzy...
all of this came together in my brain at once; and as the abrupt ending of 'Hole'
suddenly gave way to the impish, precision nylon-stringed fretwork of Tony Iommi's segue,
'Don't Start (Too Late)', I knew I was hearing a band which had burned a few new trails in their day.

Then came 'Symptom of the Universe', which to this day stands as one of the great achievements in Metal Music.
This song was so heavy, it almost frightened me... but it utterly consumed me just the same.
About this time, I had been discovered in Steven's room
(for obvious reasons) and was promptly removed from his not-so-humble abode.
No problem, the 'damage' had clearly already taken place.

I was probably still gazing at that twisted album cover as they dragged me out of that room.


A few Unforgettable Sabbath-related events in my life:

- Age 14: My mother forcing me to remove the Sabbath Cross from around my neck
(we weren't even religious!)

- 1978: Half or more of a 30,000+ member audience Up and BAILS
from Anaheim Stadium after Sabbath just STOMPS all over "headliners" Boston
(who hadn't even played yet)
We also left soon after Boston started... the crowd was dead right.
Nobody follows Sabbath.

- wandering around in a marijuana-induced trance at an empty bicycle track,
late at night with the housekeeper's son from Mexico,
after having cruised up and down the then-infamous Van Nuys Boulevard:
the lingering sounds of Sabbath's 'Am I Going Insane (Radio)' having twisted themseves
into an bizarre, frightening and thoroughly undescribable 'sci-fi sound' in my brain...
looping and looping... GOD that was a weird experience.

- lying on a friend's bed at the age of 13, having just smoked ULTIMATE One-Hit Gold (opiated) Thai Bud;
whilst listening to 'Symptom' and having an eyes fully-open, all-encompassing hallucination
of clouds below me, traveling at mach speeds; as if the bed itself were on the wing of a jet fighter.




Cover page Sabbath Cross and Sabbath Image Collage by Tangento
Bill Ward Image within collage copyright Ross Halfin

This feature to be continued... in a BIG way

In the meantime, please enjoy the ultimate Black Sabbath web experience:




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