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Saturday, October 01, 2005

MY BLACK NUGGETS

Black Sabbath's 'Sabotage' was one of those records that my brother had and I sort of grew into, as it grew into me.

It has been said, by the man himself, and others, that Ozzy Osbourne took acid every day for a year somwhere 73 - 74 ish. I don't doubt it, and neither will you after listening to this 1975 release. Ozzy charts the very depths of hell on 'Sabotage'.

I think it's their best effort. Certainly their best sounding record. On 'Sabotage' Tony Iommi let's the synths in a bit more, though they had been using synths to pad the Sabbath sound for years prior. 'Sabotage' is a very complex record, with drastic tempo shifts, and two songs breaking the nine minute mark.

'Sabotage' is not a laid back record, the samba bit at the end of 'Symptom Of The Universe' a la 'Can't You Hear Me Knockin' not-withstanding, this album is about bad trips, nightmares, hell, and more hell. It ends well though, or sort of:

"You are nonentity, you have no destiny
You are a victim of a thing unknown
A mental picture of a stolen soul
A fornication of the golden throne....

.....Rob the dead, they don't feel a thing
Keep them living for another day.....

But everything is gonna work out fine
If it don't I think I'll blow my mind."

So, he's got that going for him.

It's really no wonder why Ozzy is such a mess these days, he was a mess back then, but what a glorious mess. As far as performance goes, Ozzy is at his peak here. He has never sang better, and his material was never more challenging either.

Go out and get 'Sabotage' and listen to Ozzy completely lose his shit, while Geezer, Tony, and Bill heap on the ever churning sludge that is Sabbath.



Comments:
"I think it's their best effort."

Very bold statement. I will have to go back and get this from Amazon since I don't have it on CD (it may take as long as the BOC record with that podcast tune on ti is taking). It'll be tough to top Vol. 4 or the first record for me. I vaguely remember those long tunes and since I didn't do acid, I kinda thought they were boring. I do like 'Symptom' though.

BTW... Went and rented 'Lords of Dogtown' this weekend finally. Both Cathy and I enjoyed it emensely. Could have been longer though. It sort of ended in 1977. Lots of cool shit happened in skating after 1977. The sound track has to awesome. Chrispy would like this movie.
 
I thought it was a good place to end the movie, though skating kept growing, this story was about the Z-Boys, and that was their last time together, skating that pool with their sick friend.
 
The end was cool enough, but I'd have taken it into the whole Devo/punk/money thing ruining skating. Remember, most of those guys, less TA, reformed a company with Skip and manufactured Dogtown Skates, the best skate decks on the market at the time. Jim Muir, Wes Humpstead, Wenstzel Ruml, etc... had signature decks. Also missing was the fact that Zepher changed its name and marketed "Z" products successfully (Z-Flex decks and "Z" wheels). I don't know if Skip soldout to "Z" or if it was his company. I rolled on "Z" wheels for a long time and they were smoking. In real life, Jay Adams didn't really start his slide into trouble until much later. He was skating in tourney's until 1980-81 if I recall correctly. Jay Adams did have a signature deck with Z-Flex and they sold a shitload of them.

I guess that's all the fictionalization part. The sceen where they go tear assing around after getting their team jersey's gave me flashbacks to be sure.

Sunny summer day, West Point, crap loads of tourists milling around central area and Trophy Point, all just begging to be harassed by a bunch of smartass skateboarders.
 
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