VIDEO'S OF THE WEEK - BLACK SABBATH SOLO special

VOTW - SABBATH "SOLO" Special

I've just started reading a "new" book, Mick Wall's take on the Black Sabbath-story, "Symptom Of The Universe". Having read 4 of Wall's books until now, I know he had the "critical classes" on, writing the book. To make a VOTW-Sabbath solo special was easier, than I thought it would be. And off course, Ozzy was the easiest to pick from, since his "solo-career" has been, without any doubt, the most successfull. Weirdly enough, Iommi was the hardest to find solo-material by, but I had in mind to pick something from "Seventh Star", which I've always considerd being a solo-album, never mind what the record-company forced Iommi to call it. But if there is a "Mr.Sabbath", then it certainly would be Iommi.On with the video's:

BILL WARD (Featuring Ozzy) - BOMBERS (CAN OPEN BOMB BAYS)

Ward One: Along the Way was the debut solo album from Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward. Originally released January 10, 1990, it features a wide array of guest musicians, including then-former Black Sabbath band member Ozzy Osbourne. It will always "haunt me", that when I at last saw Sabbath live 2 years ago or so, Ward wasn't the drummer.

GEEZER BUTLER BAND- HEAT IN THE STREET

Hmm, I don't really know much about this one? It's from 1987, but according to Wiki: The Geezer Butler Band was a solo band led by Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler, after leaving the band in 1984. The guitarist for his solo band was Peter "Pedro" Howse, who nowadays still remains a GZR (or g//z/r, geezer) member. Welsh vocalist Carl Sentance (ex-Persian Risk) fronted the band between 1986 and 1988. This version of his band never released anything, although they performed some gigs in 1985 of which some bootlegs exist.

TONY IOMMI - STRANGER TO LOVE

I consider this a Tony Iommi-soloalbum, even though it says "Black Sabbath feat. Tony Iommi" on the front-cover. That was just because the recordcompany was afraid, the album wouldn't sell. With guitarist and songwriter Tony Iommi being, musicians Geoff Nicholls, Eric Singer, and Dave Spitz contributed to the album, playing keyboards, drums, and bass, respectively. Glenn Hughes, ex-Deep Purple bassist and vocalist, was lead singer but did not play bass on this release. Musically, it features a blues rock influenced sound. It was originally written, recorded, and intended to be the first solo album by Iommi, as shown by the musical experimentation. However, due to pressures by Warner Bros. Records and the prompting of band manager Don Arden, the record was billed as Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi.

OZZY OSBOURNE - MR.CROWLEY (Live 1986)

This is probably my favorite "Ozzy-song", written by Bob Daisly and Randy Rhoads. This clip is from a home-video I had in the 80's. I loved it, and saw it countless of times. Jake E. Lee was the right replacement for Rhoads, and I've always wondered, why he got fired by Sharon, that bitch. I'm glad, I saw Ozzy's band feat. Lee in January 1983, but I wish, I'd seen the band when Rhoads was alive.

BLACK SABBATH - HOLE IN THE SKY

Well, we need 5 video's, don't we, so let's finnish off with classic Sabbath from 1975. "Sabotage" is one of my favorite Sabbath-albums, or maybe THE favorite. Man, I wish, I was 5 years older, then MAYBE I could had seen classic Sabbath, The Who and Zeppelin live in concert. Sigh! Those were the days!!

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by RJhog (Admin) on February 1, 2016 at 2:27pm

Ward - I really enjoyed that song. The video too. I really like the black and white war footage. I also like the shots of Ward at the beginning, by himself, just playing the drums. The other performance part of the video is quite cheesy, but not at all out of line for what was going on in 1990. Remember, I was not a Black Sabbath fan growing up. I've only recently become one. And that is significant because I can say I never really noticed Ward's drumming. But he looks quite aggressive here and I like this song.

Butler - This is awful. From the production to the songwriting to the cheesy video. Also, I think full-on shred filled guitar solos are boring. Please put some melody in there somewhere. Geezer looks ridiculous, just like Gene Simmons did in the 1987 version of Kiss.

Iommi - So you are saying that is Glenn Hughes on vocals? For some reason, it doesn't sound like him to me. The song is okay, not bad, but not great either. I like the fact that it's mostly a concept video. It's funny though, because rock stars that tried to act in concept videos for their music, for the most part, were just laughable. But hey, at least there is an attempt at a concept and not a performance video. Those really blow.

Ozzy - Ozzy looks like a member of the walking dead. But I guess he always has. I know you love this song, but it's just okay to me. There is more serious shredding going on. But there is some good melodic playing as well. The video looks like a crappy 70's horror movie at the beginning, then it's just concert footage.

Sabbath - I don't have much to say about this one. It's not a song that's ever done anything for me. Looks like the video comes from some kind of TV show.

I like it when the majority of your picks are concept videos, even though I can't always watch them. Luckily, today I was off a half day, so I wanted to get this in while I could pay more attention. Good job.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Scott on February 3, 2016 at 6:14pm

BILL ... The tune had a chance at first, its sounded like an interesting riff, nice production, and loved that Ozzie guest sang on the tune. But ultimately this falls flat as it becomes repetitive

GEEZER ... Well those lyrics aren't too deep or predictable. The sound quality is terrible so maybe not the best to judge the tune, but lets give it a shot anyway. Its not very good... Where is Geezer in the video, they barely show him, and that geetar solo was lame. I didn't care for this one at all

TONY ... Best so far, but I will say this sounds familiar. Not overly but kind of... And of course the geetar work is nice and the singer is good. But I can see why it didn't take off bigger. Nice and Good does not mean great exposure and sales.

OZZY ... I'm not a big fan of his solo stuff, though I know you are - at least of his first two. But clearly he's the reason the 4 of them were successful as the songwriting ability and talent lies within the Ozman.

BILL/GEEZER/TONY/OZZIE ... Clearly the sum of all parts is better than the individual and this case, way way better!

Yet another interesting and worthwhile post...

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Niels (Mod) on February 4, 2016 at 3:50am

"But clearly he's the reason the 4 of them were successful as the songwriting ability and talent lies within the Ozman"......What???!!

Iommo wrote the riffs, Geezer wrote the lyrics, Ward wrote some songs, Ozzy made SOME tunes, after listening to Iommi's riffs.

Solo, Ozzy didn't write much, certainly not on the first two albums: The first Blizzard Of Ozz-album was mainly written by Rhoads and Daisly, where Ozzy once again threw in a few ideas; whereas Diary Of A Madman was written by Daisly, Rhoads and Kerslake with a minumum of "help" from Ozzy.

I agree, that Ozzy's very successful solo-career has helped Black Sabbath as well, but as I've said before, the first two albums were to be "band-albums" (Blizzard Of Ozz-the band), but then Sharon screwed everyone after she took over as Ozzy's second wife and new manager, after her dad, which she "screwed" as well, and from then on, no more band, only "The Ozman".

Ozzy and Ringo Starr = Very lucky partly talented people (but indeed with lots and lots of charisma), who were at the right place at the right time with the absolute right people around them.

Sharon and Yoko = Witch Bitches.