I originally set out looking for a video of "Lord of This World" from the 70s, but only found video of Sabbath performing it during their reunion tour in 1997/98. This, however... wow. The band was still four working-class guys from Birmingham, touring to support their first two albums.
Note the alternate vocals on "Hand of Doom" and "War Pigs," or the (insanely out of tune) instrumental intro to Black Sabbath during which we get a close-up on Tony Iommi's finger extensions he had designed so he could play after having the tips of two fingers cut off in the machine press where he worked prior to the band's success.
Years ago, I had a VHS titled something like "The Black Sabbath Story" that combined interviews with live footage spanning the group's Ozzy era. This particular concert supplied the War Pigs that video presented, and the band's no-frills vintage from this performance always stayed with me because most of what you see live from Sabbath footage is post-Master of Reality, when the band had become huge and Ozzy's fringe was growing longer and longer. Mr. Brown, Sonny and I always theorized that the more cocaine Ozzy used for the performance, the longer the fringe.
There's something insanely intimate and special about this footage. I'm assuming it was released at some point, but I've never seen it (need to look).
The opening track from, in my opinion, the best album Black Sabbath ever recorded. Not only does all the music knock it out of the park, but Sabotage is easily the best collection of lyrics the band ever produced, highlights being "Meglomania," "Thrill Of It All" and "The Writ" (on an album where nearly every song has deep, introspective and philosophical lyrics, most of which were written by Geezer Butler).
NCBD:
Cannot wait for this issue. You'll Do Bad Things is proving to be a bizarre, Slasher/Giallo tribute that has me questioning everything I've seen in its pages so far. Look at that cover!
WTFPFH?'s current solicitations end with this issue, so I'm not sure where we are in the story. Also, because of the recent gap, I just feel lost again. I'll probably wait to start a re-read until I know when this is returning again. I did, however, sign up for Matthew Rosenberg's free Substack newsletter HERE just to see if I can get any updates. Looking at his page, it seems like all the focus is on a book I totally missed called, We're Taking Everyone Down With Us. I love Rosenberg's writing, but with how WTFPFH? has languished for so long, not sure I'm down with jumping on anything new from him yet.
Garth Ennis and Becky Cloonan? Goddamn right I'm picking this up. I'm so happy to see Boom! still doing so well. Not sure how many issues this is going to run, but I'm in just based on the creators alone. I can't remember the last title I read that Ms. Cloonan drew.
Mike Shinabarger and I covered News From the Fallout issue one on Drinking with Comics a few weeks ago, and both of us quite liked it. Looking forward to issue 2. Jeffrey Alan Love's art really makes an impression and seems ideally suited to the story.
The more I hear about Mark Spears' Monsters, the more I realize this is a career-making book for Mr. Spears. I think that's awesome. I also think the book is slowly getting better, uncoiling into something I don't think any of us can anticipate. Spears is drawing from such a broad swathe of comic book character iconography - Universal Monsters, Spy Stories, Grindhouse, and now... Superheroes?
I'm still holding onto Lazarus Fallen issue #1 as I finish a rather large spate of current readings and prepare to deep-dive the original two series, Lazarus and Lazarus Risen, again. I can't believe this book is back and coming out monthly like clockwork! Not a knock on the creators; I've just gone without for so long. And talk about a timely return. A not-so-distant future where wealth is politics? Sound familiar?
Watch:
Last night, K and I saw Michael Shanks' debut film Together, where real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie play a married couple going through issues who encounter an alien substance that begins to fuse them into a single form.
This one is getting A LOT of traction, and it's well deserved. I love that Body Horror has become something of a household word post-The Substance, and Together will likely continue that. And while I'm not the biggest fan of the two leads, both do a fantastic job, as does Damon Harriman, who most will know as Dewey Crow from Justified.
I can't wait to see what Michael Shanks does next!
Playlist:
Faetooth - Hole (pre-release single)
Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz
Ghost - Meliora
Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel
Shellac - At Action Park
Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me
Windhand - Eternal Return
Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Black Pyramid - The Paths of Time are Vast
Ozzy Osbourne - The Ultimate Sin
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Page of Wands
• Eight of Pentacles
• XV: The Devil
Baggage. All the fiery energy of the Knight of Wands, but held back by over-analysis or indecision. Concentration can help. However, it's often difficult to know how to begin that, as concentration is itself a product of Will.
All this seems to shore up this idea I have in my head that I need to take a reboot day and really dig in and clean up a bunch of the unfinished shit in my head to make room for a new concetration generator.
Tomorrow I'm starting 7 Days of Sabbath, but in the interim, I wanted to get this awesome new track by L.A.'s Faetooth a little push. This band landed on my radar with their 2022 album Remnants. This new track precedes their upcoming second album, Labyrinthine, out September 5th on The Flenser record label. Pre-order HERE.
Watch:
I had my second theatrical viewing of Ari Aster's Eddington last night. There is almost no doubt this will be the movie of the year. I can scarcely believe the sophisticated levels of layering in this film. There are levels of insight into the human animal, human society and human ignorance in this film that I'll be unpacking for years.
Eddington is a Western, a Horror movie, and on a very subtle level, a comedy made for people who see humanity the way I do - pessimistically. Ari Aster also crafts one hell of a shoot-out sequence, and has the subtle audacity to pepper it with Looney Tunes-esque visual gags that, if you catch them, will blow your mind. So many disparate elements synthesized into a perfect whole.
The PERFECT 80s Hard Rock "slow" song. Not a ballad, but moody and great lyrics; a case where the kind of broad-stroke 80s hard rock platitudes pay off in dividends.
Watch:
Holy shit! Jason's back!!
I don't understand what the "Short-Form Vignette" description means in terms of where, exactly, this is premiering on Friday, August 13, but I'm cautiously optimistic. Will this be on YouTube? Peacock? Angry Orchard.com?
Playlist:
Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9
Ozzy Osbourne - Bark at the Moon
Faith No More - Angel Dust
Flying Lotus - You're Dead
Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz
Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears
Judas Priest - Stained Class
Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance
Drug Church - Prude
Sinéad O'Connor - The Lion and the Cobra
The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us is the Killer
Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments
Perturbator - New Model
King Woman - Doubt EP
King Woman - Bury (single)
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Knight of Wands
• O: The Fool
• King of Wands
Started rebuilding my writing routine last night. This is a conscious act of Will that, essentially, is a brand new journey, as all my positive inertia is long gone, and I will have to overcome the entropy of neglect.
The second track on 1991's No More Tears, the album that solidified me as a fan when it came out, and that was so good it actually hindered my acceptance of its follow-up, 1995's Ozmosis.
The guitars on this record are so goddamn gorgeous. I really feel like producers Duane Baron and John Purdell, who had not worked with Ozzy previously, took the sonic direction begun on 1988's No Rest for the Wicked and perfected it, and nowhere is that more evident than when this track starts.
Also, Lemmy's songwriting is all over this record, and I feel like it really helped elevate the lyrics, which might be the best of Ozzy's solo career.
The first Ozzy Osbourne album that I spent any substantial time getting to know was 1987's Tribute to Randy Rhoads, so even though this live album came out well after the first, Jet Records era of Ozzy's solo career, that is the era that initially defined Ozzy as a solo artist for me. And believe it or not, Sabbath came later.
There's something magical about the Ozzy/Randy albums. I'd offer my suggestion that 1981's Diary of a Madman is a far superior effort than 1980's Blizzard of Ozz, but that's not to put Blizzard down. It's fantastic, and opening track, "I Don't Know," while not really having much to say, is a banger. Cool seeing it performed here, live, even if this 1981 performance on live tv in Rochester, NY is one of the more sedate Ozzy performances I've seen. Hangovers all around would be my guess.
It's Friday, and that means the new edition of Fangoia's weekly newsletter, The Terror Teletype, landed in my inbox while I slept. Reading this brief email packed with genre news and goodies is one of the little events that I look forward to every week. This time, Editor-in-Chief Phil Noble's editorial is a lovely little eulogy for Ozzy.
Also, later in the WTF section, Fango links to a 1988 television commercial featuring Ozzy promoting his then-latest album, No Rest for the Wicked.
WTF indeed. Throughout the first two decades of his solo career, Ozzy always flirted with having one foot in camp, and I think it was a reaction to the televangelist backlash and the general fears conservatives displayed toward his music, Heavy Metal in general, and Horror movies. Bark At the Moon's ridiculous costuming plays a bit differently when you think that maybe the idea was to present a Horror movie aesthetic constructed to make people laugh at the people who decried it as frightening or depraved.
NCBD Addendum:
I haven't had a chance to read it yet, primarily because I'll need to locate the original series and re-read it, but Black Mask's CALEXIT returned this week with the first issue of CALEXIT: The Battle for Universal City. Writer Matteo Pizzolo returns with new artist C. Granda and colorist James Offredi to deliver a gorgeous new chapter:
I'd seen this solicited but almost dismissed it as a hallucination. The original, three-issue series ran back in 2017-2018, and while we covered it on Drinking with Comics, and I know I liked it, I really remember nothing else about it. It will be nice this weekend to sit down, read the old series and jump directly into this new one. Also, really hope Black Mask can make a comeback, so of course I'll support what they do. They had a good couple of years at the end of the last decade, and then kind of disappeared. Would love to see more Black Mask books on the shelf again.
Playlist:
Lady Gaga - Mayhem
Ozzy Osbourne - Shot in the Dark (single)
Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9
Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man
Ozzy Osbourne - Black Rain
Wake the Devil - Angel's Won't Cry (single)
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Black Sabbath - Vol. 4
Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Two of Pentacles
• Two of Cups
• Ten of Pentacles
A change in balance leads to wealth.
I'm always hesitant to interpret concepts like 'wealth' at face value when dealing with the archetypes utilized in the cards. More likely, this is a nod to an upcoming triumph in undoing the negative inertia that has seized my brain when it comes to writing.
