h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Firstly, happy 70th to John Michael 'Ozzy' Osbourne!

There's lots of media coverage around this week, Ozzy cancelling tour dates after having surgery on his hand, Ozzy announcing line up for New Years Eve Ozzfest, Ozzy rumoured to be doing a new studio album....great stuff for those of us who've been fans for many decades.

Then there's the usual rubbish the media trawls up, bat biting, Black Sabbath and satanism, the bloody MTV reality show, the travels with Jack TV show, his wife and business guru being a judge on awful pop music competition Tv shows, ....

One of the greatest front men of all time, one of the most influential figures in rock since the sixties, still performing, still the Prince of Daftness.

Topical? Hmmm Even on here some of the links are truly appalling (as a fan of the music not the hype) the second hand throwaway comments about Black Sabbath gigs in the 1990s are particularly funny. ( first hand comment, Sabbath were awful, Bill Ward having a heart attack mid-tour, Ozzy dreadfully unprepared...but we fans took it all as part of the reunion and loved every second of the shows)

I've covered several Ozzy gigs in this journal, expressed my displeasure at pricing structures and VIP packages that, no doubt, people who think of Ozzy as a TV star will happily pay for. Sadly Ozzy is more of a brand to these people than a singer.

So, for those of us who listen, year in, year out, those of us who have witnessed the magic of band and solo performances for many decades, those who have been there, bought the numerous tee shirts, here's wishing Mr Osbourne a very happy birthday and hoping he will stick to the music and never ever do another reality show!

Not being a fan of heavy metal, I had to search high and low for a few groups that I liked. Black Sabbath was one of them.

I tried to listen to ACDC "Back in Black", and turned it off midway through the second song. Yeah, I know it's the bestselling album of all time, but I'll have to settle for #3, Meat Loaf's "Bat out of Hell," which I adore.

There's no accounting for taste.

I liked the TV commercial in which Ozzie Osbourne wakes up married to Florence henderson, and his kids are Donny and Marie Osmond.

Most metal music seems to consist of a simple folk song of great sincerity, shouted at the top of one's lungs, accompanied by the orchestrated equivalent of a few minor planets exploding.

Or you can bluegrass it. Everything sounds better in bluegrass:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Ao-iNPPUc

Yes, those rednecks are Finnish, and that's 'Thunderstruck'. And that's an anvil.

Black Sabbath were the second live band I got to see - in a big tent in Royal Leamington Spa in the Summer of 1969. At the time (before they'd had a hit with Paranoid) they were not what you think of as a heavy metal band, playing a more Cream-influenced style.
Three or four years later I got to see them playing at the Sydney Cricket Ground with the full heavy metal light show and all the trimmings (although the only headless chickens I noticed were in the audience...) Fun but musically satisfying in a different sense.

Oh, and I meant to say: happy birthday Ozzy - we never thought you would make it this far!

Let us not go down the bluegrass / heavy / GoHL rabbit hole again DG, my brain still hurts from last time I went to Delaware!

Cream, now there was a band...love Free too.

See, Paul? It is possible to give Heavy Metal fans headaches.

Now, if I can only devise a suitable punishment for the choir director, who said,'Can't the organ go any softer?'

'No, ma'am, it's a pipe organ. The next step down is OFF.'

Cream was, indeed, a good band. I am very envious of this soothingly psychedelic video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1QihWLLKGY

"Most metal music seems to consist of a simple folk song of great sincerity, shouted at the top of one's lungs, accompanied by the orchestrated equivalent of a few minor planets exploding" [Dmitri]

Actually, you can shout at the top of your lungs and sound great if you have enough diaphragmatic support. I think some of the best people of *any* genre have done that. The best opera singers do that, and so do groups like Black Sabbath and Iron maiden. If you're oging to do it, do it well and you'll deserve success.

The planets exploding motif was in "restaurant at the end of the universe."

I think that people need to go all out occasionally.* All I do is draw the line at Ac/DC. That's a rather mall quibble, all in all.


When I was in my teens, my sister used to chide me for bellowing in choir. It was a small town, and there wasn't much else to do for excitement except listen to recordings of Ethel Merman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s62MrU8mHx4

I think that people need opera, and their opera needs to be up to date. Styles will change, and opera will change along with them.

I must admit I have a soft spot for AC/DC having been at their first public performance. Sydney city council used to run free concerts once a month to give young local bands a boost. AC/DCs performance there in 1974 is the only one that remains in my memory.

Ah, yes - there's a lot to be said for live performance.

Rock concerts are preeminently theatrical. I can't remember attending any live rock concerts, but I've seen plenty of them on video. The nice thing about video is that you adjust the volume up or down so your hearing isn't shot by the time you're fifty.

I would rather watch and hear the music being performed than just hearing it, but having just watched "Bohemian Rhapsody," I am reminded that too many producers just want the performers to just lip-sync to canned music. Even "Bohemian rhapsody" needed lip-syncing to Freddy Mercury's original singing.

Putting on a show is an age-old human endeavor. I'm fond of "Get Crazy," a 1983 movie about putting on a New Year's rock concert to save a theater that will have close unless someone can raise funds to keep it open. It's wonderful and wacky, starring Daniel Stern before "Home alone" made him famous.

Yes, my hearing is 'shot'; I suffer permanent tinnitus in both ears but, to be honest, it's worth it to have experienced all of those great concerts. Just seeing The Who live in 1970 makes any amount of hearing damage worthwhile.

Another gig, my ears bleed...ah Lemmy, so true!

I have tinnitus, too, but not from rock concerts....it's the fault of a family that were hauled over to Virginia during the Jamestown Tobacco Boom of the early 1600s and kept passing down their bad-hearing genes for 400 years... Thank goodness for hearing aids...my grandmother used to yell, 'Ah cain't hear it THUNDER.' I know what she meant.

'What was that explosion?'

'What explosion?'

'I think grandpa's still blew up over on the mountain....'

But it does explain why I'm so happy playing the pipe organ at max volume....

Generally my deafness only affects me when I hear the words "Let's go furniture shopping..."

And happy birthday Randy Rhoads

Shameless plug https://h2g2.com/entry/A87808468