Thank you for clarifying, Mr Supernautico. And please, don't apologise for your English to another non-native speaker. By the way, your definition of 'filler' is pretty much the same as mine. This trend of labelling tracks as 'filler' because we don't particularly like them, or because they weren't a hit single or a concert staple, is just a bunch of bulllshite, if you pardon my French.
I just checked in "How Black was...". Two things happened at the same time: Sabbath signed with Meehan and sacked Simpson. And the North American tour was postponed from July 1970 to October. According to the book, the postponement was partly due to the management changeover and partly because the US were still in shock after the Manson Family murders and the Altamont Festival stabbing, so Sabbath allegedly wanted to wait a little for the dust to settle. The Wikipedia article on the Paranoid album reads: "Paranoid's US release was delayed until January 1971, as the Black Sabbath album was still on the charts at the time of its UK release." Does anybody know how long exactly the debut album was in the UK charts? I am wondering if they decided to postpone the Paranoid album UK release for that reason...
What happened here? No more questions? I just got Popoff's Black Sabbath FAQ, definitely a good read. Slightly odd choice of myself not to buy Doom Let Loose first I guess, but sometimes I like to start at the end. One thing where Black Sabbath FAQ leaves me entirely unconvinced, though, is some of Popoff's ratings and reviews of Sabbath's albums. Seriously, an "8" for Vol4, Paranoid, the debut - and for Born Again as well? At the same time, a "9" for NSD and The Eternal Idol, but also for Heaven and and Hell? A "10" for MOR, SBS, Sabotage - and TE? I don't know where to start - TE on one level with MOR, SBS, and Sabotage, higher than HaH, and significantly higher than Vol4, Paranoid and the debut? NSD and TEI on the same level as HaH and better than Vol4, Paranoid, and the debut? Born Again on the same level as Paranoid, the debut or Vol4? I am not buying it. I mean, I am definitely not expecting anyone to share my preferences, but this, from a true expert in the field? Very strange. On their s/t debut and Paranoid, Sabbath invented and developed something amazing and new - as Popoff explicitly and repeatedly states himself. Like TEI or not, but certainly nothing new and historical happened there. I could go on, but I guess I made my point. ;-)
I wonder if the higher ratings on albums not as good as the holy 6 is a ploy to get fans who read the book to buy them, if they don't already own them.
Well, I am definitely interested. Of course there's some questions I am less interested in than others, plus there's questions which I don't know the answer to, in which case I usually wait for others' replies rather than post myself. I'd suggest that if you still have questions, post them and we'll see what happens. But of course it's your choice. Why? It's not like Popoff would profit from those sales. Besides, many of the albums I haven't listed above get rather low ratings from him.
Thank you blacksabbathrainbow, that sounds quite logical. I was awaiting further reactions, but yours satisfies my needs - and we have to put in some LIFE HERE!!
I thought maybe Popoff's view would simply be dated/emerging from a POV from the late 80ties/early 90ties - but no, the book is from 2011! Well, I agree to disagree with his ratings. With TEI, it's not even a matter of taste, I think that album is really exchangeable with other recordings from that time and bares artistic originality.
Doom let loose, at least my copy has a crappy binding with all the pages falling out. One of these days I need to reglue it. I'm in the midst of Tony's book, which is going fast. There's nothing like getting the info from the horses mouth, an easy read. Popoff spews out about a book a day in scattershot stream of conscience style. I've read a few of his books. The thing is he writes about bands nobody else does, like UFO. I don't take too much stock in what other people think about albums, since often my own liking's go against consensus. When Born Again came out, IMO it was far and away the worst Sabbath album to that point. The albums that followed were mostly too heavy metal for my taste. I do have them all though, because I'm like that.
So, um, HI!! So, I listened to Dehumanizer for the first time ever today. I really like it. I'm wondering what were the circumstances surrounding the making of it. Why did Ronnie get back with Sabbath after what, 10 years?
Without knowing any specifics, the careers of both Dio and BS were on a downswing. Reuniting would bring bigger paychecks to everybody. For my taste, Dehumanizer was the best album by Black Sabbath since Mob Rules.
I know he wouldn't profit from sales. I'm simply suggesting he wanted fans of the Ozzy years to give those albums a spin. Many people respect his opinion.
Maybe. Though I still think that he wouldn't do that if he didn't in fact particularly like those albums. Again, his ratings for Dehumanizer and most of the Martin-era albums are quite bad. From Tony's book, he's talking 1990: "Geezer came to the show at the Hammersmith Odeon and we got him up to do ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Children Of The Grave’. It was the first time we played together since Live Aid, five years earlier. The reaction from the fans was great. I think whenever somebody from the original line-up gets up, they love it. I know I certainly enjoyed it." It is true that Geezer joined Sabbath on stage at Hammersmith during the TYR tour, it was 8 September 1990. However, the song he played on was "Black Sabbath". At the same show, Brian May starred playing 2nd guitar on "Heaven and Hell" and "Paranoid". A bootleg (audience) recording exists from that show. Black Sabbath Setlist at Hammersmith Odeon, London Black Sabbath - Ragnarok Continues Tony: "In December 1990, after the final dates of the TYR tour, Geezer came back. He had enjoyed getting up on stage with us at the Hammersmith Odeon in September. Neil Murray said at the time that he thought it was really good when Geezer played. Neil was the sort of person who would go: ‘You should try it again with Geezer.’ We did, Geezer came back and Neil was never vindictive about it. After Ronnie departed back in 1982, we didn’t speak for many years. It wasn’t like there was a lot of bad blood, but it was just a little uncomfortable. And he and Vinny were off doing the Dio stuff and they were doing quite well with it, so it was highly unlikely that we were going to team up again. But one day Geezer got on stage at one of Ronnie’s shows and played on ‘Neon Knights’ with them. They hadn’t seen each other for ages and really got on well. Geezer said to me: ‘It was really good. It felt great to play with Ronnie again.’" The Dio solo show where Geezer played Bass on "Neon Knights" was on 28 August 1990 in Minneapolis - the venue, according to one source, was called "The Forum", I haven't double-checked that though. Tony again: "When I saw Ronnie again we started talking about doing a line-up. Vinny wasn’t playing with him any more at the time and Ronnie went: ‘I’ve got a really good drummer, Simon Wright.’ I went: ‘Well, we are thinking of using Cozy.’ That was a bit awkward because Ronnie and Cozy had played in Rainbow together and didn’t really get on that well. Eventually we went with Cozy anyway and started writing for what was to become Dehumanizer. It was a difficult time because we had already rehearsed with Tony Martin, who now had to leave the band. It wasn’t really fair on him. We had made a few great albums with Tony, but everybody was excited about the idea of getting Ronnie back, certainly the people at the record company and our managements as well. In a way we got the old line-up back, except for the fact that we now had Cozy on drums. But it was just awful. There was real friction between our singer and our drummer. Ronnie wasn’t mad about having Cozy in the band and I remember Cozy going: ‘If that little **** says anything to me, I’m going to smash him in the face!’ Ronnie went back to LA and so we brought Tony Martin in and rehearsed a bit with him. Ronnie returned once again, replacing Tony; it was just one big mix-up between these rehearsals. Then Cozy’s horse had a heart attack and fell on him, breaking his hip and knocking him out of action for a long time. If it wasn’t such a horrible thing to say, you could call his accident a blessing in disguise. I loved Cozy and he was a great friend, but you have to have the right combination in a band. We already had enough friction going on with everything anyway, so we needed to have something stable. Getting Vinny back was the obvious answer to all our problems." A large number of demo and session recordings with Cozy on drums, some instrumental and some with Ronnie on vocals, are circulating from that era, scattered over several bootlegs: Black Sabbath - Dehumanizer Rehearsals Black Sabbath - Reincarnation Black Sabbath / Battle Of Gods / 1CD – GiGinJapan If any (pre-)Dehumanizer material was recorded featuring Tony Martin on vocals, it is definitely not in (wider) circulation. Anyway, I admit that none of this really explains why Ronnie agreed to reunite. I believe I read that both Ronnie and Geezer really enjoyed the Dio solo 1990 Minneapolis gig, and then probably this: Further twists and details can be found on Joe Siegler's Sabbath timeline page.
Thanks blacksabbathrainbow, as usual an intense and devoted read! I heard some of those demos and was surprised to hear how little (or just nothing) was changed on the vocal line for "Master Of Insanity" - Dio just sang it less straightforward then Tony did, and I'm even not sure if his take was better or not. "Letters From Earth" and "Computer God" also existed long before he came in... I love an organic approach, meaning songs are built simultaneously by the band members' contribution. With Dehumanizer, I feel much of the material was already more or less finished and then offered to Dio - maybe that's one of the reasons I don't like it very much. Besides, I'm getting pretty tired of all this back and forth with Dio and Cozy and who knows who - my sympathies for Dio are waning! I think the demos reveal the material was absolute top notch, with the boys enjoying themselves and a creative all-time high, really. Maybe it was just a bad choice to get Ronnie back, but I absolutely understand why they did it after Geezer was back. IMHO, Tony, Geezer and Cozy would have faired better with yet another singer, somebody fresh to complement the three veterans - or maybe Rob Halford who just had left Priest? Ah, no, he wanted to be modern and believed (rightfully) in his "Fight" band... hm... So, I really like the source material with Tony, Geezer and Cozy, but the Dehumanizer album just went too wrong for me: Overly gothic production and questionable/weak input from an otherwise legendary leadsinger. Was Dio a spent force? No, his solo-work continued to be good/great for quite some years. But his tenure with Sabbath should have ended in 1982, The "Heaven And Hell" album shows the same unattractive, somehow tired and uninspired slack. To me, the perfect sleeping pill. Yes, I know both albums have their fans, and that's a good thing, I just share my opinion.
Not fair? That's totally screwed up. I guess Martin just didn't have much going on but that's a messed up way to treat someone. I haven't listened to anything of the time with him, that I remember. Was he not very good? They couldn't have waited and then done a different album with Dio?
If I understand right, Tony makes it sound like they started writing right after Ronnie came back. But in the next sentence says they had already started rehearsing with Martin. From what your saying it seems as though they were pretty much done writing? Lovely world of rock 'n' roll
Question #24 I just purchased a CD of "Legendary Radio Broadcast" or some such title. The title seems really very funny to me. It is just Cal Jam audio, I guess that was played on the radio? Although the sound is not great it's kinda cool. Just curious if anyone knows the history on this?
Well, listening to the demos makes it clear Ronnie only appeared later in the sessions. Like blacksabbathrainbow already pointed out, Cozy and him weren't exactly friends, and Ronnie simply did not come around up until Cozy had to leave because of his "happy accident" (finally, I got to quote Bob Ross! )... Most probably (and quite weird) the band had decided to work with Dio, but Dio didn't want to work with Cozy and didn't appear. Left to themselves, the trio started writing, and at some point even Tony Martin came in and sang on a few! So, they wrote material of which they thought Ronnie would be singing on, but they didn't write them WITH him...
K, guess I misunderstood the almighty Tony. One thing is clear, Martin was not highly prized. I'd like to hear from him....hmmm.
For me personally I didn't like Cozy's drumming much in Black Sabbath, and IMO Dehumanizer is better for having the vastly underrated Vinny. I also don't like Cozy's drumming with MSG, much prefer Ted Mckenna. I do however like him in Rainbow and with Jeff Beck or the Robert Plant stuff. I recognize his talent but I don't agree with his choices of accents often, and I like Bonham better with one kick than Cozy with 10, though he did some soulful double kick work with Beck. Sabbath should have kept Vinny IMO, Dio or not, unless Ward is able and available. Then you go to Wilk.......loved his work on 13. I haven't picked up the book in a couple days, but I already know of Tony admitting to short changing Martin. That said, I bet the Sabbath gig left him in a much better position financially than he'd of otherwise been. Though he's a talented singer, I don't hear stardom in that voice or even a particularly interesting niche'. Mileage may vary for those with a taste for a somewhat rangy but mostly baritone gothic style voice. Gotta get back to the book. Peace
Tony Martin did a great job but was a bit wooden live, he handled the previous material well in my opinion and was short changed by the Sabbath machine...
I think we should avoid jumping to conclusions here. What we do know is that both early versions of both Master of Insanity and Computer God date from the 1986 and were originally recorded by the Geezer Butler Band in circa 1986, feat. Carl Sentance on vocals. Those two demos have been widely circulating for years. The singing and vocals on CG are entirely different from the final version; the MOR version is more similar to what ended up on Dehumanizer, but still different. What's most interesting about both demos for me is that they show those two songs weren't written by Tony Iommi. Other than that, much is unclear, especially regarding the chronology and points of time and the duration of each phase of writing, rehearsing and recording during the early 1990ies. First of all, I have never in my life met anybody who explicitly said to me: "I have listened to the Dehumanizer demos feat. Tony Martin, and they sound such and such...", not even among the most renowned collectors I know. It is not even clear if those ominous demos are from the earlier time period before Ronnie was involved at all, or from the later period when he had temporarily left. So it is impossible to know how evolved the songs were at that point (or those points). The recordings that are widely available either feature no singer at all, or do feature Ronnie on vocals, or are actually from the Geezer Butler Band (see above). As to the ones feat. Ronnie, I have no idea if those were recorded before Ronnie temporarily left or after he came back. Similarly, the ones without a singer could have been recorded before Ronnie was ever involved, or when he had temporarily left. Even the accounts we do have of what happened and in which chronology (from Popoff, Siegler, Tony himself and others) may easily be false or misleading in some respects or others. We need more details to determine what this is: exact title and tracklist would be great. Or simply post pictures? My advice is to rather not buy such stuff without knowing what it is. This is clearly a bootleg. There are literally thousands of Black Sabbath bootlegs floating around. If you are interested in a specific recording that is contained on any of them, write me a message, and I will very likely be able to send you the best-sounding copy in circulation of the respective recording (for free, of course, and thus without giving money to bootleggers). Or, if you really want to buy something, post pictures and info first, so we can discuss what it is and if it is worth buying. (Of course you do what you like to do, I won't stop you; just trying to save you some money I'd rather see you spend on official, authorized releases or whatever else enriches your life.) Yeah, we talked about this before: the ways how Sabbath, and most importantly Tony Iommi, treated Tony Martin were disrespectful in a number of ways. We certainly won't reach a consensus on this forum (or elsewhere) regarding Tony Martin's qualities as a singer and frontman. Most people seem to agree that Tony Martin was technically an OK, very good, or excellent singer before his voice got shot. (Like many others, he's still doing good in studio today, but live, ooooh, that's a different matter. Nowadays he often makes use of backup singers or playback. IIRC, Ozzy used a backup singer live as well at least sometime in the 1990ies). Some dislike his voice though, or believe that it is too generic, or otherwise not suitable, for Sabbath. And some complain that he lacks charisma. If you want to make up your own mind, just search "sabbath tony martin" or something similar on Youtube and check it out. Whatever one thinks about Tony Martin's singing or character, it will certainly not justify the ways that he was treated by Iommi & Co.
I was curious on the comments about demo's of tracks with Martin and searched You Tube, but no real luck. Certainly nothing to back up the comments. I have a bunch of boots myself, but mostly the well thought of commonly circulating stuff Asbury Park/Cal Jam and the like. I may send you a PM some time, but I'd want to give postage. I've bought a few things from Amazon Germany and discogs from Germany and found shipping to be reasonable, though I'm not sure if it's true in the reverse.
