I watched this earlier today. I thought it was very well done and made good use of available audio and video to create an interesting narrative about this era of the band that I was largely unaware of. I’d gladly watch more videos from you about other Sabbath albums or Frank Zappa’s most popular albums.
Hey Tim, Your logic on NEMS makes a lot of sense and Meehan getting everything 100% does seem nuts. If I keep buying Sabbath books hopefully I will get the facts in print. I really appreciate you calling this out... Maybe next time I should share the script here and let everyone pick through it before I do the video part. Thanks again for the props!
Well, the story of the Sabs is so convoluted that it may be hard to ever be 100%. I think you did a fantastic job. Truly. Great work! Chris Welch did a book many moons ago that delved into the management stuff quite a bit. Overall the book was "ok" but he really focused on interviews with Jim Simpson, who was clearly still a bit disappointed that he had lost the band in 1970. I think the book came out in the early '80s when Dio and Appice were in the band. So 1982 or so. One thing Simpson pointed out was that he argued with the band a lot about fulfilling contracts made for live appearances before they had a #1 album. Rightly or wrongly, Simpson just would not bend on this issue and felt they should fulfill those obligations and negotiate new contracts for live shows based on where they were not go back on commitments they had already made. The band never quite saw it this way, iirc. If this story was ever told right, I think it'd be 'Godfather'-level stuff for the music biz. Simpson has made amends with the band now and is an important voice in discussing their early history, but for a while when he filed his lawsuit he was living in fear of Meehan's machine of control. In the Welch book he describes it getting to the point where he was getting a bizarre call late one night from an anonymous messenger exclaiming; "You know, they won't kill you." He took that to mean that crossing Meehan and the band may not cause him death, but just about everything else was on the table. The Meehans lured the Sabs away from Simpson. That's the bottom line. And in the end it was the Meehans who royally screwed the Sabs, not Simpson. Don Arden's involvement is just bizarre. That he couldn't get them seems like something he never truly accepted until he finally did get them. Iommi may avoid confrontation but if he gets pissed off, you can forget it. Arden had been exclusively managing them in the late '70s and never agreed with getting rid of Ozzy. When Iommi told him Dio was in the band, Arden completely flipped out and never believed it would work. He didn't see Dio as a front man with star-level potential and Iommi told him where he could stick it. They fired him and then ended up with Sandy Pearlman for a while. Arden was all for Gillan, however, and ended up at the helm again a few years later. What a mess........
Oh Yes! - you need this brilliant album in your life. Original WB cd is one of the best sounding versions.
And it shows. Watched yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. Don't bother too much with all the nitpickers, this place is mad There is a bunch of official and band-endorsed ones with far more egrerious mistakes than this labour of love. Loved the graphics and all the pictures. It was also enlightening to find out that Ozzy was the one had the underpants in the band after all Most importanly it made me play the album again for the first time in a long time and also seek out an original pressing. Keep 'em coming!
Thanks! I'm considering doing the transition years between Ozzy and Dio. But TE would be a good one too.
WOW, Gary Steel!! Thank you so much for the positive comments. Really encourages me to make more. It's all good if someone points out a fact I didn't get right. But man, some of the comments on Youtube made me feel like a complete editing beginner. HAHA but it's all good especially after reading your post. I love that it got you to best out the album again! Cheers!!
My pleasure, man. Played the album twice this afternoon as well. Your fault. And on YouTube it seems people go out of their way to be diques, more often than not. So just ignore them if you can. At least here the critzisms are mostly helpful
Thanks again! I agree it can be very tough to find out actually what happened. If it's coming from the right person, our memories will lie to us. I agree that Jim Simpson really didn't screw over the band as much as he probably was not as good at BSing as Meehan. I tried to contact him on Facebook with no response. (I get it.) You should see Meehan's son on Instagram. If I had to guess he is still living off those stolen dollars from Sabbath. And to me he looks like a douche. Login • Instagram Is this the Chris Welch book you are talking about? https://www.amazon.com/Black-Sabbath-Chris-Welch/dp/0862760151
Caught this a few days ago. Well done. Makes me wonder if you had any rights to the material used. Rarely do I see user produced vids with such good content. Don't worry, I'm not talking.
Thank you! I had zero rights to any of it. I'm also not making any money, but Sabbath does from the music used. About 92.5% of Youtube is technically copyright infringing. Heck, this forum has all kinds of copyright infringements. I'm good with you telling whoever. lol..Thanks for checking it out!!
