The Last Bass Outpost

We don't listen to much, but Julie likes to watch some of the concert footage on channels like AXS.  We just watched Shania Twain, and I was just amazed at the intro for "Feel Like A Woman".   Sounds like Mutt has some input.   Just wow.  And yes, I know what song that really is.   

Robbie has always been a sensible man. And for all the tattoos, sartorial flamboyance und alternative lifestyle: very, very British "keep calm und carry on".

I always liked the fact that the minute he gets off stage, he has the air of a Birmingham grammar school teacher to him.

I interviewed him when I was writing for the music paper.   Two things I noticed about him:

• He never EVER stammers or hesitates when he speaks.  He is really articulate, and knows exactly what he wants to say.  No "umm" or  getting stuck in a phrase.
  
• When he turns his back on the audience in a show, he makes funny faces at the rest of the band.

I like it !   

Black Sabbath's perception has changed greatly over the decades. Back in the 70ies, they weren't really seen as a band with a musical contribution, more as a one hit wonder (Paranoid) with a mad singer you couldn't take entirely serious. That only changed a little with Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (the album), their most orchestral and arranged work (Vol. IV already indicated that direction). Soon after though, Punk happened and Sabbath and their sluggish riffs (no doubt an art, but not valued as one back then) were dubbed dinosaurs. When Ozzy left/was fired (after the Dave Walker intermezzo), they were viewed as a spent force that had seen its ass kicked by an upstart opening act named Van Halen (with a very nimble guitarist who had all digits intact) on the European tour.

Even during the Dio years - musically nothing to be ashamed of -, they were still smiled upon, Ronnie's lyrical sword & sorcery obsession never endeared him to critics. Gillan joining (and I think Born Again is one of the best albums Gillan has sung on outside his Deep Purple canon, I also think that this album and its production - derided at the time, a sonic classic by today's standards - was an unsung trigger for Grunge music as a whole) was viewed as a hilarious move spawned by and in drunken stupor (well, it actually was!  ).



After that, with constantly changing line-ups, it was diminishing returns, though not without highlights.





It was only the advent of Grunge - not the LA glam hard rock before which patterned itself more after Led Zep and Aerosmith - that led to a lasting re-appreciation of Sabbath and a reinstatement of theirs into the "holy trinity" of Brit heavy rock that is Led Zep, Purple and the Sabs. I remember my surprise when all these Grungies all of the sudden voiced admiration for Sabbath's music (and not just Ozzy's showmanship) come the 90ies. Before that, mention of Black Sabbath was invariably always tied to some joke on them, even in metal mags. Now, the sheer physical necessity of a handicapped guitarist (and closet Joe Pass fan) to downtune co-led to a new musical movement. Life writes the most amazing stories.

I liked Born Again, and got to interview Ian Gillan on the tour with them.  Bev Bevan was on drums.  I always refer to Born Again as one of the most oppressive and brutal albums, soundwise, and that isn't a complaint.

So.....

Peggy has apparently never had a need for either knowing about, or using, a dildo.

Her customers, however....