For the Record 2: Black Sabbath - Softcover

Marsh, Dave; Stark, Mike

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380793741 ISBN 13: 9780380793747

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 1998

Synopsis

It was only a year after Woodstock when people first started noticing a dark, brooding, overpowering kind of music they'd never heard before. It sounded as if some massive, sinister piece of industrial machinery had somehow been hammered into tune, while a banshee cried out lyrics from the deepest regions of hell. Once this new sound grabbed hold, millions of listeners couldn't get enough, on record and in concert. It quickly came to be known as "heavy metal"--and it was invented by Black Sabbath.

Mike Stark leads you into the studio and on tour with the quintessential British metal band, a primary influence on hundreds of rock groups right up to the present day, from Metallica to Spinal Tap. Here are first-hand accounts from Black Sabbath's four founding members--Bill Ward, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Ozzy Ozbourne--and from other members through the years, including Ronnie James Dio, Rob Halford, Eric Singer, Tony Martin, Cozy Powell, and Neil Murray. In their words, they tell you what it's like to turn up the amps, hit the stage, and power-chord and audience into submission--and a create a brand new kind of rock in the process.

It was only a year after Woodstock when people first started noticing a dark, brooding, overpowering kind of music theyd never heard before. It sounded as if some massive, sinister piece of industrial machinery had somehow been hammered into tune, while a banshee cried out lyrics from the deepest regions of hell. Once this new sound grabbed hold, millions of listeners couldnt get enough, on record and in concert. It quickly came to be known as heavy metal--and it was invented by Black Sabbath.

Mike Stark leads you into the studio and on tour with the quintessential British metal band, a primary influence on hundreds of rock groups right up to the present day, from Metallica to Spinal Tap. Here are first-hand accounts from Black Sabbaths four founding members--Bill Ward, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Ozzy Ozbourne--and from other members through the years, including Ronnie James Dio, Rob Halford, Eric Singer, Tony Martin, Cozy Powell, and Neil Murray. In their words, they tell you what its like to turn up the amps, hit the stage, and power-chord and audience into submission--and a create a brand new kind of rock in the process.

About this title

About the Author

Dave Marsh was a founding editor of Creem and an editor at Rolling Stone, where he created The Rolling Stone Record Guide. He is a music critic at Playboy, publisher of Rock & Rap Confidential, and a prolific author of books about music and pop culture. His Before I Get Old is the definitive biography of The Who, and Glory Days and Born to Run, both about Bruce Springsteen, were bestsellers. He lives in New York and Connecticut.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Critics hated us. Audiences loved us. We were never accepted by the press. We were not accepted by any religious factors anywhere in the world. We had a terrible time. Going to Miami going to Louisiana,

going down to Baton Rouge, trying to get into Corpus Christi, Texas, in the seventies was not an easy task. We had to face the mayor of the town. We were banned all the time. They were afraid of us. They really thought we were going to put a spell on you.

I know that sometimes in our music it was loud and there was profanity, and there was violence, too, onstage violence. Often I would become violent onstage. It's not an unusual phenomenon where I would literally pick up my drums and throw them at the audience. That's audience participation, I guess. But back then, it was just that the band was just extremely turbulent. So we had to do a lot of trailblazing and take a lot of heat.

A lot of other bands were going in but they were safe. It was safe. Zeppelin was safe. And I love Zeppelin. I mean, it's not a put-down. But the mayors in the towns, man, would come out and meet us. "You're not playing in this town. Period." We'd have to confront forty or fifty cops or something, man. All these places now you can go. In Corpus Christi today, you can go there. Heavy metal and punk and everything. There's a wonderful selection of music now, but twenty odd years ago these were tough territories.

Copyright ) 1998 by Mike Stark

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0380793741
• ISBN 13: 9780380793747
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 128