Why would anybody want to form a Black Sabbath
tribute band?Well for number one, they
are without question the first and purest Hard Rock / Metal band ever
to press some vinyl, cross the stage, mix it up, so on and so on………
Number one I tell you. I've heard that some might call Blue Cheer the
first to get real heavy and distorted. Or maybe Iron Butterfly but
almost 40 years later, Tony Iommi and crew are still jammin' it out
and upholding the name that they made for themselves before many of
their fans were born.
I can still remember listening to my first
piece of vinyl from Black Sabbath. It was Christmas Day 1981. I'd
gotten Black Sabbath's Greatest Hits as a present form my mom. It was
the one with the painting by Jan "Velvet" Brueghel of the "The triumph
of Death". That was the wickedest of album covers. And here I was
listening to the cries of a tortured soul expressing his pain before
being cast into the everlasting inferno on the day when I was supposed
to be celebrating the birth of Christ. I was horrified!
And it's never worn off.
So they were my first influence in music.
But not just mine. Many could say the same thing. In terms of the
culture of music, they created a turning point in what was possible.
Their music defined a moment in musical history that will last forever
in the memories of anybody that is concerned in the culture that was
formed by the music that we humans create.
So this is where I find myself, many years
later. I'm walking through the Field Museum in Chicago just getting
into all the neat stuff. Stuffed animals. Bones. Rocks.
Treasures. Dinosaurs!! Egyptian relics. Always my favorite. There
ain't nothing like a cheap piece of wood with some simple line
carvings and a little dye to make a priceless treasure. It's so
mysterious to stare at a 6,000-year-old trinket and imagine the hands
that created it all those years ago. The simplicity and the complex
care that those pieces display always stirs me beyond words.
As I walked through this wonderful building,
there were many displays of human culture that somebody thought
intriguing enough to fill an entire hall with displays that expounded
on the culture that spawned those works. Some of them were totally
un-inspiring to me. I started to consider what culture is inspiring
to me. Surely Egyptian was one of them. Native American. Aztec.
The list goes on. But there was music in some of these un-inspiring
displays that actually did the opposite of creating inspiration for
culture or art. There was no pride for the in these works that cried,
"We are humans and this is the music that we make". Ewwww!
As I wandered out of one of these not so
great halls back into the central hall I just felt so refreshed and
enlighten. Sue the dinosaur was smiling at me. There were a few
elephants playing in the grass and 50 foot tall totem poles from God
knows where all in the great white marble stone hall. It was just so
awe-inspiring. I was having an epiphany. And what did I hear in my
head? Black Sabbath music ringing through the hall and the sweet
natural reverb trailing behind every note and every word and every
beat.
That is something that inspires me. Where
was the tribute to that culture? Some say it's a sub culture and not
worth preserving. I belong to part of that sub culture. Who's to say
what is worth preserving and not preserving?
I've heard so often that many artists were
misunderstood during their time. Scoffed at and ridiculed. It was
not until many years later that the genius of their works was really
appreciated.
So as I listen to Radio Cranium I just added
my own narration to the music. It was my own tour through the
museum. The place just got that much cooler.
Yah the Field! I need to go back there and
see if I hear any Hendrix next time.
A few days pass and back in my home stomping
ground I find myself walking through a Best Buy store shopping for
something. I just don't remember what. But part way though my
shopping excursion I heard a watered down version of War Pigs by Black
Sabbath playing someplace in the store. I walk around a display or
two trying to find out where this song is coming from and in the video
game area I see a couple of teen-agers playing Guitar Hero and jammin'
they's asses off to War Pigs. (Hears Heavy RIFF In My HEAD! DA-DA-DAAaa—Daaaa__~~wiaow~~__DUH-dA!)
A crowd had formed. Kids. Adults… Parents! How dare they? War Pigs
had reached the acceptable mainstream. What do you expect with a
warmonger Tehas Republican shrub in El Casa Blanca? Who said that?
That is when I decided it was time to start a
Black Sabbath Tribute Band.
