Musical Memory Lane

To say I'm a musical fanatic would be something of an understatement. To combine that with an obsessive compulsive disorder means that at least I have the most meticulously tagged and organized MP3 collection of anyone I know. The addition of my penchant for software engineering means that my design for the ultimate "Emotion Jukebox" will one day revolutionize shuffle playlists as we know it.  However, adding in my megalomania means that, like my 200 other hair-brained ideas in the works, it will probably be after I die and someone discovers my hard drive full of cryptic UML use-cases for "NeoPlayer 3.0"

For me, the musical obsession started with Black Sabbath, the band that single-handedly got me through my teenage years. At age 13 I had the complete catalog (on vinyl no less), a room decked out with all of the posters, a cheesy "Live Evil" painters hat I wore constantly along with (as this was the era of Olivia Newton John getting physical) my obligatory Black Sabbath sweat bands. All of this stuff I still have in the basement somewhere, I'll have to dig it up. That music was my coming of age, my break from my Father's (albiet excellent) musical tastes, and the fist expression of my own originality. See, I was living in the bible belt of Mississippi at the time, where we still had regular book burnings, and where playing Van Halen's "Runnin' with the Devil" was usually enough to get you sent off to *gasp* French Camp for a "moral adjustment."  There just weren't any Sab fans.  Oh, sure, a few Ozzy fans, but no Sab fans. How I avoided being sent off, I have no idea, other than my parents were of this century, and I probably looked waaaay too geeky in a painters cap and sweat bands to actually be considered frightening or anything.

As I grew older, and my musical tasted broadened, I always kept a soft spot for the boys and never waivered in my loyalty, meticulously purchasing every album and bootleg I could find. I've even got the David Donato issue of Kerrang! sealed in a mylar bag, though the centerfold is detached as it hung on my wall through most of my high school years. In college, I developed what I call "The Black Sabbath Weekend," a ritual performed after every bad relationship breaks up. It involves one gallon of Jim Beam, four packs of cigarettes (or other smokable items), one large pizza from Pizza Express (I've tried, it doesn't work with GOOD pizza; It's gotta be the cheap stuff), and one black light. Step 1: Queue up the entire Sab catalog in chronological order. Step 2: You'll figure it out. I found it very cleansing, and it usually did the trick. 

Best part of the ritual, was that the boys almost always seemed to release a new album just in time for me to get dumped, which pretty much associates each album with a particular girl. "Eternal Idol" was Staci; "Dehumanizer" was Lisa; and we won't even get in to the whole "Forbidden" era. (Weird time for both me and the band.)

So, knowing all that, you can imagine how excited I was to see that (16 years after Dehumanizer), both Lisa and I have reunited the same year as the Dio/Appice lineup ... a little wiser, and better than ever. How creepy is that? Only this time, Lisa's last name is "Snider" and Sab's name is now "Heaven and Hell" (which actually must really irk Gregg and Mia, who already had a band by that name). This is actually a pretty natural idea, though, especially after all those years of arguing that you can't say "Ozzy Sab" is better than "Dio Sab" (or vice versa) because they're completely different feels and completely different bands ... Plus it negates the very-important and underrated Tony Martin era, which is also dear to my heart ... Not to mention Born Again, which I maintain is among their best albums. Which actually brings up another question: Can we get a Bobby Rondinelli/Tony Martin lineup back together and call it "Cross Purposes" or something?

	File Under:	Music
	Current Mood:	Nostalgic
	Listening To:	Black Sabbath: The Dio Years Click Image to Buy Album Click Here for More Essential Listening