LIVE AT LAST ALBUM
-On the back of the CD, it says "All tracks published by Westminster Music, Ltd. 1970 & composed by Iommi, Ward, Butler, Osbourne except track 3 by Black Sabbath." The date, 1970, has to be wrong because on the recording, right before "Snowblind", Ozzy says that they are going to play a song off their "Volume 4" album (released in 1972.) I also assume that the reason track 3 ("Killing Yourself to Live") was listed as produced by Sabbath is either because the lyrics differ from the recorded version or the recording is from right after "Volume 4" was released, which means that "Killing Yourself to Live" wasn't even published yet. -"Live at Last" , if I get it right from the repackaged edition, was recorded in 1973 and I quote "Recorded live in Manchester and at The Rainbow, London". The live version of "Killing yourself to live" from "live at last" was recorded before the song was released on "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath". The album was originally released on NEMS, it was later released by Castle.
The album cover is normally a satelite over the surface of the moon.
The recordings are
Sun 03-11-1973 Manchester (Hard Rock) tracks 1-5
Fri 03-16-1973 London (The Rainbow) tracks 6-9
Source: Necromancer - Orexis of Death with Black Sabbath tour poster inner sleeve.
THE ARTWORK
"I never thought of the artwork being named before, does anyone know if the
other covers have names etc Also on the subject of cover artwork, do any of
the covers share the same artists?"
The first three albums all had some artwork by Marcus Keef.
BLACK SABBATH - The Witch cover picture.
PARANOID - The War Pig cover picture.
MASTER OF REALITY - The "bonus" Poster which was dropped from later pressings.
Keef employed false colour landscape photography.
Keef's other legendary LP covers include those by Affinity, Zior, Beggar's Opera, Robin Lent and Assagai.
MASTER OF REALITY and VOL 4 covers were both done by The Bloomsbury Group.
Album cover of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
The Painting
The album cover for "SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH" is entitled "The Rape of Christ" -
It was painted by Drew Struzen who later painted the movie ad painting for the original Star Wars.
Many points and opinions from the news letter about the album cover (including Ozzy's comments):
"The front of the cover represents a man dying on his deathbed," explained Ozzy. "there are all these distorted figures bending over him and gloating as he lies there. These figures are actually him at different stages of his life. He's a man of greed, a man who's wanted everything all his life and done all this evil stuff. But flip the album over, and the back represents the good side of life. The person dying on the bed has been really good to people. He's got all these beautiful people crying over him as he's dying. At the bottom of the bed, he has two tame lions guarding him. All in all, this represents the good and bad of everything." - Ozzy on Circus Raves, January 1974
The following points are extracted from the news letter:
-This cover was done by Drew Struzan for Pacific Eye and Ear. Drew Struzen was a movie release poster artist. -According to a list member, the reverse side of the cover represents the awakening after the nightmare. -According to another, it's the two sides of the story.the front is the man's point of view, he's being tormented by demons. Meanwhile, the back is the point of view of his loved ones, who are the ones unconsciously tormenting him (it could be pro-euthanasia, but that's very unlikely due to the year) -On the back of the first poster it said that the man was awakening. -Maybe the man on the back has just recovered from a serious illness. -Maybe the man on the back is already dead or is going to die, which is why a woman turns her face away. -Things are connected between the front and back: *On the front the sexes are opposite from the back. On the front there are only 2 female demons and the rest male. On the back there are only 2 male and the rest are female. *On the back are two lions which become two rats on the front *Unsure how the snake ties into the back. * the clawed talons on the front could be interpreted 2 ways. One so strong they are making scoops in metal balls. Two, they are ripping into flesh. -Both front and back are escaping into and out of the frame for an attempt at a three dimensional look.
Interesting version of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath:
I saw an original press in a collector's shop with a gatefold sleeve!It had a photo of the band standing in an old study or library,yet they were somewhat transparent,like apparitions or ghosts haunting the place!
note: The Castle remasters contain the original artwork mentioned here.
-I don't own the original album, but SBS CD by Castle (1986) has a three-piece folding cover with the demonic image in front, peaceful image in back and the picture described in the fold.
- I picked up an import copy of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath about 15 years ago and it has the mentioned. The album is on the NEMS label, based out of London -You can get that on the Japanese remaster of SBS. The cover is however more reddish in appearance than the Warner Brothers which is more yellowish -There's a copy that opens and shows them standing in a room looking very transparent. The inside gatefold is a picture of the band superimposed on a picture of a large bedroom. the room is dominated by a large four-poster bed, with a bookcase to the left. -for those who haven't already lost interest, it is an English pressing (although i bought it in south africa, in 1974.) on the WWA label catalogue number WWA 005. They are in what appears to be an "18th" century bedroom. All the band member faces are covered by their arms crossed below their noses, except Ozzy. They are "transparent" or ghostly in appearance. The curtains at the head of the bed are open, with bright "sun" light coming through. On the left wall is a picture, maybe a 16th century, apparently a family or religious (more than likely religious). A lyric sheet was included with the record in the original release. On an album's inner sleeve, the credits are as follows: Tony plays flute and organ on Looking For Today, piano on Sabbra Cadabra and bagpipes on Spiral Architect. Geezer is credited with mellotron on Who Are You. Beside the orchestra on Spiral Architect, the only credited guest is Rick Wakeman, who plays piano and synthesizer on Sabbra Cadabra.
SABOTAGE artwork was conceived by Graham Wright and directed by Cream.
GREATEST HITS painting was by Bruegel and entitled "Triumph of Death" and very much like a Hienronymous Bosch painting.
TECHNICAL ECTASCY by Hypnosis, a painting of two robots screwing.
NEVER SAY DIE was also done by Hypnosis the company who was did the famous Pink Floyd album covers (excluding The Wall). The characters on the cover of Never Say Die
The 2 characters on the cover of Never Say Die
Fighter pilots -Two US airforce airmen standing around their craft,looking rather alien and sinister,in their full gear, going off to,or coming back from,war....with ghostly images of the fallen faintly visible in the sky -Ghosts, pilots who were shot dead at the war and whose spirits remain inside the machine - The pilots are either dead or not even in the suits, but the suits are still carrying on without them - Additionally the suits are of the chemical/bio hazard protection type which is also the the indicated weapon of the plane. What about the hidden images in the background? Are these images related to the album? I saw a child, and I think a grim reaper and some people. The grim reaper is on the front above the airman in yellow and is looking toward the title. There is something behind the reaper with more detail. There appear to be three to four more of these type images on the back cover. Two other interesting tidbits of information: - Sabbath were given a choice of the existing Never Say Die cover of the pilots and another choice of surgeons looking at the camera (as if the camera were a patient) The members took the plane cover, and the other cover wound up being used years later by Rainbow, on the Difficult to Cure album -The album cover art for Never Say Die! was done by Hipgnosis, the same group that did the cover art for the Led Zeppelin album "Presence," several Pink Floyd albums, and several UFO albums (among others).
HEAVEN AND HELL
Cover illustration by Lynn Curlee. Liner Illustration by Harry Carmean.
MOB RULES
Illustration: Greg Hildebrandt.
Art direction: Richard Seireeni.
Apparently it contains Satan's head in the middle and a text that says "Kill Ozzy" (supposedly, the word "Kill" can be found below the bloody sheet and "Ozzy" a little bit on the right from the sheet, below the two guys. By the way, the devil's face painted on the bloody sheets resembles Murray, the creature from Dio album covers. According to Ronnie, it is not intentional, Murray is Ronnie's and Wendy's creation.
Joe Siegler may still have a web page up about this subject.
Album cover of LIVE EVIL
Album cover concept by Paul Clark.
Art direction and design Jay Vigon.
Illustration by Stan Watts.
Photography by Mark Weiss, Pat Harbron.
It portraits the characters mentioned in their greatest songs.
BORN AGAIN
Cover design and artwork: Steve Joule.
Artwork assistant: Steve Barrett.
About the cover, Ian Gillan saw it and puked.
The Seventh Star
Art Direction/design Steve J. Gerdes. Photography by Kevin Stapleton. The original wood engraving was by Albrecht Durer.
THE ETERNAL IDOL
Art direction and design Shoot The Tiger Photography by Cindy Palmano. Based on the sculpture by Rodin of the same name.
HEADLESS CROSS
Cover design and drawings by Kevin Wimlett
TYR
Artwork/design: Satori. Photography: Andie Airfix
DEHUMANIZER
Cover illustration: Wil Rees.
Photography: Mark "Weissguy" Weiss.
CROSS PURPOSES
Design: Matt Curtis.
Photography: Peter Mountain.
FORBIDDEN
Illustration by: Paul Sample.
REUNION
Cover design and Photo Illustration: Glenn Wexler.
E5150 is just about the full version, Mob Rules is played maybe about 30 seconds.
However, on the soundtrack there is different version of Mob Rules song than what can be heard on Mob Rules album.
The song E5150 plays about one minute. "The Mob Rules" just about 45 seconds. But E5150 is not part of the soundtrack.
There also exists a "fake" cartoon about Black Sabbath that was run on the Comedy channel and picked up by Saturday Night Live TV Funhouse spot. The cartoon starts by showing the date 1974, but the cartoon itself wasn't made until the mid 1990s. The title is THE BLACK SABBATH SHOW with DOOM DOOM. The cartoon is quite funny. The voice overs do a great job of emulating the Sab Four except for the Bill Ward voice over which they used for an old cliche' cartoon joke.
Tony Iommi's Guitar
In 1996 Iommi : Now I've got an Eggle guitar. It's a different sort of design. I've been in the factory working to get the shape and feel right. It will be called the Iommi Legend. I wanted them to do an SG originally. We came up with more of a contoured and bigger body so it's similar to a Paul Reed Smith, I suppose. I've got my own JD pickups, which are going to be put on the production model as well.
The pickups specially wound for Tony by John Birch were finally duplicated successfully by Gibson
after being approached by Tony at the 1996 International Music Fair (Musik Messe) in Frankfurt.
They are Gibson pick-ups with the "Patent Applied For" decal and were originally available at
Authorized Gibson Dealers for $145.95 USD (I don't know how much they cost now).
The price of the pickups in 1999 range from $189.99 U.S. List to $94.99 U.S. special Sale price, with $145.95 being the average price as stated.
The pickups are fully wax-potted against feedback, have a four-conductor lead for all wiring variations,
have a closed chrome cover, were backed by
Gibson's Limited Lifetime Warranty and 60 day "Guaranteed Gibson Quality" exchange program.
FEB 1999 Gibson to come out with Tony Iommi model SG
See http://www.iommi.com for more info.
THE SONG "BLACK SABBATH" LYRICS
In the magazine Seconds, Geezer said " Ozzy came up with those lyrics about some of the experiences that I'd had.I'd sort of dabbled in Black Magic, not practicing it, but I was interested in it. All these horrible things kept happening to me-- a lot of my aunts and uncles started dying and I was seeing all these bloody things visiting me during the night. I told Ozzy about all that and he wrote those lyrics as a warning about Satanism." (Seconds, #39, pg 63-64)
It was also mentioned that Bill Ward helped Ozzy write Black Sabbath. (no source)
Ozzy's first song he wrote by himself was Who Are You?. He also wrote Am I Going Insane?. Ozzy was responsible for the majority of the melody lines of the songs. Tony Iommi wrote the song After Forever as credited on the MASTER OF REALITY album, though most Sabbath transcriptions credit all four of the original members.
TONY IOMMI'S GUITAR COLUMN
Tony Iommi has a regular column in Guitar World, starting with the latest issue, August 1997 (with Foo Fighters on the cover). In the first installment, he explained about his fingers, and then the proper way to play the intro riff to "Paranoid," emphasizing that it is played at the 12th fret, not the 7th.
MOB RULES
Iommi said in an interview about Sabbath's albums that the band and the producer
(Birch again) were all heavily into drugs during the recording of this album and the mix suffered as a result.
BLACK SABBATH - THE MOVIE
I Tre Volti Della Paura (1964)
A classic horror thriller comprised of three separate tales. Karloff hosts the program.
Director
Mario Bava (most famous for the movie Black Sunday(1961))
Black Sunday was also renamed Black Sabbath in some places,
so there were actually two different movies by this name by the same director.
Star
Boris Karloff (famous horror actor from the 30's to the 60's)-- as himself, introducing three separate stories
Mark Damon
Suzy Anderson
Featured
Jacqueline Pierruex
Star
Michele Mercier
1964 I Tre Volti Della Paura (US title Black Sabbath) (Italian)
- The Drop of Water -
- The Telephone -
- The Wurdalaks -
, and as the vampire Gorca in "The Wurdalak" segment
1964 horror film with Boris Karloff was a trilogy, each story lasted about half an hour. At the very beginning of the the film,Karloff says "welcome to Black Sabbath",in his typically sinister voice.
CHILDREN OF THE GRAVE PERCUSSIONS
The percussion sound that plays for most of the main riff that sounds like someone hitting the lid of a trash can with a stick are Timbales according to Bill Ward on page 62 of Rosen's book.
DOES GEEZER USE A PICK OR HIS FINGERS?
He used his fingers, most of the time. Exceptions include "Children of the Grave", and the finish of "Iron Man", when he grabs a pick to do the fast part. More recently, such as on Cross Purposes and on his G//Z/R work, he's used a pick. (personal note: I'll have to watch when I see them this Tuesday to see if Geezer is using a pick on the Reunion Tour.) [from the newsletter]
The bassist Terry Butler who has been part of Florida-based death metal bands like Six Feet Under, Massacre and the "super group" Death, is NOT Geezer.
"The Rebel" and "Song For Jim" are a couple of ultra-rare 1969 songs from the days of when the band was called Earth, the latter song being named after their manager Jim Simpson. You can hear a short snippet of "The Rebel" on the Black Sabbath Story Volume I video (personal note: did I get these last couple sentences right? I haven't watched the video in a while). Conventional wisdom is that the Sab Four, Pete Sarfas and Jim Simpson are the only ones with copies of these songs. The other "Holy Grail" of Black Sabbath material is the "Black Zeppelin" jam, a supposed recording of members of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath playing together (which did happen - they were friends with each other, especially Bill Ward and John Bonham). This recording can't be found in trading circles either, if it even exists at all. One more bit of "legendary" recordings are demos with Dave Walker during his short time with the band in late 1977-early '78. According to Bill Ward if there are any of these in existence, Spock Wall would have them.
WHO'S THE WITCH ON THE BLACK SABBATH ALBUM COVER?
It's an unknown woman. It is not Ozzy, and there's no evidence that it's Bill Ward's first wife in front of their cottage as some have also claimed. According to Pete Sarfas, she was an actor who was hired for the photos. After the album had been released she met the band. There was supposedly an interesting story about her, but the Black Sabbath Appreciation Society folded before that story made it to print. There is no information on who the person who was on the Paranoid album cover.
There are images in the clouds on Never Say Die.There's a devil's face on the cloth in the middle of the "Mob Rules" cover. - he lightning forms a horned head on the "Live Evil" cover. Geezer has confirmed that the "Mob Rules" cover is a satanic inversion of the Shroud of Turin. He said he doesn't know anything about the hidden "Ozzy" word in there. (Benjamin de Waal - dewaal@mail.dds.nl) - on the back cover of "Live Evil", the astrological sign of the Southern Cross can be seen in the sky. - There appears to be the word "Ozzy" on the "Mob Rules" cover along the bottom near the right-hand corner [You might be able to see this on Joe Siegler's web page.)
GEEZER'S BASS GUITAR
At this point he is using a french made Vigier bass (they play wonderfully).
I believe he has an excess model as well as a passion. Early pictures show Geezer playing a Fender with Tony playing a white three pickup SG Custom.
The clear plastic bass pictured in Volume 4 insert is supposed to be an Armstrong.
The striped bass Geezer used in 1978 looks like a Gibson but has cross inlays so
it must be a specially built one, possibly by John Birch.
The News Group alt.music.black-sabbath?
With a news reader you can subscribe to alt.music.black-sabbath and read what other fans have to say or after lurking you may feel up to posting a message of your own. See BSNG Did You Know? (FAQAD.HTM) for more info.
Other news groups of interest:
alt.music.dio
alt.music.ozzy
BLACK SABBATH FAN CLUB DEUTSCHLAND
The german BLACK SABBATH Fan Club active since april 1994 with official
permission and support by the band management. A fanzine called "Children
Of The SABBATH" is send to a member about 5-7 times per year. Also you
can get official BLACK SABBATH live photos and the newest information
about the band. Everything is in German! Now available in English. For a
complete info paper send stamped and self-addressed envelop or 2 I.R.C.s to:
BLACK SABBATH Fan Club Deutschland
c/o Alexander Rack
Postlagernd
14171 Berlin
Germany
Tel/FAX: (+49) (030) 824 67 99
THANKS GOD IT'S SABBATH
A BLACK SABBATH Fanzine in French language. Only interviews since
issue #5 are printed in French and in English. The 'zine comes in
great size. Volume I (28 pages), Volume II (28 pages), Volume III
(28 p), Volume IV (46 pages), Volume V (40 pages) and Volume VI
(40 pages) are available as back issues. For any details write at:
Thierry Bauwens
5 rue Fernel
80500 Montdidier
FRANCE
BLACK SABBATH MAILING LIST
http://www.black-SABBATH.com/signup.html