N.I.B.

Way back in 1987, I was one of the fortunate sons of bitches to attend the Black Sabbath concert at Sun City. Fortunate, because every metal head in South Africa must have been jockeying to be there for one of the 6 shows, an SOB since I really should have boycotted the event as it was held in defiance of Artists United Against Apartheid.

But hey, I was young and dammit, it was freakin’ Black Sabbath. If you really wanna hate me, console yourself with the fact that Ozzy Osbourne was not part of the line-up, and that N.I.B. which is one of my all-time favorite songs did not make it onto the set list for the Sun City gig. And at the time I was being payed a pittance, and the trip up North to Sun City damn near bankrupted me.

Ozzy Osbourne (for me) was eponymous with Black Sabbath; their best stuff (for me) features Ozzy on vocals. Although Tony Iommi on guitars remained a constant force, without Ozzy, the band was never the same (for me).

I would dearly love to see them again in South Africa, this time with the original members. So play nice guys, and how about that reunion here in sunny South Africa? You don’t have to play dingy Sun City again, as we have some really huge stadiums standing more or less idle after the Soccer World Cup.

Sabbath/Zeppelin mashup

mashup (noun) – a mixture or fusion of disparate elements. In the case of music, a mashup is a song or composition created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumental track of another. [Google/Wikipedia]

I’ve never been overly fond of mash-ups, but when it works well, it can sound awesome. Like this for instance:

This mashup is hardly the fusion of disparate elements; more like the marriage of the love-children of rock/metal gods. Combining the genius of Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant is well… genius.

War Pigs by Black Sabbath has always made it into someone’s Top 40 best Heavy Metal songs of all time. Guitar World actually rates it as the best Heavy Metal song, ever.

Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin also features prominently in the rankings of Best Hard Rock or Best Guitar Tracks. VH1 rated it the third best Hard Rock song of all time.

Now I’m off to look, but I doubt I’ll find anything as good as this…