MFL (part 1. in a series)

I had a friend named Steve Martin. Even though he wasn't that guy, we used to call him The Jerk sometimes just for fun anyway.
He used to refer to the National Football League as the MFL.  Everybody on Madden was a "Ma' Fuck" in those days (we were too lazy to even finish our curses), so we re-named the NFL accordingly.
I'm going to steal that title for my super important, smart-assed take on things happening around the MFL.
Sort of like Jim Rome, but good and in English.

Before I start let me just say that, without question, tomorrow is one of the best days of the year.  Willie D started referring to opening Sunday as "Christmas" a years back and I had to smile yesterday when I read Fred Taylor say the same thing.

Without further ado-

1. Why is Titans coach Jeff Fisher considered, unquestioningly, by reporters and ESPN types to be a "GREAT" coach? 
As I keep doing this I hope certain themes start to emerge and coalesce and one of those will be my attempt to discern why and how certain trains of thought- ie."Jeff Fisher is a genius and one of the GREAT coaches in the league today"-solidify into so-called "conventional wisdom" and thus never again examined or challenged.  I've been wondering this about Jeff Fisher and his porn star moustache for years, but this past week Skip Bayless pushed me over the edge.  Bayless was 'debating' Newsday's Bob Glauber on ESPN's First Take (yes, I actually watch that crap) and he picked the Titans to go to the Super Bowl, saying "Jeff Fisher, and I think you'll agree with me, is still one of the 2 or 3 best coaches in the league, is he not?" And Glauber, to his eternal credit, looked stunned and incredulous before replying "No, I don't agree with that at all," an exasperated crack in his voice.  Glauber is one of the lone voices in the wilderness on this issue, strangely immune to the shopworn 'Fisher is a GREAT coach' narrative. When New England pummeled Tennessee last year in the snow 59-0 and whispers started to surface regarding Fisher's job security, Mike Golic and others tripped over themselves to see who could sing his praises the loudest and scream about what a huge mistake it would be for the Titans to make such a move.  In that specific game, the Titans were so unprepared, so outcoached, and outclassed it was as embarrassing a loss as I've ever seen. It looked somebody told them they didn't really have to run their normal offense or actually make tackles in the snow.  Yet the pundits reacted, instinctively, like any questions about his job were ludicrous and out of bounds. What has this guy done that's so magical and spectacular?  Never has a coach gotten so much mileage out of a decade old Super Bowl LOSS.

Another Fisher dissenter is, strangely enough, ESPN's hapless Sal Paolantonio, who put Fisher in the "Overrated" section of his book The Paolantonio Report, which, by the way, is complete and utter shite (yes I payed real American currency for it, unfortunately).  Paolantonio actually looked at Fisher's won-loss record (now at 136 wins to 110 losses for a killer .553 winning%, and 5 wins to 6 losses in the playoffs) and found that it was stunningly mediocre, compared to his reputation, outright poor in the playoffs and, most tellingly, nearly identical to Dennis Green's (113 wins to 94 losses).  Yet despite having pretty much the same type of record and winning percentage, Dennis Green never managed to parlay that record into automatic, unquestioned status as a GREAT coach for some reason, and, of course, is no longer even in the league after his epic meltdown.
So again I ask why Fisher?  What has this guy achieved as a coach besides managing not to produce any overt beer commercial fodder and having an overly patient, slightly senile owner behind him
The Titans went 13-3 two seasons ago, earned homefield advantage throughout the playoffs and choked, miserably.  You could see, hear and feel it coming from miles away.  The Ravens went in to Tennessee and kicked their asses with relative ease.  Ray Lewis was knocking people's helmets off, while every time you looked up Albert Haynesworth was laying on, or getting helped from, the field.  It was the only time his name was ever called that day.  Incidentally, that's when I knew for sure somebody would make a huge, huge mistake giving that turd big money.  It's so sweet that it turned out to be the Redskins.  Good work, as always, Mr. Snyder!  Still, this abject playoff failure came and went with nary a word regarding the fact that the Ravens came into Tennessee with a rookie head-coach and quarterback and beat the tar out of the GREAT Jeff Fisher's squad.
The next season they started 0-6, bottoming out with the aforementioned debacle in New England.
This year people like Bayless and others are actually expecting things from the Titans, so maybe, finally, when they fail to live up to them people will start to question the validity of the "Fisher is GREAT" narrative. Maybe.

2.  Ray Lewis is exactly right and pretty awesome, at least until October 3rd
Ray Lewis fuckin' had enough of the Jets' bullshit and damn did he let them have it in awesome rant that was part promo (I was waiting for the camera to pull wide and reveal "Mean" Gene holding the mic), part Public Service Announcement on behalf all the non-Jet players in the league and the millions of fans not in New York/New Jersey that are sick to death of hearing a 9-7 squad talking shit and guaranteeing Super Bowls victories.  I never, ever thought I'd write this, but: "Thank You." You said what needed to be said and people will listen because you're a Hall of Famer with an actual championship ring  Never has a team that has accomplished so little, talked so damn much...it's to the point where you can't even ignore it anymore. Tom Brady said he "hated" the Jets a few weeks ago, but he stopped short of threatening dudes the way Lewis did.  So until the Ravens and Steelers tee it up on October 3rd, I'm on your side, Big Man and I hope you tear it up, Monday night.

Ugly Things

I've been paying loose attention Linda McMahon's Senate Campaign.  Loose attention, because as the late, great Dr. Hunter S. Thompson once said, "politics is a rotten business and a habit worse than heroin."  Amen, Doc. I'm trying to kick the habit, but her candidacy is fascinating on many, many levels to me as an amateur news junkie and veteran wrestling fan.

McMahon is running largely on her business acumen as former WWE Chairman and no one can dispute the WWE's success, but as the bodies of former wrestlers, or 'talent' in the current corporate and campaign vernacular, continue to pile up she finds herself painted into a serious corner because you cannot constantly tout your success as chief executive of a company and then say it's out of bounds, or irrelevant, when said company's former employees turn up dead at an appalling and alarming rate.  These events have compelled journalists to start probing further into the often ugly scenes behind the curtains of the wrestling business and they're uncovering some unsettling stuff.

TPM has an excellent post/report up today titled "Does Linda McMahon Have a Dead Wrestler Problem?" that compiles all of the recent bad news/premature wrestling deaths/and subsequently clumsy, cold and costly McMahon campaign responses.  It's full of interesting stuff and I highly recommend reading it and all of the links embedded within it.
One of things that jumped off the page, to me, was a frightening must read article from the North-Central Connecticut Journal Inquirer involving the WWE's use of "Death Clauses."   The company inserts this clause into contracts to remove any liability they would incur in the case of serious injury and/or death.  According to the paper, the clause reads something like this:

“WRESTLER, on behalf of himself or his heirs, successors, assigned and personal representatives, hereby releases, waives, and discharges PROMOTER from all liability to WRESTLER and covenants not to sue PROMOTER for any and all loss or damage on account of injury to any person or property resulting in serious or permanent injury to WRESTLER or WRESTLER’s death, whether caused by the negligence of the PROMOTER, other wrestlers, or otherwise,”

If that weren't interesting enough, the Journal Inquirer reports that Linda McMahon personally signed the late Owen Hart's booking contract, which included a 'death clause.'  Owen fell hideously to his death during an ill-conceived stunt where he was supposed to be lowered into the ring from the rafters of the Kemper Arena in Kansas City.  In reaction to this revelation, the campaign pointed to the fact that they settled with Owen's family despite the clause, quoting from a deposition given by Vince McMahon during the ensuing trial where he states that:

“That means ultimately someone who puts on this show, someone is responsible in some way, whether it be legal or moral, and I felt responsibility,” 

But, Chris Benoit's father, Michael Benoit is quoted, in direct contravention of this specific attempt by the McMahon's at damage control, as saying:

“As I am sure you are aware, WWE matches are scripted, and Stephanie McMahon Levesque testified before a congressional committee back in late 2007 that all stunts — an example of that would be a chair shot to the head — must be pre-approved by Vince McMahon,” he said, referring to the candidate’s daughter and husband. “This type of scripted match, I believe, is the underlying cause of all the early deaths in this industry.

“This extreme behavior in a wrestling ring would never have been allowed under the rules of the wrestling and boxing commissions,” he added. “Linda McMahon claims one of her greatest accomplishments while working at WWE was getting their industry deregulated. They now operate with absolutely no oversight. History will show that the early death rate of wrestlers started shortly after the regulation was stopped."

Benoit's mention of the deregulation angle and aspect of the WWE's, at the time unprecedented, shift from the traditional kayfabe paradigm to the acknowledgment that wrestling was, indeed, scripted and their haste to re-label it "Sports Entertainment," and the supposition/theory that this maneuver was undertaken to free the company from regulation by state athletics commissions is something that was also touched on by Deadspin's awesome Masked Man in a recent column wherein he quotes the New York Times:

"In the '80s, the McMahons did a remarkable thing: They dispensed with the pretense of reality and admitted that wrestling was staged. The WWF started using the term "Sports Entertainment" to classify its peculiar endeavor. But lest you think this was a gesture of honesty or evolution, realize this had a very direct impact on the company's bottom line. As The New York Times put it recently, this move helped free the WWF from 'a thicket of regulations from various state athletic commissions, requiring things like physical exams of wrestlers weeks before they would appear, and the stationing of state-approved doctors ringside during matches.'"

I'd never looked at it in this manner.  I'd always just naively thought that they adopted the 'Sports Entertainment' label to appear more mainstream and marketable and to be able to appeal to a mass audience without being burdened with the stigma of the "rasslin'" label.  The deregulation aspect of this decison was something I hadn't considered, but now as I look back it makes perfect sense.  I actually remember old AWA matches where the ring announcers would reference, often by name, the state's presiding and sometimes present athletic commission official (especially when they were in Las Vegas's Showboat Sports Pavilion). Of course, the legendary Ric Flair/Lex Lugar title match which the Maryland athletic commission actually 'stopped' because of excessive bleeding comes to mind as well.  I'm sure that match was a work, but it was a work made possible by the existing framework of kayfabe and the importance the pretense of athletic commission oversight and the resultant veneer of legitimacy and plausibility that oversight provided said framework.

The other side of this is Mr. Benoit's argument that since there is no oversight "history will show that the early death rate of wrestlers started shortly after the regulation was stopped."  Does he have a point??
I think he does.  If you take a look back, premature wrestling deaths on this scale never riddled the territorial areas in the same manner.  And it's not like wrestlers had lighter schedules then.  Ric Flair has stated many times that in the early 80's he wrestled over 300 nights a year.  There were dangerous, albeit rare, matches back then as well, such as chain matches, even barbed-wire and scaffold matches. 
It's definitely something to think about and it's amazing that a political campaign for the United States Senate, no less, is what's bringing things like this to light.

Another, less serious, thing the TPM report brought to my attention is that Vince gave an interview to the Associated Press in early August where he laments the fact that all this criticism the WWE, and by extension Linda's campaign, is receiving fails to take into account the "soap opera elements" of the business and storylines.  As the Masked Man noted in his column, this response is a standard fallback for the McMahons when asked tough questions about the WWE.  But here is where it turns ridiculous and absurd, the interviewer asked Vince about the infamous necrophilia skit and Vince said:

"If you knew the story line behind it, what have you, you might even consider that black humor, you know, dark humor, which is what it was designed to be."

I'm a Vinny Mac fan, and I don't consider myself a prude, but this answer is complete and utter bullshit.  I did watch that angle and story-line unfold and it was the absolute nadir of a life-time of pro-wrestling fandom.  Period.  It was so bad we were actually stunned when it was over.  There was nothing funny, dark or otherwise, about it.  It was garbage, and, honestly, if Triple H loves the business as much Jim Ross and others endlessly state, he should have refused to participate in it.  In fact, when I first read that Linda was running for Senate I immediately remembered this skit and thought "She could be OK until someone digs that up." I'm not even sure how many of the opposition researchers working for her opponents and the political reporters covering this race realize that the star of the necrophilia skit is actually Linda McMahon's son-in-law.

I actually saw a clip earlier this year of some McMahon campaign function or other and Triple H was brought onstage briefly.  So, again, they cannot have it both ways.  You can't trade on someone's fame and then act like questions about the same person's, a family member at that, participation in a skit about necrophilia are out of context, or out of bounds.

McMahon is behind by an average of 10 points heading into the November election and would most likely just be an oddity/human interest story at this point, thanks to her wrestling connections, even with her considerable fortune behind her, if her opponent Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal hadn't misspoke about and/or outright fabricated details about his military service.

There is definitely a lot to think about in TPM's piece.

R.I.P. Luna Vachon.

Round and Round-Up

I can't believe it's been this long between posts.  It sure has been a busy/dreary summer.  It started when I tore up my ankle (literally) the day after I wrote that CODC post.  Then I got caught up in moving, yet again, applying for jobs, doing wedding crap etc.etc and all of a sudden it's September.  I was also doing a lot of blogging at my old job.  I've spent the last few weeks in Silver Spring (no that wasn't me yesterday, a few people have actually posed the question) reading books for Library Journal, writing cover letters, watching soccer matches and films at AFI Silver (particularly the Truffaut and Kurosawa Retrospectives).  It's been nice sleeping in, but it's starting to get nerve-wracking.

Last night I saw a D.C. United game in RFK Stadium and I can't stop thinking about it.  It was surreal and sort of creepy.  The stadium is crumbling to pieces as we speak and when we first sat down it was basically empty.  Sitting in a vast, empty stadium (literally less than 30 people were milling about at the time) was strange and the fact that it looked rusty, rickety and damn near condemned was messing with my mind.  I kept staring at the garish yellow, by age and design, ghost-ridden upper deck seats whose rows were punctuated by broken, removed chairs like a smoker's mouth with missing teeth.  I'm not trying to dis D.C. United or the MLS, but, holy shit man, just because the Redskins don't play there anymore doesn't mean you can forgo performing basic maintenance in a stadium you still invite people in to attend "professional" games at.  I can just see some D.C. United bigwig saying "The Redskins played here!!! Let's leave it like it is and not change a thing. It'll be gold, Jerry! Gold."  Wondering around the dilapidated building looking for beer vendors and unlocked bathrooms, I had one of those Shining experiences where I felt the psychic energy of the place and it wasn't always good.  Standing in one of the humid, claustrophobic bathrooms, I could just sense the arrests (how many Philly fans alone?), drunken brawls, broken noses, and ancient puddles of piss and cigarette butts from Sundays past.  It was unsettling.

As a lifelong football fan, I started thinking of all of the great NFC playoff games played there during the 80's and early 90's.  That was when the Redskins were actually still a proud, winning franchise with tradition and Hall-of-Famers like Russ Grimm and, one of my first football heroes, John Riggins.  So sitting there underneath a sunny sky revisiting those memories and that history helped balance the strange karma of the tumbling down, mostly empty stadium.
Another time machine aspect of the evening: the fans who did show up.
Not only did the architecture and layout of RFK bring to mind Three Rivers Stadium, but the D.C. United fans resurrected the Old-School (it's like the stadium demands nothing less) rowdy, beer throwing, cigarette smoking, high-decibel cursing inimical to the stadium experience of days gone by.  I was shocked when I saw a dude light a cigarette while actually talking to the security guard.  That shock vanished quickly as D.C. scored on a penalty early in the match and people started lighting colored smoke bombs and throwing their 10 dollar beers (I'm not exaggerating) at each other.  The security guards were chanting with and hugging the rowdy fans and a few times I got the half-exciting/half terrifying, Willard in Apocalypse Now type impression that no-one was truly in charge.
Our section did fill up, at least, and the D.C. supporters (probably 1,500-2,000 at this game all told) were like a raucous mutant gang, part Raiders "Black Hole" style intimidation, part pub chanting drum circle militia.  There was 'Darth Hooligan' a man with Darth Maul style face paint and a light-sabre.  There were people lugging floor toms that John Bonham might have played, banging away-as chants about shitting on the 6 (literally) Columbus Crew fans in the middle deck at other end of the stadium went on and on.  One dude behind me implored the refs to "SEND THAT PIECE OF SHIT #32 THE FUCK HOME" at volumes that would have made Pete Townsend cry.  It was a fun atmosphere
manufactured by a small, but in no way insignificant, band of fanatics.

As far as wrestling goes, I'm not interested in the WWE right now at all.  From what I've seen, the NXT angle is like the NWO angle, minus the charisma of Hall and Nash, for youngsters who missed it the first time around.  I think Wade Barrett can be a star eventually beyond this angle and Tarver is interesting, at least visually, with that mask.  That's it.
I've been reading about Linda Mac's Senate campaign and their clumsy response (she pulled the "I only met him once" card) to the, unfortunate death of Lance Cade and I'm going to post more on that soon.
I watched TNA a few times recently and at least that Best of 5 series between the Motor City Machine Guns and Beer Money Inc. provided some excellent in-ring action.  All of the matches I saw were great, but my favorite was definitely the cage match.  Great chemistry between these 4 dudes, for sure.
I saw Ric Flair give an absolutely unhinged, instant classic promo on Jay Lethal that made me laugh, cry and chop my wife at the same time.
Here's most of it (there is a great line missing about his robe from that last  Wrestlemania being in the Smithsonian, which, incidentally, my girl hates being reminded of because she refuses to believe I'm not the only person in the world always marking out for the Dirtiest Player in the Game)


Metal-
I've just been listening to Electric Wizard, particularly Let Us Prey, alot.
The first song on U Chosen Few...I can probably write a whole post just on that.  For now I'll just say that they are one of the only bands that can truly mix metal and psychedelia.  The breakdown at the end of "U Chosen Few" is brain-crushing psychedelia with vocals that are mixed like insinuations, barely cracking the subconscious, but Jus's voice is there faintly burning on a pyre of discarded Sabbath riffs and queasy

More soon (for real)

Pgh. Grind Terrorists Return!!

Circle of Dead Children.
The name itself caused anxiety, panic and pained expressions in my household before I even told my wife I proudly participated in, and survived, the foam baseball bat "murder your neighbors" incident, years ago, on our drive to Virginia Beach last week.
CODC played a show at the legendary, now defunct, Pittsburgh venue the Millvale Industrial Theater wherein they set up their gear, in a circle, in the middle of the room and let people whirl and windmill all around them while they unleashed their short, shrapnel bursts of deathgrind insanity.  I can't remember if it was the show they played with A.C. or with Cephalic Carnage.  This was definitely in 2001 around when The Genocide Machine came out.  At any rate just when I thought their set that night couldn't get any better or sicker in the funnest, devil-horns sense of that term, they produced a box full of foam wiffleball bats.  Joe Horvath, CODC's vocalist, distributed the bats and then instructed us all to "murder our neighbors."  The band erupted, then the room.  I'll never forget the site of writhing, frenzied mass of human beings swirling, swinging and pummeling each other at will while the band detonated and spewed out the perfect soundtrack to a brilliantly cathartic, blunt-force foamy bloodletting.  A.C. should have just went home early (but then I would have been denied the spectacle of Seth Putnam calling Shannon: "8,000th wave punk rock").

The new album, five years in the making, Psalm of the Grand Destroyer is more brutal than that scene in Pan's Labyrinth when the general bashes that poor dude's face in with a wine bottle. It's so heavy I can't lift my iPod anymore.  The production is just as clear and powerful as it should be without sacrificing any edge or rawness.  The drumming is great and I love the weirdly, chaotic way these songs are arranged.  But, of course, the vocals are what keep me coming back to this devastating album.
Insanely deep, creepy growls that switch to burly burning witch shrieks and back again, always at the perfect pressure point in the song.  I'm not even a huge fan of death metal style vocals, but there is something so pure, pissed-off and terrifying in Joe's vocals.
The man sounds like a swarm of locusts.  Serious.
You know your shit is so sick and so insanely over the top when you have to put disclaimers on your record that say: "No vocal processing nor inhales" (ala Chris Barnes on Tomb of the Mutilated) so people understand there is no electronic trickery involved.
But unlike Barnes, Horvath's lyrics are abstract, interesting and paranoically thought provoking on the page.  To give you a tiny hint of where he's coming from they are copy-written by "Pale Horse, Inc." (RIP Mr. Cooper).
Favorite tracks on Psalm of the Grand Destroyer:
Ursa Major (1998 Revisited)
Earth and Lye
Obsidian Flakes

The whole album is good.  Just don't play it around your elderly colleagues after you've drank a few espressos.
I'm so glad CODC is back!

More soon:
I do still watch wrestling sometimes.
Also...Is it possible that the new Darkthrone, in conjunction with RJD's passing, has earnestly made me want to listen to Power Metal??

Darkthrone-Circle the Wagons: a tribute

 image courtesy of Peaceville, art by Dennis Dread

Darkthrone is probably my favorite metal band in this day and age.  I'm a huge fan of all eras of their sound but this new Motorhead, Voivod and Poison Idea worshipping, split songwriting incarnation of the band is just plain killer.  I didn't quite know what to expect from Circle the Wagons after I read Fenriz interviews wherein he played up a thrash influence on the new songs.  An outsize thrash influence is actually one of the only things I don't overtly hear on this awesomely addictive album as all Fenriz's liner note and interview references to Dio, Mercyful Fate, Metal Church, Trouble, Fates Warning, Necrophagia, Amebix and Adrenalin O.D.start sonically spewing out in these anthemic songs, along with the now standard ingredients of Motorhead and Celtic Frost, coalescing into the flesh and bones of an unstoppable heavy metal Frankenstein.
Circle the Wagons contains epic, varied songs that remind me of why I love metal and why I started this blog in the first place.  Beginning with The Cult is Alive the mad geniuses in Darkthrone have seemingly located some sort of sensory time machine that regurgitates and replicates that magical time in the late 80's when I used to take the 61A into Swissvale to the Record Hut to buy Celtic Frost and Destruction tapes.  Insanely great songs like "These Treasures Will Never Befall You" uncannily, effortlessly conjure that spirit of wide-eyed amazement I felt the first time "Dethroned Emperor" pillaged my speakers on Franklin Street, while somehow retaining their own unique energy and intensity.

Sitting here gleefully drowning in Oskar Blues Mama's Little Yells Pils night after night straight-up jealous that  Fenriz's song "I am the Working Class" is the EXACT pun kroc song I tried and failed to write numerous times.  Bravo, dude, with your snotty metallic Post Office punk that would make Henry Chinaski proud.
Upside-down Claws and spilled beer involuntarily happen when "Circle the Wagons" unfurls it's badass clean vocal chorus that makes me wake my neighbors up with belligerently loud, spiritedly out of tune sing-alongs and severe volume nudges during the ripping solo at the end.  There is something so strange, yet so indisputably great, about Fenriz's use of clean vocals on "These Treasures..." and "Circle the Wagons."

Then there's Nocturno Culto's songs.  The doomy breakdown in "Running for Borders" is like getting pummeled by a bag full of brass knuckles while Nocturno rapturously extolls the virtues of a wisdom that's "ANCIENT in its purest form" over brutal, grinding riffs.  "Black Mountain Totem" features a glorious riff that contains echoes of Sabbath's "Tomorrow's Dream."   According to Fenriz, the queasy, wobbly vocal approach Nocturno employs on the creeping mid-tempo "Stylized Corpse" is inspired by Killjoy's work on the first Necrophagia album.  I think it works just fine.


I have to admit I love how personally so many Black Metal True Believers on message boards and in magazines take Darkthrone's regression and the contemptuous way some of them spit out 'insults' like "PunkThrone" as if that's an epithet of the absolute highest caliber.
I was lucky enough to grow up loving punk in addition to metal so this evolution (or de-evolution) of their sound is fucking A-OK in my book.  Blasting your copy of Feel the Darkness almost as frequently as your copy of Killing Technology or Don't Break the Oath can only lead to the alchemical sonic greatness found on albums like Circle the Wagons.  I wish more bands would follow suit.

As if I needed another reason to respect Fenriz, the man is a walking encyclopedia of hard rock and metal who is constantly spreading the gospel of the underground in interviews, liner notes, his band of the week blog on Darkthrone's Myspace page and his downloadable mixtapes on Vice.

Ronnie James Dio

May he rest in peace. 
There's nothing like driving 300 miles by yourself with a brutal hangover only to find out that a musical legend who helped define the sound and iconography of the music you love has passed away.
More importantly than his huge voice and incredible legacy, according to all accounts he was a genuinely solid and kind human being and we just can't afford to lose many more of those.

Some celebratory memories:
1. The fates work in strange ways.  I was putting together a mix CD for the drive I mentioned earlier, and the live version of "Children of the Sea" just jumped off the screen and onto the playlist even though the majority of the other tunes were non-metal (Joe Walsh, Dead Kennedys).   I'll admit that I was an Ozzy era-purist for the longest time as far as Sabbath is concerned.  Even though "Mob Rules" was carefully spray painted in areas where the older kids drank (a subliminal clue), and eventually my friends and I too.  I didn't give the Dio stuff a proper chance until 2005 when I bought a copy of Mob Rules at the world-renowned Jerry's Records and spent the rest of that summer drinking wine on my porch on Forward Avenue with it as the soundtrack.  "The Sign of the Southern Cross" is one of the best Sabbath jams from any era.  It's majesty made even more stark by the grinding title track right afterwards; a killer one-two punch.  It took a little longer for Heaven and Hell to sink in, but once it did...I haven't really stopped playing that stuff since.  But Dio made an impression on me way, way earlier than that with "The Last in Line" video.  A whole post could be written about the video and its interesting story and monumental production values.  The song blew my adolescent mind so much that I was moved to buy the first of many dubbed tapes from my friend Mark's fledgling tape dubbing enterprise.  I'll never forget this thing...he painstakingly drew and then colored the ornate Dio logo on the cover.  Mark's deal was 2 albums on a 90 minute cassette for 3 dollars.  He even had lists!  My first selection was Dio's The Last in Line with Motley's Shout at the Devil on the flipside.
Man, do I wish I still had that thing!  I can see that logo plain as day in my mind.  The point of this is even though I stubbornly overlooked RJD's work with Sabbath for far too long, I freakin' loved Holy Diver and The Last in Line.   I tuned out around Sacred Heart, because I was starting to get into heavier stuff at the time.

2. Even in his late 60's the man still had an astonishing ability to sing his songs at such an incredibly high level.  I was fortunate enough to see Heaven and Hell, with Judas Priest and Motorhead in 2008, and I was just stunned at how great Dio sounded and how commanding and sincere his stage presence was.  You could tell he cared about his songs and his fans and that those concerns wouldn't allow him to give a half-assed, phoned-in performance like many of his contemporaries.
And it's not like his vocals are easy to pull off.  They had to be so demanding for a man his age after so many years on the road and in the studio, yet there he was nailing "The Sign of the Southern Cross."
Look, when I see pictures or video of the Rolling Stones these days I seriously get fucking embarrassed.
The guys in Heaven and Hell are nearly as old, but still capable of crushing and inspired performances.  We raved about how great Tony Iommi played and how great RJD's vocals were at the show for weeks, man.   Also, The Devil You Know is a decent album (it gets bogged down in the middle).  The riffs are killer, Dio sounded great.  This band still could go, which is one reason his passing is so sad.

3. I picked up Rainbow Rising last summer after years of recommendations and I haven't been able to get into it just yet.  I don't think that's RJD's fault, though, as Ritchie Blackmore's playing and songwriting gets a little too overwrought for my ears sometimes (sorry Dave!)  Again it's a testament to Dio's legacy and longevity that there are eras of his career still to be discovered and celebrated even by a long-term fan such as myself.
You will be missed.


More soon....including thoughts on the very strange, very cool new Darkthrone album.

"I notice that most of you suck at appreciating Never Say Die!"

 cover by HipGnosis

My niece Ryann Marie was born in the afternoon on Monday, April 26th!  April 26th is an important day to my family and her being born on that particular date was pretty damn special.  Ryann and her mom are healthy and happy; so my mind has been happily focused on things other than wrestling, metal and Scorsese flicks for the past week or so.
This past Thursday was National Poem in Your Pocket Day and I spent the afternoon handing out free poems to people downtown.  It was awesome!  Most people were pretty stoked to get a poem, and some even told me it made their day.  As a fan of poetry, it was great to see so many people still excited and moved by it.
Alie went to Pennsylvania, yesterday, to spend time with her family and left me all alone last night with my beer, records and DVDs.
I go to this record store a lot to buy vinyl and, they do something really dangerous and yet cool: they email their dedicated vinyl costumers whenever they obtain large, new collections.  They even add descriptions like "this batch is heavy on 70's weirdness, free jazz, rare blues."  I love it.
Amongst my recent finds was a $3 copy of Black Sabbath's Never Say Die!  What a strange record!
I used to shun this album, even though the original Sabbath line-up is, and always will be, one of my all-time favorite bands.  Man, was I stubborn and clueless.  In fact, the title of this post comes from the old Relapse board where an exasperated poster finally lashed out at everyone in one of those threads where people are ranking their favorite Sabbath albums (a staple of metal message boards) and either ranking Never Say Die! behind records like Headless Cross or leaving it out completely.  I was firmly in the 'leave it out completely' crowd.  He was right, I was wrong.  The line has always stuck with me, though.  This record definitely has more going on within it than its predecessor, Technical Ecstasy.  The title track is a like last gasp.  Like a twitch from a dead body, or one last desperate haymaker from an over-matched boxer with wobbly legs.  Making it even weirder is the strained sense of optimism in the lyrics and delivery.  Ozzy had already been fired once, he sounds tired, yet here he is with a neon bright hook/warcry about not surrendering.  Sabbath aren't really known for hooks, but "Never Say Die" is definitely one exception.  "A Hard Road" also has a nice, deliriously hefty hook.
"Johnny Blade" is one of my favorite and most underrated Sabbath songs.  The creepy organ at the beginning reminds me of some of the music in Tenebre, then it mutates into these strangely mechanical and relentless metallic grooves with washes of synth.  But what I really love are Ozzy's vocals.  Holy shit are they DRAMATIC!!! So emotionally over the top in the best possible way!  Songs like this are why I used to write "O-Z-Z-Y" on my fingers when I was a kid, and also why I go into "Old man yells at cloud" style fits of disappointed rage these days when I think about his stupid family, piece of shit MTV show and overall devolution into a cartoon with balls big enough to sue the people whose musical genius made him what he is (Geezer and Tony).
He wrings this awesome drama out of  his vocals on"Johnny Blade", particularly the choruses, because I believe that maybe John Michael Osbourne actually wrote these lyrics and they are, at least partially, autobiographical.  He knows it's nothing but a matter of time before he gets kicked out of Sabbath again and he acknowledges how lonely and scared he truly is by this eventuality.  I think he knew he would probably just drink himself to death and that's exactly what he was doing when Don Arden's daughter rescued him a year or so later.  That fear pours out through these vocals: WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU JOHNNY BLADE??
Continuing on the personal theme, I read somewhere that the title of "Junior's Eyes" was inspired by something Ozzy's father says.  The jaggedly inspired psyche swoops, solos and flourishes on "Junior's Eyes" are played brilliantly yet so unlike most of Iommi's other work with Sabbath.
Despite some great moments from Ozzy, the true star of Never Say Die is, indeed, Tony Iommi. The weird thing about that is, I don't think this album contains one single legendary Iommi riff.  It might be the only Sabbath album that doesn't have at least one, but in the words of Marc S. Tucker writing for Perfect Sound Forever:

Iommi entered an unusual short period, shown best in "Johnny Blade," where he's a solo mini-group, playing highly engaged dubbed counterpoints alongside and above his own base, not only on guitar but keyboards as well.

Tucker also mentions what he terms Iommi's "distinctly unorthodox compositional skill" and his "understanding of esoteric levels of play."
I agree wholeheartedly.  It is hard to put in words how strangely constructed this album and these songs truly are. "Distinctly unorthodox" is about the best we can do.

Even the great Lester Bangs had trouble writing about Sabbath to his usual level of brilliance, even though he loved them.  I don't feel as bad.  According to Jim Derogatis's excellent Let it Blurt, Lester used to put on Master of Reality and start drinking Labatt Blue until he passed out. Who hasn't?

After I played Never Say Die, I had the urge to listen to "The Wizard" so I started spinning the first album and I realized I'd come full circle.
As I always say: Sabbath will pull you through.

More on Sabbath soon.  I also watched a few old Undertaker matches that I wanted to comment on and I'll do that soon as well. 
I have to go handout Free Comic Books.