NFL Loves Ozzy

Happy Halloween MetalMortals,
Yesterday, I attended a football contest between the Chicago Bears and the Detroit Lions at Ford Field in Detroit. Why, you wonder, is Tommy Knocker writing about a football game? The answer is of course, at any NFL game across this great country of ours you will at some point during the game hear the familiar and beautiful sounds of Randy Rhoads' guitar and Ozzy's voice over the PA system.

On Sunday, we were treated to Black Sabbath's Paranoid during the first half and Ozzy's Over the Mountain during the second half. While almost anyone who knows Ozzy and Black Sabbath knows Paranoid, the Over the Mountain track from the Diary of a Madman album is one of Ozzy's best songs. The drum roll to start the song is very unique and powerful and Randy's guitar solo is one of my favorites.

SliPKnoT Concert Review - October 2005

Greetings MetalMortals!
I am still stoked from this concert! Slipknot played the Congress Theater in Chicago, IL on Tuesday, October 18th, 2005 and kicked some serious ass! Seeing a band that you love in a small club, it doesn't get any better than that. The Congress Theater only holds about 2,800 people, so it's a really intimate setting and you can easily get as close to the stage as you are comfortable with (in and out of the mosh pit for me!). If you were at this concert, I was the dude with the freaky jack-o-lantern mask and the Ozzfest 2001 t-shirt (see picture for an example of the mask...this picture is from Ozzfest 2005 at Alpine Valley in WI.)

Slipknot played an awesomely loud set and did not disappoint. I'm a little hazy on the other specifics (it was a 10 beer night with a "twist"). I remember fighting for my life in the mosh pit while they played Wait and Bleed. They had their black uniforms on and looked ready to kill.

Unearth and Dillinger Escape Plan opened for them. I missed Dillinger, but Unearth was pretty good. Unearth's bass player had a lot of energy, which is always kewl to see and the lead singer sounded good.

It was a much different concert compared to Slipknot's performance at Allstate Arena in Chicago on March 11, 2005. The Allstate show was ear-splittingly LOUD due to all the pyro and the crowd was at least 10,000 strong (probably more). The Allstate show was also a lot more painful for me (got hit in the back with a cup-holder thrown from the upper deck....not cool, but not totally out of the ordinary for a metal show....at least it didn't hit me skull.)

Slipknot is releasing what appears to be an awesome live 2CD package titled Slipknot 9.0 Live on November 1, 2005. But, you might also want to check out the bonus live material on Vol. 3 The Subliminal Verses (Special Edition). The People=Shit track especially kicks ass (performed in Chicago). I will let you know what I think of 9.0 after I give it a listen. Until then, horns up MetalMortals!
Later,
Tommy Knocker

Speak of the Devil

Greetings MetalMortal,
Welcome to the first advice/recommendation blog entry on Tommy Knocker's Heavy Metal Cavern. I am Tommy Knocker, the spirit host of this blog. Many of the views on this blog will be shared by many loyal metal fans and some will be "lone ranger" ideas from my dead skull. I will leave it up to you to decide which views are which my MetalMortal friend.

Now to the first order of business, Ozzy Osbourne's Speak of the Devil album. For the uninitiated, an abbreviated history lesson. Speak of the Devil was recorded at The Ritz in New York City on September 26th and 27th of 1982. Playing with Ozzy on this album were none other than Brad Gillis (guitar), Rudy Sarzo (bass) and Tommy Aldridge (drums). This was the first album that Ozzy released after the death of his former guitarist Randy Rhoads on March 19, 1982. The live recordings on Ozzy's Tribute album were originally intended to be Ozzy's first live album, but due to Rhoads death, Ozzy decided to record and release an album containing only Black Sabbath songs instead.





I won't bore you by listing all the song titles and informing you of the length of each song. However, I will tell you that Speak of the Devil is one of the very best live metal albums of all time. All of the songs on the album are Black Sabbath songs, but they are performed in a much different way than they were originally recorded with Black Sabbath in the 1970s. Brad Gillis pumps new life and energy into Tony Iommi's masterpieces. If you haven't heard this album, you will be shocked at how different these songs sound. In particular, the opening song, Symptom of the Universe sounds incredible and is a much more powerful song than the version that Black Sabbath recorded on Sabotage. The Wizard track is also a classic performance, from Ozzy's harmonica to Gillis' extra tweaks on the guitar. Ozzy also does an awesome job of interacting with the crowd throughout the set. They took the stage, hit the record button and banged out some beautiful versions of these songs. The fact that they didn't rework the recordings to death in the studio made this album raw and real, but it still sounds awesome (too bad the same can't be said for a lot of live albums).

Speak of the Devil is an album that people seem to absolutely love or absolutely hate. A lot of "expert" critics crap all over this album and Ozzy himself doesn't rank it as one of his best works. Well, we know that Ozzy is crazy so you can discount his opinion (for the record, I got nuthin' but love for the OzzMan, I am a HUGE fan). And I could give a damn what any pin-dicked expert thinks of any album (or book or movie for that matter). Have a listen and let me know what YOU think.
Farewell MetalMortal,
Tommy Knocker