Black Sabbath - Born Again

Born Again was Black Sabbath’s third (or forth) attempt at rejuvenating the Black Sabbath moniker with a new lead vocalist, this time featuring former Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillian.

The pairing sounds great on paper, but Born Again is proof that lightning does not strike twice-even when the men in the clouds are responsible for two of the most important hard rock bands in history.

Born Again begins with “Trashed,” another one of Gillian’s “shit that happened while we were recording the album” lyrics (see the much, much better “Smoke On The Water”). Tony Iommi shows signs of Side One/Track One fatigue (typically, his shinning moment) by lifting an almost identical riff to “Neon Nights,” the first song of Dio's tenure.

“Trashed” details an incident where Gillian arrived to the Manor Studios drunk, took Bill Ward’s car and crashed it on a closed go cart track on the grounds. Before you start laughing that he wrecked the thing on a fucking go cart track, add to your visuals the sight of said car exploding into flames as Gillian walked from the wreckage.

The close encounter with death didn’t seem to impact Gillian, who uses the lessons he learned from the incident to "thank Mr. Miracle" (this is a Black Sabbath album, after all, no thanking the Lord) and getting back to some additional inebriation.

The prose was captured on a napkin, including this intriguing couplet:

"Went back to the bar and hit the bottle again but there was no tequila
And started on the whiskey just to steady our brains ‘cuz there was no tequila.”

Evidently, Gillian was too drunk to realize that he ended one line with the exact same one he just finished.

“Trashed,” by the way, is the best song on Born Again.

When you’re faced with a brush with death, the next thing you do is follow up the song with a song about Stonehenge.

Much has been said about the pointless instrumental track “Stonehenge” and how it inspired the infamous Stonehenge stage set in Spinal Tap, but nobody seems to point out how the other instrumental track “The Dark” features a guest appearance by Chewbacca.

“Disturbing The Priest” addresses an incident where Sabbath received a bunch of complaints by a neighborhood priest while practicing at their rehearsal space. It features Gillian endlessly cackling and wailing "disturbing the prieeeeestyeaaaahhhh" repeatedly while Iommi struggles to find a riff to work with. It’s as if everyone had a good laugh coming up with the song title, but nobody thought about finishing the tune.

That’s a good representation of Born Again, a record devoid of any memorable tunes, riffs, or lyrics. It is an embarrassment to everyone involved and it suggests that all parties involved must immediately forfeit their rights from ever using the name Black Sabbath or Deep Purple again. It is the work of grown men acting like monkeys with Born Again a metaphoric turd being thrown at anyone who bought a ticket to this ammonia scented zoo.

The album artwork has correctly been singled out as one of the worst covers in the history recorded music, but the reality is that it is nothing compared to the horrorshow found on the music inside.

Whitesnake - Slide It In

I can easily count at least a half-dozen reasons why I can’t stand Whitesnake, but let me tell you two of them as they originate from the band’s U.S. breakthrough album. Slide It In. The album has been given the “Deluxe Edition” treatment, complete with an alternate U.K. version that’s available stateside for the first time, and the packaging would prompt novices in thinking that Slide It In is indeed an album worthy enough for such attention to detail.

Thankfully, I’m old enough to remember the album when it was originally release, and that perspective provides me with enough experience to tell you that no, Slide It In is nowhere near the level of quality that’s usually designated for this kind of re-issue.

My stories will enable you to see where my criticism begins.

It starts with an ex-girlfriend. She was a young tennis player that was very impressionable with music, and I obligated her with what I’d like to believe were good album choices. Aside from a lame Aztec Camera album, she initiated her own passion for music, one that has permanently changed my perception of U2’s The Unforgettable Fire.

Her quest for music didn’t end with me. She had a girlfriend who really attached herself to everything pop-metal and this young floozy would often throw out such recommendations like Motley Crue’s Theatre of Pain or Ozzy’s Bark At The Moon. Her most passionate recommendation though, came with Whitesnake’s Slide It In.

She bought my girlfriend a cassette copy of it, and I commented on this new addition one night on her waterbed, looking for appropriate mood music.

The irony, of course, is that Slide It In is a record that screams misogyny, sexism, and every other Smell The Glove entendre that you could gather just by reading the album title. When I asked her opinion of it, she came across as a little pissed that someone she considered a friend would actually recommend this kind of music to her. We listened to the cassette a bit, laughed at all of the juvenile references to penises, vaginas and intercourse, and the entire experience left me with a bit of a soft spot for “Love Ain’t No Stranger.”

“Do you want it?” she asked after side one.

Whitesnake was big at this point, but not Tawny Kitaen big. It would take a couple of years for their irritatingly huge success based in large part to those eye-candy videos that featured some star-fucker who shacked up with one of the world’s finest Robert Plant impersonators, David Coverdale.

This is where the second example of my dismissal comes in.

One summer at the swimming pool where I worked at, a fellow lifeguard brought in a tape of a band he just discovered. He demanded that we play a sample over the loudspeakers, and in doing so, declared the band to be “the next Led Zeppelin.” The statement alone made me angry, but what really made my blood boil was the opening notes of “Gambler.”

“So, you’re comparing Whitesnake’s Slide It In with Led Zeppelin? Have you even heard a Led Zeppelin album, dude?”

Combine all of this back-story, the embarrassing cover art, and over 40 minutes of over-dramatic readings of 8th grade misogyny, you’d probably surmise that my review would be swift and brutal.

It isn’t, because Slide It In never pretends to be anything more than a farm league Led Zeppelin album to begin with. One could definitely complain that a man of David Coverdale’s lineage should have enough experience to come up come up with a line better than “I’m gonna slide it in, right to the top!” but then you’ll recall how Deep Purple’s lyrics never got confused with the Bard either.

You then begin to wonder how bright Coverdale actually is, not only in terms of stupid lyrics, but also in the manner in which he latched on to only one dimension of Robert Plant’s persona when scrounging together the musicians that became Whitesnake. He focused on Plant’s open-shirt “I’m gonna give you every inch of my love” phase, replacing it with his own “slide it in…right to the top, bay-buh” and a bunch of grunts, gasps, and other guttural enunciations.

If you’re into that Led Zeppelin-the one where they begin and end with “Whole Lotta Love” and where lemon juice serves as a fine metaphor for male ejaculate, then Whitesnake may indeed be “the new Led Zeppelin” like my dim-witted co-worker exclaimed.

But the Zeppelin plagiarism isn’t prevalent on Slide It In, which ultimately is why I can’t completely pan it and why I can’t be too worked up about its obvious shortcomings. In fact, it resembles Coverdale’s old band Deep Purple than it does Led Zeppelin. And when you’ve got all of that baggage removed from Whitesnake’s blueprint, it makes them nearly tolerable.

So what about the entire US/UK version debate? The difference in the mix is completely noticeable, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “rough” or “rawer.” It’s still a very mainstream album, and for anyone who thought there exists a very rough and raw edit of Slide It In, you will undoubtedly face the same level of disappointment that I found.

As much as I hate to admit it, the U.S. version turns out to be the superior mix. It’s richer, more dynamic-creating a wider sound that makes the band larger than what they really were. The band needed a break in the states, and the U.K. mix simply captured the band as what they were: a project that Coverdale cobbled together after Deep Purple imploded. The trick may have worked a bit when there wasn’t a Deep Purple filling that void, but when the classic Purple line-up ended up reuniting for Perfect Strangers, that left Whitesnake as just another also-ran.

The U.S. version corrected this, placing Slide It In alongside Deep Purple in terms of quality and scope, while packing a bit more aggression than anything on Perfect Strangers.

But before we start inflating Coverdale’s head more than it actually is, keep in mind that Perfect Strangers was a lame offering from Purple to begin with. And while Slide It In may indeed trump Coverdale’s old band reunion effort, it certainly doesn’t mean it’s good enough to justify the fancy reissue and the inclusion of the discarded, original UK mix certainly doesn’t mean that Whitesnake’s best offering deserves a second glance from those wondering what they might have missed the first time.

The OCD Chronicles: Rainbow-"Man On The Silver Mountain"

Here’s a riddle: what do you get when you’re a wheel, the sun, black, white, the day and the night?
Answer: you get “The Man Of The Silver Mountain.”
Look, nobody said that Ronnie James Dio was a poet. In fact, the guy has a tendency to use a lot of the same imagery over and over. While most people would be content with writing one song about rainbows, Ronnie has written a couple (“Rainbow In The Dark” and “Catch The Rainbow.”). In fact, Ronnie joined up with awesome Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and formed a fucking band called Rainbow.
And right out of the gate, the duo wrote a song about an imaginary dude whose name everyone screams and who needs to be made holy again.
I have two versions of this song: the original studio album version that everyone’s familiar with and the eleven-minute long live version from On Stage.
It was Brad Company that introduced me to this version, presumably over a few hits of weed some night. That’s really the only way one can fully appreciate Ronnie James Dio’s improvisational wordplay at the end of the track.
You see, it’s a medley, beginning with “Man On The Silver Mountain” until it slows down until Ritchie breaks out a slow blues piece. RJD comes back in and the band breaks into an up-tempo rocker about a bad luck woman that’s “starstruck.” Dio reaches the end of that song and then begins to croon about how we all need some love.
Unexpectedly, Dio then changes gears and then starts singing how he’s the man….you’re the man…hell, we’re all the man on the silver mountain!
It’s as fine a piece of nonsensical vocal scatting as you’ll ever hear and ranks just behind the Guess Who’s drunken ramblings of roast beef.
As stupid as the lyrics to “Man On The Silver Mountain may be, they do speak the truth. The song is good enough that it certainly does “lift your spirit higher.”

Check out the badass rainbow lighting rig they used during Rainbow's 1977 tour.

Speaking of badass: that badass on drums is none other than the late Cozy Powell.

Speaking of dumbass: that dumbass on keyboards is none other than future Planet P Project founder Tony Corey. If you'd like to see to see some passionate comments from Tony Carey fans calling me a dumb-ass, please check out one of Glam-Racket's most popular reviews: Planet P Project's Pink World.

Maybe He's A Leo

In December of last year, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin seemed to hint at naming a successor to his title in March. Dmitri A. Medvedev, a young protégé with no background in the state security services and virtually no power base in the Kremlin, is now poised to win the presidency this March thanks to Mr. Putin’s blessing.
It’s unclear whether Dmitri will merely be a figurehead that enables Putin to run the country from a self-ordained lifetime position behind the scenes. In fact, very little is known about Mr. Medvedev (who is a year older than yours truly) other than he is a former law professor and is a big Deep Purple fan.

I’ll let that sink in for a moment.

Without knowing a damn thing about Dmitri Medvedev’s political beliefs or how effective he will ultimately be as Russian president, I want an American president (or potential candidate) to come out and publicly declare their love for an English hard rock band like Deep Purple. And Cream doesn’t count; that band was merely a clusterfuck of jazz and blues virtuosos. No, I want the heavy shit.

“My name is Mitt Romney, and my favorite album is Whitesnake’s Slide It In.”

“And now, John McCain will discuss immigration and the discography of Uriah Heep.”

“Please welcome ‘The Man on the Silver Mountain,' Mike Huckabee!”

Medvedev is seen as a moderate, a progressive face in an environment of former Kremlin underwriters. But there’s nothing “moderate” about Deep Purple. Even Concerto for Group and Orchestra is heavy by “rock band playing with a symphony” standards, but it would be cool if someone asked Medvedev what Purple album he puts at the top of his list.

If he chooses Perfect Strangers, then we’re headed for another cold war.

Here's some footage when Deep Purple could anihilate any superpower.