Album Thoughts: Black Sabbath 13

My first album thoughts post.  I suppose this is going to be a kind of "History of the band and I", then "track by track listening", and then "final summations".  Let's see how it goes.

First up, a little personal history with Sabbath, yea?  I mean, I'm not a magazine "journalist" or anything.  If you're reading this, I suppose you're a friend of mine.  So let's do this.  Sabbath is on my short list of all time favorite bands, and for sure the 70's era Sabbath is my favorite metal band of all time.  As of today, when you hear me play "metal" on my guitars, you probably hear more of Toni Iommi in my playing than anyone else.  Slow, pounding riffs interspersed with a tempo change, and maybe a solo.  I would have to say that in my own playing, "Into the Void" is tied with Hendrix's "Voodoo Child" for biggest inspiration.  My favor of the Gibson SG has just as much to do with my favor of Iommi as my favor of Angus.

I have to add a note here, and this will become important as you read my Album Thoughts, I listened to the Spotify version.  Come to find out, the Spotify version lists a selection of "bonus" tracks that aren't a part of the initial album release.  So my tracklist looks as follows:

1. "End of the Beginning"
2. "God Is Dead?"  
3. "Loner"  
4. "Zeitgeist"  
5. "Age of Reason"  
6. "Live Forever"  
7. "Damaged Soul"  
8. "Dear Father
9. "Methademic"  
10. "Peace of Mind"  
11. "Pariah"
*12.   "Dirty Women(live)"
*previous Black Sabbath song from older album

My first listen through, I could not help but hear earlier songs in the songs as I listened to them.  End of the Beginning has a strong semblance to the original song "Black Sabbath", Zeithgeist takes very clear inspiration from "Planet Caravan".  Is this bad?  Well the first parts of the album are not going to be any game changing songs for me, but you know what?  It sounds like Black Sabbath.  Probably my favorite part of the first 4 songs is "Give me the wine, you keep the bread".  At first it sounds like something a drunk would say, but remember that wine is also blood in the Christian communion.  That's classic Sabbath lyrical content right there.  End of the Beginning and God is Dead get a lot of promotion, which I think is sad because its the least interesting songs of the album. The next 4 tracks get away from this "We gotta sound like Black Sabbath" formula stuff.  Age of Reason is probably my favorite of these 4 tracks.  Its epic and varied.  Live Forever is musically sound, and well done, but I dislike the lyrics to the song and so its a killer for me.  Damage Soul reminds me of the earlier tracks of this album, but with the lyric style of the last few.  A pass for me.

So if you're connecting the dots here, this is not looking good for the album.  I was thinking the same thing, in fact that's where I stopped listening to it the first day.  I had other stuff to do.  The next day I was out smoking my pipe and decided to lug my tablet outside to listen to the rest while I smoked.  I re-listened to Damaged Soul just in case I had listening fatigue yesterday mess with my thoughts.  My thoughts pretty much staged the same.

Then.  It happened.

Dear Father started.  This... ok this sounds listenable... no wait, this is AWESOME.  FINALLY a song I think I will listen to more than once... probably alot.  If you look at the title and think we've gotten some Ozzy solo bleed over, some kind and sad song, you are mistaken.  This is a song about a priest living with the conscience of a sexual predator.  Probably 30 years too late to being "edgy", but the lyrics do hit home without beating around the bush.  No subtleness here, "you left my life in ruins", "you knew just what you were doing".  The riff is AWESOME.



And here is what I found out this morning as I sat down to write this.  This was the last track in the initial release.  WHAT?  You're telling me that if I bought the album as it was, I would get this great song and be left with no where to go? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Luckily we have 3 more tracks.

Methedemic.  It starts out all acoustic, and I let doubt creep in my mind.  Then, we get this fast tempo Sabbath song.  Not the typical Sabbath that the public thinks it is... and... and holy crap, did Geezer Butler wake up?  I think this might be the first time in the album I've heard him stand apart from Iommi.  Well Butler getting into it must have woke Iommi up too.  Let's see if this ride continues

Peace of Mind.  The next song starts out like a Sabbath song, like maybe it's going to be more "we need to sound like us"... for about 2 seconds, then the riff kicks in.  YES!  THIS IS A NEW SABBATH SONG.  This is fresh like their stuff in Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, but without SOUNDING like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, is that confusing?  It doesn't sound "derivative" of their old stuff like End of the Beginning, it sounds like "new" Sabbath during their best.  Geezer is playing all over the place in a good way, Iommi is keeping up while not stepping on his toes.

Pariah.  A song about cults with Geezer and Iommi sped up.  Another quick playing song like Methademic and its good.  Geezer is nuts on this song too.  Where the hell was he in the first half of the album.. Wait, did I say first half?



How about the whole "real" album.  How did these "bonus" songs not get put on the album?  They are easily the best.  Look, I have owned albums by these guys outside of Sabbath.  Iommi's self titled was amazing, he had so many fresh and new ideas in it.  The whole initial 8 song release(until #8) I wondered where that Toni was.  Hell, Geezer is one of the best bassists of all time, and I forgot he existed while listening to the first parts of the album.  I was really worried, and the reason I stopped listening on track 7 yesterday is because I thought to myself "are there any songs you'll be re-listening to?" and I had to answer "no"  Then Dear Father kicked in, and the band showed up.  I have to wonder if the first tracks were some of the earlier recordings, and the last bit of the album was when they got serious about releasing it?  I can only speculate.

I've listened to Peace of Mind 3x during writing this and reading news this morning.  That wins as my pick of the album.  If this is the last of the new stuff from Sabbath, I feel like they did great.  I complain a bit about the beginning of the album, but really, there is nothing grossly rejectable.  By the end, the band shows why they are the Godfathers of Metal.

TV Yellow and Day 51

TV Yellow

This finish, more than any, made me raise an eyebrow when I saw it.  I would expect such a color from Fender, but not Gibson.  Fender used surplus car paint supplies, and did the whole art deco clean look.  Gibson, on the other hand, used stained and burst finishes that required much more time consuming, hand-crafted work.  So what is up with this yellow finish?

Well the hint is in the name.  TV Yellow.  The story goes that one of the Gibson people had visited the set of a medical drama during the 1950's.  To their amazement, the entire staff of the hospital were clothed in yellow scrubs and yellow lab coats.  It intrigued them, so they asked the people on the set.  They told him that the glare of the lights in the studio would smear and reflect weird into the cameras, which were all black and white at the time.  The Gibson guy knew instantly because they had the same problems with instruments used in live performances.


To a black and white TV, a yellow guitar appears as a very bright, white color.  Gibson went further though, and they established a yellow color that looked yellow to the naked eye, but would show the wood grain when viewed through a television camera, making it seem like it was a very high quality, time consuming translucent white finish on the instrument.

The days of needing the TV Yellow color are over, but enough musicians used them in the past that they are now considered a staple finish, especially for the more streamlined models of the 60's that Gibson came out with, including the SG body styled Les Pauls, the Les Paul Jr's, and Les Paul double cut Specials.

Day 51

Knockin' on Heaven's door is still going.  I'm doing what they recommend, and I've gone up about 10% mastery with it today.  I guess that's working?  I said I'd give the Rocksmith way of teaching songs a fair shake in these last 10 days of the challenge and so I'm sticking to it.  It really does not seem that hard of a song.

I looked yesterday at my Ubisoft account, an account so old it had a password I know I had not used since my Everquest days.  It says I have 3 games, but two of them are so old they aren't registering as games that the Ubisoft website can pull up lol.  I'm thinking it was Shadowbane that tied me to the account.  Anyway.  It says 9 hours played!  9 hours??!?  What the hell, I was past 9 hours in the first couple of days haha.  I have no idea how its reading it, but its reading it very very wrongly.  I know that I have not done all my 1 hour of playing inside Rocksmith, but I know from experience that I have waaaaaaay closer if not past 60 hours already.  I've spent entire afternoons, 3+ hours in session mode, especially at the beginning.

I am so excited about the future.  I do not see the 60 days being up as an "end" to the challenge, if anything I see it as a looming "its time to get down to business" thing.  I plan on taking up through the bass route, and doing more in the rhythm section of the game.  I'm going to put my nose to the grindstone learning 70's hard rock because it looks like I have a very good aptitude for it.  Sadly the non-Zeppelin 70's rock, but the power chord and blues rock, yes.  I'm already working Stranglehold, Black Betty, and Alright Now(by Free) into a combined melody.  This blog should continue, maybe not daily, but in some compacity.

Legendary: The Fool and Day 48

That's a Cream era Eric Clapton playing a Gibson SG known as "The Fool".  You might not be able to figure out what is more shocking, the crazy paint job on that guitar, or Eric Clapton's 60's Fro.  Either way, that picture does not really show off the guitar in an appreciable way.

The guitar itself is a 1964 standard.  If you read my earlier history on the SG, then you know this makes it a "Les Paul Standard" of that era.  Around this time there was a collective of Dutch artists known as "The Fool", and the psychedelic art movement had just come into full swing.  Being a friend of George Harrison, Clapton thought Cream should get on the bandwagon and do a theme based on their artwork for the upcoming USA tour they were planning.  "The Fool" did instruments for all band members, with Clapton getting this SG.  In fact, it was the love of this SG that caused Clapton to gift "Lucy"(a previous Legendary instrument profiled on this blog) to Harrison.

It was with The Fool that Clapton perfected his "Woman" sound that would dominate his music for decades.  Unlike some artists, Clapton often records with the same instrument he plays live, so many of the later Cream albums were recorded with this exact guitar.  After going through a few people's hands after Cream broke up in 1968, it landed in Todd Rundgren's hands for $500.  Todd had seen Clapton play the guitar live, and it was this guitar that inspired Todd to go into the music industry.  He kept the guitar for decades after, naming it Sunny because it was used to record Sunshine in Your Love.  Todd is most known as a record producer, with credits like Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf.  It later was sold for $150,000 but quickly sold a few years after that for $500,000.  It now resides in a private collection, but by someone that at least loves to bring it out for magazines and interviews. 

Day 48

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow.
The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!

We're snowed in here, and so the vikings marched while the snow fell.  Yep, more metal practice.  I'm starting to work my new rock phrases into the palm mute stuff.  I also plugged in the bass and tried my hands at making a matching track of that for what I'm playing.  

Also I found out something: Ted Nugent is a dirty dirty old man.  It turns out that his 70's stuff is very close to the way I play.  I mean, almost exactly.  He stays pentatonic, his hammer on flourish is EXACTLY like mine.  Stranglehold is one of the most awesome riffs in rock history and it is almost exactly the kind of playing I do when I'm practicing.  So if Ted Nugent promises to do certain sexual favors for you if you can play Stranglehold, he's not saying that its hard, he's daring you to take him up on the offer.

Dirty dirty Mot&(*Fu^k#@r

Legendary: Lucy and Day 37

One of the most famous Les Pauls ever, Lucy was a red Les Paul Standard owned and used by George Harrison of the Beatles for many decades.  The most famous of the stories involving the Les Paul and The Beatles was that it shared the spotlight for The White Album.  Harrison had a song that he thought was great, but McCartney and Lennon were fighting too much to pay much attention to it.  They were saying it should be cut.  Harrison got angry and left the studio.  The next day he came back with the Les Paul and put it in the hands of Eric Clapton.  With Clapton in studio, the battling band was on their best behavior and created one of the greatest Beatles guitar-centric songs ever, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

The history of this Les Paul goes back to before Harrison.  Rick Derringer owned the guitar, getting it in a trade for an amp.  Back then, Derringer says it was a particularly grimey looking gold top '57.  His dad repeatedly told him that it looks old and worn out, so when they were near the Gibson factory they had it refinished there.  At the time the Gibson SG's were popular in a translucent red, so that is what it was refinished in.  Rick later sold the guitar because he said the re-finish had totally changed the sound to something he didn't like, and it was at the shop that Eric Clapton bought it.  Clapton had begun using his Gibson SG for all his Cream music.  Shortly after, Clapton committed to using SG's for all the Cream related material.  Not wanting the Les Paul to live in a closet, he gifted it to George Harrison.  George said it reminded him of Lucille Ball, and so the guitar was re-named Lucy.

Harrison kept the guitar and used it through the rest of the Beatle's career, and when the band broke up he used it in his own solo endeavors.  The guitar was stolen in the 70's, and sold to a pawn shop.  It was sold for a small sum of money to an unnamed patron.  The sale was tracked, and the man was revealed to be living in Mexico.  Using a 3rd party, the guitar was negotiated for and eventually returned in exchange for a new Les Paul and some other music equipment.  Harrison kept the guitar close by his side for the rest of his life.

Day 37

Not a big eventful day really.  

I said that later my memoirs might turn out to be posts like today.  I did my warm up in Rocksmith, and then switched to my regular amp and practiced all my clean material, then played some bluesy rock, and finally cranked the gain and played some metal sounding stuff.  I did not get around to learning the Funk strumming like I was saying yesterday.  Maybe tomorrow.  I really don't even know the word for the technique.  It is kind of like Palm muting.  You palm mute "chug" and people will think "metal".  You do a multi-string slide and people think "blues".  So I really need to learn the basic technique of Funk.

I did get my bass out and make some winter time adjustments to the neck.  Georgia weather...

I need to re-organize my play area.  I've got some wall hooks I want to use to organize my cables, and I need to move my bass amp into the same area as my guitar amp.  Nothing discourages you from practice like a hassle.  

Jasper and Day 11

I am a dog person.

Growing up, there were a lot of dogs that came and went, but one of the longest lived ones of my childhood was a dog named Jasper.  I do not think he was technically "mine", he was more my father's pet.  I had a dog named Blackie, and years after that one named Buddy.  Both of these dogs were jet black.  Jasper was a dirty brown.  He was some sort of mutt, mixed between a hound and a poodle of some sort.  When it comes to that old dog that will never let you down "feeling", it is Jasper that I think of.  I was young, and I probably played a little too rough with him, but by the time he was an old dog, we'd become trusted friends.

I got my first SG in 2004.  I had just gotten my first full time, decent paying job, and I was going to do some things to get my credit going.  The bank would not give me a loan on my own, so my father co-signed and put up collateral for no other reason than I had asked.  One day I hope to trust a son of mine enough to do such a thing.  So it was with my father's help that I got a Gibson SG Faded, a Marshall 2x12 SS amp, a studio "amp modeling" pedal, a matching brown leather strap, and a nice SKB case to keep the guitar in.  The SG Special Faded was a model with a very thin finish on it. They had two goals with making these SG's, be inexpensive, and look like an old instrument.  They only achieved being inexpensive, because these things were ugly.  Except for a few of the brown ones.  I had all 5 that the shop had in, and went by a purely cosmetic evaluation and chose the one I now own.  No trapezoid inlays, no covers on the pickups, solid black knobs... but the thing had the same pickups as the $1000+ standards.  They were also about 500 bucks less than a Standard, but they were made in the USA, same factory, I was proud to own a real Gibson.  They also had thick necks, which is a plus for me, thin necks make my hand cramp.  EDIT: additionally I have a pretty good "sweet spot" production year.  By this time they had stopped reusing old SG Gothic materials.  They also still used Rosewood fingerboards, which is a rarity even with 1000+ dollar les pauls, and the electronics are classic handwired instead of printed PCB.

I then went to Hobby Lobby and picked up some metal stamped letters, and on the back of the headstock, between the tuners, I put "Jasper".  "That'll ruin the resale value" someone told me, "Great, I never want to be tempted to sell this guitar" I told them.  This guitar is my trusty dog, it'll stick with me through thick and thin, it'll take my rough handling, but eventually I'll learn responsibility, and we'll be the best of friends.

Just like Jasper.

Day 11

Fixed a few things today.

The Duck Redux thing where it can not tell accurately which fret I'm using on the E string above the 5th fret?  Well that's apparently solved by barely touch the string.  Coming from bass I have a strong fretting hand, so its counter intuitive, but apparently a common problem in just regular playing.  Pressing harder there doesn't make it more accurate, it makes it less accurate because its amplifying the natural flaw of guitar design.  Anyways, 99% fixed.  Played my usual warm up routine, did about twice as good as I have ever done in String Skip Saloon.  I like that game for its challenge, you have to keep a cool head, and that's good for if you screw up a part of a song and have to steel your nerves to get the rest of the song right.

The 2nd thing that was fixed, the bend thing stems from my USB cable I would guess, or just something not calibrated the first time I tried playing the Bends lesson.  I got it working and then stubbornly worked at memorizing and playing the bend practice lesson.  It is tracking it well enough, though there are still some mysterious "missed" notes that get me cussing out my PS3.  I got to 96% accuracy and called it a night for that lesson because that G string wants to shred my bass player callous.

I wasn't done for the night though, I started a few songs!  I know!  Crazy shit.  Sixteen Saltines is something I would play bass over on Sunday mornings when I felt all rock, bluesy.  So it is really cool that it is included in Rocksmith.  I also tried "We are the Champions" and "Peace of Mind".  Admittedly I pretty much just listened to Peace of Mind because I was in a Boston mood.  A much better session than yesterday's.

Best Surprise and Day 06

While it was the Guitarcade that finally got me to get Rocksmith, the best surprise has been the Session mode.  The session mode is this hugely versatile area in the game where you choose instruments that will accompany you while you play.  There are several types of players that change according to the genre you choose.  You could have a chord playing, rhythm guitarist or choose to have that guitar in high gain distortion while it chugs metal power chords.  If rock is not your thing(really?) there are some electronic accompaniment, including this really cool 8-bit nintendo style blip and bleep machine.

There is an intensity bar across the top, and the more intense you play the more intense the band will start playing with you.  At the start you choose a key to play in, say E, and the fret board will highlight the notes that will work in that key.  Your band will keep to the key, and as long as you play the highlighted notes, you will sound "correct" with the band.  You can change tempo and set the drummer up as well.  If you play the notes to the tempo in the right key, you will find that you will suddenly be jamming with a decent rendition of a band, and that is REALLY cool  The Session mode has helped me more than any other part of this game, by far.

It is like a drum machine on steroids.  If they could somehow package this into something the size of the typical amp modeling super pedal(like a P.O.D.), they will make a mint.  It is NOT just a backing track or a drum machine.  With those, YOU adjust to THEM.  With Session mode, the band adjusts to you.

Day 06

I was going to further get my fuzz sound down to the sound in my head(look up Gearmandude Soda Mesier on Youtube), but I ended up finding what I think is a Fulltone OCD Overdrive replica.  I love this pedal.  I know technically I could just pick a plexi style Marshall amp and have it, but something about this pedal through the Fender amps in game makes a wonderful tone.  I messed around with a "riff" that reminds me of a very silly 80's hair metal song, but holy crap does it sound good to my ears.  Every day I seem to come up with some little riff I have to play over and over for 30 minutes.

I focused on doing all the Guitarcade games I had played so far.  I spent a full on hour playing Gone Wailin, String Skip Saloon, Ducks Redux, Ninja Slide N, and Scale Warriors.  I spent a lot of time in String Skip Saloon so I could get used to the string layout.  I got new high scores in everything I played and really had fun with all of them, except Scale Warriors still.  I found out I could reverse my string order, so that the highest string(thinest) is on top.  This is how things show up in tabs and I think that's why I"m having such a hard time with the games done this way.  So yes, I could change and reverse order the strings, but I'm worried this will screw up my non-game, learning portions.  I'll have to explore it tomorrow.

TIP OF THE DAY
If you're used to reading tabs, you can reverse your string order.  I suggest doing this from the start if it bothers you, as the earlier the change, the less habit forms with the rest of the game.

Gibson SG History and Day 04

I grew up around 80's hair metal because I had older sisters in the 80's.  My bathroom constantly smelled like hairspray(I can't drink anything with too much vodka in it because it reminds me of hairspray smell).  The music I found obnoxious was full of pointy, neon guitars, but the stuff I ended up liking was many times played on a Les Paul.  By all standards, I should have grown up loving the classic Les Paul guitar made famous by Slash, Joe Perry(Aerosmith), Steve Clark(Def Leppard).

However, there was another influence on my musical tastes: my uncle.  It was my uncle who introduced me to Highway To Hell, by ACDC.  Later, it was Black Sabbath that firmly established me in the heavy riff-verse that fueled my teenage years.  Both Angus Young of ACDC, and Toni Iommi of Black Sabbath, played the Gibson SG, and later when I wanted my own guitar, it was the practicality and styling of the SG that endeared me to it.

The history of the SG is pretty strange.  In the late 1950's, the Les Paul was seen as old fashioned.  It was a tree trunk around your neck, unlike the hip, new Fender Stratocasters that the new rock legends were playing, particularly Buddy Holly.  In 1961, the Les Paul got a new look.  It got a slab, double cutaway body.  The extra "old fashioned" accents like the body binding and flame top were done away with.  You had what we call "The SG" body, but at the time it was only called a "Les Paul".  The outdated Les Paul, of the original styles, were being sold cheap in pawn shops.  A lot of the new guitarists of the time bought these cheap Les Pauls before they got famous, and continued using them after.  This brought the popularity back, and in 1968 the Les Paul was re-introduced, and the SG finally got its real name.  As you can see, its hard to divorce the SG from the Les Paul when you're talking about history.

Some people that are associated with other guitars actually have had SG's in their stable.  Clapton and Hendrix are known Fender faithfuls, but both had SG's too.  Clapton has the famous "Fool" SG he used while in Cream, and Hendrix played a White "Les Paul" SG with 3 pickups in his last few years, during many of his television appearances.

Day 04

Ok, today I started on the Tone Sculptor missions.  If you read about the first day, I pretty much went into and started messing with that from the beginning.  With these missions they basically just have you put effects pedals into your tone settings so that you can get familiar with what they all do.  The descriptions are short and I generally agree with what they say about them.  I think they did the overdrive, distortion, and fuzz lessons out of order.  Many effects are tweaks to other effects or are related closely to them.  I would have liked to have seen this explained.  Still, for a beginner it is a good way to check through all the effects styles.  In the pre-game era I had to do this by going to the big rack of Boss pedals and just trying everything while wearing dinky head phones at a Guitar Center.

I took a break mid-session to have dinner, and I found something out that was pretty cool.  The sign that I should take a break was that I got a "play the Guitarcade game" as the next mission.  I was ok "oh, I guess that's all the pedal stuff for now", and I went and ate.  I had turned off the game, watched some youtube, and came back to the game ready to play the Guitarcade... only that mission was replaced by the next pedal mission.  It turns out, the game doesn't think you should just power through a lot of missions in one particular area, it is going to divert you and slow you down.  I actually think this is pretty cool.  For a beginner, going through all the pedals quickly is just going to get you confused and not commit stuff to memory.  So far it has always defaulted to the Guitarcade, because after about 3 or 4 more pedal missions, I got a suggestion to go to the Guitarcade as a mission again.  All work and no play makes jack a dull guitarist.

I played the Shooter game...  I feel like I want the strings in reverse order.  Did not have much fun in it till I put the pick down and used my fingers... but that's kind of cheating because I need to force myself to use the pick... I'll get to this game again later.  The Duck shooting game that I next tried was super fun.  I'll do more thoughts on the games and the Guitarcade as a topic later.

I decided not to power through all the pedal missions.  For about 30 minutes I went back to the jam session.  I got into the 8-bit Nintendo style bands, put some super fuzz on my guitar, and tried to copy some old Ninja Gaiden/Mega Man songs in riff form.  It was very fun.  Learning songs is still not fun for me at this point, and I've learned more in the jam sessions than I have in years of playing solo or reading theory.  I highly recommend new players to ignore the songs till you have your feet... unless of course its fun for you to learn the songs, then by all means do it.

TIP OF THE DAY

At the main menu, hit select.  At your path screen, if you click "X" on your path, your mission list will come up.  They don't really spell that one out for you in game in an easy to find area.