a goodbye to romance

  

 

 

Related:

• about Ozzy Dying
• about “Into the Void: From Birth to Black Sabbath—And Beyond” by Geezer Butler
  
• something about "Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley" by Richard Kaczynski
• a draft of my all-time favorite albums list—a list that constantly changes but includes constants
• the lyrics to Ozzy Osbourne's "Tonight" 

about Ozzy dying

I am a huge Ozzy Osbourne fan.

 

I attended a Catholic school and wore a uniform through eighth grade. So I remember how bold I felt wearing a “Diary of a Madman” t-shirt to public school in junior high. The front was the album cover, which I was okay with, but the back featured a closeup of Ozzy bearing vampire teeth and wearing a cape—a silly picture, I knew, and I worried the other kids wouldn’t appreciate the spirit of 1982 Ozzy.

 

I also hung an Ozzy poster in my bedroom—Ozzy in a tough-guy pose, a baseball bat resting on his shoulder. I didn’t like the poster, but it was the only one at the store. Ozzy was not a tough guy, and being tough wasn’t part of his music, his message, or him.

 

His wife and manager Sharon, who really is tough, astutely marketed him as the Prince of Darkness, capitalizing on the Sabbath fame. But when I think of Ozzy, I think of a guy who was resilient and wild and free. He loved performing live. He seemed so happy on stage. That was real joy. Fans could see that was all he wanted to do.

 

Life offstage must have been a bore, and drugs and alcohol helped him cope while feeding whatever predispositional craving lurking within.

 

Ozzy was real. He voice was true, his delivery, true—a crazy train, a silly guy who went on stage and sang. The guy on stage in Paris, 1970, was the guy in the late 1980s and on into the 2000s. His confidence grew during those Sabbath years, and he brought loads of enthusiasm and appreciation to his solo career. Watch him live, clapping, cheering on the band, the music, and the crowd, throwing the fans all the love he had in him.

He was the Prince of Darkness, but the world is darker without him.

a poem about making music

Mid-40s, playing guitar

 

Dissonance and distortion hid subtlety
And, subtly, dissonance and distortion hid
I got old, and I believed I would
But did not feel it until it happened
Music roams

  home roams never to mine
Now I have no sound other than
  what the sound is
    of passing time

 

a review of a new album I disliked

Doomy shoegaze band Lanayah set to release new album

Reverb and echo flood "I’m Picking Lights in a Field...," an album of obfuscated doomy shoegaze. Lanayah’s cooling lava flow of sounds try to muster some shape, some force, some proximate of artistry.

“Insects in Their Immersion” loudly blasts melodic doom, a vocal barking into the wind, sucked up into a warming atmosphere of futility before being suddenly cut off for the next track. The best song is “Nameless Fluttering”—breathy vocals echo down halls of smooth bass guitar. The good part ends and, after a pause, a coda tries to recover a moment nobody remembers anymore. The album goes like this. A thick bass stands out amid a wash of noise. Songs stray and dissolve into decadence. You wake to find an arm dead asleep.

Lanayah is based in Santa Barbara, California, and Seattle, Washington. The experimental group released its first album, North Pinion, in 2016. Forever in May followed in 2019. The new album, I’m Picking Lights in a Field..., will be released June 16, 2023.