OZZY's BLIZZARD ,Motorhead Roars, Etc.

I get thousands of letters from people all over the world. Piles and piles of fucking lyrics—whole fucking boxfuls. This kind of response and identification—all these kids want to be me. They want to be a part of me—and I can relate to that because I wanted to be a Beatle at one time. Its like idol worship. 1 always wanted to be a Beatle-, now all these kids want to be me."

Ozzy Osbourne, ex-lead singer of Black Sabbath, has a lot on his mind. A predictably successful show at the Long Beach Arena (his newly released Blizzard Of Oz LP climbing up the charts, now at #15) had Oz wearing the confidence of triumph, grinning ear-to-ear. Considering the demographic nature of the dog (L.A.), Long Beach (30 minutes south of civic center) figured a cinch to go over well—the Arenas long been a watering hole partisan to heavy metal grunge and the very specialized strata of subhumanity such sounds cater to. The wild card this time around (Ozs last appearance in Long Beach found Black Sabbath headlining over the Ramones!) points to opening act Motorhead—gigantic followings overseas in Limeyland and Europe so far have yet to follow suit in the States. Moreover, Motorheads brand of unrestrained, hell-bent chaotic white-noise suggests a closer similarity with local punk-rock malevolence (particularly indigenous to

outlying L. A. suburbs). Clearly the obvious contrast of style pairs Ozzy Osbourne and Motorhead in dubious fashion. At the Arena, for example...

Kids wanting to be" Ozzy shift from cars and parking structures, alleys and dirt lots surrounding the place, slowly making their way inside. Motorheads ready to go, but thats no apparent incentive for these children of Oz to quicken their snails pace to get inside. Motorhead rips into a fast one and the motherfucker cranks! Chords are sledgehammered with MC5 layers of loud noise nailing down the appropriate mentality. But the sonic boogie fails to arouse, and in fact seems atrophied—lost in stupors of reds, alcohol and pot.

Across town the Circle Jerks are playing to skinheads, punks slam-dancing parent hatred and middle class boredom to 60second chainsaw eruptions of angst.

Here in Long Beach, rebellion seeks other outlets; its 1974. The conformity of hair and mind timewarps lifestyle and counterculture (as it is). Tonight, a Halloween of hippies trick or treat the trappings of costume and rockstar adulation (Ozzy—want to be him"). Square, longhairs trip or freak in zoned anticipation. Opening act was a downer: too fast, too loud, too crazy for a packed house of ten thousand pumpkin heads stoned and stupi-

fied into one big jelly-like mass. Dope soaks the air, puddles of puke (lots of vomit this evening) by the stairs—bodies graze back and forth in some confused George Romero testimonial of the living dead.

The pallor of mindrot signals the storm. Ozzy Osbournes Blizzard Of Oz breaks stagefront. Amped-up guitar coerces the singer. He goes after the crowd:

Are you all having a good time?" Y-E-A-H"

Are you all getting high tonight?" Y-E-A-H"

Like some wild game of mental retard," peace signs are pumped audiericeward in gooned-out flurries of encouragement. The Oz starts to jump up and down like some possessed neanderthal; the rhythm sections hits the cue, the first tune breaks out, the S crowds on foot—standing, stomping— aping their leader. Guitarist Randy §Rhoades (local talent—played with L.A. ° hack HM outfit Quiet Riot) powerchords the opening selection. Its not ˜˜Iron Man."

I got dismissed from Black Sabbath. I didnt leave," explains Ozzy of his closing chapters with that band. They didnt want me in the band anymore, which to be perfectly honest I had mixed feelings about. Near the end I wasnt putting my whole heart and soul into it. I didnt like the music.

I thought it was negative bullshit music. It became like ˜alright guys, what do we write about now? Dracula, Frankenstein or witches and devils? And I mean my life wasnt surrounded by fucking Dracula all the time. It was such bullshit. Who wants to hear me sing about ˜I sucked the blood from my mothers neck and that kind of crap? That whole death, doom and destruction shit came to affect me personally. Who wants., to sing about The fucking neutron bomb every other number? Id had it."

The chunky Osbourne (likes Indian food"), once a slaughterhouse (killed cows") employee for two years prior to discovering rock n roll," talks of fan crossover and present day Blackmore Sabbath." He grimaces, then contemplates: Whats such a sin is that the new Black Sabbath sounds like fucking Rainbow. All theyre doing is cashing in on the name. Ronnie Dio looks like a fucking garden, gnome. I think hes got a pretty good voice for what hes doing—but it aint Black Sabbath anymore. It never will be. Its like if you replace Mick Jagger of the Stones and you call yourselves the Rolling Stones—it aint gonna happen. If anybody couldve walked away with the name I suppose I couldve. I mean, I couldve reasoned that I was in the band, I was the voice, what people identified with—but I thought, yknow, whats the fucking point? What do I want to carry a dead body around me for?

And now I can do whatever I want. If I want to do a fucking album of poems, I can do it now. When I first put the Blizzard OfOz album out I thought, shit, am I gonna be able to pull it off? But now the records number 15 and its gone up and up and up—so I cant complain. It goes to show that Ozzy wasnt just down to Black Sabbath."

No way. Ozzys cartoon of stupid—that larger than life onstage projection of idiocy personified — runs circles around the mundane mindlessness of shmoes like David Lee Roth. Its a gross-out (intended or not), a freaked caricature of the frontman/lead singer anachronism. Very funny (ha ha ha) most of the time but hard to say whether or not the rest of Ozs Blizzards in on the joke (they look vacant). The selfimbued humor heres what divorces Ozzy from so-called serious compadres (D-UL-L) of the genre.

At the other end of the spectrum, same spectrum (Pat Benatar, AC/DC, Foreigner), lies a reform movement altogether— four-minute time ceilings (watch out!), triple-speed tempos and power chords power for the course. Less fat: solos excised, excess trimmed. Motorhead steers clear of the cliches, their brand of musical foray solicits renegade comparisons: Dictators, Ramones, MC5. An identity the band digs:

You guys are way out there with respect to what others —the so-called heavy metal dinosaurs —are doing...

Fast Eddie (guitar): Heavy metal" reminds me of something thats slow, ponderous. Boring.

Philthy Animal (drums): Were nothing like that at all.

Lemmy (bass, vocals): Were fast n boring!

Your stuffs more reminiscent of early BOC and Alice Cooper, things that started it all..

L: Well, I think we have more in common with the MC5 and the Damned.

The Stooges even?

L: Yeah, idiot boogie!

Motorhead began in 75 formed by Lemmy and included Larry Wallis on guitar and Lucas Fox on skins. It didnt work," prompting Lemmy to recruit Philthy Animal Taylor on drums and guitarist Fast Eddie Clark. An album and a single on Chiswick predated the bands release of Overkill, then came Bomber and now finally Ace Of Spades (latest). A meteoric, Staggering" rise in popularity (record sales and live audience) overseas spurred an American release (Mercury) and Stateside exposure. Opening shows for Ozzy sparks mixed reaction: Motorheads cult following over here manifests every booking, rabid ratpacks fanatically attached to each consonant of sound. Osbournes contingent waxes less impressed. Motorheads failure to dent the reactionary faction of Ozzieoids contrasts vividly their headlining nightclub status—particularly an amazing exchange of performance and crowd-crazy response at the Country Club (Wolf and Rissmillers San Fernando Valley clone of Sunset Blvds the Roxy).

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 33

Motorhead Lemmy staggers up to a mike two feet over his head, angled down to his mouth—he sings and takes Pete Rose swipes at the open E-string. Emphasis on precisions not the overriding point-inquestion (although Lems an awfully good musician)—theres a wall of noise mania that diminishes the focus on mistake and that kind of crap. Not sloppy, but noisy as all fuck. Remember the Kick Out The Jams sound? You get an idea of whats goin oh. Six-string captain Fast Ed strums (does not downstroke repeatedly) his Fender Strat near the bridge; it contributes to a cacophony of treble high-end—no spots of quiet anywhere to be found. That leaves the drummer, and Ill tell you this: Philthy Animal Taylors the secret weapon here! Small guy, hes nearly buried behind a set of skins (goes through new heads every other night"); his hard-hitting attacks compensate for any particular goofs (not many though, the three combine with often devastating (honest) force. Motorheads power boils down to sheer aggression, brute force. Theres nothing particularly clever or adept going in and out* just a vigilance of no.-holds-barred chainsaw rock. .

L: When we first got together we just started playing and banging away—it just

got faster and faster really. You keep playin a song and you wind up getting slicker at doing it. So you get quicker and quicker. When we first started playing— originally—everything was actually quite slower. Now we bang out five songs in about 20 minutes. I always liked it faster—I guess we all really do. Were all speed freaks as well.

Have you noticed the audience is more stratified than English audiences?

L: No. Ive only seen one kind of audience really. I wouldnt say the audience we've been playing for are stratified. Id say theyre one of the strata.

How about Ozzy? How do you fit in with his Blizzard? Do you?

L: Well , we take the piss out of ourselves a bit more. We dont take ourselves as seriously as I think maybe Ozzy does. I dont know. Hes been very good to us. I think hes got a very good band as well.

I personally picked Motorhead to tour with," return-accolades Ozzy. Theyre great guys to work. In England like—theyre so huge!"

Are you as huge as them? In England, I mean?

OZ: Im Big.

You like their style, the kinda stuff they play?

OZ: Oh sure. Its great shit.

It dont conform to, uh, exactly what youre doin...

OZ: Theyre a different type of band— but a lot of what were up to shares the same thinking. I hate all that guitar solo, drum solo, boring fucking shit. Our songs might be a little longer, but I think all of its in the

same vein as what Motorhead do. The same energy.

The same mentality?

OZ: Huh?

When they played with you in...

OZ: (interrupts) Fuckinlommi, man.

Pardon?

OZ: That idiot.

You wanna talk about Sabbath some more, Ozzy?

OZ: What theyre doing now is so fucking phony, its unbelievable. Its only about ten years out of date—and now theyre going back to that dumbness. Why the fuck they didnt shelve that shit and go on to something else, Ill never know. If fucking lommi wants to play jazz—and God I remember that pitiful stuff in the middle of solos and breaks—this jazz crap. Where the hell he got it into his head he could play that shit I dont know. Who wants to hear it? Tony Iommis a very competent guitarist, a really good rock n roll guitar player—when hes not looking for the lost chord.

The last chord?

>OZ: The one hes forgotten.

There was that time at the Hollywood Bowl some years ago...

OZ: Oh that was really gruesome. We were going at some ridiculous pace—two shows a night, seven nights a week...

You guys played 20 minutes that night...

OZ: It was total exhaustion.

And lommi looked like he was gonna drop...

OZ: He was probably on some fucking trip or something, I dont know.

Not a good time for the band, huh?

OZ: The best time for Black Sabbath were the first three albums, maybe the fourth. Then of course Mr. Iommi took it upon himself to be the fucking big producer and he couldnt produce a Christmas card, yknow, and it used to drive me insane. What was all this big producing shit about? We recorded Black Sabbath (I) in 12 hours. Paranoid was done in less than a week. Third one was done in two weeks. We were only a four-piece band, why the fuck do you have to drown peoples brains out with nine thousand guitar overdubs, fucking five backup singers?

Well, whos idea was that?

OZ: TONYS!! It was costing us this vast amount of money and coming out like a pile of shit. That asshole—I think he went to see Queen record or something k) he took it upon himself to start using 24-track shit. I mean on Paranoid some of the-songs we used four tracks!!

So you think it went real downhill after Master Of Reality?

OZ: The last album I did with Sabbath I cant even imagine how much it cost. We flew everything and everybody from England to Canada in fucking January. You couldnt go out cause it was too cold. You froze your fucking balls off it you tried —and we wound up recording two tracks in three and a half months. And they were the biggest pile of shit. At the end of the fucking session Id had all I could take.

What about all of the occult hype, that aspect of...

OZ: (breaks in) Oh my god, that shit, all of that crap. Black Sabbath never knew what the fuck occult was, never had any knowledge of any of that shit. It was so fucking /ake, no one knew what the hell any of that was about.

Oh yeah?

OZ: Im not into all this death, doom and destruction. I never wanted to freak people. Im up there to try and put a little hope for people to grab onto. As far as Sabbath goes, its like fucking get your quaaludes and go and see Black Sabbath—get your sick bag.

Fans expect you to live up to the image...

OZ: Oh god, these fuckers in the blackrobes and hoods—where the hell do they come from? Who digs them out of the earth? They still follow me around in these huge hooded black robes with big black belts and I cant understand it. Thats not what Im about at all. I just cant understand why these idiots persist with all this crap. Once youve got a brand, once youre stamped and sealed, its hard to shake it off.

How about Mr. Crowley" on your new one, Oz?

OZ: Making fun of all that shit, that stupidity. Its like the name Crowley"kept popping out of the woodwork all through the years, you know, whos Mr. Crowley? Who cares? I dont.

I hear keyboards in your live act, but uh, no musician onstage —visible, anyway.

OZ: Hes hidden away.

How come?

OZ: Have you seen how ugly he is? You have to put a bag over his head! And hes dumb—its like hes an educated guy but stupid as shit when it comes to sensible things.

Theres one in every band...

OZ: Oh yeah!

This humorous canine beast called Jet (like the label) trots over past Ozzy—this Q ■ and A session conducted at Jet Records rich-persons palatial-like estate (Spanish motif) overlooking the backdrop of L.A. and Beverly Hills. The monster starts to tongue-slobber in Qzs face then marches off, content. Osbourne wipes his cheek. Sighs. A real swell-like friendly sorta aura engulfs his deep-sunk down into a downreclining chair. Ozzys really a quiet, soft-spoken kinda guy. No wildman-type franticness here to be found. The best part of it all for me now is feeling free. This feeling that theres no chain hanging around my neck—no having to deal with all the other kind of shit. Its all sort of come full circle. I grew up in Birmingham, my manager used to manage the Move. Started with just basically being turned on by Hendrix and .the Yardbirds. And I wanted to be a Beatle."

Motorhead punches the last of a coupla encores, the contingent of fandom here at the Country Clubs overwhelming. Lotsa people backstage to get autographs (true) and shake hands. Lemmys sweating like a pig, Eddies talking to some chick about Marshall stacks and a PA appropriated from Blackmore—an arena PA to play nightclubs!! Philthy Animal comes by to ask for reaction and whatever—somehow talk migrates to the Deviants and the Pink Fairies.

Oh fuck," booms Lemmy, we could eat up years going on with that kinda stuff."

Blue Cheer?

Yeah, well they were a really messy band, yknow? I saw them and they were fuckin terrible."

Hawkwind?.

Cmon, gimme a break!" Lemmys disavowal of that stint (pre-Motorhead) provokes a few laughs, his backlog of psychedelic roots transcends the question at hand: When you guys coming back to play?" chirps some kid from the back of the room. Probably as soon as October, early fall—were gonna try anyway."

Lemmy whips out a box of polaroids, pulls one out of Leslie West looking fat and enormous—like a Sumo wrestler. Lthink they have to carry him out onstage these days or something ridiculous." He smiles wide at the thought, gets up to split. Catch you later, man."