Where the hell have you been, Siegler?

I wrote this for the issue of my site’s newsletter that went out today.
Here we are on Friday, February 24th, 2006. The last issue of the newsletter was sent out on December 23rd, 2005. That’s two months since the last issue. So where have I been?
Nowhere, actually. To be honest, right after the Christmas break, I lost all my desire to work on the Sabbath site. I was burnt out. For a few days in early January, I actually contemplated stopping doing it, and taking it all down. I was close. However, I thought after all the time I’ve put into it that I’d table that, and think about it a bit. So I ignored the site for the most part, and definitely didn’t read my Sabbath email. When I came to think about it again in mid February, I decided that my despair was brought on by the fact that I needed a break. I’ve been doing this site for over 10 years now, and it’s all me. While I’ve had contributors along the way for sure, the lion’s share of the work for the site and newsletter is all me. And for awhile there I didn’t want to do it anymore.
However, in the last 36-48 hours I found it again. Spoke with a few people, and found my desire to want to carry on again. So here we are. A new newsletter, and several updates to my web site in the last few days. I have not gotten through all the email, though – there’s rather a lot of it. I’ll make my way through it in the next week or so. I also have an update from Rob Dwyer over at sabbathlive.com for my tourdates section, so I need to do that.
One thing that helped me was talking to an old friend of mine, and to this mailing list, Nick VanDyk. Those of you from the old days of this list might remember Nick. Ages ago, we found out that several people on this list are actual musicians and an attempt was made to make a fan’s tribute album. Work was actually done, some songs were recorded. The angle was going to be a Sabbath tribute album with NO Ozzy era songs on it. Anyway, Nick and I lost track of each other over the years, and when I started in on my email pile, I found one from Disney and Nick where he works now. What’s amusing about that is my predecessor in doing the mailing list also worked at Disney at the time, and the early issues of the list were actually mailed out through Disney’s email server. That would be Michael Sullivan for those of you who remember him.
Anyway, Nick and I chatted for an hour about Sabbath on the phone today, and in that chat, I found the fire again. I sort of was heading that way before I talked to Nick, but that chat really rejuvenated my desire to want to do all this again. I also want to thank Rob Dwyer, who I chatted with as well about my burnout. It was Rob who sorta pushed me down the road again. Not by anything in particular he did, but the fact that he himself went down the burnout road with sabbathlive made him understanding of where I was in my head.
But the conversation with Nick really recharged me, and for that I’m thankful. For those of you from the old days of this list who remember Nick, you might want to check this out. Turns out Nick has gone pro with his music, and has a full fledged band. It’s called “Redemption”, and has former members of Fates Warning & Prymary.
Their homepage is here: http://www.ivorygate.com/redemption.
Listen to four full songs from them here.
And finally, here’s a link to buy their “Fullness of Time” CD:
So to sum up, I’m back. Needed a break. I don’t think there’s going to be incredible updates from this point forward, but that’s more a case of Black Sabbath being inactive again for the foressable future.
If you enjoy my site and the newsletter, don’t forget to thank Nick & Rob, as they probably saved the site from going away. You can do that by checking out Nick’s band and supporting Rob over at sabbathlive.com.
And for no reason at all in regards to any of this, a shout out to my wife and baby, who are far more important than any of this. I love both of you.
Stay Headless!
Joe Siegler, Webmaster
https://www.black-sabbath.com
siegler@black-sabbath.com