Forbidden at 25

If you’re the kind of fan who thinks Black Sabbath died after 1978, or are one of those fans that say “No Ward, No Sabbath”, then you might as well stop reading now.  This article won’t be for you.  I’m here to talk about the 25th anniversary of one of the more maligned albums in […]

Ronald James Padavona

Back in December 1981, I was leafing through the pages of a Hit Parader magazine, and I happened upon the cover art for the Mob Rules album.  I wondered what kind of music went with that kind of art, so I trudged on down to the Sam Goody and bought Mob Rules.  Put it in, […]

30 Years An Idol

Those of you who follow me on social media have noticed that I’ve started marking albums’ birthdays a lot.  In some ways, it is because I like bringing light to albums that never rGot the attention they should have.  Mostly I just like marking the passage of time.  Plus I like hearing from people who […]

Quiet Riot’s Road Rage

Quiet Riot has a total of 13 studio albums.  The first being 1977’s “Quiet Riot I”, and the most recent being 2017’s “Road Rage”.  The  majority of that output in that 40 years was with their most well known vocalist, Kevin DuBrow.  But DuBrow died in late 2007, and at the time, was thought to […]

In Memory….. of a 30 year old Star

NOTE: This article was originally published on Jan 28, 2006 and was called “In Memory of a 20 year old Star”.  10 more years have passed, so I’ve brought it back to the top of the pile, and added a couple of small things.  Enjoy. Thunder shattered the dawn Raging with fury, the king has […]

My 1984 Hard Rock / Metal Likes

George Orwell reference aside, there’s something that occurred to me tonight.   1984 was a big year for hard rock/metal.  Earlier in the year, I pointed out that Van Halen’s 1984 album turned 30 (on January 9th).  I also saw that another band I follow online (Quiet Riot) pointed out they have an album that […]

Happy 25th Headless Cross!

I don’t have time to write one of the giant 5,000 word essays at this time, but I didn’t want to let this anniversary pass.  Today is the 25th anniversary of the Headless Cross album, originally released back in 1989.  While technically the second Tony Martin era album, it felt like the “first” to me, […]

Happy 20th, Cross Purposes!

Today is January 31, 2014.  That means that 20 years ago, it was Jan 31, 1994.    And on that date, came the penultimate studio Black Sabbath album in the Tony Martin era of the band, Cross Purposes! I’m not doing a full retrospective, because I’m a bit too busy to write about it on […]

Tony Martin IRS Era Deluxe Editions

Back on June 29, 2009, Universal started releasing Deluxe Editions/remasters of the Black Sabbath catalogue, starting with the original album in 1970.  They worked through the discography, and released all the studio albums up through “The Eternal Idol” (plus Dehumanizer).   The final release in the series was Born Again, which was released on May […]

Happy 30th, Born Again!

Today is August 7, 2013 (Well it was when I started writing this, it got too long, and it came out on August 8th).  Thirty years ago today was the original release of one of the more polarizing albums in the history of Black Sabbath, that being Born Again.   I was a recent Black […]