This month marks my one year anniversary with Big Takeover! To celebrate, I’d like to write about one of my favorite bands of all time, Black Sabbath. I can clearly remember hearing Paranoid for the first time. Like a lot of teenagers, my obsession with this band began when I realized that I had stumbled onto something mysterious and profound. Believe it or not, YouTube is littered with fake unreleased Sabbath tracks and mislabeled demos. Here are ten genuine rarities that will impress even the most jaded Sabbath fan.
Killing Yourself To Live / Hole In The Sky live 1975
Pro-shot for Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert on their Sabotage tour. Incredible footage!
Children Of The Grave live 1974
Black Sabbath live at the California Jam, where they played with Earth, Wind & Fire and The Eagles. Camera man is obviously fixated on Ozzy, who seems content to jump up and down and clap out of sync with the entire band.
Megalomania live 1975
Live in Asbury Park, New Jersey in August 1975, one of their most widely circulated soundboard recordings. A slightly different approach to this confessional from Sabotage.
Under The Sun live 2001
Classic from Vol. 4, taped at Milton Keynes in the UK. They have only played this song live a handful of times, twice in 1972 and twice during this cycle of reunion shows.
Shockwave live 1978
Ozzy quit then rejoined Black Sabbath in 1978, it was a “we’ll give you one more chance” arrangement that didn’t last a year. This soundboard recording comes from an Abilene, Texas show in December of 1978. Lots of people trash Never Say Die, but there is a lot to be said for it as a failed experiment and as a creative peak, however artificially engineered. The guy who writes Sabbath’s official website has admitted that it’s one of his favorites. If you want to read about a band with serious drama, Sabbath makes Fleetwood Mac look like the Jonas Brothers. He has devoted entire pieces to it here
Ozzy singing backup 1975
You can definitely hear Ozzy singing the chorus on this cover of Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood in 1975. Description says the song is unreleased, but (as you can clearly see in the photo) it’s actually a 45 from Chris Sedgwick. Lots of rock and metal dudes did studio session work in the 70’s, it was a way to pay bills more than anything. Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley sang on Lyn Christpher‘s 1972 solo record, which (believe me) sounds exactly as bad as it sounds. Thankfully the cost of recording has gone down considerably, musicians no longer have to moonlight with bad AOR singers. But you know, this is actually kind of amazing.
Snowblind live 1978
The end of the line for Ozzy with Sabbath. By this time, Ozzy was already singing in his side project band with Bob Daisley, Lee Kerslake and Randy Rhoads, Blizzard Of Ozz. Great multi-camera footage of Bill Ward and Geezer Butler, too!
Blue Suede Shoes live 1970
Classic early Sabbath cover, the same one that appears on the DVD inside their incredible Black Box boxset. Sabbath didn’t do many cover songs, so this is unusual by it’s very existence. When Ian Gillian joined the band in 1983, Sabbath began ending their live sets with Smoke On The Water, much to diehard fans chagrin. Later, Ian claimed that Tony and Geezer asked him to sing it, they both claimed it was Gillian’s idea. Either way, most fans despised the Deep Purple cover. Incidentally, my wife hates this song and leaves the room when ever it comes on.
Dirty Woman live 2002
NSFW. Incredible live version of this song from 1976’s Technical Ecstasy. Judging by the topless headbangers and Korn t-shirts, I’d say this comes from the OzzFest reunions in 2001/02. Great (but weird) footage, I love how Geezer can barely contain himself.
1969 Demos
The best part about YouTube is finding stuff like this: two unreleased 1969 demos with the original Sabbath lineup. The owner does not allow embedding, so I have to respect that. Both songs are presumably from the still unreleased Earth sessions, which was the earliest incarnation of the band. Fans have been begging for Sabbath to release this for years to no avail. So, thanks to YouTube for the first time ever we get to hear two of the songs. One is called “When I Came Down”, and one is called “The Rebel”, both are absolutely in-fucking-credible and both can be heard here
