But for you younger guys this was THE OZZY RR Book of its day,as it was an "Authorized" Biography .....full of inaccurant "Facts" as well as Legit ones & stories that you wouldnt have found anywhere else,I mean WAY Before the Internet.
Tons of great Pics Too.....and I cant stress enough how hard this was for me to find another copy as My brothers copy was Chopped up for the RR scrapbook (it took 20 years) & I wasnt ever able to re-read more than a page at most until I found a Copy about 5 years ago.
Its full of "different" Versions of Randys audition,Bob & Lees part,Speak of the devil,the accident stories that are different than they were later told or re-arranged, as well as many great Ozzys Sabbath Days Stories.
I picked it off the shelf today and having not read it in sometime was inspired by some things I hadnt though of in years & thought I'd Share,what was a Holy Grail before Tribute even came out
But for those of you who wont ever be able to read,I figured Id share some Cool stuff that you wont really find anywhere else.
This is an excerpt from the Diary of a Madman ablum Review/Desription
this is starting after a Wondeful Desription of the front & back covers as well as the inner sleeve,I dont have the energy at this minute to type all that ,but I will if requested...
Above the shot of the band there are twelve letters from the Magic Alphabet that spell Ozzy Osbourne,on the back there are more'Magig Alphabet' letters & strange indecipherable scrawls at the foot of the page.The mysterious esoteric symbolism was blindly picked up on by the media vultures as certin to contain hidden messages from beyond the grave,strange harbringers of weird & indecipherable doom.Lock up your sons & daughters,keep your animals in the house,& beware strange writing only the chosen few can read.
the man responsible fore the lay-out and design of DOAMM sleeve is Steve Joule,a Brittish design artist who specilises in the heavy metal sphere.He told me the truth behind the so-called 'hidden meanings' scattered dead-herring style all over the sleeve.
'Its funny how it happened' he smiled.I used letters from ""the Magic Alphabet" that I found in an Old 60s mag I had lying around called Man,Myth,and Magic.But all the words say on the front is "Ozzy Osbourne" and on the back something like "Friday & Saturday"
As far as squiggles at the bottom of the lyric sheet,thats exacctly what they are-just Bloody squiggles! What happened was that I'd cocked-up the lay-out for the lyric sheet.Id had the words printed smaller than I wanted,so I ended up w/this blacck empty space at the bottom.Then the phone rings and its Jet records telling me ther'll be a Cab around in 20 mins to pick up the finished work!I thought,"Oh my God"what am I going to do"? So I just started squigglingmeaningless bullshit,& 20 min laterI was finished & the cab arrived and took the whole thing away.When I heard that some people in America were reading all kinds of things into those squiggles I laughed out loud,I mean How bloody Daft can you be??
It continues later about the Speak/Talk of the devil cover & how that actually says stuff about Randy....I'll post that later...
