Maybe it’s because I mainly work from home, but I was saddened by the news that a bunch of old-timey rockers were suing Wolfgang’s Vault, a website that traffics in old Bill Graham (promoter/proprietor of places like the Fillmore, Winterland, etc) memorabilia. The suit — Led Zeppelin, the Dead, and Santana are among the plaintiffs — alleges that the site is exploiting the artists’ intellectual property and artisitc success. I’m no lawyer, but they’re probably right: just because Black Sabbath played in your concert hall doesn’t mean you can sell Sabbath baby tees.
Since I’m a little old to be wearing concert shirts, that doesn’t bother me. What does bum me out is the threatened shuttering of a part of the site that streams hundreds of strikingly high-quality concert recordings from Graham’s old venues. I’m listening to Dickey Betts at Winterland in ‘74 right now; the site has everything from Muddy Waters to Sly & Family Stone to the Clash to the Band to (I shit you not) A Flock of Seagulls. (I ran so far away indeed.) If you’re into that kind of things, check it out. And seriously: the Sabbath shows rock. Long live Tony Iommi!
A friend of mine and I were talking about Iommi a while ago and we agreed that he is the all time champion of hard rock guitar riffs. He may not have played the greatest riffs of all time but he played an endless number of good ones. Most rock songs are built around one riff but Sabbath songs often have two or three riffs at least. Tony is definitely one of the great ones.