Yee-ha, my box set finally came on May 30th, which I guess was the first day of release. I had it delivered to my office, like I always do (never know if the delivery will arrive at home when nobody’s around, then you have to go pick up your packages yourself). This time my plan backfired because I had plans to work from home on the 30th and 31st! No matter, though, June 1st I was in the office early, fetishising over the box, the two LPs, the three CDs, the DVD, the 100 page book full of photos (no essay… thank you!). Oh, yeah, and the replica of Ozzy’s cross, inset into red velvet!
For some reason, the set was delivered in a box that says “Bob Dylan Pack Shipper” on it. Weird.
OOBX
The music:
The CDs, of course, sound great. These were among the first recordings I ever owned (I bought them on cassette tape with birthday money and Christmas money in 1982 and 1983, I think, when I was 13 years old). They come with many extras – the remastered “Blizzard of Ozz” CD contains the poppy “You Looking At Me, Looking At You”, the B-side of “Crazy Train”, and a “stripped” version of “Goodbye To Romance”, the first song that the two wrote together (it is about Ozzy saying goodbye to Black Sabbath, the only band he had ever known up till that point), that is only Ozzy’s voice and Randy’s guitar. There is also a bit of a Randy Rhoads solo that has not seen the light of day until now called “RR”. “Diary of a Madman” doesn’t contain any extra songs, but there’s a great CD of live music from the “Blizzard of Ozz” tour that contains “I Don’t Know”, “Crazy Train”, “Believer”, “Mr Crowley”, “Flying High Again”, “Revelation (Mother Earth)”, “Steal Away (The Night)” with a Tommy Aldridge drum solo, “Suicide Solution” with a short Randy Rhoads solo, and then shortened versions of three Black Sabbath songs – “Iron Man”, “Children Of The Grave”, and “Paranoid.”
The songs all sound great, and I can still sing along with most of them. What probably astounds me the most is the outro part on “Tonight”, which just goes on and on for about a minute, Randy Rhoads really just wailing and wailing away. The guitar playing is fantastic, but then again, so is the songwriting, the lyrics, the bass, the drums. It’s a whole package. There’s not one ounce of filler on either album.
One song that was left off of set was “You Said It All” from the Mr Crowley Live EP. It’s a decent song that I remember hearing live on 104 CHUM-FM around the time it was released. No idea why it was left off. Apparently the band recorded it in haste while on the road – it sounds live, but was more probably recorded during a soundcheck with crowd sounds filled in.
The video:
The DVD comes in two parts, a 42-minute documentary that shows recently-shot interviews with people like Ozzy, Bill Ward, Lemmy, Rob Halford, Steve Vai, Sharon Osbourne, and members of Ozzy’s current band, like bassist Blasco and drummer Tommy Clufeteos. Zakk Wylde shows up for a bit of interviewing, but there are also several segments where he recreates some of Roads’ solos (he must have played them millions of times while touring with Ozzy from 1988 to 2007). Then there’s a segment of one hour and 13 minutes that shows a few news reports and interview clippings, as well as parts of three live shows – February 5th 1981 at the Palladium (a fan shot them on 10 old Super 8 film cartridges, capturing parts of 11 songs – there are gaps in the footage where one reel finished and he shoves another one in, he also starts and stops a bit to economise footage, but usually gets most of the songs’ first halves); May 8th 1981 on the “After Hours” TV show (four songs and an interview bit); and January 7th 1982 in Albuquerque, New Mexico (concert intro and two songs).
The “Thirty Years After The Blizzard” has elements of the Osbournes, where you see Ozzy in his home, watching these concerts on his sofa, or chilling out at the mixing board with a producer. First, the documentary shows Ozzy talking about meeting Randy, rehearsing the first album in a Welsh country house, and writing songs. Whinges a bit about how bloated recording had become with Black Sabbath, complaining that they had to go all around the world to different recording studios because that was the fashion, finally freezing his balls off in Toronto to record Never Say Die in a studio that the Rolling Stones had used to mix a live album. Selling the album was difficult, but Tony Martell of Jet Records wanteed Ozzy. “Blizzard of Ozz” was released in the UK in September, 1980 and in the US in March 1981. Rob Halford: “cialis eli lilly australia.” Lemmy happy that he’s on his own now: “Before, it was Tony’s band.” Lots of the material that they prepared for the DVD didn’t make it into the video, but there are outtakes on the web, like this one with bassist for those tours, cialis fedex overnight shipping.
Ozzy never got a good review when he was in Black Sabbath, Sharon explains, but with the new release the press were all on his side. Steve Vai says that Randy did things that no guitarist had ever done. Ozzy sits at board with producer Kevin Churko (who did “Black Rain” and “Scream”), who strips away all of the parts except Randy’s, Ozzy discovers something he’d never heard before at the end of one of the songs, that was released as “RR”.
Sharon: “The Ozzy/Motorhead tour was probably the dirtiest tour I’ve ever been on. The atmosphere was fantastic!” One of the first concerts was at the Palladium on February 5th, 1981. Cool clip of Rudy Sarzo’s bass in “Crazy Train”. Had two albnums in BIllboard charts at the same time. Picture of Ozzy’s butt as he’s getting his rabies shots. Pic of Ozzy getting arrested at Alamo, and there are quite a few overlaps with the “I Am Ozzy” autobiography. In jail with wife-murderer. Two pics of Ozzy in drag. “Get over it – there’s more to it than the dove, the bat and the Alamo.” The lifestyle was a bit too much for Randy. Steve Vai, “I’ve never played with a guitarist who has never at one point said ‘this is very Randy Rhoads-ish.’ You hear his name among the greatest that there ever were.”
The very rough Palladium footage, recorded February 5th 1981 shows “It’s Up To You”, with a boppin’ long-legged Rudy Sarzo, “Crazy Train”, “Believer”, “Mr Crowley”, “Flying High Again”, “Revelation (Mother Earth)”, “Steal Away The Night”, “No Bone Movies”, “Suicide Solution”, “Iron Man” and “Paranoid”. The band all split at the end, but Ozzy is the last to leave the stage – he really loves the audience and doesn’t want to go.
“After Hours”, recorded on May 8th 1981, the band plays “I Don’t Know” and “Suicide Solution”, then there’s an interview, where Ozzy comes off as a bit pissed off but totally unpretentious – just a regular guy who goes to regular bars, not a guy who hangs out in pretentious rock circles. “If I’m no longer me, then who else can I be?” Picks it up with more footage – “Mr Crowley” and “Crazy Train”. This live segment is the best, and you get really clear shots of Randy Rhoads, Ozzy, Rudy and drummer Tony Aldridge. An MTV News clip talks about the “Diary Of A Madman” tour and its $250,000 set, which was 30-foot high, the haunted mansion with the mechanical hand.
FInally, there are two clips from the January 7th 1982 show in Albuquerque that show the concert opening bit – as the band plays the outro music from the song “Diary Of A Madman”, we get a spotlight focus on a throne at the top of the steps on the medieval dungeon set. Fireworks go off, and Ozzy appears on the throne wth a big shiny cross, comes down the steps and the throne recedes; Ozzy marches around the stage with the cross, hands cross to stagehand and removes jacket, then Tommy Aldridge hits the drums and the band launches into “Over The Mountain. Ozzy is fat and wearing slippers. Camera is at stage left, so we see plenty of Rudy Sarzo, quite a lot of Ozzy, a bit of Tommy Aldridge, and even less of Randy Rhoads. Last song is “Mr Crowley.”
The book: This is one great book! It’s the same dimensions as an LP, and it has a big, black cover with the words Ozzy Osbourne on it in white. The book is full of photos, some of them “stressed” to look like they are covered in dried blood or something. There are skull and horn logos all over the place, but more than anything there are pics of Ozzy and Randy hanging out. Randy died when he was only 25, so every shot of him is looking young, handsome and very rock ‘n’ roll, not to mention dangerously armed with his big ole guitars (he was a little guy, only 170 cm, so they looked bigger on him than they would on, say, Zakk Wylde, who’s about 190 cm). Ozzy, six years his senior, is like a big brother – taller, fatter, coarser. The other members of the band pop up too, but almost never. The book is all about Ozzy and Randy, or Ozzy or Randy.
First up in the book is an alternate pose of Ozzy from Blizzard of Ozz album cover sessions, which appears in a distressed version on the box set cover. He’s not in a spooky attic, but in a studio, with a big cape, and we see his arm tattoos more. It’s a great shot. There’s another alternate shot, this time from the attic sessoins, then pics of Ozzy and Randy smiling and happy, an Ozzy Osbourne guitar pick, “Ozzy Rules” and “Ozzy Osbourne pins, great memorabilia. Shots of Ozzy and Randy practicing in the farmhouse in Wales. Randy’s ever-present cigarette pack. Ozzy rolling doobies backstage. Great onstage shots, Ozzy with his black shirt and white tassles. Pics with Lemmy, Philthy Animal Taylor of Motorhead and Tony Aldridge – everyone’s wearing white shoes or boots! At a festival in front of a sea of thousands of faces. A bare-chested Ozzy still without his dragon and skull tattoos. People raising “Ozzy is God” flags. Five pics of Ozzy biting the head off of a dove. Yes, there are feathers in his mouth, blood on his jeans (and his ugly 1980 blazer), and then Ozzy and Sharon posing while Ozzy has the decapitated dove in his mouth. Promotional “Blizzard of Ozz” material from the time, from the US, the UK and Japan.
Nice pics from the “Diary Of A Madman” cover shoot, where we get to see Ozzy and the kid from the album cover in different poses – and note that the kid is dressed up to look like a younger version of the Madman, tassles and all (you don’t see this on the actual album cover, as he’s mostly hidden behind a desk). With the onset of Diary Of A Madman tour, we get to see the dungeons and dragons stage gear (Ozzy in chain mail and codpiece and all), and the outlines of the dragon shoulder tattoo. At the end of the book there are song listings, lyrics, credits for all three discs and the bonus DVD. The “final word” of the book is a pic of a 1981-era Ozzy at the urinal, looking over his shoulder at the camera and sticking out his tongue, his pants around his knees and his big white buttt in plain view. Nice touch, madman.
There are three pictures of Ozzy’s touring band at the time, which included Randy, Rudy Sarzo and Tommy Aldridge (there’s one more hidden in the Diary Of A Madman sleeve). The back of the Blizzard Of Ozz LP shows Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake, the rhythm section for the first recording.
One complaint – there are no photo credits or descriptions, not even at the end of the book. Neil Young did this in his Archive Volume 1, and it was a good addition.
The LPs:
The LPs look okay, although the  colour on them is a bit blotchy and ill-defined; this will only get worse with age. Was this a cost-saving measure, or an attempt at authenticity? Either way, the LPs don’t look so great. They are gatefolds, but inside there’s nothing to see except the Ozzy Osbourne Cross/skull/Blizzard of Ozz motif for the first release, and a big old winged demonskull for the second release. They also provide holders for the four discs (two per gatefold), but I think that they could have found another way to display the discs without doing gatefold; even better if they had actually filled it with cool photos. Oh well, that’s what the book is for. The back of the Blizzard of Ozz LP shows a semi-bearded Ozzy looking somewhat Bruce Dickenson-ish, with Andy and Lee Kerslake and Bob Daisley. The back of the Diary Of A Madman LP shows Ozzy in the dungeon of the drunken witch, resplendent in his white tassled jumpsuit! The record sleeve shows Ozy, Randy, Rudy and Tommy posed on the steps somewhere. On the back there are the lyrics, as well as some nonsense runic “wizard text.” I wonder what it says.
The poster:
The box comes with a cool two-sided poster. I want to put it on the door of my room.
The cross:
It’s a gold-coloured cross, fairly heavy. It has the word OZZY emblazoned on it, which may or may not be sacrilegious. It has a lot of scuffs and scratches. If it’s an exact replica of Ozzy’s cross, I guess it should have scuffs and scratches on it. I wonder how it will age, though, the gold looks like spray paint that could bubble and fleck.
The Ozzbox has arrived!
The Blizzard of Ozz 30th anniversary edition
Corner detail - dotted like Randy's guitar
A book and two LPs
The sign of Ozzy's cross
Pure protection from the Blizzard of Ozz 30th anniversary edition
Me 'n' my cross 'n' my Ozzy poster (part 1)
Me 'n' my cross 'n' my Ozzy poster (part 2)