I LOVE YOU ALL JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #366!

5,000+ TWIT FOLLOWERS CAN’T BE WRONG: https://twitter.com/CREEM

SIZZLING CONCERT OF THE WEEK: Ozzy Osbourne – Speak Of The Devil: Live At Irvine Meadows ’82 (Eagle Vision) :: “This is Ozzy Osbourne at his best,” gushes bassist Rudy Sarzo in his obviously biased liner notes but, as much as I’d like to disagree with him if only for writing such a payola pandering plug, I just can’t. That’s because this hour and twenty minute set, filmed in 1982 on the Diary Of A Madman tour after Randy Rhodes’ death, really is Ozzy at his best.

The baker’s dozen set list covers almost every highlight from the Diary and Blizzard albums with a side order of Sabbath songs, all played to perfection with note-perfect precision. But what’s really perfect are Ozzy’s vocals, all of which are of such high studio quality that you begin wondering after a while whether his original vocal tracks were either enhanced or erased after the fact—especially during those brief moments when Ozzy pulls his head away from the microphone while the vocals continue at full volume for a second longer than they should.

But the more you watch, the more you begin verifying their veracity, which is why I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt to Ozzy on this one because if he really is singing live, then he definitely got his money’s worth when he sold his soul for rock ’n’ roll. Too bad he didn’t strike a deal with Dorian Gray as well because, even at such a young age, he’s already beginning to look like a cross between Richard Simmons and Brian Wilson. Which kinda makes you wonder what Ozzy would be doing today if he were still alive.

SIZZLING DOCUMENTARY OF THE WEEK: Ozzy Osbourne – God Bless Ozzy Osbourne (Eagle Vision) :: Well, for one thing, he’d be starring his own truly definitive two hour long documentary about his undying life and hard times, beginning with his surprise 60th birthday party and ending in a far-flung future that even he never imagined he’d live long enough to make.

Fortunately, this whizz-bang packs such a wallop it makes you forgot all about the addled buffoon who made you cringe every time you saw him doddering around in The Osbournes, because this is the man as you want to remember him—and that man, first and foremost, has always been an animal-gnawing rock ’n’ roller at heart.

And since this is Ozzy’s story it’s also his old band’s story as well, so you can expect every original BS band member to be present and accounted for—not to mention their greatest all-time fan, none other than that radical audio rascal Paul “Avant Garde” McCartney, who expertly explains the band’s ever-enduring appeal while constantly referring to them as “The Black Sabbath.”

Boris Karloff – Black Sabbath (American International Pictures) :: Exactly!

Be seeing you!