Been on a Sabbath kick lately. So many killer riffs in any one song. Tony could easily have spread them out across more material, if he wanted. He wasn't very efficient that way.
And I couldn't be any happier.
Been on a Sabbath kick lately. So many killer riffs in any one song. Tony could easily have spread them out across more material, if he wanted. He wasn't very efficient that way.
And I couldn't be any happier.
At first, I thought that the thread title said Thankful For Tony Iommi's Deficiency. Therefore, making a reference to the accident that caused him to loose his fingertip(s). I think that the accident made Tony a better guitarist. He had to downtune, therefore making his guitar evil sounding.
Actually, that what today's bands do to sound evil. Tony's guitar sounded "evil" because Tony knew how to come up with "evil" sounding guitar parts, something that many of his disciples are kinda hopeless with.Originally Posted by JIF
Oh. I thought that Tony's guitar sounded so evil, because he had to downtune due to his accident.
How would this explain the first two albums, which are in standard tuning?
I thought that the thimbles on his fingers made him play differently. Then, he changed his style by downtuning on Master Of Reality.
That's the way it's typically reported, but as Jeff noted, he didn't down tune on the first couple records. The "evil" quality comes from what he's playing, relying heavily on tritones and semitone movement. That plus the Butler/Ward rhythm section is what gave the band it's sound.
Exactly. What he did with tunings just further developed the innovation that was already boiling over.
That's what I was trying to say before.
Cool. So we are all on the same page.
Still not 100% sure I understand Ron's premise for this thread, but I'm pretty sure I know what he's trying to say ...
Is he trying to say that Iommi is a badass and Riffmaster supreme?Cool. So we are all on the same page.
Still not 100% sure I understand Ron's premise for this thread, but I'm pretty sure I know what he's trying to say ...
And my point was that a lot of the guys who followed after him, instead of developing the "heavy evil" riffs to begin with, just tuned down, with the idea that will automatically make them some "evil". Or if they tune down lower than Iommi did, they'll sound "even more evil". And of course it doesn't work that way. All you get then is a guitar tone that sounds more like a carefully executed fart, and a bass player who's pissed because you're trespassing in his sonic territory.
Good point Jeff. I noticed that the lower tunings didn't show up until Master Of Reality in 1971. Specifically,Children Of The Grave,Lord Of This World and Into The Void are all detuned down to C#,not just the low string,but the whole guitar. This is the beginning of HEAVY METAL!!! imho. The first 2 according to them is merely hard rock.I can't wait to hear 13.
What I'm saying is that he packs so many killer riffs into any one song. If he were a mere mortal, he'd take one riff and build a song around it and save the other riffs for other songs, like many others do to get by. (Hence, my use of the term "inefficiency.") But not Tony, he does what the song needs, for which I'm thankful. He's not about getting by; he's about getting it right.till not 100% sure I understand Ron's premise for this thread, but I'm pretty sure I know what he's trying to say ...
Not sure that's any more clear.
I get it and agree.
Look, there are enough incredible riffs on an album like Vol. 4 that many might have used them sparingly and built a decent career. Maybe fearing they couldn't keep coming up with them so put some aside ...
Luckily, Iommi has an endless supply of killer riffs. The only one who comes even close is Leslie West.
Much as I adore Leslie West, I'm not sure he's all that close. He does have some gems, but he also spent some a fair amount of time with "rock and roll" covers and like them or not, those take up space in a repertoire.
Iommi never wasted any time on that. It was pretty much just epic riffs. He knows his "brand" as well as any musician one is likely to encounter. He has experimented with it greatly, but at the core of nearly everything he's done there are building blocks that are uniquely his.
I didn't actually mean what I wrote.
I'd place Jimmy Page second. I realize that he had a fair amount of riffs that one could argue to be of "questionable" origin, but I still think he had a pretty vast wealth of original material that was utterly brilliant.I didn't actually mean what I wrote.
Back high school, my band did a ton of Sabs, and I always felt those riffs were just plain evil-sounding on their own.
I have all 10 of my fingers and something like "Electric Funeral" is just plain evil-sounding no matter how many fingers you have!
High Vibration Go On - R.I.P. Chris Squire
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