It was March 1972, and three young advertising executives had just seen Black Sabbath at the Spokane Coliseum. Grump, Lucky and Dazl convened for cocktails at lunch the following day to discuss the show and analyze the current Sabbath release, 1971's "Master of Reality."
Lucky: Three Tanqueray martinis, please, dry.
Grump: Did you get your hair cut? It was over your ears last night.
Dazl: First thing this morning, snip-snip.
Lucky: I just slicked mine behind my ears today. You better do the same, Grump.
Grump: F*ck this job, I'm applying to Gonzaga Law School. Lawyers can grow hair down to their butt.
Lucky: What did you think about the show?
Dazl: Wild Turkey was loud. Yes was creepy.
Lucky: That singer from Yes whined like a fairy, and their sh*t was too complicated. They sound better on the radio.
Grump: Your grandma's farts sound better than anything in the f*cking Coliseum. I dug Sabbath, but only because I sorta guessed what they were playing.
Dazl: Yeah, and Ozzy kept jumping up and throwing the double peace sign, with that weird fringe on his arms.
Grump: Fringe -- so heavy. And what the f*ck has peace got to do with anything?
Dazl: How about the draft, dude? My lottery number was 8, and I have to report next week.
Grump: Shoot your toe off. I'm number 86.
Lucky: You'll skate. I'm 312.
Dazl: Lucky scores again.
Lucky: We all prepped for the concert by spinning "Master of Reality" for about the hundredth time. I solicit your observations.
Grump: Even now I keep noticing new stuff, like some kind of hippie zither and tinkly bells on "Solitude," and it sounds like somebody's hitting two railroad spikes together on "Into the Void."
Dazl: Headphones, right? There's a lot of quieter stuff, but it's spooky. The voices of the dead at the end of "Children of the Grave" -- I used to space out on that part after all the crazy rock, but now I wait for it.
Lucky: "Sweet Leaf," "Lord of This World," "Into the Void" -- it's body music for sure, but the album goes in a lot of different directions, even within a single song. Stuff moves around in stereo, too. The tweaky fade-out on "After Forever," whoa.
Grump: You must have stuck your head between your dad's speakers when he was out getting a lube job.
Lucky: No comment. Who's that singing like a bummed-out troubadour on "Solitude"? Can't be Ozzy.
Grump: I think it is. There aren't any credits. I hear that Geezer, the bass player, writes most of the lyrics, and maybe he's pissed about not getting a byline. It would be perfect if he made Ozzy sing "My name it means nothing."
Lucky: Everybody's stretching out, playing a bunch of instruments, to the point where Iommi didn't even bother to get his coolest guitar sound -- though his riffs of course kick ass. And Bill Ward's drums just run over you like a train.
Dazl: We all surely agree that it's meant to be played as a whole album. The first Sabbath record's the same way. "Paranoid" is more a collection of great individual songs. "Master of Reality," though, that's a separate universe of heavy.
Lucky: There's a bunch of religious stuff on there. I thought Black Sabbath were supposed to be devil worshipers. Who is the "Master of Reality"?
Grump: The devil. But "Lord of This World" is actually an anti-devil-worship song, and "After Forever" straight-up says that God is the only one who can save you.
Lucky: I think the way this album twists everything around, Black Sabbath is the Master of Reality, at least while you're listening. I started to wonder who I really was. I mean, is there even such a thing as an advertising executive in Spokane?
Dazl: Did Black Sabbath imagine us?
* * *
Grump became a notable civil-rights attorney. Lucky married an heiress. Dazl was one of the last five U.S. soldiers killed in the Vietnam War, on April 28, 1975; he never got to hear that year's Black Sabbath album, "Sabotage."