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In those days of confusion
A well put together documentary about Tony Iommi’s Seventh Star project. Everything you wanted to know about it, but were afraid to ask. Featuring interviews with Tony Iommi, Glenn Hughes, Tony Martin, and Dave Spitz.
Thanks to Edtrader Music & Entertainment for the film, and to Uwe for bringing it to your attention.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
A precious moment with a suitably nasal sounding Glenn, @23:58, “This is the story I want to to you and to the people in Sweden that I got addicted to cocaine …”
– SNIFF! –
and then rubs his nose a few seconds after. 😂 Old loves die hard. And when this interview took place during Glenn’s Swedish sojourn he was in fact not yet fully off the marching powder, but he was trying.
June 24th, 2025 at 03:48Ray Gillen was a fine singer with Badlands and a very handsome man (bit of a Tommy Bolin vibe going on there):
https://youtu.be/9lsgtsX-aLc
https://youtu.be/SVZb9vL5svI
A decade earlier and he might have been a candidate for Rainbow for their planned US conquest, he sure had the grit and range Ritchie was looking for. He would have been approaching only 20 when Rainbow looked for a replacement for Graham.
One of those tragic early AIDS casualties when there was no treatment yet.
June 24th, 2025 at 04:30The many facets of Glenn Hughes. Sheeesh, from hardly any hair to hair metal to crooner to mod almost. I guess that is what ‘fame’ can do to people. Iommi and his penchant for leather and cocaine, yes it was an embarrassing time for him, no hiding from that. That interview scene with the doberman dog was, well the less said about that the better. It was the Lita Ford time too, not much from good ole Lita in that documentary. At least we got to hear a couple of early versions of a few songs from the Seventh Star album. Thanks for posting. All that hair, it will take me a little while to get over all that. Cheers.
June 24th, 2025 at 05:00I think I’ll wait til Tillythemax tells me all I need to know about that.
June 24th, 2025 at 14:34The domestic violence issues between Tony and Lita too?
June 25th, 2025 at 16:02Ray was a truly amazing talent….his mistake was not telling the people he was sleeping with is that he had AIDS.
June 26th, 2025 at 11:38I heard about that before Uwe. Goes to show you better never ever name a street after someone. Mannheim can save a lot of money here….
June 27th, 2025 at 06:21I read about it in a Lita interview. To her credit, she wasn‘t on an aftermath crusade against him but rather placed it against the background of his violent parental upbringing, his short-fused, dominant father (with an enduring mother) and the cocaine. But of course, when it happened that was understandably it for her and the end of the relationship. Not unusual for scenarios like that, the marriage that followed with that real estate guy that saw her take a long hiatus from music encountered the exact same issues. And her The Runaways days had been tainted by manager and Svengali Kim Fowley’s abusive behavior towards his protégés too – a pattern there … ein weites Feld.
June 27th, 2025 at 13:06I’ve seen this documentary before, in fact it is a series about all the Sabbath albums of that era. Indeed troubled times for the band, with Iommi being responsible for almost everything on his own. Addiction, management-troubles, a failed marriage and an ever-changing circle of hired-hand musicians made the band obviously unstable. And after working together with good songwritiers in the likes of Dio, Gillan and Geezer Butler, he was (a bit like in the late 70s) again in charge for almost all the songwriting on Seventh Star and Eternal Idol. As far as I know he even wrote some of the lyrics at the time, which is interesting to me, especaially considering that he might have brought up some of his personal issues (In Memory, Angry Heart,…).
June 27th, 2025 at 14:04About the domestic violence I heard too, Lita Ford claimed that. If I remember correctly Tony Iommi at least talked about the marriage in his autobiography, characterising it as disastrous, as both of them were having severe drinking problems at the time. And with Iommi being a Birmingham-raised brawler, I wouldn’t find it too surprising if Lita’s accusations were correct.
Anyway, non of us were there, so what do we know…
Lita, even in The Runaways, could be a handful (that English-Italian temper – very similar to Tony in that way, which likely brought them together, other than the joint love for guitar of course), she took no shit, especially not from Joan Jett who wanted the band more punk while Lita wanted the band more Ritchie Blackmore/Tony Iommi (and Cherie Currie wanted the band more David Bowie/experimental/otherworldly!), her two heroes at the time. She actually left The Runaways at one point (only to return) when she first realized that Joan Jett and Sandy Fox were both lesbian and Cherie – we mentioned experimental, did we? – at least bi, leaving just Jackie Fox (who was sought out as the bassist by Kim Fowley because he liked the way she moved her butt on the dance floor when he saw her at a teen disco in LA, no joke), who really wanted to got to college (she studied law, figures), and her to carry the beacon of hetero-orientation (in Lita’s case with a penchant for considerably older men) in what Catholic Lita felt was being marooned in a [i]donut bumper[/i] environment. (A lesbian made me aware of that term way back, so it’s ok to use and somewhat friendlier/cuter than –> [i]clam muncher[/i]!)
These days, I find Tony Iommi very much the suave English rock-aristocracy gentleman, all that therapy must have done some good. He looked barely recognizable when he shaved off that mustache for a short while in the mid 70s, not a good idea.
https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/static/article/news/3/165963_0_wide_ver1716631914.jpg@1200
June 27th, 2025 at 17:09this is one of the albums where GH for me reaches the peak with his voice
June 27th, 2025 at 18:18Apparently, Ray was neither gay nor regularly shooting up (not that these two groups were the only ones who could get AIDS, but they got it predominantly, a woman‘s vaginal mucosa offers more protection against an AIDS infection – of course that doesn’t apply if anal sex is practiced by a hetero couple as regularly advocated by Karin‘s favorite singer!), according to Jake E Lee, Ray simply pulled a really bad straw only once …
https://blabbermouth.net/news/jake-e-lee-ray-gillen-never-told-me-he-had-aids
Bummer.
June 27th, 2025 at 21:05I’ve never read Iommi’s side of the story, so who knows if what Lita is saying is true or not…
June 28th, 2025 at 04:53Correction to @10: Sandy West (not “Fox”), forgive me Sandy …
https://tomtommag.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/sandy-west-portrait-on-kit.jpg
https://youtu.be/AyUFXFRAoFk
***********************************************
“this is one of the albums where GH for me reaches the peak with his voice”
Glenn did sing exceedingly well on it even if he performed somewhat out of character, striking all funkiness from his phrasing.
June 28th, 2025 at 13:43oooohh, definitely less funky but the soul is still there.
June 29th, 2025 at 10:17So lovely..
I find the album elegant, as is the cover which is fantastic and already gives you that atmosphere..
June 29th, 2025 at 10:23Tony “Porn-stache” Iommi. Blackmore needs to get rid of his, I used to like his sideburns back in the 70’s.
June 29th, 2025 at 10:55AndreA @15; true!
And there is also a certain elegance to the album, but that is true for Tony Iommi in general, he was never sweaty or grubby, coming from a steel region I think he emphasized that part of his appearance early on. An Armani Italian.
June 29th, 2025 at 14:41if I remember correctly, Iommi is of Sicilian origin. Some time ago I had a dream. In a remote village with all my relatives, near and far strangers, we were in an old house with pots and pans and all the kitchen utensils hanging, all sitting listening to Tonyno strumming the guitar, folk music but maybe it was stuff like Embryo… I was so fascinated by this relative that I woke up.
June 29th, 2025 at 16:57“if I remember correctly, Iommi is of Sicilian origin”
Doesn’t that make him “an African” to most mainland Italians? 😂
Sicily is achingly beautiful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Baflc_0XVfY&t=12s
Best season of The White Lotus too.
June 30th, 2025 at 01:09“Doesn’t that make him “an African” to most mainland Italians? ”
maybe you’re stuck in 1960..🙃
June 30th, 2025 at 10:13@ 12… From what the reports are Uwe, is that he got AIDS from shooting up with his uncle….Only one time!
June 30th, 2025 at 11:56Did I ever claim anything else?! 😂
The 20s (last century) even!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Sacvan.jpg
https://youtu.be/DYgR_BkbqI0
June 30th, 2025 at 15:11@ 23
Oohhh, so lovely.
Sacco e Vanzetti ♡
Bravo Uwe 😢
June 30th, 2025 at 21:35I loved that song as a kid, my brother had the single, there was even a German version of it:
https://youtu.be/WLsVBywCmWI
Now we have to wait for Max to deride me for my lefty-to-the-core upbringing … 🤣
June 30th, 2025 at 23:57Uwe, I know that stuff. I used it to drive my old folks wild and I hoped it would drive Christiane wild too – if in some other way, that is. I’m proud to say I acvomplished 50% of my plans!
July 1st, 2025 at 11:48Didn’t we Gymnasiasten all listen to Degenhardrweckerwader back then?
Most of us just grew out of it.
Degenhardt is severely underrated as a lyricist. Of course his harsh and dogmatic lefty-orthodox world view didn‘t win him any friends, not a Schwiegersohn like Reinhard Mey (whose work I adore, I have all his albums, that’s a lot! 😂), but lyrically he has written some of the strongest German modern day poetry to music.
https://youtu.be/MT4NgZtg2Ds
I mean this is Tom Waits quality stuff.
I‘m also an Element of Crime fan, I hear a bit of Degenhardt in Sven Regener – minus the activist orthodoxy.
https://youtu.be/ymRnuhrAp8k
Exquisite lead guitar playing there.
July 1st, 2025 at 21:46