It's impossible to be depressed listening to Ronnie James Dio

[flamingyouth]

I've been laughing so hard I'm almost in tears. Holy Diver may be comedic brilliance. :D

[Fenris]

1. RIDE THE TIGER!

Which sounds like "Ride tha Taiga!"

[flamingyouth]

2. There are so many animals in that first part of the song

Thank you, VH1, for making that video available for all on your site.

Ah, memories of sitting around your apartment as you played "Rainbow in the Dark" on your guitar. :7

[Fenris]

4. When there's lightning...

;)

[Elidor]

7. Why does it bring him down again?

That song never made a lick of sense to me. Fortunately, I was 17 and logic wasn't my strong suit anyway.

[flamingyouth]

8. Logic must be suspended while listening to Dio, my friend.

(But it brings him down because it's free and he sees that's he's lost and never found) ;)

[Elidor]

12. Free lightning works for me. Never paid for it in my life.

Oh, wait, that came out wrong.

[MrSlayer]

3. Like a tiger.

You can see his stripes but you know he's clean. Oh, Don't you see what I mean?

[flamingyouth]

5. Exactly.

I mean, :wtf: does that even mean? :D

[MrSlayer]

13. His lyrics rarely mean anything.

But they are amusing.

Look Out!

[ghostsofgiants]

6. Dio has rocked for a long long time...

Now it's time for him to pass the torch.
He has songs of wildebeests and angels,
He has soared on the wings of a demon.

It's time to pass the torch,
You're too old to rock, no more rockin' for you.
We're takin' you to a home,
But we will sing a song about you.

And we will make sure that you're very well taken care of.
You'll tell us secrets that you've learned. Raow!
Your sauce will mix with ours,
And we'll make a good goulash baby.
Dio, time to go!
You must give your cape and scepter to me.
And a smaller one for KG.
Go! Go! Dio! Dio!

[flamingyouth]

9. ROFL

:applause:

[ghostsofgiants]

11. Tenacious D = rock gods

[opiate69]

10. Hey, laugh if you must, but

that entire sub-genre (Dio, Priest, Ozzy,etc...) was at least 1000 times better than the "chick" metal (Poison, Warrant, Dokken, etc.)

[flamingyouth]

14. Oh, I'm laughing AND appreciating, believe me

His music actually stands up after all these years.

[opiate69]

18. Yeah.. I just did a lyric search, and

damn I miss that tape. I think I need to go pick it up on disc this weekend.

[MrSlayer]

16. Of course.

Dio has a great voice, great music, meaningless lyrics. The glam shit was all just banal crap.

[opiate69]

19. Actually, a lot of his lyrics ...

had a similar theme... speaking to/as an outcast. Lots of metaphors, but not nearly as obtuse as, say, a Tori Amos.

[flamingyouth]

21. A lot of them are pagan-themed

And obviously fantastical. :D

[opiate69]

27. Yeah.. I always thought his pagan/fantasy lyrics

were just him trying to co-opt something he wasn't really into to begin with.. kinda like "Well, I'm gonna be singing for Black Sabbath, I guess I'd better write some gothic/pagan sounding shit".. but, believe it or not, songs like "Rainbow in the Dark" or "Last in Line" actually make sense to me...

[Withywindle]

30. Oh no, no...

He was definitely writing all sorts of gothic swords'n'sorcery stuff just like that with Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow long before he was in Sabbath. It seemed to me at the time that he wound up with Sabbath because they were already compatible that way.

His first band was called ELF, after all.


"Last In Line" fuckin' RULES. Still.

[opiate69]

32. Good point....

[Vektor]

35. Oh god, please don't call it chick metal...

I, for one, HATED THAT GLAM SHIT. Eeeeeew.

[opiate69]

37. Hehe.. sorry 'bout that.. although,

girls were the target demographic for those bands...

[Vektor]

39. I guess...

Glad I didn't fall for it. Those guys were PUTZES. Dokken had a minute amount of talent and a few good songs. Don Dokken could actually sing, and George Lynch was a pretty good guitarist, but Poison and Warrant? Not a SPECK of talent.
Not one of them.

[opiate69]

41. That's what always pissed me off about Whitesnake too..

Coverdale surrounded himself with outstanding musicians, but he was so over-the-top with his Robert Plant impersonation, that the band became a punch-line.. John Sykes' guitar work on the album that had "Still of the Night" is easily some of the best from that era, but you'd be hard pressed to find anybody who could get past Coverdale's ridiculousness lomg enough to acknowledge that.

[Rabrrrrrr]

44. Oh, Christ, don't even get me started on fuckin' Whitesnake

chick bands is right.

Goddamn, what a useless fuckin' decade. I spent most of it being totally pissed off, because I appreciated MUSIC in my heavy metal (like Sabbath, Dio, Van Halen, Saxon, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Scorpions, etc.), and all these shit bands - and they were shit, nothing but utter complete shit - came out, like Ratt, and Poison, and Cinderella, and Whitesnake, and Guns & Roses, and shitloads more than I could ever name here.

Dokken - fuck Dokken. Saw them open for DIO - utter pieces of shit.

[Vektor]

47. Coverdale-

Truly was ludicrous. I am going to have nightmares now.

[Rabrrrrrr]

15. Dio is a god! Which makes sense, given that his name is Dio.

I saw him concert many times. Every one of them FUCKIN' rocked, was brilliant, and a hell of a wondrous and perfect evening!

Except the one show that fuckin' Dokken opened up for. God, what a waste/piece of shit Dokken is/was. Egads! They/he were/was NOWHERE near as awful as The Vinny Vincent Invasion opening up for Alice Cooper, but Dokken FUCKIN' SUCKED!!

Dio FUCKIN' ROCKS!!!

Rocks more than Maiden, almost as much as Sabbath.

[flamingyouth]

22. Now, isn't this better than talking about Oasis?

:D

[Zomby Woof]

26. What about when Dio was IN Sabbath?

Did he still rock almost as much as them? :D

(And I for one am goddamned glad Judas Priest is back with Halford. It fucking kills, no matter what anyone says. Hail the bands of the days of yore!)

[opiate69]

28. Almost, but..

no other incarnation of Sabbath rocked quite as much as the original line-up.... (Plus, Dio's wife's ego clashed with Iommi's ego, so it was destined to shine brightly, but burn out quickly.) Although, I'd have to admit "The Mob Rules" is my second favorite Sabbath album (right behind "Sabotage")

[Zomby Woof]

29. Well, hell

All pure Sabbath fans go with Ozzy every time. It's the natural order of things. "Master of Reality" is my favorite, although "Paranoid" is the undisputed masterpiece.

[opiate69]

31. Master and Paranoid are seminal albums for sure..

I've just always been more of a "B-side" kinda guy... I think it has something to do with being a young kid, trying to fall asleep at night, while my older sister was cranking the latest Frampton or Aerosmith 45 (A-side only), over and over, ad nauseum.. "Fer fuck's sake, can you please play ANYTHING other than that same damn song you've been listening to for an hour and a half???".. must have hard-wired me against liking anything that gets too popular.

[Rabrrrrrr]

36. For me, that's the Sabbath that, in toto, I prefer

Live Evil, listen to Dio hammer out the ol' Ozzy tunes. Not to disparage Ozzy at all, and Sabbath with Ozzy was fucking incredible. I just prefer Dio's voice.

Ozzy is better on a few things - Paranoid, especially. But Dio has such an awesome voice, much more in tune, and so solid and meaty. It fits with Sabbath's sound perfectly.

IMO.

I also loved the Ian Gillan album - that's the only Sabbath concert I got to go to. Fantastic! "Disturbing the Priest" indeed!

[opiate69]

38. "Oh. Mr. Miracle, you saved me from some pain...

I thank you Mr. Miracle, I won't get trashed again... " some of Iommi's most insane lead work right there... but holy fucking hell, who in God's name mixed/mastered that disc? Talk about no bottom end...methinks the boys were a little too "altered" to pay proper attention to the mix-down.

[Rabrrrrrr]

40. It is really top heavy, isn't it?

It's like, "Hey - Geezer - you go play over in that warehouse, and we'll mic you here in the studio."

Great, fantastic, incredible album though. And they weren't that trebly in concert, thank God.

[opiate69]

42. Yeah..Iommi's guitar sounds like a dentist's drill.

I was so pissed.. I had a chance to see that tour at the New Haven Coliseum.. my best friend had 2 tickets, but my Step-monster wouldn't let me go. (I was "too young"... at 13).. Quiet Riot opened. and my friend, who was a huge QR fan, left before Sabbath even played.. dumbass.

[Rabrrrrrr]

43. It still sounds fuckin' awesome, though!

Too bad you missed the show. Quiet Riot opened for them when I saw them, and they were quite good! Right at the height of QR's popularity. They had nowhere the real musicianship of Sabbath or other bands that had a chance at longevity, but they put on a damn good show in the brief span of time that they were relevant.

Back in 2001 or 2002, I was in my parent's hometown, a small insignificant nothing town of about 6,000, and was in a small grocery store still owned by the family that started it 75 years or so ago, and saw a flyer on the "community bulletin board" for a "concert" being put on by Quiet Riot in some bar in a small town OUTSIDE of the already VERY SMALL town that my parents lived in.

I thought "How sad is that? At what point would a sane person say, after playing for 50,000+ fans in stadiums, that playing in a shithole redneck bar in the middle of dairy country for people who barely graduated from some of the dumbest-downed schools in the nation, where you can get a year's credit for putting a blower on a '68 Corvair, just isn't worth it?"

If I were a "professional" musician, who played stadiums, I would NOT, absolutely NOT, play shitholes. I would retire.

[opiate69]

46. The sad thing is,

a lot of those guys think they can somehow re-capture that old glory... "well, if we play the clubs for a while, and get our name back out there, we can build it back up, dude!". My band just played at a club that QR played in on that 2001-2002 tour... when I got there and saw the room, and the stage, I couldn't help but think "how the mighty have fallen"... I mean, it's a cool club and all, but it holds maybe 150 people...there's no backstage area or green room, just a typical, non-descript downtown club. That's why I'm taking great pains to make sure that if we ever find ourselves making a decent amount of money, I'm going to make sure I invest it wisely.

[Wickerman]

17. Geeez, should there be some kind of intervention?

:spray:

:rofl:

When I lived in San Antonio (metal city) he was worshipped.

[flamingyouth]

20. Slow Ride.... take it easy!

;)

Yeah, there probably should be an intervention. And he was worshipped at my high school in the '80s, trust me. :rofl:

[Wickerman]

23. Yes, he has certainly held up well

[flamingyouth]

24. Aaaaaaahhhh!

A little warning, please! :spray:

[Fenris]

25. Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyikes!

:scared:

[Vektor]

33. DIO RULES!

Though he does bear an eerie resemblance to Carla from "Cheers."

Fave sone: The Last in Line.

[Beware the Beast Man]

34. No one rocks harder for America...

[RandomKoolzip]

45. No truer words have ever been typed. n/t