Paranoid: Black Days with Sabbath & Other Horror Stories [Paperback]

Mick Wall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1999

Like all the great rock books, this is not a book about rock music; it is a book about rock life. A hard-hitting, iconoclastic tour de force, written with affection, rudeness, and wincing honesty, Paranoid proves that music can be an arena for moral choices, and that it can quite literally change your life. Mick Wall was a teenage Black Sabbath fan who, leaving school with no qualifications, somehow found himself working with the band. These people, whom he first only knew as pictures on his bedroom wall, would help seal his fate forever. As he writes, "It was never about what happened on stage, it was about what happened afterwards, when the crowd had gone and the band could really start to play."

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Mainstream Publishing (February 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1851589937
• ISBN-13: 978-1851589937
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,794,156 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Never judge a book by it's cover or title., October 28, 2000

By 

Canadian reader (Somewere in The Great White North.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paranoid: Black Days with Sabbath & Other Horror Stories (Paperback)

Like others I bought this book because of the title. That is a book on Black Sabbath. Finally, I thought ,a book about Sabbath that is not written in point form,is not double spaced,and is actually over 200 pages long. No it is not just about Sabbath unfortunatly,but hey it's a good book and is worth a look. Yes there is some text on Black Sabbath and Ozzy in this book but remember this book begins in 1979/1980 when relations between the two camps is at an all time low. Don't expect a song by song analysis of their albums here. What it's actually about is a British writer recollecting about his past including his modest foray into rock journalism but mainly it's about his heroin addictions. He goes into great detail about his struggle to kick junk along other other vices and his role in the British rock press for the past twenty years. He recounts the rock stars he has met,their attitudes,ego's and insecurities sometimes in startling and highly personal detail. The chapter about Poison,Motley Crue etc is priceless and so true. He does a good job deconstructing the stereotype of a glamourous rock writer, what pathetic lows a junkie can sink to, and goes for the jugular in telling us what heavy metal and the people who play it really are. Don't buy this thinking it's a biography about four blokes from Birmingham. Don't buy it if you are looking for a excuse to start shooting up smack. But do read it because ,deceptive titles aside, it is a good Rock and Roll account and Mick Walls writing is funny, personal and very opinionated. Alas the wait continues for someone to write the definitive story about Black Sabbath,and write it in a way that does not assume we are all illiterate, heavy metal airheads.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Misleading Title, March 25, 2000

By 

David R. Paitsel (Millersville, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Paranoid: Black Days with Sabbath & Other Horror Stories (Paperback)

Don't buy this book if you think you are purchasing a book that is predominantly about Black Sabbath. Instead, the author spends most of the book writing about his heroin addiction and the drug culture in which he spent most of his life.

While some of his anectdotes about the celebrity rock stars he met are interesting and show a side to these people that is usually kept from public view, I'm not sure I really needed this information. Many of these people are heroes to a lot of music fans, and some of us don't really want to know just how contemptible they may have really been. Some of these stories seem to be included just for shock value and could easily have been left out without harming the main theme of the book. Wall's story about staring up Stevie Nicks' dress while following her up a flight of stairs should tell you something about his general tone.

Maybe this would be a good book for a person with an addiction problem. Mick Wall's example might show them how low they really are. I can't say I would recommend this to the average reader, however.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For those about to rock, February 16, 2000

By 

LEVENT KESKIN (Istanbul, Turkey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paranoid: Black Days with Sabbath & Other Horror Stories (Paperback)

The two thirds of the book consists of Mick Wall's extremely appalling and spesific accounts , descriptions and true feelings of His junkie days. The rest is full of the backgrounds and insights of his many interesting interviews with highly famed stars. The conversation with Ozzy and Mrs.Osbourne in Rio is I think one of the most informative and entertaining one. The jeopardy that he all of a sudden faced in Dublin is another well-versed memory. For non native speakers, the book sometimes gets quite hard to catch because of the abundant use of slangs and unusual expressions.