Customer Reviews

Paranoid: Black Days with Sabbath & Other Horror Stories

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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.

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.

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.

Mr Mick Wall wrote a pretty funny & informative book on the woes of being a junky & a few insightful & funny stories of some major rock stars, but the title of the book is very Decieving! I thought I was purchasing a book about Black Sabbath, not some Ex-Kerrang (Great magazine), writer. If the book was titled "Adventures of Mick Wall the junky writer", I would have probably still bought it, but I just felt a little ripped off when only a few pages of the book are dedicated to some Ozzy, Black Sabbath stories. It was an interesting read about the pitfalls of being a junky & trying to make a buck while hooked on smack. I enjoyed that part pretty much, but I wanted to read a Hell of alot more on the great Black Sabbath. Overall, a decent (but short), book about the junky lifestyle. Absolutely Horribly Decieving Title. Not about Black Sabbath.

This is more a review of the writers' own drug use & laziness than a book about Black Sabbath. He uses the popularity of Ozzy & The Osbournes TV show at the time to sell book about himself. No, this book is a terrible diary about a hack magazine writer who steals review copies of LPs to finance a drug habit & sneaks into band parties to drink free booze. My advice? If you want to be like this writer, steal this book, then sell it to a used book store to buy some booze.

Its misleading title aside (the publishers simply cited Black Sabbath to try and attract more buyers, it's true), Mick Wall's harrowing memoir strikes terrifyingly close to the music business' true heart of darkness. Sure, the first-hand anecdotes aren't always as satisfying as those found in most rock biogs out there, but they're also a lot more REAL, as anyone who's ever worked in the music industry will attest. So Sabbath and Ozzy fans should by all means look elsewhere for more detailed stories about their heroes, but music fans who dare to step up and peek behind the magic curtain won't find many accounts as courageously candid as this one.

I think Paranoid: Black Days with Sabbath and Other Horror Stories is a really fascinating book as it chronicles Mick Wall's experiences in meeting and working alongside the members of Black Sabbath as well as Phil Lynnot of Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest and other rock stars. I mean just read the part where Mick remembers asking Phil as to why he liked to hold his bass guitar so high. Phil's response just cracked me up. So readers if you're a fan of heavy music and especially the above mentioned, go out and buy this book.

If you are expecting tell all revelations about Black Sabbath, along the lines of those about Led Zeppelin in "Hammer of the God"s, well this just isn't it. Mick Wall wasn't around for most of Sabbath's career, and doesn't remember a great deal from when he was. But don't hold it against him - he tells a good tale of rock decadence (a more truthful title might be "When Rock Journalists go Bad"), and there's plenty of bits and pieces of behind the scenes gossip. Ozzy even turns up once in a while. Low point: when the author's bodily fluids turn yellow.