Take a Walk on the Dark Side by R. Gary Patterson

Author:R. Gary Patterson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2003-12-21T05:00:00+00:00

7 “WELCOME TO THE HOTEL CALIFORNIA”

—The Eagles, “Hotel California” You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.

—Anton LaVey, The Satanic Bible Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as he has kept it in business!

—David Bowie, Rolling Stone, February 12, 1996, p. 83 Rock has always been the Devil’s music. You can?t convince me that it isn’t.

In the late 1970s, many parents groups began to complainabout “backward maskings” and occult references in rock recordings. Rock groups of the late 1960s and 1970s performed Gothic sets of music included with album art that seemed to come out of Hammer Films. When did pretense end and reality begin? One of the first groups who created headlines by using occult references was Black Sabbath, fronted by Ozzy Osbourne. Many followers at first believed that the group took its name from a witches’ gathering, when in reality they took their name from the 1963 horror film that starred Boris Karloff. The song lyrics hinted at occult references, and at some shows the band performed in front of a cross that was turned upside down and exploded into yet another Satanic symbol. Throughout his career, charges of following the dark side have haunted Osbourne. To his credit Ozzy Osbourne has appeared on many talk shows explaining that he is far from a Satanist and that his shows include only elements of the theater. Osbourne has also made the statement that the closest Black Sabbath got to black magic was in opening a box of black magic chocolate. In yet another interview he was asked if the name Black Sabbath implied the group’s devotion to the occult. Ozzy’s answer was, “The Rolling Stones don’t cause avalanches.”

Black Sabbath has had some strange supernatural happenings in their history. Terry “Geezer” Butler, the bassist, is the band’s resident psychic. In dreams of precognition, Butler would often have visions that would many times come true. To better understand his abilities, Butler began researching the occult. It was in the 1970s, and Ozzy gave Geezer a four-hundred-year-old handwritten book on witchcraft and the occult. After he received the antiquated book strange things began happening in Butler’s home. The first night he brought the book home, a black cat was said to have appeared in front of him and then simply disappeared. Butler was convinced that what he had just witnessed was an apparition. At this time his studies in the occult lessened significantly.

During the making of the Sabbath Bloody Sabbath album, the band stayed in a medieval castle to do some recording and play a concert. One night Ozzy fell asleep in one of the rooms and a burning coal fell from the fireplace and started a fire in the room. Ozzy awoke in the smoke-filled bedroom and made his way to safety just in time. The band left the castle shortly after this episode.

In the United States during the same time period, rumors surfaced that the Ohio rock group Cheap Trick was led to its name by consulting an Ouija board.

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