Sabbath’s music was a cornerstone of my existence growing up, so reading Tony Iommi’s autobiography as soon as it came out was a no brainer.
Overall it’s a pretty entertaining read, and I would recommend it to other like minded metalheads, even though in places it has rather scant detail. However, considering the Vast quantity of Charlie consumed by Tony over the years perhaps it’s understandable that his memory is a tad vague.
Obviously we all love the classic lineup, but Tony Martin was in Sabbath for 10 years (the same length of time as Ozzy’s first stint) so it would have been nice to read more about his involvement, unfortunately his tenure in the band coincided with a lot of hassles and even more drug use so I guess from Tony’s perspective what he’s written is all he can recount.
I remember seeing Jasper Carrot singing in a band on a TV clip once, and as the camera panned round I could have sworn I saw Bev Bevan playing drums and Tony on guitar, but the clip ended and I guessed I was imagining it, so it was nice to read in the book that they were indeed in a band (called Belch) and that they did play on TV.
So as the Ayatollah Khomeini said after reviewing The Satanic Verses, “A thundering good read.”
