Monthly Archives: August 2025

Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, My Stories

Down To Earth

In honor of Ozzy, this is a rewrite/re-review of a post written a few years ago.

October 16, 2001. The towers are down. The country is shook. And Ozzy Osbourne drops “Down to Earth”, an album caught in the crossfire between his myth and his mortality.

This isn’t Ozzy the bat-biting madman. This is Ozzy the tired father, the aging icon, the guy who’s slowly realizing that the monster people made him into is more cartoon than chaos now. It’s a rock album, sure, but under all the distortion is something we didn’t expect: a man falling apart, loudly.

Zakk Wylde’s back, but barely. He’s a hired gun here, not the warlord we saw on “No More Tears”. He plays, but doesn’t write a damn note. And that’s a first.

Instead, you’ve got a Frankenstein writing crew: Joe Holmes, Rob Trujillo, Mike Bordin, Mick Jones (yep, from Foreigner), Geoff Nichols, Marti Frederiksen, Tim Palmer, even Danny Saber. At one point, Offspring,Weezer and Dave Grohl tried to contribute songs. Dave Fucking Grohl. Zakk’s response in a Guitar World interview from November 2001? Legendary:

“Foo Fighters is a fucking candy-ass girl band… Let him get up there and play Mr. Crowley.”

Not exactly a warm collab.

The chaos behind the scenes? You can hear it. This album wasn’t created, it was stitched together like a body in a morgue. And somehow, it lives.

Tim Palmer, best known for producing U2 and Tears for Fears, was a bizarre choice for Ozzy. But he co-wrote most of the songs, played a bunch of instruments, and literally took the guitar out of Zakk’s hands to show him how to play it “better.”

Zakk was not amused. He wanted Les Pauls and Marshalls. Palmer wanted Telecasters and tone. They clashed like metal and pop always do.

And you feel that in the sound: polished, but bruised. Heavy, but with an identity crisis. It’s an album at war with itself, because its creators were at war with each other.

Gets Me Through

Ozzy rips the mask off: “I’m not the Antichrist or the Iron Man.” He thanks his fans while telling them they don’t really know him. The riff is heavy, the message heavier: Don’t believe the myth. Believe the mess.

Facing Hell

Religious hypocrisy served with a chugging riff and eerie ambience. If this was released today, it’d be written off as edgy. In 2001, it was relevant as hell.

Dreamer

This is Ozzy’s “Imagine.” A plea for peace from a man who once snorted ants. And it works. Earnest, beautiful, a little cheesy, but it lands.

No Easy Way Out

Ozzy admits he’s cracked. “Superman is dead.” Depression isn’t a lyric trend here, it’s a lived-in reality.

That I Never Had

Chasing fulfillment and coming up empty. He’s rich, famous, adored, and utterly hollow.

You Know… (Part 1)

A short Beatles-esque lament about broken relationships and time lost. This isn’t the monster’s voice anymore, it’s the man behind the curtain saying, “I fucked up.”

Junkie

The glamorization of addiction gets burned to the ground here. “That beautiful flower is eating your mind.” This isn’t heroin-chic. This is heroin as soul-eater. The prettiest things destroy you slowest.

Running Out of Time

Faith, hope, reason, all gone. “I haven’t even got a soul to sell.” This isn’t a cry for help, it’s a resignation letter written in blood and barbiturates.

Black Illusion

The manipulators wear makeup and smiles, and so does Ozzy. That’s the twist. The song starts as a warning. It ends as a confession. We’re all part of the illusion.

Alive

Maybe the most underrated cut here. It’s broken, desperate, hopeful, like someone who’s still breathing not because they want to, but because they’re too scared to stop.

“What keeps me alive is dreams.”

That line alone is enough to earn this song its place.

Can You Hear Them?

Ozzy’s final moment on the album is pure existential fatigue. “So sick and tired of living, and so afraid to die.” It’s not melodrama. It’s just truth. Raw, cold, unfiltered truth.

It’s not a classic. It’s not “Blizzard” or “Diary” or even “No More Tears”. But it’s important.

This is the album where the mask slips. Where the 70s horror movie Ozzy becomes the 2000s reality TV Ozzy. Where fame stops being a fantasy and starts being a funeral.

Post-9/11, the world was suddenly a darker, more cynical place. And “Down to Earth”, accidentally or not, caught that shift in tone perfectly.

“Down to Earth” is a crash landing. A confession booth in the middle of a circus. It’s Ozzy finally admitting: “I’m not who you think I am. I never was.”

And that? That’s the most rock & roll thing he’s done in decades.

Standard
Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Twilight Cruiser

The self-titled debut from Kingdom Come took the charts by storm in 1988. “In Your Face” broke up the band a year later. A new all German version of Kingdom Come put out the underrated “Hands Of Time” in 1991, the last album on their Polydor contract. It did nothing and they lost their U.S deal, but with a proviso that no other U.S label could sign them unless Polydor allowed them to.

And Lenny Wolf refused to stop.

“Bad Image” came in 1993, and then “Twilight Cruiser” dropped in 1995.

Both albums are forgotten. But they shouldn’t be. While grunge and industrial metal took over the airwaves, melodic blues based rock was still alive and well.

Lyrically, “Twilight Cruiser” deals with isolation and loneliness. A metaphor for someone who wanders through life aimlessly, searching for meaning and purpose.

“I can hear the silence in the dark”

This isn’t just synesthesia. It’s not poetry for its own sake. This is sensing the void. Not hearing nothingness, but hearing silence as presence, not absence. Like when you’re up at 2AM, and the world’s asleep, but your mind’s loud. This line doesn’t describe loneliness. It names it, in that way only people who have lived through it understand.

The kind of quiet you only recognize after the show’s over, after the crowd is gone, and you’re left with yourself and your ringing ears. That moment where you realize nobody is coming to save you, and that’s liberating as hell.

“Closing in the distance to my heart”

What was once out there, distant, abstract, is getting personal. The silence, the unknown, the ‘thing’ we fear or yearn for… it’s now at your chest, tapping your sternum. The detachment is gone. It’s getting intimate.

This could be grief. It could be love. It could be the epiphany that comes only after you’ve burned all the other options to the ground.

“Now and then a quick glance at the stars / Coming of a deep trance, peace at large”

Here’s the shift. A quick look up, a glance at something eternal, pulls you from your hypnotic state. You’re no longer in autopilot. You wake. You feel. It’s the spiritual equivalent of ripping your VR headset off and realizing you’re in a galaxy.

This is what rock and roll used to do before algorithms turned it into background noise. It used to wake you up.

The peace doesn’t come from control, it comes from surrender. You stop needing answers and start loving the questions.

“Like a soothing shelter over me / I have come to love her mystery”

Now she arrives. But she’s not a person. Not quite. She’s the Night, the Muse, the Unknown.

You used to fear the dark. Now it’s your cloak.

What once confused you now holds you, not because it explains itself, but because it lets you dissolve into it.

You’re no longer demanding clarity. You’re falling in love with chaos.

“Making me surrender, letting go / Guiding me so tender, very slow”

You’re not driving anymore. The wheel’s gone. Control is a myth, and thank God.

You’re being guided, not pushed. Led, not dragged.

There’s a tenderness to this surrender. It’s not violent. It’s almost erotic.

Like the way a great solo builds slowly, not to impress, but to invite.

It’s permission to be human.

The problem is thinking you have to fix everything. The answer is learning how to bleed without flinching.

“When the night is falling / I hear voices calling”

This is your moment of becoming. The night doesn’t just fall like a curtain, it opens a portal.

The voices? They’re not ghosts. They’re not demons. They’re memories, regrets, desires.

They’re everything you silenced in daylight.

At night, the suppressed becomes symphony. Lying in bed with nothing but a song and a past you can’t outrun.

“Like an aimless shooter / I’m a twilight cruiser”

The aimless shooter isn’t violent. He’s drifting. Firing into the void not to hit something, but to make noise, to feel real.

The twilight cruiser is someone who lives in the in-between. Not day. Not night. Not good. Not evil. Just existing in the grey zone, free from roles, from right answers.

This is the archetype of the modern antihero, the midnight philosopher, the vagabond spirit searching not for destinations, but for feeling.

It’s the cowboy without a saddle.

The punk without a cause.

The part of you that wasn’t made for daylight.

This song is a meditation disguised as melody. It’s about drifting into mystery, letting go of the need to dominate your inner world, and falling in love with uncertainty. It’s not a love song, it’s a survival song, whispered from the edge of isolation, written for people who are done pretending everything makes sense.

Standard
A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

David Roach’s Last Stand: The Voice Behind Junkyard’s Raw, Relentless Rock

Behind the riffs and raw grit, the human story of a frontman who never pretended to be anything but real.

If you were there in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, you knew Junkyard. “Blooze.” “Hollywood.” “All the Time in the World.”

They weren’t polished like Guns N’ Roses, they looked like they’d just changed your oil and stolen your beer. I loved them then. Still do.

You could say wrong place, wrong time hurt Junkyard. They had the raw goods, a sleazy, swaggering street take on AC/DC’s DNA, twisted with punk grit, but the market was already splintering. Their debut hit in 1989, produced by Tom Werman, engineered by Duane Baron, tight as a fist and twice as loud.

Chris Gates came up with the name “Junkyard.” “Crack” was considered, until the drug hit the evening news.

These guys didn’t just appear, they’d been grinding since the early ‘80s. Gates and Brian Baker came from hardcore punk, Minor Threat, The Big Boys. Todd Muscat and Patrick Muzingo had been pounding stages with Decry since ’83.

They formed Junkyard in 1987, Virgin Records sniffed first, but at a gig with Jane’s Addiction and Green River, Geffen swooped in. The A&R guy knew their punk past. Deal sealed.

They didn’t fit the Motley Crüe/Poison mold. They weren’t aiming for Bon Jovi/Journey polish. They belonged to the third camp, alongside Raging Slab, Dangerous Toys, Circus of Power, where punk, classic rock, and Southern boogie collided. The debut was a cocktail of Bad Company swagger, AC/DC crunch, Aerosmith groove, ZZ Top dirt, Southern rock twang, and just enough Guns N’ Roses grit to catch Geffen’s eye (though they were signed before “Appetite for Destruction” blew up).

“Blooze” kicked the door in. “Simple Man” gave us “throwing pennies into the wishing well”, so simple, so perfect. “Shot in the Dark”, not Ozzy’s, was pure sleaze. “Hollywood” had a riff Gates swore came from a “Cheech & Chong”movie. MTV picked up the Jean Pellerin–directed video. “Life Sentence” roared like Motorhead. “Texas” nodded to ZZ Top’s “La Grange”. “Hands Off” had gospel swagger and filthy humor.

Then came “Sixes, Sevens & Nines”. Darker, heavier. By ’92, Geffen dropped them. The wave shifted. Nirvana landed. Labels chased the next Seattle messiah. Muzingo told Sleaze Roxx:

“We knew we weren’t gonna be millionaires doing this. We all got real jobs. No drama, no BS.”

Reality check: even with a major label deal, most bands end up back at day jobs. They had a third album, “103,000 People Can’t Be Wrong”, but Geffen’s ultimatum (use their producer or walk) killed it. The industry had moved on.

Still, Junkyard didn’t disappear. “Demos” in 2008. New songs in 2015. “High Water” in 2017 with Tim Mosher, followed by tours that proved they were leaner and meaner. 2019’s “Old Habits Die Hard”. Two more tracks in 2021. Then… silence.

Until 2025, when the silence broke for the worst reason. David Roach, voice, snarl, and face of Junkyard, had cancer. His wife, Jennifer Michaels, had saved him once, pulled him out of the gutter, gave him love, stability, purpose. She’d been the one to convince him to get that swollen lymph node checked. It was squamous cell carcinoma of the head, neck, and throat. By June 2025, it had spread to his lungs and liver. She quit her job to care for him until he passed away in his sleep.

On August 2, 2025, Junkyard posted:

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of David Roach.

After a courageous battle with cancer, David passed away peacefully last night at home, in the loving arms of his wife.

He was a gifted artist, performer, songwriter, and singer—but above all, a devoted father, husband, and brother.

Dangerous Toys’ Jason McMaster told it best. He remembered David as the cool punk kid from high school, the guy who could hang with anyone. In ’89, their bands released albums the same week. Their videos debuted back-to-back on MTV. They toured together. Men cried when it ended. In 2022, David moved in next door to Jason. A year later, he met Jennifer. And then cancer came.

The thing about David Roach, he made rock ‘n’ roll feel like it belonged to the rest of us. Not the pretty people. The real ones. And that’s what hurts. You can’t fake authenticity. You can’t fake cool. And you sure as hell can’t fake the hole it leaves.

Standard
Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Copyright, Influenced, Music, My Stories

Ozzy

I was late to the Ozzy party but once I joined, I could never leave.

Secret Loser

It started with this.

I was watching “The Wraith”, that glorious mess of a film where Charlie Sheen gets murdered by a car gang and comes back from the dead to destroy them in high-speed races. Total 80s nonsense. Beautiful.

And then this song kicks in, “Secret Loser”.

I’m floored. Jake E. Lee’s riff grabs you by the throat. Randy Castillo’s drumming? Thunderous. Bob Daisley holds the bottom end like a goddamn surgeon while writing the lyrics and acting as the unofficial musical director. Criminally underrated, all of them.

Shot In The Dark

Suddenly I started to notice Ozzy everywhere. “Hit Parader”. “Faces”. “Kerrang”. Any ragged, smudgy magazine I could get my hands on.

Then the “Shot In The Dark” music video drops on TV. I’m hooked. Again. Shoutout to Phil Soussan, he wrote a total earworm that became a copyright mess later. Classic rock n’ roll story.

I was a fan and yet, I hadn’t spent a cent on an Ozzy album.

That was about to change.

Crazy Train

I catch a music video of “Crazy Train” off the “Tribute” album. Blew my adolescent brain apart.

I didn’t know what modes were, or how going from F# minor to A major could tap-dance on your dopamine receptors, but it did. And Randy’s solo? Like someone threw lightning into a blender and made it melodic.

So I did what every kid did in the ’80s did. I went out searching for the music. The “Tribute” album at the time was sold out in my local store so I bought “Bark At The Moon” on cassette… and played it to death.

From the first riff to the last breath of “Waiting For Darkness”, I was in.

Funny part?

I didn’t even know who Randy Rhoads was until 1987, when “Tribute” came out.

That album changed everything.
My favorite live album. Knocked “Live After Death” off its throne.

I didn’t just listen to “Tribute”. I studied it. The tab book became my gospel. The holy book of guitar nerds everywhere.

“Children of the Grave” on that album? Absolute fire. Randy’s solo turns the whole Sabbath vibe into a soaring, melodic battle cry.

Miracle Man

The pigs. The bullseye guitar. The demented brilliance of it all.

“Miracle Man” was bizarre and perfect. A middle finger to the televangelist freakshow of the time and also to our sense of reality.

This was a perfect theme for Ozzy. He appeared in the movie “Trick or Treat”. He’s on TV telling kids heavy metal is the work of the devil. It’s meta. It’s ridiculous. It’s perfect. And then the devil of the movie reaches into the TV screen, grabs Ozzy by the throat and chokes him to death.

Mr. Tinkertrain

Yeah, the lyrics are creepy. Like, really creepy.

But let’s not ignore the groove. It slaps.

Castillo on drums, Geezer Butler on bass, Zakk Wylde doing his loud-quiet-loud Jekyll-and-Hyde thing on guitar, it’s sinister and intoxicating.

Over the Mountain / Diary of a Madman

If these were on “Tribute”, that album would’ve broken the damn rating scale.

“Over the Mountain” is Sabbath DNA through and through. But “Diary”?

That’s the masterpiece.

It’s what this band could’ve become a blend of metal, classical, and time-signature wizardry. Prog meets doom. Beauty meets chaos.

Also, fun fact: Machine Head has used “Diary of a Madman” as their intro tape for 20+ years. Respect.

Old L.A. Tonight

Melancholy done right.
It’s nostalgia in a bottle, like yearning for a time you never really had but somehow still miss.

And Zakk’s solo? It sings.

Gets Me Through

Zakk didn’t write it. Doesn’t matter.

He owned it.

The riff is heavy. The vibe is real.
And Ozzy’s message is clear: you, the fans, are the reason he’s still standing.

Black Rain & Scream

Yeah, I bought ’em. Didn’t click.
Felt like the magic dimmed.

Ordinary Man & Patient Number 9

Then the Andrew Watt records dropped. Different but familiar. A reboot that didn’t suck.

“Straight To Hell” = vintage Sabbath.

“Goodbye” = Ozzy solo meets Beatles vibes.

But Patient Number 9?

That’s the one. Loaded with guitar gods. Packed with emotion. If this album doesn’t hit you in the soul, go check if you’ve still got one.

You can’t talk about Ozzy without talking about Sharon.

They’re a weird, dysfunctional symbiotic storm. But it works. Without Sharon, Ozzy’s solo career doesn’t exist. And without Ozzy, Sharon’s not a media empire.

They’re chaos and control. Yin and “holy-shit-get-the-fire-extinguisher” yang.

The Authorship Drama

It’s the elephant in the room that no one will remember once we’re all dead.

Jake E. Lee and Bob Daisley?

Did the work, got none of the credit.

Phil Soussan’s “Shot in the Dark” co-writers?

Silenced in the shuffle.

Lemmy wrote lyrics for a lot of songs on “No More Tears” and “Ozzmosis” and only got credits for a few. Paid well, sure, but still.

That’s rock history: full of brilliance, bullshit, and blown-up contracts.

Ozzy is more than a musician, he’s an institution.

Broken, brilliant, bizarre. And totally f*cking unforgettable.

And somehow, whether he was singing about war pigs, barking at moons, or being patient number nine, he always gave us something real underneath the madness.

And that’s why we kept coming back.

Standard