AN INSULT TO DIO IS AN INSULT TO US ALL

To a pre-teen, Dio pretty much seemed like Carla from Cheers slinging indecipherable metaphors based on rainbows and mountains and shit. Further, my young mind struggled to surround the idea of a gruff, admonishing elf in the place of the cuddly everyman John Osbourne, and the drastic changes to Black Sabbath that resulted. But adulthood brings new perspective, Dio-era Rainbow is fucking awesome, and each year brings a new Metal documentary in which he comes off as pleasant and principled. And that's precisely why he will never ever ever sing Ozzy-era songs. And no sane person would ask him to. Oh wait. Heaven And Hell guitarist Tony Iommi to Boston Herald:

We love 'War Pigs' and 'Iron Man' and 'Paranoid', but we've played those for 40 years so it's been a nice change. Maybe next year we'll do some of the old stuff.

Yeah this is fucked. Dio and H&H have an awesome new record in addition to the pair of juggernauts which they rip to shreds live (above), while Ozzy is nothing but baggage, a self-defeating slosh who will stop at nothing to destroy his music and garner the world's animosity and scorn. Now it's true, Dio would slay those songs. But come on this is insulting and beneath Dio's contempt. I mean, should your gf be forced to learn the portions of your previous chick's demented, deviant sexual repertoire? No really, she should right? That's what I've been telling her. She won't even watch the video examples I so courteously furnished for her use. Women.

YOU FUCKERS WANTED MORE RAINBOW!? YOU FUCKERS GOT MORE RAINBOW!!

Lebron James is a world-class gaylord and yet I'm not blinded to his incredibleness by the celebrations, the whining, the hot-doggery, the exhausting sincerity blah bling blorg. And if he gets to the finals and faces Kobe, the court of public opinion (and shrieking sports media) will not resist the urge to view it as either the deposing of a king or a repelled overthrow attempt by Thai druglords. That analogy got away from me a bit but seriously it could soon be time to begin considering James the best player in the NBA. Writing that last part hurt way more than I thought. I mean, that commercial pretty much nails it. Anyway, by coincidence I was listening to "Kill The King" in the middle of Magic-'Lords game 1's first quarter. If that's Lebron's theme in the coming weeks, then Kobe's probably rocking I dunno "Back Off Bitch"?

HOLD IT NOW WAIT A MINUTE COME ON WHEWWW

Covers are corny and everything but if I didn't have thick, lustrous hair I'd wear hats and tip one to Dream Theater, whose pointless cover of epic-est song of all time "Stargazer" hits iTunes this week. The notesturbators break a sacred law by recording a version of the Rainbow classic (above, now with 20% more intro noodling/Dio outro caterwauling), but compensate by sparing Dixie Dregs' "Night Meets Light," instead opting for "Odyssey" from the same album. "Night Meets Light" is also off-limits as rock music's most refined, transportative (not a word) composition ever. Never thought I'd say this, but the song peaks with a keyboard solo followed by a keyboard/violin duet that makes my balls cry. I'm not sure what that means but the shit is beautiful. Actually the keys on "Stargazer" are pretty fresh too, but Ritchie Blackmore stomps their nuts with his uh generously-paced guitar solo, replete with tasteful slide (hitherto an oxymoron) and a nifty volume/delay trick for the money shot; you can tell that Dixie Dregs guitarist/songwriter Steve Morse isn't a Blackmore-style insecure egomaniac by his muscular but post-climactic solo to wrap "Night." And by the fact that he shot the shit with 15-year old me one Bastille Day. That asshole Blackmore hasn't spent a single Bastille Day with me.

WILL THERE EVER BE A RAINBOW?

Like all loudmouths, I love whaling on easy targets but ugh it's exhausting. So a lot of opportunist nonsense in Metal (and elsewhere) is best dismissed with rolled eyes and a curt wave of the hand. And even a worshipper of Dio-era Rainbow could effortlessly glaze over the news of a knockoff band featuring ninth-string singer Joe Lynn Turner, a slumming Tony Carey, and a guy related to guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, all performing under the exploitive and hideous moniker Over The Rainbow. That's so third world, like buying elephant tusks or hunting homeless children for sport. 

It's so beneath me that I hadn't planned to acknowledge this back-alley abortion to myself, let alone spend oh seven minutes typing words about it. But alas live clips of OTR's debut performance (above) are indeed vile enough to successfully drag HooM! into the sludge. Damn. Turner explains to somebody who cared enough to ask: 

I was sitting in Russia with a few promoters [who asked me] "You know, it would be great to have a Rainbow reunion. Do you think that'll ever happen?" [I replied] "Well, you know, you're not going to get Ritchie, you know what I mean? He's really happy doing what he's doing. It wouldn't work." So then it hit me. I said, "I think I have an idea." And they said, "What is it?" and I said, "Blackmore's got a son."

Duh-duh-DUHHHHHH! That's right, folks: two promoters and an also-ran singer solving the world's problems one at a time. No Rainbow reunion? Then enlist Blackmore's spawn and some other guys to tour Eastern Europe! Too drunk to get a boner? Use a doorstop!