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The Herald Scotland
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
The Scots who were the world's first Black Sabbath tribute group
ON a Sunday night in mid-November 1969, a new heavy metal band, Black Sabbath, played a gig at a venue in Dumfries. Earlier that month, the group, which had recently changed its name from Earth, had recorded their self-titled debut album at a London studio. Rugman's Youth Club in Dumfries was a small, railway-tunnel shaped venue, some 80 feet long with two-feet-high stages at either end, on which bands played. In the audience of between 80 and 100 teenagers that evening was Alex Wilson, a young man in flared trousers who was there to record another band on his Grundig reel-to-reel tape recorder via a Grundig 4 channel Magic Eye mixer. He wasn't to know it then, but the events of November 16 would change his life, and not just because he happened to make the earliest known recording at that time of a live gig by Black Sabbath – Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward. What would follow was one of the most curious episodes in Scottish rock music: the story of Iron Claw, a band which Alex was already in the process of forming. Encouraged by the experience of seeing Black Sabbath live and talking to them informally afterwards, Alex created a musical project by writing original songs with sledgehammer riffs and powerful interplay between lead guitar, bass and drums. Such was the motivation that night that Iron Claw learned to play all the early Sabbath songs and in the process of performing them live became the world's first Sabbath tribute band, in 1970. Iron Claw didn't make it into the big time in those pre-internet days, mostly because they were based in Dumfries and not in London, the then music capital of the UK, but also because the only financial input into the band was from Alex himself. The Iron Claw songs written and recorded at the dawn of the Seventies would not see the light of the day for nearly 40 years. A double vinyl album was released in 2009, covering the recordings made between 1970 and 1973, its 16 songs including Clawstrophobia, Sabotage, Skullcrusher, Pavement Artist and Winter. And – irony of ironies – that record, Iron Claw, has just been described as one of the 200 greatest heavy rock albums. The earliest version of the band consisted of four highly talented musicians: Jimmy Ronnie (16) on guitar, Ian McDougall (16) on drums, Mike Waller (17) on vocals and Alex Wilson (21) on bass. Alex, now 77, takes up the story. 'I was 20 when I started in 1968 assisting in the management of a local band, Amplified Heat, and used to record them regularly. After the best part of a couple of years I thought, I could do better than this – I can't sculpt, I can't paint, but I could maybe make some music. 'I went to see Led Zeppelin on their first tour, 1969. It was at Newcastle City Hall, that June. Fifteen pence to get in, and it wasn't even sold out! That was the first really big band I had seen, and of course I noticed right away that they didn't make any mistakes during a set. That showed me the standard that you've really got to achieve if you want to make a record'. Alex began putting together the eventual Iron Claw in the summer of 1969 choosing their name after a line in a King Crimson song. ('We liked the sound of it', Jimmy Ronnie told Psychedelic Baby magazine in 2011. 'It sounded heavy'). Between them, the quartet made a powerful outfit. Jimmy himself was something of a guitar prodigy. 'He had come up to me at an Amplified Heat open-air show in 1969 and asked if he could have a shot on my guitar', Alex recalls. 'I had a Gibson SG Standard which I had loaned to the Amplified Heat guitarist to use and I told Jimmy, 'aye, sure'. I heard him play, and he was impressive so I took a mental note. 'Jimmy said, 'I live in the flats just behind you'. And I thought, right enough: when I was going to work at eight in the morning I could hear this guitar being practised. Then I found Ian, who'd asked for a shot on Amplified Heat's drums at a Rugman's gig. He was very good; another mental note. Ian was only 15 at the time. Mike had previously been in Amplified Heat and was only 17 when he joined.' Iron Claw learned how to gel together, playing blues songs by the likes of Free, Taste and Johnny Winter. 'And then, one night', says Alex, 'Amplified Heat were backing Black Sabbath at Rugman's. I used to record Amplified Heat every night so that we could iron out any mistakes. Sabbath started off and I thought, My God! They were as good as Zeppelin, I thought. I was absolutely astonished, so I recorded their second half. Black Sabbath were all younger than me. Ozzy never swore that night. He was a really well-mannered guy, and so was [guitarist] Tony Iommi. They were all great lads. 'I was talking to them afterwards and they said they were writing their own stuff. They were on the blues circuit at the time, '68-69, and I thought, well, if they can write their own songs … the songs were quite basic but I loved the power of them'. Iron Claw were really taken with the Sabbath sound. 'We were the first Black Sabbath tribute band', is how Alex terms it. 'It was quite an interesting period. We got really tight and we learned all their songs. 'In those days there was no internet, of course. There was no radio or TV exposure. If you wanted to get anywhere you had to play live. That was it. We learned a good 30, 40 songs or whatever, and practiced, recording rehearsals to ensure no mistakes. Writing Iron Claw material, we recorded firstly in Edinburgh and then in London on very primitive equipment, in 1970. The last studio recordings we made were in Newcastle in 1973. 'That was it, basically. The rest of the boys were getting older and settling down, you have to remember. I was five years older than most of them and was the only one with a regular job'. The first of the line-up changes occurred when Mike Waller departed in 1972, Alex recruiting Willie Davidson and Donald McLaughlin, briefly, from Amplified Heat. Iron Claw hung together until 1974, when the band went their separate ways. Alex was the one who was left with all the Iron Claw bills to pay, and, seeking to recover some of his outlay, brought out, in 1976, Remains to be Heard, a self-produced cassette of Iron Claw songs. It went on sale locally, and sold out. 'About twenty years later, some German bootleg company got hold of a cassette copy and brought it out on CD. They actually brought it out twice – the first time under the Iron Claw name, and, the second time, under a fake name, Antrobus. That's how Rockadrome got to hear of the music, really'. Rockadrome is a specialist US record label and store that released the double Iron Claw album on vinyl and CD in 2009. The songs were remastered from Alex's original tapes. One critic, writing for the online magazine Terrorizer, noted at the time: 'This Scottish band is just ridiculously heavy and I think it's a travesty that the 16 songs they wrote around 1970/1971 never got an official release until 2009. This whole album is just breathtaking'. Read more On the Record: And what of that recent accolade? It came in a new publication from the makers of Uncut. At number 77 in The 200 Greatest Heavy Rock Albums … Ranked! is that 2009 Iron Claw album, ahead of some records by such renowned acts as AC/DC, Rush, Motorhead, Led Zeppelin and, yes, Black Sabbath. 'Inspired by Zep and Sabbath', the magazine notes, 'Iron Claw were formed in Dumfries in 1969, but didn't receive their due until this fab 2009 release of 16 tracks from the early 70s. Monolithic riffs emerge though the murk as stoner rock is born and promptly forgotten'. Alex is clearly happy with such recognition, as belated as it is, and has posted the news on Iron Claw's Facebook page. He writes: 'There will be some eye-rolling at some albums included BELOW No77!)... All opinions of course, but I still think it's a great honour to be included in such company!' To which one fan has succinctly responded: 'This is f——- great news! Congrats. Well deserved'.
Daily Mirror
03-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Optical illusion shows 'witchcraft' as people struggle to spot Pokemon character
Optical illusions are made to really baffle the brain and this latest one can leave you questioning everything for a while. So can you spot the Pokemon character? Whether you're testing your eyesight, or wanting to work out how intelligent you are, optical illusions are great and can also go viral for hilarious reasons. Now the latest brainteaser has left many people scratching their heads online. Reddit users were left utterly confused after some "witchcraft" was shared on the u/opticalillusions forum recently. In the moving picture, it shows a Pokemon character hidden in the colourful pattern which resembles a flame. And the iconic video game character in the photo is actually the dragon. The caption in the Reddit post read: "When you pause the video Charizard disappears." At first glance, you probably won't realise there's anything in the image, until you really focus on things. Since it was shared, it garnered hundreds of likes and dozens of comments. One joked: "Yep. I have never been able to see a magic eye image. This is basically witchcraft to me." Another added: "Doing God's work here, for sure. I've never seen anything like this and it's fantastic." A third commented: "Thank you. This is the first magic eye I have ever been able to make out. Because of your video I knew what to look for." The moving picture is a great example of the Magic Eye optical illusion which works by manipulating a repeating pattern to control the perceived depth and hide a 3D image in a 2D pattern. It was developed in 1991 by engineer Tom Baccei, as well as 3D artist Cheri Smith and programmer Bob Salitsy. Many people might agree the concept is rather mind-boggling and to see one for yourself, you can hold the centre of a painting image right up to your nose. In one case, it should be blurry but you can focus as though you're looking through the image into the distance. Then very slowly move the image away from your face until, for example, the two squares above the image turn into three squares. Magic Eye pictures are a form of autostereograms which create the illusion in the first place.
