A Farewell Blog
Revised May 17, 2009
I made an announcement here on December 28th, 2008 stating that I'd decided to "pull the plug on Sabbathlive once and for all". It felt SO liberating to say those words after months of anxiety and indecision about the future of Sabbathlive At the same time, I felt completely horrible about ending what I'd invested countless hours into building. I've carried this guilt now for several years and its all that has kept me from simply pulling the plug on the site. I thought that maybe I just needed an extended break to clear my head before I could resume my research.
Instead, I came to realize how much of my personal time that I'd been sacrificing just to keep Sabbathlive going. Once I stopped worrying about "all things Sabbath", I felt a great deal of anxiety dissipate from my everyday thoughts. Since I began the site back in 2002, my world was dominated by an obsessive drive to document and research everything I could about this band that I loved. In the beginning, I couldn't wait for my lunch hour to come so I could delve into piecing together their touring history or talking with other fans via e-mail. It seemed very rewarding to me and I had all intentions of growing the project into a book. I was very proud to be able to contribute so much to documenting their touring history and share my finds with other like-minded fans. The years between 2002 and 2005 were quite golden for Sabbathlive.
The turning point for Sabbathlive came in May 2005. In that one month, I had the good fortune of discovering the previously unknown Dumfries '69 recording AND appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live with Ozzy. Meeting Ozzy was a dream come true. I felt as though the band were finally receiving all of the smoke signals I'd be sending via the Internet for several years. Ozzy was also kind enough to give me tickets and passes for their Charlotte 2005 appearance. My boss at that time wasn't so understanding of my need to meet Ozzy.
Believe it or not, my appearance on Jimmy Kimmel actually began a chain of events which caused me to lose my job of 8 years. There was a dispute with my boss about taking time off for Ozzfest which led for her to create a reason for my dismissal. Although I was quite sick of working for this company, I certainly didn't want to be fired for some trumped up reason! In the end, my dismissal became a blessing in disguise. Just two weeks later, I was offered a new career with a worldwide data recovery company whom I'm still working for to this day.
With those fortuitous events came a maelstrom of e-mail and attention for my humble research project. Much of this e-mail was in regard to the newly discovered Dumfries '69 recording. My original intentions were to share the recording openly with other fans. This changed when the taper asked me (and several other buyers) to sit on our copies. The taper had sold his master copy to the Osbournes and didn't want to jeopardize his agreements with them. We all agreed not to distribute the show out of respect for the tapers wishes.
Of course, I would now have to explain to hundreds of Black Sabbath collectors why I couldn't share my new discovery with them. While some were more understanding than others, the Dumfries '69 tape gradually became more of a curse than a blessing. It became some sort of weird social experiment to see who could and couldn't be trusted in the trading community. Although other rare Black Sabbath recordings have been leaked with great controversy, none have been sought after so much as the Dumfries recording. This due to the fact that it is among the earliest recordings of Black Sabbath in (limited) circulation and contains 3 cover songs never captured on any other live tape.
Towards the end of 2005, I found myself in the position of receiving far more e-mail than I had time to answer. It's always been my nature to want to send everyone a personal (and often lengthy) response to their inquiries. This is because I valued everyone's input and did my best to integrate these comments into my ever growing timelines and audio/video listings. But due to the volume of these inquiries, I simply couldn't keep up. I'd answer 5 out of every 10 messages just to find 10 more the next day. Thus, I started taking more time away from the site only to find my unanswered e-mail growing exponentially. This problem was definitely one factor in my waning interest in maintaining Sabbathlive.
My interest in trading shows also began diminishing for several reasons. For one, I found myself getting more and more irritated with the anal retentive demands of some traders. It was as though some of these guys were striving for a sense of 'perfection' in their collections that completely missed the point for me entirely. The reason I became interested in these live recordings in the first place was because of the MUSIC and not simply because it was a digital master clone! I understand the importance of finding lower generation recordings, but some people have elected to make themselves utterly batshit crazy over the issue. I already felt far too consumed in the obsessive compulsive ritual of downloading, copying and burning CD's and DVD's to allow myself get sucked down the drain any further.
Enough was enough! I knew that none of us would every have EVERY known recording, so what really was the point of this ritual anyhow? For some, I believe it's an ego driven compulsion to achieve some sort of mega-trader status based on the shows they possessed. (Especially when they held recordings that no one else did.) These were the sort of guys that I despised when I first came into the trading world. Although I had achieved much in the way of trading collateral in the short time I'd created Sabbathlive, my aspiration wasn't to be one of these megalomaniac collectors. Therefore, I stopped trading altogether about 2 years ago with VERY few exceptions. I even amazed myself by turning down trades for several uncirculated shows.
Recently, there have been a number of attention starved individuals who have decided to betray my trust to exploit certain recordings for their own benefit, glory or spite. It's a really disappointing trend to witness, especially when a few of these people claimed to be 'friends' of mine. But I've seen the same thing happen in regard to my research. I've had several Sabbath biographers ask me to share my information with them only to find they'd looted my site for their commercial gain. Some didn't even have the decency to give me a credit!!
However, I would have to say that the majority of people I've talked to through Sabbathlive are kind, decent and intelligent people. It is to those people that I am grateful for all of the kind e-mail's, research help and great recordings that I've received through the years. If not for people like you, there wouldn't have been a Sabbathlive in the first place. I do greatly appreciate the contributions and loyalty of those of you who helped me make Sabbathlive such a great resource for Black Sabbath fans.
I'm sad to say that Sabbathlive will be officially closed as of this year. Aside from my waning interest in the research, my professional life has become too demanding for me to invest into any website at this point in time. I'm much happier living offline these days anyhow! There is always a possibility that I will compile my research into a book as I had originally planned to do. For now, it's not something I have the time or interest of pursuing.
Farewell!