Newest Pipe Purchase

A few months back I designed a pipe for a pipe carver to make for me. Some of you that watch YouTube and are familiar with the pipe community on there may be familiar with SparkysPipes. He's a great pipe carver and he definitely did a great job on this one. As a huge fan of Heavy Metal and more specifically Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne I had him carve me a Sabbath/Ozzy pipe which has been dubbed "the Prince of Darkness Pipe" or "Pipe of Darkness" for short. Here are a few pictures. Click to enlarge pictures.




The Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plXwYEg55BM&feature=plcp

I'm not familiar with this pipe maker so I'll check him out.

But a "Prince of Darkness" pipe with a crucifix? Somebody's going to get offended. Unless it's a joke. Either way the taste is kinda questionable. I mean, it's YOUR pipe and if you like all the pretend devil imagery, good for you. But to post a picture and ask the world "what do you think?" is to court controversy.

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There's only controversy if the person is still living in the "Bible-Belt" and believing it's still the 60's and 70's. Remember God and the Devil don't exist if one goes away, so to have images representing God and evil next to one another shouldn't be offensive. That's a whole other conversation though.
As for the images they represent different logo's from Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne (Heavy Metal bands), which is why I put the album cover's in with the pictures. The name of the pipe "the Prince of Darkness Pipe" is taken from Ozzy's stage name/nick-name, "the Prince of Darkness." The pipe obviously isn't going to meet everyone's tastes, but as a huge Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne fan for many years this pipe suits me very well.

The craftsmanship on this pipe is excellent, and the hand carving was done with nice detail which are the reason why I posted the pictures. Just showing off the talent from this particular pipe maker.
SparkysPipes has carved some really cool pipes, most recently the Laughing Skull, and previous to that a dragon pipe. If you check out his YouTube channel you can see the video's of these pipes and the others he has done.

Meh, I think the crosses are expected for an ozzy pipe. Nothing controversial anymore. On a side note, I believe it was Oz or maybe Tony I. Who was messing around with the devil stuff and scared himself out of it! So that was the end of that. I think the crosses were as much a stage prop as anything. Just the look. Makes me wanna listen to Mr.Crowley or bark at the moon.

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On the original album LP the record company put an inverted cross on the inside of the LP jacket without the band having any knowledge of it. From the day the album was released the band was slagged as devil worshipers, one because of their name, two because of the inverted cross and three because of the lyrics in the song "Black Sabbath." At that time the band was being invited to Black Masses and the head witch in England was inviting the band to meetings etc. Someone or group was going to place an evil spell on the band, so they were told they needed to wear crucifixes around their necks to ward off the evil spirits. Ozzy's dad made each member of the band a cross necklace and the band wore them every where. Ozzy and Tony Iommi still where their original crosses when they tour.
Geezer Butler was the one that was into the occult at the time of the first album. He wasn't practicing, but was reading books etc. He was very interested in Aleister Crowley. One day he gave Ozzy a book on the occult and Ozzy put it on a shelf in his room. That night Ozzy awoke to find a black figure standing at the foot of his bed and then it disappeared. Ozzy went to grab the book and the book was gone. The next day Ozzy told Geezer about the incident and the two of them wrote the song Black Sabbath. First verse, "What is this that stands before me. Figure in black which points at me." That incident scared the crap out of them and the two no longer read up on the occult.
At no time was the band devil worshipers etc. but used the imagery for shock value. As for the lyrics to their songs, in the 60's everyone was singing about peace and love, and they wanted to sing about real life so they began writing music that showed that there was a dark side to life.

Being as the song "Mr. Crowley" was mentioned and Sabbath members used to read up on him, I found this picture.
Aleister Crowley a short time before his passing.

I'm currently reading it on my Nook, and it is a good book. I will buy the hard copy as well as I collect Ozzy and Sabbath stuff.