Heavy Metal & Grift Arbitrage™️
Random musings!
This weekend, I was lucky to attend Black Sabbath’s final show. I last saw them live at their previous “final” show back in 2016, but I’m pretty sure this is their final final one! End of an era.
A little known fact is that Black Sabbath used to be called the “Polka Tulk Blues Band”. What started off as a Blues Band, gave birth to a whole new genre of music called Heavy Metal, with an unmistakeable heavy tone that sounded as if Blues Music was sent to hell and back.
Another little known fact is that their characteristic heavy tone was borne out of necessity: as a 17 year old, lead guitarist Tony Iommi used to work at a sheet metal factory to make ends meet, while gigging at the same time. Gigging soon became profitable so he gave his notice to the company, and even considered skipping his last day of work until his mother convinced him otherwise.
On his last day of work, he lost the tips of two of his guitar-playing fingers in an industrial accident. At the hospital he was told: “you might as well forget playing”. He was upset and considered giving up the guitar altogether.
Then the factory foreman played young Iommi a recording of Django Reinhardt. Django was a famous jazz guitar virtuoso, known for his lightning speed guitar solos. Django had also suffered an accident and was playing his solos using only 2 fingers. Iommi was inspired.
Iommi went on to craft prosthetics for his fingers by melting down a washing-up liquid bottle into fingertip-shaped thimbles.
More importantly, he de-tuned his guitar to make it easier to play. This resulted in a heavier, darker sound, which led to the birth of Heavy Metal! (for the music aficionados amongst you, the normal guitar tuning is on E and Iommi dropped it to C#)
How did this story end up in an Investing Blog?
To start with, it’s an inspiring lesson in perseverance and dedication. It’s also a pretty cool story.
As I was reminiscing on the beginnings of Black Sabbath while watching them play their last show, I was also thinking of the birth of Grift Arbitrage™️. Pretty sad I know!
You see, we live in the Golden Age of Grift aka GAG™️.
As a “Boomer-Eternally-Engaged-in-Rehabilitation” (BEER), I really want to play with the cool kids and enjoy the upside that Grifty Ponzis provide.
