Fan's Living Room Rebuilt in Museum

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Full article:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-48744232



Black Sabbath super fan's living room rebuilt in museum


A Black Sabbath super fan has had his living room rebuilt at a museum as part of an exhibition celebrating 50 years of the band.

Stephen Knowles said his room was his own mini museum to Sabbath.

It is part of a number of pieces at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in the first of a series of shows celebrating the history of Heavy Metal.

The exhibition, opening on Wednesday, also features a fan's motorcycle adapted in tribute to the band.

Black Sabbath was founded by Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Ozzy Osbourne and Bill Ward in Aston, Birmingham, in 1968.

They are credited with inventing the distinctive riffs that characterised the Heavy Metal sound.
Image copyright Home of Metal
Image caption Stephen Knowles has also donated a portion of his Sabbath T-shirt collection to the exhibition

Mr Knowles, 53, from Dudley, first became a fan of the band in the early 70s.

His collection began small, he said, buying his first T-shirt in Birmingham's Bullring shopping centre in 1975.

But he now has more than 1,000 Sabbath T-shirts, and has travelled all over the world to watch the band play.

His living room is covered in pictures of him and the band, tour posters, T-shirts, backstage passes, badges, programmes and a framed record.

In total 250 items have been taken from his collection, though he said this represented only a "tiny part" of his full collection, which he estimated had cost him tens of thousands of pounds.

"They had lots of changes to their management in the early 70s and lots of their albums were reissued," Mr Knowles said.

"It started off trying to collect the original Vertigo ones, then it got slightly out of hand."
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The museum said the exhibition "celebrates Black Sabbath from the perspective of their fans" and would include key costumes loaned by the band members themselves, including an outfit worn by Geezer Butler at a concert at Birmingham's Town Hall and featured in the gatefold of the 1972 Vol 4 album; Ozzy Osborne's glasses; Tony Iommi's home studio and a part of Bill Ward's drum kit used in the 1974 Cal Jam, in which Black Sabbath performed in front of 250,000 people.

Ric Lovett, 52, from Winchester in Hampshire, said it had taken about four years to get his custom motorbike in its current form.

From custom airbrush work, engraving, a plectrum embedded in the master cylinder and moulded hands to hold up the back mudguard, every element of the bike has been adapted to honour Sabbath.

He said: "I first got into Sabbath when I was about 11, a friend owed me something and he gave me his brother's Black Sabbath album to repay the debt.

"I listened to it and it sounded so different to everything I had ever heard, as a child I thought 'I don't know if I am supposed to be listening to this'.

"And it has always stayed like that, it is never out of style because it was never in style."

[Jack the Stripper]

That is one dedicated fan. Seems like he might be just an original era fan though? Still very cool nonetheless.

I hope to get to Birmigham one day.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

The first guy has got a "Geezer" vibe about his appearance.

The article doesn't seem to suggest they have wives or girlfriends... funny that!

[Jack the Stripper]

The first guy has got a "Geezer" vibe about his appearance.

The article doesn't seem to suggest they have wives or girlfriends... funny that!

Yeah I thought that too. What wife or GF would allow their house to be turned into a Sabbath shrine unless they were a crazy fan themselves.

[Charger]

That is cool...

But still very sad that he is such a narrow minded fan though...just imagine how awesome would it be if he'd be an ACTUAL Black Sabbath fan of all eras...

[Jack the Stripper]

I dunno. Hard to criticise a fan that's been there since the 70's and fell in love with the original sound. It's like a Kiss fan only being a fan of the original lineup.

[Typhon]

"Superfan" is an understatement for this guy.    Plus, he recognizes that nothing can match the original lineup.

[Charger]

I dunno. Hard to criticise a fan that's been there since the 70's and fell in love with the original sound. It's like a Kiss fan only being a fan of the original lineup.

But I'd imagine the same thing is with Kiss then that such a person misses out on a shitload of great music. That most certainly is the case with Sabbath...and one can hardly be called a "superfar" if he only cares for the first 10 years of a band who had a nearly 40 year career. But hey that's just me again...

And I'm not taking anything away from the coolness of this guys collection...it is great.

[Typhon]

I dunno. Hard to criticise a fan that's been there since the 70's and fell in love with the original sound. It's like a Kiss fan only being a fan of the original lineup.

But I'd imagine the same thing is with Kiss then that such a person misses out on a shitload of great music. That most certainly is the case with Sabbath...and one can hardly be called a "superfar" if he only cares for the first 10 years of a band who had a nearly 40 year career. But hey that's just me again...

And I'm not taking anything away from the coolness of this guys collection...it is great.

I would bet the guy likes a lot of the music from other so-called eras, just not as much as the original.  Same as me.

[Jack the Stripper]

^^Yep and maybe he does just stick to collecting stuff from the original era to keep it simple or keep his obsessive collection disorder in check somewhat 

[Charger]

Naturally that's also possible.