Hail Satan, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and this is our mid metal two parter short stuff that's more metal adjacent than you can possibly imagine. We're talking about the origin of the devil horns hand sign that is as metal as metal gets, as far as hand signs go.
Yeah, I've never had an opportunity to flash this, so I've never really done it, and I feel like a bit of a nerd, but I'm practicing because of that Judas pre show. Yeah, I figure that'll be a great time to whip it up for the first time for sure.
So where did this come from? Chuck?
Uh? Well, I mean, let's talk a little bit about what it actually is, because there's a bit of irony attached to this, because when you're at a metal show doing this, you are you know, what you're really doing is just a fun thing where you're like, this band rocks, and this is the appropriate sign that you do at a show like this to indicate that I think this rocks. But sort of the the sub the kind of funny subtext is like, yeah, Satan's horns, But what it really
is in origin is sort of the opposite. It's it's known as a corner, which is Italian for horn, and it is what you do in old Italy or even if you're you know, have a gram on Italy. He was still you know, still sort of superstitious to ward off the evil eye. It's not like, yeah, Satan rocks. It's like, no, get the out Satan, Yeah, exactly.
So all of the metal fans are like, oh, that's the problem. That's why Satan never shows up, right, We've been doing this wrong. Yeah. So yes, and like you said, is totally associated with metal, and the most people trace it back to Dio, Ronnie James Dio, who we surely have talked about by now in part one at the very least, we definitely do. In Part two he sang for Elf Rainbow do O. Obviously. He also took over after Ozzy Rip was kicked out of Black Sabbath in
nineteen seventy nine. Dio took over as the front man, which is a cool way of saying lead singer for Black Sabbath, and Ozzy was known to like give like double peace signs, yeah as like his thing, and Dio is like, I can't do that same thing, but I gotta come up with something. Everybody's gonna be expecting some signature hand signal, So he turned to he turned to the corner.
That's right, what does to deal with those hand signals? It's like definitely a hard rock to meddle thing, because like Van Halen did with the with Sammy Hagar, they did that thing, and I don't know, I just never feel like I see other bands doing that.
Essentially, what did Sammy Hagar and Van Halen do?
They did the double I Love You put together in such a way that you know it may have indicated something sort of naughty.
I'll just say that, oh got youa I remember White Lyon made the w with their two index fingers and thumbs coming together. Did they really No?
No?
And then the Poison had the thing where you snap your fingers and then slap your hand on top of your closed fist three times.
And then that was last mind would go whoooo exactly all right. I don't believe that one. So I did involve for that one. But you know, a lot of people, if you're just a casual researcher, you'll just see everywhere that it was Ronnie James Doo. People have asked him this. So it was an interview in two thousand and one where he said, I doubt very much that I would be the first one who ever did that. That's like saying I invented the wheel, but I think you'd have
to say that it made it fashionable. So he'd never claimed to be the originator of that hand symbol, which is great stand up guy, Ronnie James Dio rip of course. Yeah, So where did it come from? I mean, Gene Simmons in court said it was him, or tried to at least he.
So here's the thing. Gene Simmons really outed himself as a dipstick, which time well, this time in particular, right because he tried to trademark his his trademark hand sign, which is like the devil horns, but rather than the thumb closing over the two closed middle and ring fingers like you do with the devil sign, he stuck his thumb out, so there's three digits sticking out right. That's I love you. It is. It's the American sign language
sign for I love you. Regardless of that, he tried to trademark it for himself, probably so he could sue people who continued to use it, and yeah, he tried to trademark an American sign language sign that just kind of is pretty dipsticky if you ask me. But what's interesting about it is all the press that this thing got started to actually tease out the people who probably really were responsible for introducing the metal horns to heavy metal at least.
Yeah, should we take a break, Yeah, all right, we'll be back with more of this mystery right after this. So before we get to who possibly may have created this, we should mention Geezer Butler, the bass player for Black Sabbath. He said, Hey, look at our photo from nineteen sixty nine. I'm flashing the sign. So I did it before Dio and I actually suggested that he do it. And also this was on the cover of Yellow Submarine. Like John Lennon in animated form is making this sign on the
cover of Yellow Submarine. That doesn't really clear it up because Geezer Butler is also wrong. So I'm gonna let you lay it on us, my friend of you who maybe started this whole thing.
Okay, thank you for giving me this one, because this is amazing. It turns out that it was probably a blonde eighteen year old American girl named Jinx Dawson who was the lead singer of a band called Covin, which would be I guess psychedelic rock maybe, but super dark psychedelic rock. Yeah. Did you listen to much of it? I did. It's not that great, but.
It didn't even sound psychedelic to me. And if you hadn't known the lyrics or the song titles, it didn't seem even spooky.
It's like a Paul Revere in The Raiders cover band.
Or something that's sort of It was interesting.
There was a yeah, there was an article by a guy named Dom Lawson and Metal Hammer, and he called it he said it was scarcely any kind of metal, but it flowed with a similar dark magnetism. I think he kind of nailed it on the head.
Yeah, Well, what's interesting is like it is ultra metal with imagery and lyrics and right song titles. But it's such a weird thing for your brain to hear that kind of thing coming out of something that's not metal sounding, you know.
Right exactly. This is a nineteen sixty nine album called Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaped Souls, and it had songs like for Unlawful Cardinal Knowledge on it packed with Lucifer and then very spookily. The first track on this album was called Black Sabbath.
Yeah. Can I read a few other song titles White, Witch of Rosehall, Choke, Thirst Die.
That's just one song.
Yeah, yeah, commas in between.
Each Shoots and Leaves.
Wicked Woman is one, and those one called Dignitaries of Hell.
She and so Jinks Dawson. The reason why she's like probably the one who did this, she was actually raised in a Left hand Path house and was raised as a Satanist in the Anton LaVey Aleister Crowley since the occult sense, and another reason why it's attributed to her and her band Coven is because no one, no one was doing this, especially in the States. They were from Chicago.
They they essentially had no inspirations aside from the real life Left hand Path initiations that Jinks Dawson had been raised around.
Yeah. I mean, if you look at the uh I think it's on the back cover right of their album once again Witchcraft Destroys Mines and reefs Souls. I just want to read that like five more times. They're they're they're doing that sign. I mean, it's very clear, it's not an accident, it's very much on purpose. It's exactly
what it is. And it was so convincing that in twenty seventeen, when Gene Simmons was trying to trademark this stuff, they came forward and Gene Simmons was like, you know, didn't know about these guys.
Someone else who said they didn't know about these guys was Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler and Black Sabbath. Yeah, and supposedly, and I think it's even spookier the bassist for Coven's name was Greg oz Osbourne. Yeah, this is happening simultaneously in Chicago. Yes, as Black Sabbath is changing their name from Earth to Black Sabbath. Yeah, and Black Sabbath has always maintained this is just some spooky coincidence. Sure,
it's believable. There's an article by a guy named Dom Lawson that same Dom Lawson from Metal Hammer magazine who basically says like their album got zero play. It just didn't make it over the UK. There's almost no way they would have heard this, and the reason why is because their album was really right around the time of the Sharon Tate murders, the Manson murders, and America was not known for stuff like satanic rituals.
Or bad music.
Yeah, sure, but Lester Banks heard it. He compared Black Sabbath to a combination of Cream and Coven. So, at least in the mind of legendary rock critic Lester Bangs, Coven was a at least somehow related thematically to Black Sabbath. Yeah.
I think it was like, take the music of Cream and combine it with the spooky imagery and lyrics of Coven or covin as I like to say.
Oh, yeah, you could say it that way too.
I forgot, Uh, yeah, that seems to be the deal.
Yeah, So, I guess it's unclear exactly how much direct influence they had, but at the very least everybody tips their hat to them for being pioneers in that respect.
Yeah. Well, at the very least it shut Gene Simmons up right exactly.
So hats off to jinksaw someome for that. And then we can't talk about the devil Horns without at least a nod to the Kitsunni side. Consumi means fox and in Japan, if you go to a metal concert, say like a baby metal concert that will come up at
the end of part two. You will see something similar to Devil Sign, but rather than the ring finger and middle finger bent down in the thumb crossing them, the ring finger and middle finger come together and are pressed against the thumb with the pinky and the index finger up. And what you're doing is you're making a face of a fox. And this very Japanese. That's what they do at Japanese metal shows.
You know. I didn't understand any of that until I just sort of did it as you were following along, and I was like, oh, yeah, look at that little fox right makes a nose is what it does.
It does a little fox face.
And you can be like, oh, if we have one extra minute here, I would like to do a real time update breaking news. In part one, I rattled off my top five metal bands, and I forgot because I was listening to hair Nation again later that day, and I have an update and I hate to do it, but I'm gonna, I guess bump the Scorpions out, okay in favor of Tesla.
Okay, all right, I could see that they're similar in level.
Yeah, I I feel bad I forgot about Tesla, and while I don't dive deep into Tesla, I think I'm gonna go on record and say that like three of their songs are some of the best songs of that era out of any band, so I have to put him in there.
Okay, Well, while we're talking, while we're doing updates, I watched okay, you and me showed me some I guess Instagram clips of Ozzie's funeral and Sharon Osbourne just losing. It's so hard to watch. But then also she showed me a clip of him singing coming Home. I'm coming home.
Yeah, great song.
I think he's sitting on like a throne in this stadium in Birmingham that last show, like right before he died. It's amazing. I hadn't seen him when we recorded Partner Heavy Metal, but it's yeah, it's quite stirring. It's really neat to see. So I'm like, man, that is a really great way to go out, you know.
Yeah, I mean he practically passed away on stage, you know, right.
So we've said it before, said it again. Rip Ozzy Osbourne one of the metal grats, and I guess Chuck short stuff's out right that's right.
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