Sanctuary Records re-issue the debut album from Birmingham Heavy Metal
band Quartz in early 2004. Quartz was one of the leading NWoBHM bands.
Guitarist Mike Hopkins had previously played with John Bonham's Way Of
Life whilst second guitarist Geoff Nicholls would join Black Sabbath in
1979. Drummer Malcolm Cope was involved with pre-production for Black
Sabbath's 'Born Again'.


Over their career Quartz toured heavily - playing the Reading Festival
three times ('76, ''77 and '80) - and touring as support to the likes of
UFO, Iron Maiden, Saxon, Gillan and Rush. The band released four albums.

Originally issued on Jet Records in 1977 the album has never, until now,
seen a CD release. Quite remarkable for an album produced by Tony Iommi
and featuring Ozzy Osbourne, Brian May and keyboard player Geoff
Nicholls.

This edited extract from Garry Sharpe-Young's acclaimed Black Sabbath
biography 'Never Say Die'. http://www.rockdetector.com/default,25.sm

Quartz was on the rise and having Tony Iommi acting as producer on their
album lent extra kudos. "Working with Tony as a producer on our debut
record was great, very different to some of the big name producers we
had used in the past" reckons Malcolm Cope. "Tony put guitar on two
tracks on the record and even played his flute on 'Sugar Rain'. He's a
great flute player. Not many people know that."

Contracts kept any notion of actual performance credits out of the
public arena as acknowledged by Geoff Nicholls. "Tony had produced the
record and he was obviously going to play on it too. It's just that we
couldn't say that at the time for legal reasons. He did quite a bit on
the record actually, a couple of solos. Ozzy sang on 'Sugar Rain' too.
Again, we weren't allowed to credit him."

It would not only be the Sabbath duo that featured on the record. Tony's
friend Brian May of Queen fame was invited down to the recording studio.
The man would get to add a splash of that famous hand made guitar onto
the track 'Circles', once more featuring a certain Mr. Ozzy Osbourne on
backing vocals. "Ozzy tried to put some harmonica on too" laughs
Malcolm.

'Circles' inexplicably never made the album, only appearing as the B
side to the subsequent 'Stoking The Fires Of Hell' single.

The Sanctuary re-release, issue date to be confirmed, features many
bonus tracks, including 'Circles', and liner notes from Garry
Sharpe-Young. A detailed Quartz biography and discography is at
Rockdetector.

http://www.rockdetector.com/artist,7114.sm

Thanks to CatMoves for posting this info on the Brian May mailing list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BrianMay/)