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April 26, 2007
Live at Hammersmith appears to be shipping
I got a couple of emails from folks this morning saying this, and I myself just got the same email a few minutes ago. It appears Rhino has started shipping the "Black Sabbath: Live at Hammersmith" CD's. The actual street date is May 1st, which is 5 days from now, so this is probably about when they'd start shipping anyway.
Once they start coming in to folks, I was thinking of starting a list of folks who have a copy and what their number is, since the website says they're individually numbered. Thought it might be a cool thing. A picture of the number showing yours would be cool, too. Send that info in via email when you get your copy.
If you don't have one, the Rhino Handmade site appears to still be taking orders, which I find very surprising, given there's only 5,000 copies made. If you want to buy a copy, you can do so at this page.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:26 PM
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April 17, 2007
Winners of Dio Years Giveaway
I managed to wade through all the entries for the Dio Years giveaway this morning and picked out the winners. I've already contacted the winners via direct email, but is my custom, I post the winners and the answers I was looking for here as well. Congratulations to these folks:
* Al Horta of Rahway, NJ
* Mike Lewin of Providence, RI
* Alexandre Matte of Quebec, Canada
* Murillo Mathias of Sao Paulo, Brazil
* Mike Mihalek of Saratoga Springs, NY
And the answers:
Question 1: The Dio Years is the second (official) Black Sabbath compilation CD that the track TV Crimes appeared on. What was the name of the other one?
The answer to this is 1996's "The Sabbath Stones". This featured mostly stuff from the Tony Martin era, but also had a track from the Ian Gillan, Glenn Hughes, & Dio Dehumanizer albums. It's a great greatest hits album if you can find it.
Question 2: Two Dio-era Black Sabbath songs have appeared on movie soundtracks. Name the songs and the movies they appeared in.
The answer I was looking for was this: Mob Rules from the movie Heavy Metal in 1981, and the other was Time Machine from the movie Wayne's World in 1992. The reason I said "looking for" above was that I had forgotten that the intro to Mob Rules, E5150 was also in the movie itself, but not actually on the soundtrack. So my question and answer was technically correct as worded, but E5150 did appear in the actual movie itself, too. This did not count against anyone getting the questions right or wrong, was just looking for Mob Rules & Time Machine.
Question 3: During the early days of the Dehumanizer sessions, Ronnie was in Black Sabbath with drummer Cozy Powell. What other band were the two in together?
The answer to this was probably the easiest of the questions asked. It was "Rainbow". I had some submissions say "Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow", but as far as I know, that was only the name of the band on their first (self titled) and final (Stranger in Us All) albums.
Question 4: If you count the forthcoming (unnamed) live album from the Heaven & Hell tour as a "Black Sabbath" album, the Dio era of Sabbath will have released seven official albums (studio, live, or compilation) by the close of 2007. Name them all.
The answer to this was: Heaven & Hell (1980), Mob Rules (1981), Live Evil (1982), Dehumanizer (1992), The Dio Years (2007), Live at Hammersmith (2007), & the forthcoming unnamed Live album from this tour (2007). I did have a few people say "Sabbath Stones" in this, but that was not counted, as it wasn't a "Dio era" release, it just happened to have one Dio song on it.
I also had some folks ask me if I was going to be doing a giveaway for the Hammersmith release. I won't be doing that due to the very low production run on that. With only 5,000 copies, I couldn't even score a review copy for myself - I went online and bought one there. Hopefully I'll have some giveaway action again later in the year for the live release.
Thanks to all who entered!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:09 AM
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April 13, 2007
Ozzy's I Don't Wanna Stop Single Info
Well, today was the day it was rumoured that the single for "I Don't Wanna Stop" was going to come out. I still can't find it anywhere, so I'm thinking that isn't happening now. However, you can listen to the entire single if you want to play the "game" that is Ozzy's website.
Go to http://www.ozzy.com, and look for the bookcase. There's three rows in the bookcase, if you hover your mouse over the third book from the right in the upper row, you can hear the new single in it's entirety for free. However, don't move your mouse at all, or it will stop playing, and you'll have to restart it all over again. It's cool that they're doing this for free, but the choice of interface is odd.
I'd rather pay Apple 99 cents through iTunes to hear the song, tell you the truth.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:14 PM
Pre-Order Black Rain, get Free Ozzfest Tickets
While I've not found Black Rain available for pre-order at "conventional" online stores like Amazon.com, Sabbath fan James F. told me this morning about a link at the Sony Music Store for Black Rain. If you visit this site, you can pre-order the album direct from the record label.
This pre-order will come with a coupon code you can use to purchase (well, subjectively purchase) free Ozzfest tickets before anyone else can get at them.
If you're interested, go check out the link. I do however, urge you to read the fine print. There's language in there that says "OFFER AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST. Possession of a code does not guarantee entry into Ozzfest.". Make sure and read it, so you don't get bent out of shape later on, eh? :)
Also, the first single from Black Rain was supposed to be released today. As I write this at 10AM Dallas time on the 13th, I have not seen the song show up on iTunes yet.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 10:16 AM
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April 10, 2007
Info on Ozzy's "Black Rain"
There was a press release issued by Ozzy's offices today with info on his new album, which is due next month. The title of the album is "Black Rain". It is due to be released May 22nd, and that is a worldwide release date - sort of. If you live outside the US/Canada, your specific date will be that week, check with your local stores and shops for a specific date in your region.
Anyway, the band lineup on the album should be familiar.
Ozzy - Vocals
Zakk Wylde - Guitar
Rob Nicholson (Blasko) - Bass
Mike Bordin - Drums
I don't know who is on keyboards on the album. When I asked if Adam Wakeman was still the keyboardist, since he was the keyboardist of record the last time Ozzy's solo band did anything, I was told he was still the touring keyboardist, but didn't give me any info on who is playing on the album.
There was some other info I was able to piece together from the press release (which you can read in full on my Black Rain discography page here) was a track listing. I'm unsure if this is the complete track listing, or what order they come in, but these are the tracks listed in the press release:
1. I Don't Wanna Stop (First single)
2. Not Going Away
3. Thank God For The Almighty Dollar
4. Civilize The Universe
5. Black Rain
6. Countdown's Begun
7. Trap Door
8. Here for You
9. Lay Your World Down on Me
10. 11 Silver
As noted above, the first single is the track "I Don't Wanna Stop", and will be released this Friday. The full album will be available at digital retailers such as iTunes, so I would assume that the single will be available there this Friday, but I'm waiting on confirmation of that. Unfortunately, no cover art is available, so I can't post that. I also could not find any online retailer taking pre-orders for Black Rain yet, but when you can do that, I'll post some links.
Also, Ozzy's website has had a recent overhaul to be a "teaser" of sorts - you have to hover a cross over various hidden things to hear song samples from the new album. I'm personally not a fan of site designs that make you "play games" to find the content, but I've been told several people like that. If you like that kind of thing, head to http://www.ozzy.com and have at it. Or you can click these links, which are direct links to the respective sound samples.
They sound good and crunchy, but most of them are VERY short, and have hard cuts when they stop, so it's hard to get a handle on what the full songs would sound like. Hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on a pre-release copy from the label and do a review before too long.
Thanks to John over at Sharon's offices for sending me the press release, and Blabbermouth for the sample links.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 3:24 PM
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April 5, 2007
Thanks from Geezer
Geezer Butler has just posted a thank you to all the fans who turned up for the Canadian tour shows, as well as the NYC date and the in store signing. Go check out his site for his personal thank you message.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 3:48 PM
Win a Free Copy of The Dio Years!
 It's giveaway time again! Unless you've been living under a rock on another planet, you know that the new Dio Years compilation is out now, and that's what I'm here to give away. I've got five copies of the Dio Years here that are being given away. I'm going to have a trivia contest like I've done with giveaways in the past. First off, I wanted to thank Janda over at Rhino for sending over the copies to be given away. If you don't win these contests, please go support the label and the band by buying copies. In fact, before we get to the contest, some order links for you:
As per my contests in the past, you'll need to answer a few trivia questions about Sabbath & Dio. If you get them all right, you'll be put into a drawing for the CD. Here are the questions you need to answer:
- The Dio Years is the second (official) Black Sabbath compilation CD that the track TV Crimes appeared on. What was the name of the other one?
- Two Dio-era Black Sabbath songs have appeared on movie soundtracks. Name the songs and the movies they appeared in.
- During the early days of the Dehumanizer sessions, Ronnie was in Black Sabbath with drummer Cozy Powell. What other band were the two in together?
- If you count the forthcoming (unnamed) live album from the Heaven & Hell tour as a "Black Sabbath" album, the Dio era of Sabbath will have released seven official albums (studio, live, or compilation) by the close of 2007. Name them all.
You need to send your answers for the questions and your name and address to thedioyears@black-sabbath.com. There's a few important things here. First the email must go to this address. Second, you have to include your name and address. If you don't do these things, your submission won't be considered. These are simple requests - I'm quite frankly stunned at the number of people who ignore these requests and send anyway. If you do that, your submission goes in the bin. The contest will run through Wednesday the 11th of April at noon (my time, which is the Central Time Zone in the US). You don't have to be in the US to be eligible to win. But don't flood the inbox with requests - when I go through the submissions, any duplicates will be deleted.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 3:14 PM
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April 3, 2007
The Dio Years is out!
The Dio Years is out now. It's available at a ton of places. Here's some links if you didn't have them before:
You can also stream the entire album (legally) for free over at mp3.com at this link. But it's a good compilation, has three great new songs, screw the streaming, go out to the store and buy it now! You have plenty of options. Heck, even I went out and bought a copy today!
And speaking of buying a copy, the "Live at Hammersmith" album is available for pre-order through the Rhino Handmade site via this link. Their site appears to be swamped, as even I can't get through their store at the moment to buy one. Don't let that stop you, it's likely to sell out quickly, what with a total run of only 5,000 copies made.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:24 PM
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April 1, 2007
Whoa - Ronnie Dio quits, replaced with Ian Gillan!
 Who would have thunk it? Check this story out I read tonight. Here's the short of it. Ronnie Dio has quit, and Tony wants to fill the gig dates, so Heaven & Hell will be renamed again to "Born Again", and the tour will carry on with Ian Gillan on vocals.
As you probably have already heard, following the gig at the Radio City Music Hall on March 30th, Ronnie James Dio has announced that he is quitting Heaven and Hell tour for undisclosed reasons. Now, they have an extensive tour of US in April/May and Europe in June lined up and apparently Tony Iommi wants to fulfil those commitments no matter what. He has asked Ian Gillan if he could step in for Dio as a new vocalist for the project called Born Again that will take place of Heaven and Hell and play the same dates.
Gillan, when caught backstage after the show in Limoges, said that yes, he spoke to Tony and he has to “think it over”, but probably he’ll do it if the schedule doesn’t clash with Deep Purple and there’s no dry smoke on stage.
Let’s see what does this boil down to (provided all the lawyers and managers can come to an agreement as well). Deep Purple are on tour in UK from April 21 to May 3, then on to the continent until May 27, practically non-stop. Which rules out the Born Again US tour. But at the moment it looks like he’s available for the European dates in June.
Brace yourself, I like the smell of deja vu in the morning. It really was a meeting, the bottle took a beating. Ladies of the manor watched me climb into my car…
Since Heaven & Hell was playing only Dio Era songs, does this mean that they'll play the Born Again album twice? They'll have to, to fill up that length of time during the gigs. We might get to hear "The Fallen" live finally.
Makes me wonder if they're already preparing for Tom Jones' reappearance as vocalist once this tour is over. One never knows.
Gray and plastic retards indeed. :)
UPDATE: This was an April Fool's Joke. I'm quite honestly STUNNED at the number of hate emails I got. You people take things way too seriously. It's just music. Yeesh! Even the band thought it was funny - I got emails from someone in Iommi's office, as well as Gloria Butler saying the whole band thought the joke was funny. If they did, then you should too. If you do not, well, then you're seriously overreacting, and should work on your sense of humour. It was a joke. It was funny. You got sucked in by an April Fool's Joke. End of story.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:01 AM
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