"The European tour has been cancelled after Ronnie was taken ill. "Ronnie has been hospitalized and we are waiting for further news," explains Ronnie's wife/manager, Wendy Dio.

No further information is available at this time, but we wish Ronnie a speedy and complete recovery."

I got an email from Wendy saying they were at the hospital for tests, but they did not elaborate as to WHY he was at the hospital. Ronnie's no spring chicken anymore, he's 67 (as far as I know), and if it's something really bad that required him to cancel a tour to deal with - it can't be good. Ronnie never cancels anything.

If I get an update (like WHY), I'll post it, but given Ronnie keeps his personal life close to the vest, I'd be surprised if we get a real WHY. Either way, I say to keep them in your prayers.

"As many of you Sabbath fans will already know, I should have been doing 3 months of touring the USA, Canada and Brazil Tony Martin this summer. But for reasons I can't discuss, it didn't happen. The last night we had in the UK before embarking upon our tour, all but the Brazil section was cancelled. It worked out that they couldn't take me to Brazil either - just to make matters worse. When I got home I was very down, and I didn't know what else to do, so I just got out my bass and started playing. Very quickly I wrote and recorded "The Bass Player Answers Back," channeling all my anger and disapointment into it. That meant I needed just 1 more track to complete my album - "Return To Bass." Last week I recorded "Theme From nowhere," and then mixed the finished album. The tracklisting is:-

1. Layla's Funk
2. The Bass Player Answers Back
3. Theme From Nowhere
4. The Amazing Adventures Of An Interstellar Glam Hippy
5. Planet Happiness (A Tribute To The Cardigan)
6. The Guilt
7. Return To Bass
8. Kidney Bean
9. Captain Blake vs The Lion

Jamie is also reachable on Facebook, Myspace, & Twitter, too. Enjoy!

UPDATE: The album is now available for download on iTunes, too. Check it out there.

• Rapture of the Deep - Deep Purple
• Holy Diver (Live) - Dio
• Stay Hungry - Twisted Sister
• Kill the King - Rainbow

So there's some decent stuff - and you can pick it up for free by clicking on the cover art shown here. It's all free, and you get 'em via DRM free 256kbps mp3 files. What do you have to lose? Click over. :)

iTunes Sale: If you haven't bought "The Devil You Know" yet, you can now get it at a good discount. iTunes now has a metal page in their store, and as part of that sale, they have two Black Sabbath albums on sale for $7.99. We're talking about "The Devil You Know" ($7.99), and "Black Sabbath: The Dio Years" ($7.00). Check 'em out if you don't already have them!

Bill Ward on Music Biz: Bill Ward has given an interesting interview about the early days and the music biz. As you probably know, their business relationships in the early days can be described as uh, difficult - the point of being the source of at least one song on the Sabotage album. Anyway, Bill lays out some steps for young musicians. They are:

1) You Don't Have to Be Cool
2) You Don't Have to be Fit
3) Cherish Your Band
4) Read your Contracts
5) Power to the People
6) Have a Laugh

Bill gets into details on all of them, so check out the full article for all of this.

Tony's Hand Surgery Coming Along Nicely: There was an article up on the BBC Website (and other places I saw) about Tony Iommi's hand being "on the mend". Originally, he was going to have surgery, but then opted for a stem cell treatment, which as I understand it was a less invasive procedure. There's no word as to when he'd be able to fully get back into playing. The article says he can play now, but that's not the same thing as "no restrictions", especially as he still talks about "taking it easy". The BBC article also has some quotes from other guitarists about Tony. They are Janick Gers & Brian May. Check out the full article here.

Bill Ward - The Heavy Metal Vegan: As you may or may not know both Geezer Butler & Bill Ward are vegans. Geezer has done spots for PETA, and while Bill doesn't do that kind of thing too much, I did just run across a cool article about Bill's diet called "Bill Ward - The Heavy Metal Vegan Pt 1". It talks about his food choices, what he makes, and what it's like being a vegan where he lives. There's also a recipe available for "Bill Ward's Enchilada Pie". It actually looks good, I might have to try making it myself. This is part of a larger site (which is newly launched) called "The Rock & Roll Cook".

Dio Band Playing Live: The Dio band will be going out and playing live in November and December around Europe. You can get a list of tour dates here. They're an American band, it'd be nice if they came back here - they haven't toured here since the Master of the Moon tour in 2004. On this tour, Doug Aldrich is temporarily rejoining the band as Craig Goldy is playing with another band when these gigs came up. However, the band is supposed to be playing a new song from the two Magica sequel albums. That song is "Electra". Don't know anything else about it other than that. If you want to read more about the Dio band, check out this article, which also talks about a possible new album and tour from Elf?!?!?!

The Rhino website is having a 50% off sale on some Heaven & Hell merchandise. I'm told the sale is only running for a week, so if you're interested, head on over and check it out here:

http://www.rhino.com/store/merch/blacksabbath/

This does touch on some of the usual stories a well versed Black Sabbath fan knows about the genesis of the band, but the writing style is rather cool - or so I thought. Has some videos to check out in the article too; check it out.

Check it out:

For most of the US tour that just concluded, the opening band was Coheed & Cambria. Except for the final date. The last date (August 29th) in Atlantic City, the opener was a band called Halestorm. To be perfectly honest, I had never heard of them before. However, since they were opening for the Sabs, I thought I'd check 'em out. I was rather surprised at what I heard. Their story is quite interesting in that the band was formed about 10 years ago (there's more on Wikipedia). The lead singer is (in 2009) just 23 years old. You do the math.

Anyway, the lead singer was cool enough to spend some time with Damian, who was there covering Heaven & Hell, and we also got some good performance video to go with the interview. You can see that video below.

They also put out a new album this past April, which has a pretty good song called "I Get Off" (which according to iTunes was the most purchased song off the album). Anyway, check out the interview below, and if you're interested in buying the album, you can click on the cover art above, or listen to some song samples below. Thanks to Lzzy for the time!

More video is coming, but check out this fan video below:

First up on our video selection is a short interview with Ronnie where he talks about how he feels about the tour now that it's ended, and what will happen going forward from this point. Check it out below:

There will be more video bits from backstage at the Atlantic City gig coming up shortly, once all the video has been gone through. :) If you want a preview, and want to see what Damian had to say about his time, check out this post on the forums here.

It was a quintessential New York moment at what's billed as the 'World's Most Famous Arena': One throng of people at Madison Square Garden are queued up to see Britney Spears in the arena, and another to see Heaven & Hell play downstairs, at the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden. In the end, age won out over beauty as Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Vinny Appice held sway over a sold-out crowd during a 90-minute set in support their latest album, 'The Devil You Know.'

While Britney's 'comeback' tour saw the 27-year-old lip-syncing through her 10-year body of work, a man easily old enough to be her grandfather effortlessly led a band that's been around for over 40 years. And instead of costume changes and choreography, Heaven & Hell let the music do the talking. One thing's for sure -- unlike others associated with their band, Heaven & Hell's talent has not diminished over time. As the architect of some of the best riffs in metal, Iommi also knows how to play tasteful solos alongside his shredding -- shredding that still holds up well.

I was informed that it's a 21 and over concert. If you're under 21, you're not going to be admitted.

While it was not specifically stated, I have to believe the reason for the restriction is that the concert is technically inside a casino.

So I emailed my contact at Rhino and asked them if they had anything like that up on the wall for Heaven & Hell this year. They indeed had a giant Heaven & Hell advert up on that wall, from a time not too long before the album was released a couple of months ago up until mid August, when it was taken down. My contact also sent me over a picture of it to use on the site. You can check it out below. I live right outside of Dallas, TX - Burbank, CA is not a place I visit, so I haven't seen it with my own eyes. Have you seen it in person? Drop me a line if you have, I'm curious.

I did inquire what happens to them after they are taken down. My contact said they're taken down by some outside firm who deals (presumably) in exterior advertisments, and then it's delivered back to Warner. I assume they go into storage somewhere, but I didn't get a conclusive answer as to what happens to them, but they aren't destroyed, which is what I figured happened to them.

Check it out below.

1. Q: Is there going to be a video?
   A: I was told there was no video planned.
2. Q: Is it going to have a physical release of media to the public?
   A: I was told there is no physical media release, unlike Bible Black. Whether it turns up as a digital single release on iTunes or whatnot, I don't know. Given you can already buy the song individually on iTunes, I would think not, but we shall see.
3. Q: Is there a press release for it or something?
   A: I was told there's no formal press release announcing the single.

So it appears that there's a "single" release, but you won't be able to purchase it. Given how much attention this kind of music gets in the US (sarcasm), I wonder if I'll hear this on the radio at all. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Seriously, if you hear this on your radio station, let me know, I'll be curious to know if there's any impact from a non physical media single release like this.

UPDATE: I received one of the promo CD's from Rhino in the mail since I originally posted this story a couple of weeks ago. It has two tracks on it. Both of them are "Follow the Tears". Track 1 is a "Radio Edit", and Track 2 is "Album Version". The running times vary significantly. The "Radio Edit" is just 3:43, where the standard version is 6:10. The inside of the jewel case paper insert has US tour dates on it, and there's no artwork to speak of save for what's below. It's a pretty bare bones thing, but it was not intended to be sold, so it kind of makes sense. But to be honest, other than my own talking about this, I've not seen a word about this anywhere. Has anyone else? Anyway, here's the cover art for it.