Here are all the news from the first half of 2005 - some of these may be outdated already, so please check out the newest news for updates!
I'd like to announce the birth of my twin daughters! They were born on May 28th 35 minutes apart from each other. Lots of sleepless nights since then but yes, I'm very proud of them! They certainly mean less time for me to update these pages, so please be patient... ;)
Dio's current European festival tour is going really well, the audiences love the gigs. I've seen reviews of all the shows this far and almost every one is saying that Dio was the best band, better than all the other bands combined!
Dio played yesterday (June 11th) at Sweden Rock Festival. The gig was recorded by Swedish Radio and it will be broadcasted in "P3 Live" show in September or October. It should include a web broadcast too. When the date is confirmed, I'll certainly post it here too with the link to the broadcast site!
Dio will do a lenghty tour in the abovementioned countries in September! 16 shows in total! The tour dates were confirmed a couple of days ago, see them on the Master Of The Moon tour date page!
There are also rumors of other shows for this year, but nothing definitive so far.
Tracy will play with his band Goaged at The Hop in Industry, CA on July 6th. Other bands include Second Chance and Vatos Locos. Tracy is currently mixing and mastering his new solo album, titled as "Erector Pili". It should be out in August.
The tour dates for the Master Of The Moon tour this summer seem to be more or less finalized - Japan tour has been added, as well as many Spanish dates in between the European festival gigs in June. Check out the dates on the Master Of The Moon tour date page!
Ronnie is said to have a role in a forthcoming Tenacious D movie, titled "Tenacious D: In The Pick Of Destiny." The film will be directed by Liam Lynch. The plot is kept secret, but in general it should be about how Tenacious D became the greatest (?) rock band in the world. The movie is scheduled still for 2005. Tenacious D official web site can be found here.
A long-time die-hard Dio fan and one of my very best friends, Genady Perchenko, has launched a new Dio web site with one aim: To collect a BIG collection of Dio photos on-line! From now on, I will stop updating my picture gallery section and point to Genady's site instead, as I think he has MUCH better opportunity to show the pics than I ever could with my site.
I'd like to apologize for lack of updates on the site recently. I've been very busy with other tasks and I'm afraid that this will continue to be the case for the nearest future. My wife is expecting twins any day now, so they'll certainly keep me busy for the summer. I'll do my best to keep the site updated during the summer too, but I cannot promise anything. In any case, I'm sure I won't be able to reply to your e-mails very quickly - please be patient with me ;)
Twisted Sister's guitarist Eddie "Fingers" Ojeda is working on his solo album at the moment. It will have two Dio related guests: Ronnie himself on one of the tracks and Rudy Sarzo playing bass on two songs! Drummer for all the songs is going to be Joe Franco. The album is almost done, a couple of more songs are still to be done but Eddie's trying to get the CD out already by the end of Spring!
Master Of The Moon European festival tour will hit the Rockwave festival in Athens on July 9th! Other bands there will be Twisted Sister, Anthrax, Katatonia and Zyklon - apparently some bands will still be added to the list, though.
Rudy Sarzo and Simon Wright appear on the newest Michael Schenker album produced by Bob Kulick. The line-up for the album is Leslie West on vocals, Michael Schenker obviously on lead guitars, Bob Kulick on rhythm guitars, Rudy Sarzo on bass and Simon Wright on drums.
Rudy's been working on a book lately - a day-to-day diary from his days with Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads in the early 1980s. The book is called "Off The Rails - My Adventures In The Land Of Ozz" and will be published by Cherry Lane Music on September 15th. It is already possible to preorder it at Amazon.com.
Dio's ex bassist Chuck Garric is going to do a short European tour with Bruce Kulick, Eric Singer and John Corabi. The band is called ESP and will play in Stockholm, Sweden on April 27th, Copenhagen, Denmark 28th, Helmond in Holland 29th, Babenhausen/Frankfurt in Germany on 30th and Barcelona on May 2nd.
Goaded (who were called Driven earlier on) will play a couple of gigs in California - House Of Blues in West Hollywood on April 27th and Club Rain in Newport Beach on May 6th.
Those of you who frequent the heavy metal news sites on the Internet have already read about the latest Rainbow reunion rumors that are floating around the net. It looks like this rumor surfaces roughly once a year.
The rumors claim that there is plans to reform Rainbow for a short tour. The Rainbow line-up is said to be Ronnie on vocals, Ritchie on guitars, Jimmy Bain on bass and Vinny Appice on drums. Keyboardist is not mentioned.
This is once again just a rumor and it has been shot down by both Dio's management (Niji Management) and Ritchie's management, saying that there are no plans about this and no-one has contacted them about this.
Rainbow's keyboardist Tony Carey also commented that no-one has asked him about this Rainbow reunion. He says that he'd love to do it, but he has not spoken to Ritchie or Ronnie for 30 years.
So, those who'd like to see this reunion to happen, I suggest that you don't start to hold your breath yet ;)
David Tangye and Graham Wright were part of Black Sabbath crew in the pre-Dio Sabbath years and recently wrote a book from their day-to-day life with Black Sabbath. The book was released as a paperback in March, hardcover version came out already last year. I got the paperback version a week ago for review from Dave Tangye - and as soon as I started to read it, I found it extremely difficult to put it down. The book is very well written and it is quite apparent that it has been written by folks close to the band.
The book has excellent stories from early years of the band. Some stories are hilarious, some are sad, and some are both. The book starts years before Black Sabbath saw the light, going to the lives of the young Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne. It goes through the hard work and difficulties when they started the band and brought it to be the pioneers of heavy metal.
The book has numerous pranks and jokes from the guys - mainly from Tony Iommi. One of my favorites is the story how Kiss was going to warm up for Sabbath once at Madison Square Garden in New York. The warm-uppers had started to complain that the stage was too small for them (12 feet deep) and were already packing their stuff back into their truck. Sabbath then informed them that they had managed to push back their backline for two feet. Kiss was happy about that and unloaded their equipment again. Needless to say, Sabbath hadn't moved their backline an inch - it was clearly a game of principles!
Although the book is about pre-Dio years only, it is certainly worth of reading for any Black Sabbath fan. It does a good job giving an inside view to the band and how they became what they were when Ronnie James Dio joined them in 1979. There are several books about Sabbath, but of those ones I've read, only this one and Garry Sharpe-Young's "Never Say Die" stand up as must-to-read ones!
More information about the book and buying links can be found from the authors' site at address http://www.blacksabbath.co.uk/. The book can be bought for example through Amazon.
Except for Ronnie himself, the rest of the original Dio line-up (Jimmy, Vivian and Vinny) got together one night to jam together, playing for instance Straight Through The Heart together. Before the rumors start about this, I'd like to say that to my knowledge at least, there are absolutely no plans to put the original Dio back together.
Chuck Garric, who played bass with Dio on a couple of tours a few years ago, as well as participated on one of the songs on Master Of The Moon album, gave recently an interview to a Alice Cooper fansite. Read the interview here!
Ronnie's cousin, Dave "Rock" Feinstein had a band called The Rods from late 1970s to early 1980s. They're now going to reform for one-off show at MacKenzy's in Cortland, NY on March 26th. The line-up will have Rock Feinstein on guitars and vocals, Gary Bordonaro on bass and Carl Canedy on drums.
Dio and Twisted Sister played together a month ago in Puerto Rico. Here are a couple of pages where you can find photos from the gig: Link 1 and Link 2.
Bob Daisley, who played bass for example in Rainbow as well as shortly on Dio tour in late 1990s, has got his old band Kahvas Jute together again. Kahvas Jute is based in Sydney and consists of Bob Daisley, Dennis Wilson (guitars, vocals) Tim Gaze and Clifford Hoad (drums). The band is recording new material at the moment.
Yesterday there was one-off show in Puerto Rico in February where Dio played together with Twisted Sister. The gig was rescheduled a couple of times and the venue was also changing back and forth, until it finally was confirmed to Tito Puente Amfitheatre on February 26th.
I reported earlier that there are plans for Russian tour in March. There were those plans, but now they have been pushed until September this year.
Currently it looks like April will take Dio on road to South America. Asians will get the opportunity to see Dio in May and European festival goers will get their share of Dio in June and July. Several gigs throughout the Europe have already been confirmed and it is very likely that more will follow! After the festival gigs, Dio is planning to do the Russian tour in September, and ...
... in October Dio will do a very special UK tour: The tour is titled as "An Evening With Dio" and it will consist of two (!) sets by Dio. The first set will include Holy Diver - the whole album in order and not just the song. The second set will have songs from Rainbow, Black Sabbath and, of course, Dio.
Finally, for the end of the year there are plans to do some Christmas shows in Germany. Quite a lot of touring this year!
Most of these gig dates are still unknown, but those that have been announced can be found on the Master Of The Moon tour date page!
Spitfire, Dio's ex record company, released Evil Or Divine on a CD on February 22nd in Europe and in the US. I haven't yet got it myself, so I cannot say much about it yet.
Craig Goldy's brother, bassist Eric Goldy teamed up with guitarist James Brady (ex-Crown 10) and drummer Frank Dolan. The project hasn't got a name yet, but they've got a bunch of ideas and songs already and are planning to play live in near future.
Ronnie James Dio invented or brought the "evil eyes" (a.k.a. horned hand) symbol to the metal world. Except that some claim Gene Simmons from Kiss did it. Except that some claim that Ozzy did it. Except that some claim John Lennon of Beatles did it. This may be a never-ending battle on the heavy metal news sites and in the magazines, but I wanted to say my share too: Go to British museum and to the Egyptian section of it. Check the thousands of years old sargophagus there on display: IT SHOWS THE EVIL EYE SIGN! ;)
Last month I mentioned the rumors regarding the forthcoming Judas Priest US tour. There were rumors that Dio, Queensryche and Black Label Society would be touring (or at least one of them would tour) with Priest. Now it looks like Queensryche is the band that will do the tour with Judas Priest.
German's #1 Metal Festival, Wacken, will release a three CD set, recorded live during last year's festival! Dio was one of the biggest acts in Wacken and the CD set will contain two tracks from them - Holy Diver and Don't Talk To Strangers. The CD will also contain Ronnie's cousin, Dave Rock Feinstein's band doing one song, Rebelutions. Among the 38 bands and 45 songs are for example the Finnish Eläkeläiset covering the classic Van Halen song Jump, creatively titled as Hump. Eläkeläiset have covered Dio too, Holy Diver as Humpparaakki and Rainbow's Man On The Silver Mountain as Humppanautinto.
The CD will be released on March 21st and is titled as "Armageddon Over Wacken Live 2004". The cover picture can be seen at the Blabbermouth news site here.
The Puerto Rico gig with Twisted Sister was rescheduled to February 26th and returned back to the larger venue, Colise de Puerto Rico Jos M. Agrelot. The show was moved for a while to another, smaller venue, but apparently the interest has been so huge that the promotor has wanted them after all to the stadium venue!
Dio's ex record company Spitfire is going to release "Evil Or Divine: Live In New York City CD on February 22nd! This will contain the audio track from the earlier "Evil Or Divine" DVD.
Spitfire has put up a special e-card page for this album - you can check it out here!
Warner Bros' label Rhino has been long planning a DVD release of all the Dio promo videos. Now this anthology DVD has got a name, "Stand Up & Shout", and release date for June 2005. This will be released only in the US.
There are bunch of rumors about forthcoming US tour: Most recent rumors tell that Judas Priest, Dio, Queensryche and Black Label Society will team up and do a tour together across the States in the Summer. I haven't seen any confirmation concerning any of these rumors - currently the only scheduled dates for Dio's summer tour are a couple of European festival gigs. Newest addition to the European festivals is Graspop Metal Meeting for June 24-26.
Victor released Master Of The Moon in Japan on CD on January 26th as VICP-62982! The CD contains an extra track "Prisoner Of Paradise". The CD has one difference the sleeve design compared to the European and North American releases: The Dio logo is red instead of blue/purple. The CD also lists credits - it is interesting to notice that Chuck Garric has been involved with the song Death By Love! Chuck Garric was playing bass with Dio on a couple of European tours as Jimmy Bain was unable to tour outside the US.
The band + most likely a whole bunch of other musicians are currently working on the Children Of The Night charity project, often called "Hear 'N Aid II" even though that will not be the name of the actual outcome. They're working on a song in the same style how Stars was done for the original Hear 'N Aid, and then include other songs on the album from all the participating bands. According to the rumors, this project should be released in the summer, but no exact release date has been set yet.
Ricky Warwick, who used to be the singer for The Almighty, is working on a solo CD called "Love Many Trust Few". The CD will contain guest appearance from ex Dio guitarist Vivian Campbell.
Viv appears also on Cash Casia's album "From the Mouth of Babes" in a track called "Without Love."
Former Dio bassist Jeff Pilson recently gave interviews for Electric Basement and KNAC.com. You can read those interviews by clicking the respective links.
Jeff Pilson's band War & Peace recorded one gig last year for CD release. The CD will be released by Z Records in April. They're also starting recordings for a new studio album, tentatively scheduled for September, also on Z Records.
Michael Schenker has been working on a CD with lots of different musicians, including several Dio members and ex-members. The CD will be produced by Bob Kulick and will be called "Michael Schenker and Heavy Hitters."
The track listing for the CD is as follows - Michael Schenker plays guitar on all the tracks:
Tracy G's (ex Dio guitarist) band Goaded released their first album on Tracy's Spooky G label. The band used to be called Driven under which name they released a bunch of stuff too.
For more information and audio samples, go to see Tracy G's own pages here!
Dio members were present again during last weekend at NAMM convention in Anaheim, CA, meeting fans and giving interviews.
The date for the Puerto Rico gig has now been confirmed - and it changed from what I reported yesterday. The correct date is February 18th and the tickets are already for sale!
Dio will open for Twisted Sister in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. The show has been scheduled for January 29th, but it may still change. The North American leg of Dio's Master Of The Moon ended in November at a metal festival show in Mexico where they also played with Twisted Sister.
Recently Ronnie's first LP, "Dio At Domino's" was sold at Ebay. Now it was time for his first 7" single, "Lover / Conquest" - it sold for over $200. The single dates back to 1958 when just 500 copies of it were made!
The Japanese release for Master Of The Moon has finally been confirmed: The CD will be released by Victor (catalog number VICP-62982) on January 21st, 2005! The rumors say that it may contain one extra track, called "Prisoner Of Paradise" according to some. However, some online record stores don't list any extra tracks for this Japanese release so I guess we'll know around January 21st which way it goes!
Black Sabbath / Blue Oyster Cult video "Black & Blue" was meant to be released on DVD in November. I actually already announced that it was released. No such luck. The release was cancelled apparently just a few days before the scheduled release dates (which were incidentally postponed already at least once!). I have no concrete knowledge who caused this cancellation, but I guess we all have our own more or less educated guesses about that.
Ronnie will appear on Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan documentary DVD/TV show. The documentary will go through Ian's lenghty career fronting Deep Purple as well as his career outside them. The documentary is currently being filmed and will reach editing status in February. This documentary is planned to be broadcasted on TV as well as released on DVD. No release date has been set but estimates are for summer release.
The Norwegian Dio tribute band Anthem will play at the "Rock The Boat" festival on Stena Line boat between April 22nd and 24th! Other bands include Masterplan, Pagan's Mind, Stage Dolls, Return, Rain and cover/tribute bands Damage Inc (Metallica), Moonchild (Iron Maiden), Ozzmosis (Ozzy Osbourne), K.I.S.S. (obviously Kiss;), Gentle Groove (Led Zeppelin), Come Taste The Band (Deep Purple) and Dirty Deeds (Ac/Dc). See the festival page here.
Dio's former guitarist Tracy changed his band name from Driven to Goaded. They're planning to play some gigs in early 2005. Tour dates will be published on Tracy's new pages.
Tracy's also releasing a new instrumental solo CD, titled "Dr. Erector Pili" in April 2005.
How Black Was Our Sabbath: An Unauthorized View from the Crew paperback edition will be released on March 4th, 2005. This book tells Ozzy years' Black Sabbath story from the crew (Dave Tangye and Graham Wright) point of view - although it doesn't cover Ronnie James Dio years, it should be a good read for the Sabbath fans. Read more about the book here.
Riverdogs released a promotional DVD with interviews, studio and rehearsal footage as well as some live footage. Riverdogs is also re-releasing their debut CD coupled with a bonus CD "On Air" with 12 live songs recorded for radio. More information is available on their web site here.
This page is maintained by Tapio Keihänen,
E-mail: dio@iki.fi.
URL: http://www.dio.net/news/,
the front page http://www.dio.net/.
