In addition to the Summer Sale program, Bill is also starting a series of ebay auctions. The first item up for auction at Ebay is an authentic Black Sabbath drumhead autographed by Bill Ward.

This drumhead is a Remo Snare Drumhead played by Bill Ward from 08-06-05 in East Troy, WI and retired after the Cynthia Woods Pavilion concert in Houston, TX on 08-27-05. The drumhead was autographed by Bill Ward on 05-31-06. Here is a picture of the drumhead (click on it for a larger picture):

This auction starts this evening (Fri, June 30th) at 8PM Eastern Time (in the US). Here is a link to the Ebay auction page. Please note it will generate an error until the auction has actually started.

Finally, if you are the winner of this auction, Bill will personalize the drumhead for you!

As Bill mentioned in the latest audio diary a few weeks ago, he’s having a Summer Garage Sale. Several new items are now available to order, plus the items that were already in the merchandise page have had their prices dropped. Here’s a list of the details:

Existing Item Price Drops

• When the Bough Breaks CD, price dropped from $10 to $5.
• When the Bough Breaks Poster, price dropped from $7 to $4.
• Ward One Poster, price dropped from $7 to $4.
• Straws Charities minimum donation dropped from $35 to $10.

New Items for the Summer Sale

• Snakes & Ladders Radio Promo CD – $5
• When the Bough Breaks “Naked” CD – $5
• Snakes & Ladders T-Shirt (M, L, XL) – $10
• Animals T-Shirt (M, L, XL) – $10
• Hate T-Shirt (M, L, XL) – $10
• Tall Stories T-Shirt (M, L, XL) – $10

Pictures of all of these items are available right now on Bill’s Merchandise page, so go check ’em out, and help Bill clean out his garage! Please note however, that orders will not ship until July 10th, so if you place an order right now, that is when they will commence shipping.

Bill has sent in the the 14th edition of his Audio Diary series. This new edition, totaling 33:56 in length is available right now. It was recorded on Saturday June 3rd, but due to some technical problems was not placed online until June 13th. Here’s some of the highlights of what Bill has to say in this edition:

• Updates on his radio show on what’s coming, including some music from LunarMile; the band fronted by Toni-Marie Iommi
• Update on his column for Hails & Horns magazine
• Updates on Beyond Aston, including some track specifics. One is named “Where You Are Is Not Forever”. Bill does play drums on one song, that being “Poppies”.
• Working on creating Beyond Aston from a technical and drumming aspect as well as going into some heavy detail on drumming issues.
• Bill’s attempts at staying fit
• Talks about a summer garage sale he’s planning on selling some memorabilia off, and some special items that will be going on ebay. (Details on this will be posted in the next day or so).
• Talks briefly about Straws (which will is also on sale under the garage sale).

There’s plenty more to hear as well, so make sure to check it all out. Here’s the link to the audio diary:

https://www.billward.com/sounds/diary060306.m4a

(Right click and select “Save As” or “Save Link As” and save the file to your hard drive, don’t just click this)

You need one of any number of free audio players (Winamp, iTunes, or Musicmatch Jukebox) to play this file. Don’t forget about Bill’s Podcast for the diaries, you can get more info on that here.

You can discuss the audio diary in this thread on Bill’s forums here on billward.com. A short note, if you have Windows Media player, you may have to rename the file extension from m4a to mp4 to get the file to play right in that player.

Beginning this month, Bill will contribute a regular column, titled “Forte, Please” to new Metal magazine, Hails & Horns. The June 2006 issue is arriving in stores now and can be purchased at major music retail outlets, including Tower, Hot Topic, Borders, Barnes and Noble, Virgin, Newbury Comics, FYE, Strawberries, and Coconuts. Hails & Horns is a quarterly publication with the second issue due in September 2006.

Here is an excerpt from Bill’s first column:

From the childhood influences of Rock-n-Roll, Jazz and Blues, to Black Sabbath’s embryonic stirrings, past the mayhem of the 70’s to the Sgt. Pepper triumph of the 90’s, Metallica’s “Black Album”, and more recently, to the enlightening “Vol.3: The Subliminal Verses” by Slipknot, I have been immersed in music and, in saying that, I feel incredibly humbled and fortunate to still be a part of all of this momentum. My peers, and there are a lot of them, they too are still above ground, devouring the future with broad strokes of loud guitars, critical drumming and risking their very souls in the harshness and joys of life. I say again, I’m fortunate and delighted. I am a fan – a great place to be at 58 – and based on the above, I guess I qualify on some level as a person who could share something about Metal.

I’ll begin…

Bill has sent in the the March 2006 edition of his Audio Diary series (the 13th overall entry). This new edition totals 32:29 in length. The subjects discussed in this edition Bill speaks at length on, so there’s not as many different subjects as he normally talks about, but what is talked about is talked about in depth. Here’s what’s going on in this new edition.

• Wilson Pickett, who has recently died. He also talks about how it’s not always easy for some older musicians still trying to make a living at their craft.
• Talks a lot about Black Sabbath’s induction into the Hall of Fame; lots of issues relating to the HOF ceremonies and other bands who went in with Sabbath. Bill also talks about his appreciation for Geezer, Tony, & Oz. Loved Metallica, both in their speeches and in their playing of Sabbath songs.
• A small update on Beyond Aston.
• Bill talks about a couple of deaths in his family recently. One was his wife’s grandmother, and the other, unfortunately was the baby that Bill and his wife were expecting.

If you listen to Bill’s audio diary, he talks a lot about the loss of the baby. Bill and his wife had found it was to be a boy, and they had chosen the name Bram, after Bram Stoker. Bill found out about this when he was deplaning from returning from the trip for Sabbath’s HOF induction.

Naturally, as you can expect, it has not been an easy time for the Ward family. In the diary, Bill talks about sending in emails and letters of condolence. Here are the contact details if you choose to contact Bill regarding this matter.

Via Email: astoncrossmusic@aol.com

Via Snail Mail:
Address no longer valid

If you wish your letter not to be opened and read, please mark it “Private” on the outside. Further details on ‘private letters’ and what will happen with all the emails and letters are in the audio diary. Please check it out.

Here’s the link to the audio diary:

https://www.billward.com/sounds/diary032806.m4a

(Right click and select “Save As” or “Save Link As” and save the file to your hard drive, don’t just click this)

You need one of any number of free audio players (Winamp, iTunes, or Musicmatch Jukebox) to play this file. Don’t forget about Bill’s Podcast for the diaries, you can get more info on that here.

You can discuss the audio diary in this thread on Bill’s forums here on billward.com. A short note, if you have Windows Media player, you may have to rename the file extension from m4a to mp4 to get the file to play right in that player.

Just got the shit news that there’s going to be a movie about the asshole who shot John Lennon. As a Lennon fan, admirer, I can’t believe that this film is coming out on general release. I object completely that we have available to us a movie about a guy who robbed millions of people of so much, who stamped out a brilliant mind, and who broke apart a family. When John Lennon died, my heart broke, and I’ve never gotten over his death, and I know that millions of other people got hurt also.

Whoever is responsible for this movie, the money, the producers, the cast, the music, I fail to see how you can participate in anything that could bring more infamy to an already infamous murderer, robber and pain-bringer.

I curse this movie, and hope that it rots in hell. I hope it’s an utter failure. For me personally, it feels like another kick in the balls. It still hurts. He’s been dead now for awhile, but it still hurts. This movie can only open up old wounds. For the sake of what? Truth? I think not.

–Bill Ward

There’s a great new interview with Bill online, and is definitely something you should check out. It’s not the usual interview asking the same 6 questions about Bill’s life in Black Sabbath. This one has some deeper probing questions than the usual interviews do.

It’s over at allaboutjazz.com, and it talks about Bill’s life in Black Sabbath yes, but in a way that’s different than what’s come before. Talks a lot about how Jazz influenced Bill’s life musically.

Aw… just go read it. You’ll be glad you did. 🙂

Bill has sent in the the 12th edition of his Audio Diary series. This long delayed newest edition (the first in 2006), totaling 29:35 in length is available right now. Here’s some of what Bill had to say in this edition.

• Some friends of his who have died recently.
• The upcoming US Hall of Fame induction for Black Sabbath. According to Bill, Black Sabbath will not be playing at the ceremony. Furthermore, Bill has no information on anything else happening with Black Sabbath in 2006, either.
• Bill’s gonna be a daddy again (having a son), his fourth child.
• Some Beyond Aston updates – he’s been making a real effort since January to get it completed. Also, you can still download (legally, for free) the song “The Dark Half Hour” from that album. Check out the Sounds page to obtain it.
• As if Beyond Aston wasn’t enough, there’s some details about other music he’s written that isn’t on Beyond Aston that he will use for his next few albums. Bill also goes into some detail comparing the music from Beyond Aston to When the Bough Breaks.
• Sends props to Slipknot and System of the Down for their Grammy Awards
• Lots of talk about his Rock 50 radio show including some details as to what some of the tracks he’ll be playing on upcoming shows are.

There’s plenty more to hear as well, so make sure to check it all out. Here’s the link to the audio diary:

https://www.billward.com/sounds/diary021806.m4a

(Right click and select “Save As” or “Save Link As” and save the file to your hard drive, don’t just click this)

You need one of any number of free audio players (Winamp, iTunes, or Musicmatch Jukebox) to play this file. Don’t forget about Bill’s Podcast for the diaries, you can get more info on that here.

You can discuss the audio diary in this thread on Bill’s forums here on billward.com. A short note, if you have Windows Media player, you may have to rename the file extension from m4a to mp4 to get the file to play right in that player.

Click here to visit an auction where you can win a personally signed pair of drumsticks by Bill Ward. Here’s what is written about them in the auction:

YOU ARE BIDDING ON A PAIR OF DRUM STICKS SIGNED BY BLACK SABBATH’S BILL WARD EXCLUSIVELY FOR CLASSIC ROCK REVISITED’S AUCTION.

THESE ARE STICKS MADE FOR BILL WARD BY DRUMSTICK COMPANY VIC FIRTH. WARD WROTE A “CLASSIC ROCK REVISITED AUCTION. SABS, ROCK n’ SHINE 12/12/05 ONE OF A PAIR” ON EACH STICK.

This item is being offered to you from Classic Rock Revisited. Classic Rock Revisited is an online magazine dedicated to Classic Rock Music www.classicrockrevisited.com We use eBay EXCLUSIVELY for our auctions. All items we auction are donated to us directly from the artist or thier record company to support Classic Rock Revisited. Thank you for taking time to check out our listing!

Hurry – this auction ends Jan-28-06 16:55:34 PST

Bill Ward will appear on fellow Black Sabbath member Tony Iommi’s new radio show this coming Sunday. You’ll definitely want to tune in to check this out, here are the details:

Planet Rock Radio
Sunday, December 18th
7:00 PM ­ 9:00 PM (GMT)/ 2:00 PM ­ 4:00 PM (EST)
Listen online at www.planetrock.com
Also available in the UK on DAB Digital Radio, Sky Channel 861, ntl channel 880, or Telewest channel 924