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After a couple of teasers, Ultimate Classic Rock has posted, apparently in full, the interview they’ve recently done with Ritchie Blackmore. Release of the Rainbow 75/76 box set was the occasion, so the bulk of the conversation was actually devoted to that time period. Continue Reading »
Since nobody bothered to make a documentary about Captain Beyond, it was left to our robotic overlords to create one. It is done on the cheap, with no music licensed to use, still — the facts are there, so here it is. Continue Reading »
Wikimetal celebrates 50th anniversary of Rainbow Rising with a short compendium of 6 interesting facts about the album. Which are in no way a surprise to anybody who’s been paying attention.
Kindly proceed to Wikimetal if you need further elaboration.
Ultimate Classic Rock publishes the next part of The interview they recently did with Ritchie Blackmore. They call it the first part, so apparently the Christopher Cross story that appeared a few days ago, was part zero. Ritchie talks about hi recent heals problems, prospects for touring (spoiler: very little), and also motivation for leaving Deep Purple the first time around.
When I left Deep Purple, I just felt that the band wasn’t pulling [its weight] as a musical venture. It became a committee. It was like if there were some answers to be had, there were five different answers. And I got a little bit tired of the committee meetings. But like what John Cleese said about Monty Python, I basically thought I’m going to get four other musicians where I don’t. need to have a committee meeting and just get on with playing the music.
Read more in Ultimate Classic Rock.
In a new interview to the Ultimate Classic Rock, Ritchie Blackmore confirms the story that in 1970 Christopher Cross has played a gig with Deep Purple in his place. This episode became a minor controversy in the Purple lore as over the years Cross himself claimed it, with further corroboration by Eric Johnson, who opened the show. Jon Lord, however, disputed that story as ‘never happened’.
Deep Purple shared the stage with Christopher Cross on August 28, 1970 at the Jam Factory in San Antonio. The twist? Cross was filling in at the last minute for the band’s regular guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore.
“I must have had a virus or something, because I had a canker sore in my mouth under my tongue,” Blackmore tells UCR in a new interview. “So I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t speak. I was miserable about that and I wasn’t happy about being on tour in America. I loved Europe, [but] America, it was so far apart in the places we played in. I had no idea where I was. I wasn’t in my comfort zone and I kind of missed England.”
Read more in Ultimate Classic Rock.
Thanks to Gary Poronovich for the heads-up.
Ian Gillan spoke to the Leona Graham Podcast. This sounds like it was done some time in 2025, but posted only now, in May 2026. They talked about Ian’s collaboration with Urock, his age of discovery, the hardest song he had to sing, and other things. Continue Reading »
More Tony Carey! This time he talks to the Classic Album Review poscast. These interviews are apparently being done on the occasion of his Planet P Project albums being reissued on vinyl by (who else!) Edel, but a good half of the conversation revolved around his stint with Rainbow. Continue Reading »
During a May 2, 2026, 2. Budesliga football match between Dynamo Dresden and 1. FC Kaiserslautern fans started a chant that suspiciously sounds like The Riff. The game is posted to youtube, but we’re told that it is not available in many countries, so here’s an audio snippet Continue Reading »
The online incarnation of the Classic Rock magazine has a short feature on Whitesnake’s classic live album Live… In The Heart Of The City.
It is one of the greatest live albums of all time, a heavyweight double to rank up there alongside classics such as Thin Lizzy’s Live And Dangerous, Deep Purple’s Made In Japan, UFO’s Strangers In The Night, Scorpions’ Tokyo Tapes, Rainbow On Stage and Kiss Alive!. There is, however, something unusual about Live…In The Heart Of The City. It is actually two albums in one…
Continue reading in Louder Sound.
Thanks to Uwe for the heads-up.
Another Martin Popoff’s book — Unchain Your Brain! The Gillan Story — is coming out at the end of August via Wymer Publishing in the UK. It is dedicated exclusively to Gillan the band.
Between 1978 and 1982 Ian Gillan didn’t exactly reinvent himself, like many artists do, in fact the opposite—he returned to his rock ‘n’ roll roots with his revitalised band, simply called Gillan.
Aided by Colin Towns from the previous outfit—the Ian Gillan Band, and joined by the rock solid John McCoy, Gillan started off running where Deep Purple had left off. With a settled line-up that included Mick Underwood and Bernie Tormé, Gillan had numerous hit albums and even singles, with regular appearances on the UK’s leading TV music show Top Of The Pops.
But the usual frictions that dog most bands from time to time led to the departure of the wild and flamboyant Tormé and the introduction of Jannick Gers for the final chapter that culminated with the band’s last show at London’s Wembley Arena.
Having interviewed most of the band members, Martin Popoff takes us on a detailed ride of the five-year journey in a remarkable career.
What: Unchain Your Brain! The Gillan Story
Author: Martin Popoff
When: August 21, 2026
Where: Wymer Publishing
Format: 224 pages softcover, 234mm x 156mm
How much: £18.99
ISBN: 978-1-918419-01-6
If you pre-order, the publisher promises to deliver your copy two months ahead of retail — at the end of June.
Thanks to BraveWords for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing