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Sometimes Deep Purple related news come when you least expect it. I was browsing the conference schedule for a pro audio-video tradeshow taking place in Stockholm in early October. Kicking off the proceedings is a talk called, “Smoke on the Water – the story behind a rock classic“. A kind of odd topic where the […]
Read more »You might recall that the Rolling Stones Mobile truck has found a permanent home at the Canadian National Music Centre in Calgary. Deep Purple were in town on August 31, 2026, and Ian Gillan paid a visit to the old chap. His story of recording Smoke is by now so thoroughly rehearsed that it has […]
Read more »Deep Purple live at Jones Beach Theater (Wantagh, USA 2026-08-12) Blackmore Joins Purple for Epic Encore at Jones Beach Theater Reviewed by The Highway Star Reader “Albania” When my younger son greeted me in the morning by asking if I knew where we kept the several sets of glasses that are needed to watch solar […]
Read more »Just as anticipated, on August 12, 2026, Ritchie Blackmore joined Deep Purple on stage at the Jones Beach Theater for a guest performance of Smoke. As an engineering wisdom goes, with sufficient thrust pigs fly just fine. Here is the evidence.
Read more »Classic Rock magazine rehashes the story we’ve heard a million times by now — how Smoke came to being. This includes an undated quote from Blackmore (that was at some point subjected to a rather poor OCR, and had to be corrected by us): I was jamming with Ian Paice at a soundcheck, because we […]
Read more »Our recent foray into the trainspotting territory prompted another trip down the memory lane. Better Call Saul is a prequel/offshoot of the hit TV drama series Breaking Bad, and it has run between 2015 and 2020. Somebody in the writers’ pen of the show was obviously a fan.
Read more »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
Read more »Classically trained pianist Alexandra Kuznetsova, known under nom de guerre Gamazda, performs piano covers of rock compositions to the effect that her YouTube channel has amassed almost a million subscribers. Check out her performance of Smoke in an Amsterdam church from earlier this month.
Read more »The Guardian has a piece on the casino burning down and associated shenanigans as a part of their How we made series. With input from Roger Glover and Ian Paice. RG: There’s a great photograph of singer Ian Gillan with his notebook open and the first two verses written. I’m sat opposite him listening to […]
Read more »Couple of items found in the mail to our slightly neglected trainspotting department. Another Netflix series made use of a Purple track. This time it’s Smoke incorporated into the trailer of The Waterfront, premiered in June
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Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing