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On the water
If it floats, Dutch can play music on it. 😉 Here’s the proof — Dutch band Helloise and Art Vark saxophone quartet perform Smoke on the Water at the 2012 Rotterdam Harbour Fest. (watch inside)
Read more »From Changshu to Austin
Couple of new entries to our trainspotting project. A restaurant called Deep Purple has opened last year in Chiangshu, China. It specializes in western (as in European / North American / Australian) food. The band gets a nod in their self description: The name Deep Purple traces its roots back from the mysterious and dreamy […]
Read more »Royal treatment
It’s widely known that Scandinavia is a good market for Purple and apparently their popularity extends all the way into the royal families. In Norway, crown prince Haakon joined a local band at their gig and played Smoke on the Water. His wife, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, who was in the audience, was less enthusiastic and […]
Read more »Smoke on the Lyme Regis
Ian Gillan sang Smoke on the Water at the Guitars on the Beach festival in Lyme Regis, UK, this Saturday, September 6. BBC reports that he was joined by 3,325 guitarists, which didn’t quite beat the world record of 6,546 (helped to set by Steve Morse in Poland 2009), but only a national one. Local […]
Read more »Guitars on the Beach update
More details have emerged about Gillan’s involvement with the Guitars on the Beach festival to take place in Lyme Regis in September. Festival organizer Geoff Baker spoke to the local paper Bridgeport News: With thousands of guitarists involved, they need to follow the house band on the song and we need a stage for the […]
Read more »Yet another ‘greatest riff’ poll
BBC Radio is conducting an online poll of greatest guitar riffs. Smoke on the Water and Long Live Rock’n’Roll are in the running. The latter is quite a bit of a strange choice, but that’s a matter of taste. Putting aside for the moment the meaningfulness of all such polls, online or offline, this one […]
Read more »Gillan to perform in his home town
Blackmore Vale Magazine (I kid you not) reports that Ian Gillan offered his services to perform at the Guitars On The Beach festival in his home town of Lyme Regis. The event is essentially a mass gathering of guitar players not unlike the ones that set the world record, albeit not on quite the scale: […]
Read more »Smoke on the Water video
It took only 42 years, but finally Smoke on the Water now has an official video. (watch inside)
Read more »Smoke vs Ace
Smoke on the Water is in the quarterfinals of the Ultimate Classic Rock’s March Riff Madness playoffs. It’s pitted against the Ace of Spades and so far is losing 2:1. Final whistle will blow on Sunday, March 16 at 11:59PM EDT. One can vote multiple times once an hour. You know what to do.
Read more »He was there and he was the last one out
A first hand account of the infamous fire at the Casino de Montreux on December 4, 1971: I was heavily engrossed in the concert. Frank Zappa was playing again as the drum set had been fixed, and he had written a song about Switzerland, Swiss cheese and all that. Also, he had a large head […]
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Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing