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Odyssey through the chaotic career
Record Collector magazine has announced a special Deep Purple issue featuring foreword by Opeth’s frontman (and a card-carrying Purple fan) Mikael Åkerfeldt.
Join us on a 57-year odyssey through the chaotic career of Deep Purple, the original British heavy rock band. There will be deaths along the way. There will be arguments and near-fatal pranks. Guitars will be smashed. Amps will explode. Mountains of coke and lakes of wine will be consumed. Members will fall out and make up again at regular intervals… and yes, there will be smoke on water. Add a monster worldwide discography, over 100 rare records and a full rundown of all nine Purps line-ups, and RC Presents DP becomes a riff-packed bookazine to treasure.
The issue is going on sale April 17, 2025, for £9.95 plus shipping, with pre-orders available starting April 14.
Thanks to BraveWords for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
This article reminds me of the Record Collector magazine being a favourite of mine many decades ago out here in no mans land. So much information for us rock music starved aficionados. It was like gold in that sense, to be able to read about many things that we would never know about, well before the internet came along. Mojo magazine was quite good too. Back then there was never too much information, if you know what I mean. Cheers.
April 12th, 2025 at 23:22This issue may contain a feature about a website close to you.
April 12th, 2025 at 23:46Oh, that must be Darker Than Blue then! 😈
April 13th, 2025 at 02:54We should really rechristen MacGregor Herr MacMoaner, always complaining about his youth on an imagined derelict island continent where he apparently had no access to anything. At the same time, in the 80s loads of people I knew in Europe were wildly enthusiastic about Australia going into raptures about the country, the nature, its people and its cities, bitten off limbs by saltwater crocs did not seem to deter them. They would have given their left nuts/ovaries to move there and some of them actually did. And not only to become surfboard instructors either …
Alas!, the grass is always greener … I was always interested in the bands from there, Skyhooks, Split Enz, Angel City, INXS, Midnight Oil, Heaven, Nick Cave, The Party Boys, Lancaster Bombers, Rose Tattoo, Rick Springfield … the only band I wasn’t interested in was AC/DC because, frankly, there was little to find interesting about them, musically or otherwise. And I sometimes have the impression that at least half of the actors in Hollywood, especially the very good ones, are Australians.
I do have an Australian vinyl pressing of GILLAN’s Mr Universe, the one with the different cover! I was really proud to get it. Add to that how Australia is one of the few territories on earth that was graced with an Mk IV tour in 1975. Germany, the spiritual home of DP, never got to see them verdammt noch mal!
So get a grip, MacMoaner! 😂
April 13th, 2025 at 13:21Happy birthday, Ritchie!
April 13th, 2025 at 22:11Ha, ha ha ha, the grass is usually greener indeed. I was still at school when Deep Purple MK IV toured, only just but far too young at that time to travel 12 hours by train to Sydney for something like that. 1980 for Black Sabbath was my first trip to Sydney for a international concert. I had witnessed a few Australian bands before then because they travelled out into the sticks, so we didn’t have to venture too far. Little River Band (the original lineup), Cold Chisel and a few others. The Ted Mulry Gang, Sherbet, Hush and a couple of other low profile bands. I have a few friends who went to a Split Enz gig about 1977, not far from our home town. I wasn’t interested in those sort of ‘glamour’ theatrical bands at all at that time so I didn’t go. I do regret missing that one, it was the original Split Enz in all their pomp and glory from what I have heard. Rose Tattoo supported Sabbath in Sydney and were treated disdainfully, getting a few things thrown at them and constantly booed ( I never liked them so it didn’t affect me at all). I do remember seeing the earlier version of The Party Boys back then. Before Alan Lancaster was there and not when Joe Walsh was in the lineup. Kevin Borich on guitar, a fine blues rock guitarist out this way. It wasn’t all doom and gloom back then, I have survived. Cheers.
April 13th, 2025 at 22:26@6
“Ha, ha ha ha, the grass is usually greener indeed.“
Do you know why that is MacGregor?
It has everything to do with the angle of your eyesight 😊
April 14th, 2025 at 06:46Ritchie at 80, all the best. Cheers.
April 14th, 2025 at 10:35Ritchie 80.. calls for a celebration..I I raise my Carlsberg to you Ritchie!!!
April 14th, 2025 at 11:33May he continue to bypass all critical health difficulties too, the ole badger.
How could I forget to mention Little River Band? Unfuckinggivable!
April 14th, 2025 at 11:37Mikael Akerfeldt who is a very talented guitarist, writer, and singer who can sing without all the growls.
April 14th, 2025 at 11:41Long live Ritchie.. Happy birthday
April 14th, 2025 at 11:42I only registered that now, Tassie Boy, you changed your handle in #6!
😀😁😂🤣
April 14th, 2025 at 14:06@10
Almost as unfuckinggivable as calling Split Enz Australian!!!!
April 15th, 2025 at 00:56😂 Jeffa, settle down, I know they were Kiwis like for a split (pun not intended) second in their existence, but wasn’t all their fame built on the slightly bigger island? Didn’t the Finn brothers move from NZ to AUS early on?
Speaking of: I should have mentioned Crowded House of course as another example of extremely skillfully crafted Aussie/Kiwi pop.
For the record, NZ is a lovely place and so are its people.
April 15th, 2025 at 12:00@ 4 I was one of the europeans going to aussie land and kiwi land in 1984-85. By coincidence a band from the UK did some shows down there at the time. I really liked both countries, the environment and the people.
April 15th, 2025 at 18:02“By coincidence a band from the UK did some shows down there at the time.”
(faintly interested) The one with that dun-dun-dah song?
Those Aussies saw both the last DP line-up before the breakup and the one immediately after the reunion. Oh, and in early 1975 even Mark III. Yet still they whine & moan …
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/australia-we-are-the-lucky-country-so-stop-complaining/news-story/c42afc02f80a6fc27e19fa79ca9bde80
April 15th, 2025 at 21:26@ 17- Oh dear oh dear. Is that the MKIV tour that you have not witnessed Uwe, he he he. Ok I won’t ‘rub it in’. Seriously in regards to MKIV touring here in 1975. As I have stated before, I do have a vague memory of hearing about some people’s comments regarding that tour. However it is so long ago and it is only what we hear and read about. The best of both worlds for a change, oops! It is about time we were looked after, woe are us islander emigrants from afar. Cheers.
April 15th, 2025 at 22:12Regarding the Split Enz ‘Aussie’ connection and a concert my friends attended in 1977. It appears after my researching (Uwe’s influence, although it appears that he hasn’t done his research in relation to this matter, we will enjoy that for what it is worth, he he he) that it was after Neil Finn joined the band, later 1977. The third album Dizrythmia tour that they would have attended. I remember them telling me it was around the same time as Jethro Tull in Sydney, later 1977. Checking past tour dates has them in rural areas of NSW, VIC and QLD around that time. The band moved to Australia in 1975 and recorded their first album Mental Notes and then they spent a fair bit of 1976 based in the UK and Europe recording their second album Second Thoughts. So a change in a couple of members from the first major Split Enz band of the 1975/6 era for the third album Dizrythmia. They were still dressed up as ‘clowns’ at that time. I say clowns in jesting of course, but they still had that attitude and attire at that time. Before they became a more pop oriented band (1980 era) and attained success as such and started dressing more ‘straighter’, for want of a better description. Trying to keep that information ‘in a nutshell’ as I couldn’t imagine many aficionados here for ‘The Enz’. A side note: I witnessed Tim Finn and his band supporting Jethro Tull in 1994 in Sydney. Very good they were too, both bands. Cheers
April 16th, 2025 at 00:24I meant the Finn brothers moving to Aussieland “early on” in their rock musician careers, not as children!
You moan about getting albums and seeing gigs of British, European and American bands in your dust bowl of an island, YOU HAVE NOT A KANGAROO’S SACK OF AN IDEA HOW DIFFICULT IT WAS TO GET ANYTHING FROM SPLIT ENZ OR THE SKYHOOKS IN EUROPE MUCH LESS SEE THEM LIVE THERE !!!
April 16th, 2025 at 12:39@ 17 It was the dun-dun-dah song band yes.. For the show I saw they got a new guitar player along, I think the name was George. Apparently he once belonged to a band with a funny name, the Beatles something.
April 16th, 2025 at 19:20@ 20 – I knew what you meant Uwe, some of the New Zealand musicians and actors that moved over to Australian are quite well known. Gary Thain also was a ‘Kiwi’. Split Enz did some touring in The Netherlands in the late 70’s while based in the UK and in Germany and France as well in the early 80’s, but not that many performances, half a dozen or so from what I could find online. Skyhooks, did they ever leave our shores? I am not sure about them. I only had the first and second Skyhooks albums. I didn’t have any Split Enz music as a youngster, I knew some of their songs though. As a younger rocker, I did judge a book by it’s cover. I initially loathed them back then, all that bizarre clothing, makeup and awkward music, ha ha ha. I did enjoy them much more after I let down my wall of prejudice, as I did with other artists from the ‘glam’, avant-garde and progressive scene. For the record, I loathed ACDC too for other reasons. True Colours was the Enz album I purchased in the early 80’s. I picked up the Phil Manzanera ‘reconstructed’ second album Second Thoughts in more recent years. A few articles below, the second is looking at how the music scene changed from the early 70’s to the later 70’s in Australia. A similar scenario to other countries. Cheers.
https://www.audioculture.co.nz/profile/split-enz
https://roadrunnertwice.com.au/1987/10/australian-rock-the-late-seventies/
April 16th, 2025 at 21:51@21: In that case, lieber Micke, you are to me a mythological figure of no less than Forrest Gump’ian proportions!
https://i.gifer.com/1hlw.mp4
April 17th, 2025 at 18:21It seems that the Skyhooks did venture overseas and support Uriah Heep in the States at that later 1970’s era. I have only just read that article in full. A few other Australian bands there that I witnessed in action back in those days. My elder brother moved to Sydney late ’76 and went to the Rainbow concert at the Horden Pavillion. He returned ‘home’ to pick up personal possessions a few months later and was scathing of their performance. He had dropped all the earlier British rock bands that we were both into and changed to Radio Birdman and the USA rock bands, MC5, The Stooges etc. I couldn’t believe the sudden change from him at the time and a total transformation in his lifestyle too. Moving from ‘outback’ rural NSW into the big city does that. He ended up as the live sound mixer for the Australian band The Hoodoo Gurus in the early to mid 1980’s and then he went onto mixing live sound at The Sydney Opera House for a number of years. He did what he set out to do, living the city life of being involved in the music scene. Cheers.
April 18th, 2025 at 00:17Split Enz may have lived & recorded in Aussie, as would vitually any Kiwi band of any signifigance at one point or another in their career (Dragon, Misex, DD Smash, Shihad etc etc), but they were, are & always will be a NZ band.
Take the following from “Six Months In a Leaky Boat” from the 1982 Time & Tide album:
Aotearoa
Rugged individual
Glisten like a pearl
At the bottom of the world
The tyranny of distance
Didn’t stop the cavalier
So why should it stop me
I’ll conquer and stay free
Mind you, Australians claiming Kiwi’s as their own is a trait as old as Ayers Rock!
April 18th, 2025 at 02:56But you’re not supposed to say Ayers Rock to Uluru anymore! 😱
I am well aware that Kiwis don’t take kindly to Australians swarming their island, especially if they have big eyes & ears plus furry tails!
https://i.chzbgr.com/full/6975470592/hD04E4E03/funny-possum-gif
Herr MacGregor, to the defense of your brother, I can understand how someone who has discovered the MC5, The Stooges and perhaps The New York Dolls can find Rainbow a little lacking. Sociopolitically aware they were not. Nor was Rainbow ever a band you would want to call “urban”.
Ritchie did not take all Purple fans with him. DP Mk II still had a distinct underground & countercultural vibe around them. That was already pretty much lost with Mk III who were slightly decadent US stadium rock proponents (as were Mk IV) and by early Rainbow a lot of people who had been hellishly impressed by In Rock when it came out in 1970 because it was so edgy and daring had lost interest and were going: “But he’s done all that with Purple already, what is new here? And where is Jon Lord?” 1975/76 wasn’t 1969/70. Those people that had already been young adults when In Rock came out didn’t really transition to Rainbow anymore.
Born 1960, I was younger. But even I realized back then that Rainbow’s debut did not capture the Zeitgeist like In Rock and Fireball had. Yeah, I could tell the difference between a “movement band” like the MC5 and Rainbow too. Rainbow was antiquated and a little stilted, but then Ritchie is inherently a conservative person in the sense of preserving the past. Just look at what he does today. Could you imagine Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck or Eric Clapton earnestly cosplay a music form from several centuries ago like Ritchie & Candice do?
April 18th, 2025 at 13:06@ 23 Och du är min alskling Uwe, putting me up there in the heavens..! Next to Oden more or less 😀
April 18th, 2025 at 15:37Still wouldn’t fork out a tenner for it.
April 18th, 2025 at 17:42RB, magazines have to be expensive these days because they have lost most of their advertising customers. It’s huge issue for all physical print media. It’s not like these guys are making huge amounts of money, they are actually making less than they used to. And fighting a losing battle.
We’re facing an imminent cultural loss. 😒
April 18th, 2025 at 21:50@ 26 – it wasn’t just Rainbow that my brother dropped Uwe, every band, Purple, Sabbath, Zeppelin, Heep, Quo, Wishbone Ash, Floyd and whoever else that we were into as youngsters. He would have already had a Rainbow ticket to that concert and by the sound of it, he reluctantly went along. It wouldn’t have mattered who it was out of all those bands, he would have dissed them by the sound of it at that time. It happens occasionally in life, I have noticed a similar thing with a few other people who I have known, they drop whatever ‘fad’ that they had been into and totally change course. It all happened over couple of months and to hear him say that after such a short time was a shock of sorts at that time. From the country to the city, it is a big change and no doubt a way to reboot their lives and start afresh. Cheers.
April 18th, 2025 at 22:15Yes I have to admit to the Odin and Valhalla scenario becoming more and more appealing as I venture towards the ultimate escape. Sitting up there with everyone at your beck and call. hmmmmmmmm, imagine the fear imposed and the the fact that everything potentially could go your way……………..shouting at everyone , throwing your toys out of the pram when someone dares to disobey……………..hang on, that seems to be happening here on earth at present. Maybe all that Valhalla scene isn’t real after all………and I haven’t even mentioned all those Valkyries. Cheers.
April 19th, 2025 at 00:57“it wasn’t just Rainbow that my brother dropped Uwe, every band, Purple, Sabbath, Zeppelin, Heep, Quo, Wishbone Ash, Floyd and whoever else that we were into as youngsters …”
Lyrically, these were all mostly escapist bands and none of them especially urban. Punk didn’t arise out of nowhere in 1976, it was a sociopolitical movement with associated music (not the other way around!), at least in the UK. Mid 70s rock had insofar left a vacuum and Punk filled it. You wouldn’t have caught “Purple, Sabbath, Zeppelin, Heep, Quo, Wishbone Ash, Floyd” singing about a botched abortion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3Pr1_v7hsw
“She was a girl from Birmingham
She just had an abortion
She was a case of insanity
Her name was Pauline, she lived in a tree
She was a no-one who killed her baby
She sent her letters from the country
She was an animal
She was a bloody disgrace
Body, I’m not an animal
Body, I’m not an animal
Dragged on a table in a factory
Illegitimate place to be
In a packet in a lavatory
Die little baby screaming
Body, screaming, fucking, bloody mess
Not an animal, it’s an abortion
Body I’m not an animal
Mummy, mummy, mummy, I’m an abortion
Throbbing squirm, gurgling bloody mess
I’m not a discharge
I’m not a loss in protein
I’m not a throbbing squirm
Ah! Fuck this and fuck that
Fuck it all the fuck out of the fucking brat
She don’t wanna a baby that looks like that
I don’t wanna a baby that looks like that
Body, I’m not an animal
April 19th, 2025 at 16:56Body, an abortion
Body, I’m not an animal
Body, I’m not an animal”
26Uwe
question for everyone:
Speaking of Hendrix…I’ve always wondered if he had been alive now, or at least until 2000, what kind of music would he have made?
April 19th, 2025 at 21:26what kind of success would he have had from the late 70’s to the late 90’s?
Would he have always been self-indulgent or would he have taken different directions under the influence of punk, FM music, reggae, other genres?
Or would he have become a crafty soft pop guitarist like Eric Clapton and then frequented the stages with the elitists Sting, Collins, Bono, Elton John etc.
I think Jimi would have evolved into a cross between Miles Davis, Carlos Santana and Johnny Cash in his Rick Rubin days. Part musical maverick, part American legend, part “I’m famous enough to do what I want, none of your fucking business, it’s all music”. He would have played with BB King, taken up an invitation by Billy Cobham to play on Spectrum, jammed with Living Color, Aerosmith and SRV plus guested on hiphop albums, the sky is the limit. And any album, regardless of quality, would have sold enough to always ensure him a recording contract. You don’t kick Jimi Hendrix off your label (unless you’re CBS who did that with Johnny Cash and lived to regret it).
He would have done off-the-wall, daring stuff, but he wouldn’t have been above playing Hey Joe with 75 either if that is what the people want to hear.
April 19th, 2025 at 22:40@ 33- interesting thoughts and I have had this conversation with a younger chap I know who is a Hendrix devotee. He thinks Hendrix is the bees knees in everything, so to speak. I do think that Hendrix seemed to be devoid of ideas at the time of his passing. Being so out of it all the time didn’t help him of course. Trying to wish or wash it all away, the shite of record companies, managers, free loaders and wannabees and the sheer pressure of being ‘famous’etc. Musically I hear him stagnating at that time. He was desperate for a different road to travel, hence him applauding so many other artists at that time. Especially the progressive and fusion styles in rock music. Was he capable, who knows. he wasn’t into jazz, flamenco, folk and classical per se, so he was rather limited in that aspect. He may have had another decent album or two in him, the only problem is he was the boss, putting it mildly and we know what can happen when there is one who is hell bent on doing it all their way all the time. Was Hendrix capable of composing in another setting with other composers and musicians. Interesting to ponder though.
April 19th, 2025 at 22:48I don’t think a lot of his Electric Ladyland album, it should never have been a double, but we can also think that of a few other double albums from that era. I also find the ‘new’ tracks that he was working on after that devoid of anything really new, there are a few bits and pieces but as songs go, they were rather weak. Music shifted so much around that 1970’s era, Hendrix may have been left behind playing the blues rock scene. Cheers.
I never thought Hendrix the greatest songwriter – neither were Miles Davis or Johnny Cash btw – , but he could make his guitar talk and sing – and if he was playing the phone book.
Had he lived, I have no doubt he would have been good for more than a couple of additional stunning solos. That said, I don’t think he would have sat at home and practiced tapping once he would have heard EvH. I believe he would have over time morphed into this elder statesman of rock and blues deity, widely (and deservedly) revered by all.
April 20th, 2025 at 13:30