A track from the upcoming Michael Schenker Group album Universal is intended as a tribute to Ronnie James Dio, in particular to his performance on Rainbow Rising. The track is called A King Has Gone and features Helloween frontman Michael Kiske on vocals, and two of the Rainbow alumni — Bobby Rondinelli and Bob Daisley as the rhythm section. Tony Carey also recorded a Moog synth piece titled Calling Baal that is a separate track that serves as an intro to A King Has Gone on the album (we think something Tarot Woman-esque).

The album will be released on May 27 via Atomic Fire Records. It will feature Ronnie Romero as a main vocalist, who will also join the MSG on the upcoming tour.

Thanks to Sonic Perspectives and Gary Poronovich for the info.

A classical composer follows the footsteps of the opera singer and gives Child in Time a spin. Came for a guitar solo, left with the jaw dropped from vocals. And the drumming. And the organ. And let’s not forget da fundament. Continue Reading »

Another release in the Live from Daisyland series, this time it’s Glenn & Co. take on Burn:

We’re set to radiate some heat with the fourth song from our Live From Daisyland EP, the timeless Deep Purple classic ‘Burn’! A massive crowd favourite ‘Burn’ released back in 1974 became Deep Purple’s concert opener taking over from Highway Star and continues to delight fans to this day. We took a packed to the rafter’s crowd at Rock City Nottingham England on a rockin’ ride with this seven minute plus version of ‘Burn’.

Thanks to BraveWords for the heads up.

Mike Portnoy was a guest on The Prog Report podcast recently, where he spoke about the albums turning 50 in 2022.

There’s some tremendous stuff from 72. Possibly two of the greatest prog albums of all time. That being said, Deep Purple’s ‘Machine Head’ is surely one of the greatest hard rock, early prototype metal albums of all time. And this is just an absolute classic for its time. And I think it’s Deep Purple’s masterpiece. I mean, they’ve put out many great albums, but this is the one that I think cemented them as one of the greatest hard rock bands of all time.

And, of course, the thing about Purple is they did have some prog elements. They started doing some symphonic stuff and jazzy stuff. When you think about what early prog was, it was that kind of melting pot of all those different styles. They had hard rock, prog, symphonic, and jazz, all thrown into this melting pot. And they were all such great musicians, every one of them was so great on their instruments.

This album has all the classics, opens with ‘Highway Star,’ one of the old-time classics. Obviously, ‘Smoke on the Water,’ is one of the most iconic guitar riffs of all time, and probably Deep Purple’s most famous song of all time. But then it’s got ‘Lazy’ and ‘Space Truckin’,’ ‘Maybe I’m a Leo.’ It’s one of those albums where top to bottom… You could rename this album ‘Deep Purple’s Greatest Hits.’ A lot of their live album ‘Made in Japan’ was off of this tour.

So, actually, when I picked a Purple album for Dream Theater to cover in its entirety, I picked ‘Made in Japan,’ because I really liked all of the improv and the jamming stuff that they did on that live version. But most of the songs on ‘Made in Japan’ is the stuff from ‘Machine Head’. This, to me, is their greatest studio album, and ‘Made in Japan’ is also an all-time favorite.

Dream Theater has a tradition of covering a classic album in its entirety at any two-night stands in the same city. While touring Japan in 2006 they did covers of Made in Japan at two shows — January 13 in Tokyo and January 15 in Osaka. The Osaka performance was released in the DT’s “official bootleg” series, with blessings from Roger Glover, who mixed the recording.

Thanks to Ultimate Guitar for the transcription.

Steve Morse has been working with Los Angeles art team SceneFour on creating artwork from his guitar performances. The announcement is pretty scarce on the details as to what exactly kind of art this could be, encouraging you to join the mailing list at stevemorseart.com.

The accompanying video, as well as art collections from other members of extended Purple family (Joe Satriani, Carmine Appice, Billy Cobham) can provide with some clues what it might look like.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

A couple of things that are probably not really news for the people frequenting our site.

Far Out magazine has a story about Lars Ulrich’s favourite band, you know which one:

His love affair with music dates back to a concert in 1973 in Copenhagen at the K.B. Hallen when he witnessed Deep Purple in action. Ulrich’s father was famous in their native land, and the full red carpet treatment was rolled out for the pair. Having a bird’s eye view of Deep Purple made Ulrich become fixated with the group, and even now, no group in the world matters to him as much as them.

In 2016, he even had the ultimate honour of inducting them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. During his speech, Ulrich explained: “This night is a culmination of two musical journeys. One is mine, the other is that of a band that changed my life and rock and roll. When I was nine years old, my dad took me to see Deep Purple on a cold day in Denmark, on a dark cold Saturday night in February 1973.

Read more in Far Out magazine.

And the Ultimate Guitar has a story behind Smoke on the Water. Again, there are no groundbreaking revelations, but it’s a very well put together piece:

Even though the history of heavy music was in no small parts written by songs with simple, powerful riffs, few other riffs can match the simplicity, the impact, and, arguably, the fame of the one that made Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” a timeless hard rock classic without equal.

Ever since “Smoke on the Water” first came out on Purple’s eighth studio album “Machine Head” in 1972, generations of music fans fell in love with its powerful groove, while generations of guitarists got to know it as “The Baby’s First Riff” – hell, even generations of neighbors who never wanted to have anything to do with rock became well-versed in the good ol’ “0-3-5” after generations of little Timmys from the flat upstairs wouldn’t stop ripping through it for hours on end.

In short, you’ll hardly find a more widely known hard rock song, and its famous meta-lyrics gave it an additional layer of distinction. That said, it’s most probable that, as someone who’s reading an article on a site called “Ultimate Guitar”, you already know “Smoke on the Water” and what’s it about – and if you don’t, you need only read the first couple of the song’s verses for the TL;DR version of the story behind it. However, there’s a few more nuances and details that the lyrics inevitably omit and that make the story behind “Smoke on the Water” all the more interesting, and today we’ll be taking a look at the complete picture of how it exactly went down.

Read more in Ultimate Guitar.

Guitar World has a long(ish) interview with Simon McBride, whose profile have certainly got a boost after being tapped for the banjo player job, albeit a temp one, in one of the most influential bands of all time.

To be honest, I’ve known about this for a while. There was talk of it before, since the end of last year. Steve wants to do the shows obviously, because he is the guitar player in Deep Purple.

It’s very unfortunate with his wife… so yeah, it’s very hard for him to leave and come over to Europe. It’s a bittersweet emotion for me, because it’s under sad circumstances, but on the other hand I’m also going ‘Yes!’ because it’s a dream opportunity. It’s a bizarre thing.

I’ve known the guys for a while. I’ve toured with Ian [Gillan] and Don [Airey] a fair bit over the years. I’ve also played with Roger [Glover] and [Ian] Paicey, so I’ve played with them all, just not at the same time! [laughs] Now I get to do that, and I’m very excited about it, running through all those classic iconic songs we all learn when we’re young. Now I get to play them as part of the band. Steve is an amazing guitarist, so I know I’ve got big boots to fill…

Read more in Guitar World.

Simon also has a solo album The Fighter coming out of May 25 via earMUSIC.

And just to leave you with another dose of McBriderism (yes, we’ve just invented the word), here is Simon putting on his best SRV impression while doing a gear demo:

Thanks to Gary Poronovich for the info.

Jerusalem Post has an interview with Roger Glover promoting the band’s gigs in Israel that take place in late May. Yes, gigs — in addition to the twice rescheduled because of the pandemic gig in Tel-Aviv, there was a second date added recently in Jerusalem. These two dates signal the resuming of touring in earnest that will take the band a better part of the remaining year.

Roger spoke about how he started listening to the music, how he joined the band, and all the way to the recent developments.

The first 10 years of my life, all that was on the radio was horrible music, to my ears anyway. Then skiffle happened, this very homemade raucous kind of music that you could make with acoustic guitars and hit just about anything for percussion. It was so animated and it set me alight. And soon after was this tsunami of great music from Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Eddie Cochrane. I loved it.

Maturity may have something to do with longevity, but it all depends on the personalities in the band. Some bands are volatile and others are calm. For us, Steve Morse brought an era of peace to the band. When he joined, we decided we weren’t going to be led by anyone. We were a band of five members, all of them equal leaders. So there’s no jealousy and no motives for any arguments.

Read more in Jerusalem Post.

Louder has published online the story of Baby Face that originally appeared back in 2012 in the Classic Rock magazine issue 176. It’s a well written piece with quotes from Colin Hart and Paicey. Here’s how the drummer summarises the project’s fate:

Phil’s voice was staggering, wonderful. But he couldn’t play, at least not to the standard that we needed if it was just Ritchie, myself and a bass. When there’s only three of you, everybody’s got to be really good on everything they do.

Really, the bass playing had to be on a par with someone like Jack Bruce. And, God bless him, Phil wasn’t there yet. He was pretty simple, and quite often out of tune and out of time. And although he became really, really good at everything he did, at that point he wasn’t.

Read more in Louder Sound.

Thanks to Jim Collins for the heads up.

On this slow news day the mailman brought us a couple of semi-interesting tidbits for the trainspotting department.

In a recent interview, Hollywood star Jim Carrey professes his love for Deep Purple and recommends Lazy off Machine Head in particular as “one of the great, great jams ever”. Continue Reading »