When DEEP PURPLE disbanded in 1976, Jon Lord and Ian Paice decided to start a new band, not trying to recreate what they already had with DEEP PURPLE but to explore new musical directions.

As frontman they recruited singer and keyboard player Tony Ashton. Jon Lord had already collaborated with Tony Ashton composing the soundtrack for “The Last Rebel” (published 1971 as “Musical score composed by Tony Ashon & Jon Lord, performed by Ashton, Gardner & Dyke”) and on “First Of The Big Bands” (published 1974 as “Tony Ashton & Jon Lord”), an album which could be seen as some sort of blueprint for “Malice in Wonderland”.

The lineup was completed with Paul Martinez on bass and Bernie Marsden on guitar, a brass section fronted by Howie Casey and two female background singers, Sheila McKinley and Jeanette McKinley.

The recordings took place in Munich in autumn 1976 in basement studio of the Arabella hotel (inspiration for the song “Arabella”) and the album was released in early 1977, surprising many DEEP PURPLE fans with a mix of Rock, Blues, Funk and Jazz.

To promote the album, a tour covering major European cities had been planned, but as tickets didn’t sell as expected, most dates were dropped from the oncoming tour, leaving just five British dates to be performed.

As time went by, Tony Ashton felt more and more uncomfortable with his role as frontman of PAL and it also turned out the fans needed more time to adjust to the sound of Paice Ashton Lord as expected. By the end of 1977, the band started the recordings for a second album, but as the momentum was gone the album was never finished and the band called it quits in 1978.

“Malice In Wonderland”  will be reissued on May 17 2019 by earMUSIC, using the 2001 remaster by Nick Watson for the tracks of the original album. The release will also include eight bonus tracks from the never finished second album, remastered in 2019 by Eike Freese. The booket contains previously unpublished photographs by Alan Messer and detailed liner notes by Simon Robinson.

Sadly the reissue misses the opportunity to include the “Sight & Sound In Concert” live recording, which would have been a perfect addition to this otherwise fine release of an impressive album.

Rainbow will release another single — this time a remake of Blackmore’s Night tune The Storm — on May 17 via Minstrel Hall Music. The new release said to be a “rocked up” version of the track. The original was not lacking in guitar wizardry, albeit acoustic, on its own.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

A US leg of The Long Goodbye Tour has been announced. It starts on September 3, 2019, in Riverside, California, and finishes on October 19 in Minneapolis, performing 33 shows and visiting 25 states in between. Support for September 7 show in California will be Foghat, with the rest of the tour still in mystery. Most venues on this tour are theaters with all reserved seating.

Ticket sales to general public start on May 10, with various presales starting as soon as tomorrow, May 7. The tour is promoted by the Live Nation/Ticketmaster behemoth, so expect their usual shenanigans with ticket availability and pricing.

All further details are in our calendar.

Last September, 2018 I wrote about Glenn Hughes’ impressive Classic Deep Purple show in Poughkeepsie, New York. So impressive that I jumped at the chance to see him once again, this time even closer to home in Belleville, Ontario on April 30th, 2019. In fact, Glenn told us this was his very first appearance as a solo artist in Canada – he had originally been scheduled to play in Toronto but somehow the gig fell through and hence new plans were made head up the road about 100 miles to play at the Empire Theatre in Belleville instead.
This time around guitarist Soren Andersen was back on Stratocaster duties. A new and very talented drummer Ash Sheehan is now in the band (standout performance was his absolutely stunning solo on You Fool No One). Keyboard duties are still being handled very ably by Mike Mangan.
In terms of setlist, the show was quite similar to the one in Poughkeepsie with the very welcome exception of Holy Man from the Stormbringer album replacing Highway Star (which is more appropriately associated with Mark II Purple). All songs were very well played with huge energy; and Glenn really engaged with the crowd – lots of story-telling about Mark III and IV days.
I am still amazed at the power and range of Glenn Hughes’ voice, who at the age of 66 years is showing no signs whatsoever of any decline. His vocal gymnastics on all songs, and especially Mistreated, were simply stellar. And he is an absolute monster on the bass guitar too – his solo on Getting Tighter was a masterclass on how to do it justice.
Total concert time was about 1 hour, 50 minutes in front of approximately 500 very approving and appreciative fans. A great show! Looking forward to future visits to Canada by Glenn & company.
Gary Halverson – May 2nd, 2019

Classic Rock has an interesting opinion piece on Gillan’s Magic album:

Of the three major offshoots that emerged after the break-up of Deep Purple in 1976, Gillan (the band, not the man) was certainly the most musically daring. And Gillan’s most daring album just might be their last: 1982’s Magic.

Yes, the keyboard-heavy record carries a glossy, polished sheen; yes, it contains a pair of obvious stabs into ‘hit single’ territory; and yes, the off-the-rails kinetic chemistry of the Bernie Torme years is largely absent. But it’s not the music that makes makes Magic Gillan’s most fascinating record; it’s the words.

Truth be told, Magic could and should be looked at in hindsight as a concept album, as the lyrics throughout revolve around a common theme: Gillan (the man, not the band) was laying out his future plans right before our very eyes, misdirecting our attention with another album’s worth of musical hocus pocus while planning the greatest magic trick of all: making himself disappear.

Continue reading in Classic Rock.

Thanks to Jim Collins for the heads up.

Edel is reissuing the first Javelins album (a.k.a. Raving With Ian Gillan & The Javelins) on May 10, 2019. This is the same album that first came out in 1994 on RPM Records and was reissued in 2000 on the briefly revived Purple Records. Both releases are out of print now. The tracklist and cover art appear to be identical to the 2000 edition, with the only new thing being the availability of vinyl in addition to the CD format.

Thanks to our editor emeritus Benny Holmström for the info.

Another Swedish magazine — Rock’n’Roll — has a 6-page David Coverdale and Whitesnake feature in issue #4, 2019. In the interview David said that he recently has bought the rights for his two first solo albums Whitesnake and Northwinds from the now defunct Deep Purple’s management companies. He also mentioned that his favourite Whitesnake albums are

• Ready An’ Willing
• Come An’ Get It
• Good To Be Bad
• Forevermore
• the upcoming Flesh and Blood

Thanks to our editor emeritus Benny Holmström for the info.

Glenn Hughes was a guest on BBC Radio 2’s Sounds of the 70s promoting his upcoming tour of the UK. His interview is now available online at the BBC website, and will be there until May 28.
Continue Reading »

Some time late March David Coverdale was a guest on Let There Be Talk podcast. The lengthy chat covered a lot of anecdotage from the olden days — from Redcar salesman to Purple audition, recording Burn, Cal Jam (complete with camera demolition), Whitesnake, Coverdale/Page, and much more.

Thanks to Yvonne for the info.

SurreyLive reports that Dipak Rao, who stole £2.2 million (approximately $2.9 million) from Deep Purple, has been sentenced to jail. He served as an accountant for HEC Enterprises and Deep Purple (Overseas) since 1992 and was made director of the two companies in 2003 and 2009 respectively, the latter just months before Tony Edwards’ death. Both companies were owned by Tony Edwards and John Coletta estates, and were supposed to collect and and distribute royalties for the band’s pre-reunion output.

Between 2008 and 2014 Rao

…Transferred large sums of money from the accounts of Deep Purple Overseas Ltd and HEC Enterprises Ltd into his own.

He then invested the cash into a number of money making schemes, all of which later transpired to be scams and resulted in Rao losing the money.

The scheme was discovered in 2014 at a board meeting, which led to resignation of Rao and bankruptcy of both companies.

On April 30, 2019, he was sentenced by the local court to six years and four months imprisonment.

Rao will serve at least half of his sentence in jail before being released on licence. He has also been disqualified as a director of a company until 2028.

He pleaded guilty to two offences, fraud by abuse of position and transferring criminal property, on March 29.

The disgraced director has lost his house, assets and pension, equating to £779,000 in total. His wife now lives in Canada with their son, working as a child minder for their grandchildren.

Thanks to SurreyLive, with heads up from BraveWords.