Yesterday, June 14, Ian Paice and Roger Glover introduced Lars Ulrich and Robert Trujillo of Metallica at the Polar Music Prize Awards ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Polar Music Prize is a Swedish international award founded in 1989 by Stig Anderson, manager of ABBA, with a donation to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. The award is annually given to one contemporary musician and one classical musician. This year the recipients were Metallica and Afghanistan National Institute of Music. It is customary that the recipients are being introduced by their peers, and as you may remember, Jon Lord took the honours in 2006 to introduce Led Zeppelin.

Swedish TV4 broadcast part of the show. TV4 also did an interview with Ian and Roger. They said this was a part of payback to Lars Ulrich and Metallica for introducing Deep Purple at the Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony.

One can watch the TV4 broadcast after creating a free (with ads) account at https://www.tv4play.se/program/polar-music-prize/3960051. Use Google translate, ‘coz the website is all in Swedish. The interview with Roger and Ian is right after the second advertising break.

Thanks to our editor emeritus Benny Holmström for the info.

Deep Purple are in the process of finalizing the dates for a tour of Mexico this November. In an unusual twist of events, the dates are already posted on the official site, albeit some venues are still to be determined, and none are on sale.

Glenn Hughes has added several more European dates to his Classic Deep Purple Live tour: Prague, Kiev, Moscow, Helsinki, and Tampere confirmed, but so far partially ticketless, while the 3 Dutch dates are on sale, but unconfirmed. Bernie Marsden will be supporting at the Kiev gig.

Thanks to Lutz Reinert and Shades of Deep Purple for the info.

Purple family was heavily featured in the June issue of Classic Rock Magazine, which hit the newsstands in the UK on May 1, and now starts appearing overseas. The issue includes 25 pages about Dio & Rainbow, Captain Beyond, David Coverdale & Whitesnake, Ian Gillan, Paice Ashton Lord, Butterfly Ball, Hughes/Thrall, Warhorse, Trapeze, Roger Glover, Baby Face, Don Airey, Ian Paice, etc, plus a free Purple Records CD.

The issue can be ordered via My Favourite Magazines with worldwide delivery.

Meanwhile in Sweden, the Sweden Rock Magazine has a 5 pages feature/interview with Don Airey in its May issue. Don tells that he is working on his autobiography and maybe he will have something done in the end of the year. He also said that the years with DP is the best thing ever happened to him and that if the other guys would like to record another album in Nashville with Bob Ezrin, he wouldn’t say no to that. Last time in in Nashville, he went with is son Mike to see Slayer and loved that. After the gig he met the band and two of the guys (King and Araya) told Don that they saw him in Rainbow when they were young kids. Don thought the guys in Slayer were wonderful and the concert was good.

Thanks to our editor emeritus Benny Holmström for the info.

On the day of Deep Purple show in Kiev, an interview with Steve Morse appeared in the Ukranian The Koz Times. It said, among other things,

— All stated that this farewell tour of Deep Purple. And you yourself have also decided that after the tour you leave the scene?

For me personally, it’s a farewell tour. As for the other guys, then I think they will still be playing. Perhaps, in other groups, special projects or as invited guests. I also plan to stay in music but not so actively as now. But you do realize that when the music for so many years is the most important place in your life, impossible in one day to abandon it. In General, I know that the guys are not going to retire. They would rather die on stage than in bed (laughs).

Which understandably caused quite a stir on ’em interwebs. However, bear in mind that said interview appears in reverse machine translation into English. Anyone familiar with reverse translations and machine translations can attest that the result can bear little resemblance to what was actually said.

More to the point, the above quote not correspond with what Steve was saying backstage earlier this month.

Thanks to Vladimir Dribuschak and Yvonne for the heads up.

Simon Robinson’s DP book “In Rock – Wait For The Ricochet” is going to be published in a German language edition.
The publisher is Hannibal-Verlag, translated by Andreas Schiffmann The book is advertised for October.
German title is going to be “In Rock – Der Lange Weg Zu Einem Meisterwerk”

https://easyontheeyebooks.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/meisterwerk/

thanks to Lutz for the info…

Nick Simper & Nasty Habits have just released their new live album titled “Live An’ Nasty” on vinyl. It’s the first album with new vocalist Attila Scholtz, who has worked with the likes of Jon Lord and Ian Paice before. It will be the combination of a limited edition set of 150 pieces on purple vinyl and 350 more pieces on black vinyl in a gatefold sleeve and on 180 g vinyl.

The tracklist is a mixture of Nasty Habits songs and Mark 1 Deep Purple tracks.
Titles are: Joke / Emmaretta / Cold / Please Don’t Go / Why Didn’t Rosemary / Help / Lalena / Hush
The record came out on May 19th. It is only available on the Nasty Habits homepage. www.nastyhabits.eu
The album release concert will take place on Sat. 23rd June in Vienna at the REIGEN club, where the LP was recorded too. www.reigen.at

Don Airey will play the top billing at the HRH Prog Festival in Northern Wales this coming November. In a recent interview with Classic Rock Revisited he also hinted about more UK dates to come:

Getting ready to do a four-month summer run of festivals with DP starting in Mexico in May, with perhaps a UK tour in November with my own band following up on the release of One of a Kind.

The rest of the interview is well worth checking out. For the lesser known moments of his illustrious career, if nothing else:

Jeb: You like the Hammond. I’ve heard you even play at your church in your local village. Is that true?

Don: Yes, I am officially deputy organist at the local church, the only proper job I have ever had. If I am around and needed it’s a privilege to play there, but not the easiest of gigs, I have to say. The organ dates back to Victorian times, and is a splendid instrument, and of course you have really to be on your toes…keeping up with the choir…and not missing the many service cues…and remembering the important part dynamics and phrasing play in hymns, anthems and psalms.

Read more in Classic Rock Revisited.

Thanks to Yvonne for the info.

The festival planned for June 16, 2018 featuring Steve Hill, the Henrik Freischlader Band, Bernie Marsden and Joe Bonamassa has been cancelled.

Glenn Wellard sent us an updated revision of his version of the Deep Purple Family Tree. This new revision fixes Atomic Rooster (which had been mistakenly called ‘Arctic’) and links the Yardbirds/Led Zeppelin branch to the tree via Coverdale/Page collaboration.

And before you start complaining again, remember: this is just a one man’s vision on where to prune the tree. Nobody promised that it would be utterly objective. The main constrains were to include 50 bands/lineups (on the occasion of the 50th anniversary), and make it printable on an A1 format poster (that Glenn sells on Ebay).

Happy gardening!

Japan and North America tour dates have been announced.

The North American tour starts on August 21 in Cincinnati and will continue throughout the rest of August and all of September, visiting a total of 25 cities and wrapping up on September 30 in Sacramento, California. It will be a double header bill with Judas Priest. Presales for many of the shows start tomorrow, April 24, general sales following a few days later.

The short but sweet 5-date Japanese tour is scheduled for October this year. Ticket presales (where available) start tomorrow, April 24th, via the venerable promoter Mr. Udo’s website. Sales to the general public will follow in May.

Full details in our calendar.

Thanks to Akiko Hada, Bo Olsson, Akemi Ono, Randy Engman, and Lutz Reinert for the heads up.