Several music news sites (e.g. this one) in Brazil have announced that Deep Purple will play three shows in the country this October — 21st in Rio de Janeiro, 22nd in São Paulo, and 24th in Curitiba. This will be a package tour with Lynyrd Skynyd and ZZ Top also on the bill. There are no details as to the venues and/or tickets at this time, just the dates. They will be filed in our calendar as soon as the venue details are available.
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An interview with Ian Paice appeared in the latest episode of The Rock Brigade Podcast. Abeit being 30+ minutes of mostly Ian talking, not much was said that has not been said elsewhere during inFinite promo campaign and before. It gets slightly more interesting towards the second half, when they start digging deeper into the history of the band.
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Ian Gillan appears on British TV to promote Accidentally on Purpose. that’s from his period between being an ‘angry young man’ and ‘fucking furious’ that he is now. Aaah, I miss that Gillan…
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Glenn Hughes has been announced in this years lineup for the Ramblin’ Man Fair. His interview was recently posted on their website to promote the appearance. The interview briefly covers his whole career, from Trapeze to Black Country Communion IV (that’s how the new album will be called — “We wanted to call it IV because we wanted to get back to the numerals.”)

His take on joining Purple:

Is it true that you only signed up because you thought Paul Rodgers was going to be the singer?

It was a big reason why. I said, ‘If you’re looking for a bass player to take Roger Glover’s place, I’m not that guy.’ And they said, ‘Well we’re going to ask Paul Rodgers to sing’, and very quickly my brain went, ‘Hmmm… wouldn’t that be an opportunity to sing some stuff with one of the greatest blues rock singers in the world?” And then when Ritchie Blackmore said to me, “We want you to sing, and we want to have another guy in the band with a bluesier, deeper voice…”, I signed on the dotted line. And then of course the next week we all found out that Paul had joined Bad Company.

But the way it turned out, singing with David Coverdale was perfect. Purple wanted to get away from the vibe of what Mark II was, the Gillan and Glover thing. They didn’t want anybody to play like Roger, they didn’t want anybody that sang in the way Ian sang – he didn’t have a bluesy voice at all. What they wanted was for two guys to come in, one guy to share vocals with another guy, and one guy to play a different kind of bass. Which they got.

On how California Breed folded:

Then, when it came time to tour, Jason [Bonham] started hanging out with Sammy Hagar. He said, “Can we do this tour in the next window instead?” We were opening for Slash in Europe and Alter Bridge in America, and the tickets were already on sale, so I said, “Jason, I can’t not show up – we’re gonna have to find another drummer.”

Andrew’s a big Queens Of The Stone Age fan, and he wanted to get this guy in [QOTSA drummer Joey Castillo]. I was like, ‘OK, whatever.’ But it didn’t work. I was left with a young kid and I drummer that I didn’t particularly want in the band. When you’re in that situation, it’s not going to happen.

Read more on RambinManFair.com.

The festival will run July 28-30th this year, and Glenn will perform on Saturday 29th at
the Planet Rock Main Stage. Tickets are available.

Two days earlier, on July 27th, Glenn will also appear at the Premier Suite Lounge in Cannock in an “up close and personal” homecoming event (that’s the town where he was born and bred).

Thanks to Yvonne and Express & Star for the info.

The following announcement has been posted to the band’s official facebook page:

Do you live near Cardiff, Wales? Are you a Deep Purple fan?
Would you like to take part in some Deep Purple-related filming that will take place in the city on Friday 28th April 2017 at 10:00am?
If interested, please email info@coolheadproductions.com and we’ll get back to you with more details.
Please note that no member of Deep Purple will be present.
Still… it promises to be great fun.

Coolhead Productions is, of course, the company behind the recent From Here to Infinity documentary. And no, we have absolutely no idea what this is about, the title of this post is inspired by our way too vivid imagination.

Thanks to Nigel Young for the info.

Next spring will mark 50th anniversary of the band we come here to celebrate. An international group of fans have started a grassroots campaign to honour the band in style and are organizing an art and history exhibition to be held in Cologne, Germany. They have booked an exhibition hall from April 14 to May 12, 2018, and are soliciting both exhibits and monetary donations. This event is a project of Kulturförderkreis K-8 e. V., the same outfit responsible for organizing Evi Ivan’s paintings exhibition in 2006 and Roger Glover’s art exposition in 2010.

The website is deeppurple-artandhistory.com.

Thanks to Yvonne and Ralf Schmidt for the info.

Producer of the Bananas and Rapture of the Deep Michael Bradford seemingly disappered from the Purple horizons, but not from the music scene in general. After his collaboration with the band, he produced and played bass with Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics fame) and then became musical director and bass player for Ringo Starr’s touring band. He also shared bass duties on Ringo’s 2010 solo album with Paul McCartney.

An interview recorded in 2016 for the NAMM Oral History Library

Fine example of his very dry sense of humour (which may explain how he got along so well with an essentially British hard rock band despite vastly different musical backgrounds).

In 2014 he released a solo album The Long Night. A track from the album — No One But Myself To Blame featuring singer Liz Primo:

Michael can be reached via his production company Chunky Style Music.

Don Airey is reissuing his 1988 solo album K2 – Tales of Triumph and Tragedy, funded through Pledge Music. Album options include

• signed CD with original album and 7 bonus tracks for £30
• signed CD (as above) + DVD with “new performances”, interview footage, and original EPK for £35
• limited edition deluxe box set for £75

The box set will include both CD and DVD, signed and numbered certificate (the box is said to be limited to 100 copies), reproduction of the press pack, promo photo, and an A2-size map of K2.
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Roger Glover was a guest of Francophone TV channel TV5Monde, and his appearance turned into a mini retrospective of his incredible career.
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While being in Paris earlier this month, Ian Paice and Don Airey sat down to chat with La Grosse Radio. It resulted in this very relaxed conversation where they go through several tracks of the album, explaining how these ideas were born and developed. Plus, their thoughts on the latest incarnation of Rainbow and on the inevitable retirement.
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