Roger Glover has posted his customary end-of-the year message to the world:

A hale and hearty December to all. I need to start by thanking those who made the effort to attend a concert or two this year, by DP or any other band – without you it would be a far lonelier place all round. Music is a gift. And live, it’s a celebration.

If you sent me birthday greetings, I was touched by the warm wishes, and I read them all. Amazing – not that I read them all but that I received so many. I’m only sorry that I couldn’t reply to everyone individually but I take this opportunity to tell you that I am most grateful.

2016 is fast disappearing in the mist. Apart from some great tours, DP recorded inFinite with top man Bob Ezrin. Back in January, I had expected it to be released before the year was out but for various reasons it didn’t happen that way. As someone once said, “You shouldn’t spoil the fruit by picking it before it’s ripe.” Anyway, time being what it is, spring will drop by in a few weeks and it will be yours to love or loathe, or both.

Continue reading on RogerGlover.com

British company Team Rock Ltd, publisher of the Classic Rock, Prog and Metal Hammer magazines, as well as TeamRock.com and associated internet radio station, has gone into administration (called bankruptcy/liquidation in other parts of the world). They have acquired the magazines from Future Publishing in 2013, but apparently never managed to make them profitable. 73 employees have lost their jobs with just 7 remaining to assist in liquidating the business. Team Rock generated sales of £6.5 million in 2015, down from £7.5 million in 2014 and administrative expenses ballooned to £12.4 million, up from £9.3 million in 2014.

The brands that it owned, including Classic Rock, are expected be sold to the highest bidder.

The announcement posted on the still running (so far) Team Rock website reads:

The administrators are assessing the position regarding publication of magazines. If you are a subscriber to the Company’s publications the administrators can be contacted via email at teamrock.subscribers@frpadvisory.com.

Thanks to BraveWords and Daily Record for the info.

DEEP PURPLEs „California Jam“ appearance, filmed on April 06, 1974 has been available on DVD since 2005. ear music now offers a new cut of the video as 2016 DVD and Blu-ray release.

While the DVD, issued in a standard DVD case, features the new version and a digitized Super 8 crew recording, the Blu-ray also offers the original video edit as bonus and is published in a nice Digipak. Prior to editing, the material had been processed to improve its quality which results in a brighter and sharper image compared to the unprocessed original cut.

Sadly, Stephan Liehr (who did the additional editing) did not only choose different and maybe better angles for some scenes, but played around with side-by-side pictures and faded overlays. Especially during sequences like Ritchie Blackmore’s guitar solo in „Mistreated“, where the front camera has been faded over the back camera the whole time, the new edit is just annoying and less enjoyable than the original cut which changes the camera from time to time.

As the audio and video quality didn’t improve drastically and the new edit doesn’t add more than some playing around with video editing software, there’s no need to buy the DVD or Blu-ray if you already own „California Jam“ on DVD.

There are a lot of reactions floating around the good old ‘net to the new Purple album details released yesterday, but this one came from a slightly unexpected angle. It wasn’t long until somebody pointed out that the album artwork kinda sorta resembles the Devin Townsend Project logo, which he used since 2009.

Devin is actually pretty cool with this, and twitted:

Re- deep purple logo: not a big deal to me. Not sure it should be…plus it’s Steve Morse and he can do whatever he wants 🙂

So there you have it: a controversy that was over before it even started.

In an unexpected move (first single was originally promised not until January 20), the record company publicised today the artwork, release date — April 7, and the first single from Deep Purple’s new album inFinite — Time for Bedlam:

The song will be available as instant grat as part of the digital album preorder as well as on all streaming platforms starting from Thursday, December 15th, midnight worldwide with the physical preorder of the album to start at the same time.

A limited edition EP for Time for bedlam, with non-album songs and unreleased recording will hit the shops on February 3.

A documentary movie, witnessing the songwriting process and the recording of the album with producer Bob Ezrin has been produced, allowing fans to be part of the private band member interactions in the studio. The movie will be included in some editions of the album and it will be presented before release in various fan events worldwide.

Useless, but fun fact: cover image for the album was shot off Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine (Magdalen Islands), in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, Quebec, Canada.

The announcement also includes a quote from Ian Gillan on the meaning of the album’s title and the “Long Goodbye” tour moniker:

If you take it literally you may, quite reasonably, think the ‘Finite’ part of the word describes the life of Deep Purple, with a clear beginning and a nebulous end; but what of the ‘in’ bit? The word infinite is a three-dimensional double edged sword. It describes something that goes on forever in all directions; not unlike its temporal equivalent ‘Eternal’ What’s that all about?

Stephen Hawking declared (in ‘A brief History of Time’) that, before the Big Bang there was nothing. That would put the kybosh on the idea of our universe being Infinite, as he provides a starting point, which is not acceptable to the concept. So, Hawking’s universe in ‘Finite’; by definition; whether he agrees or not.

Ironically, he is quite wrong (scientists always are eventually), therefore the Universe is infinite, which means it will never end, and also means that it never started, and the corollary to that of course is that we don’t exist.

There is a metaphysical solution to all this, but it will have to wait until the tour is over because (thanks heavens) there are only 24 hours in a day (for the time being) or 10 hours in a metric day.
More on that later…

A three-dimensional double edged sword indeed.

Thanks to Andrei Gusenkov for the heads up and Maxim Bylkin for additional info.

German magazine Rocks is featuring Deep Purple on the cover of its current issue (January 2017).

Apart from an eight page story of their rise with In Rock, it also features six pages on the new album inFinite (which was still untitled when the interviews with Bob Ezrin and Roger Glover were conducted). The journalists were able to preview half an hour worth of music from the album [possibly during that press event that Roger mentioned a few weeks ago — THS]. The working titles of these songs include Time for Bedlam, All I’ve Got Is You (which is about a relationship crisis), The Surprising (in which the band should be furthermost away from what the fans might expect), Birds of Prey (with drum sound reminding on Led Zeppelin’s When the Levee Breaks). The article also covers relationship between Bob Ezrin and the band, the times when Steve Morse and Don Airey joined the band and learned that they can play and write in their own style, how Gillan and Glover are working on the lyrics, and other things.

Thanks to Timo Teichert for the info.

DPAS mentioned that there is a Japanese box set of Rainbow Memories in Rock on the market that includes a soundboard recording of the Birmingham show as a bonus. This is of interest as by most accounts that show featured the best performance of the three gig mini-tour, while the two German shows on the release can be best described as, ahem, tentative.

Our Japanese correspondent furnishes further details.

The “super premium” box set in question has a limited edition run of 500 copies and is available exclusively through Ward Records for a princely sum of ¥34,884 (¥32,300 excluding tax). In addition to the 2CD Birmingham recording, it includes the regular Japanese editions of the album (compiled from the two German shows) on Blu-ray, 2CD, and vinyl, plus a photo booklet, and a t-shirt.

Birmingham track list:

Disc 1
1. Over the Rainbow – Highway Star
2. Spotlight Kid
3. Mistreated
4. Since You Been Gone
5. Man on the Silver Mountain
6. Soldier of Fortune
7. Difficult to Cure (Beethoven’s 9th)
8. Catch the Rainbow

Disc 2
1. Perfect Strangers
2. Long Live Rock and Roll
3. Child in Time
4. Stargazer
5. Black Night
6. Burn
7. Smoke on the Water

Expect it to show up on your favourite The Pirate Bay mirror soon.

Thanks to Akemi Ono for the info.

Graham Bonnet recently spoke to Metal Forces Magazine, which resulted in an interview that plenty demostrates his no-nonsense attitude. He spoke at length about his current eponymous band (his guitar player Conrado Pesinato has quite a number of very big shoes to fill), his days in Alcatrazz, his connection to Ronnie James Dio, his plans, and much more. He also offered his take on the most recent incarnation of Rainbow:

I think [Blackmore] was probably testing the waters to see if Rainbow’s name over the marquee would actually draw a crowd. I don’t know what the attendance was for some of these shows, but I know that now he’s gone back to doing what he was doing before with his wife – the Blackmore’s Night thing. I haven’t listened to that. I can’t do it. I can’t look at that band he put together and judge it, because I am really not interested.

I don’t think that it was a serious attempt at bringing back Rainbow. I think that it was a way for him to probably make some money quickly, and use guys in the band that you’ve never heard of before. If he had been putting together a so-called reunion or another Rainbow-type gig, he should’ve used at least Roger Glover (bass, Deep Purple / ex-Rainbow) and Don Airey (Deep Purple / ex-Rainbow) on keyboards, and whomever as a singer. I don’t think it would’ve been me, but whomever it may have been. If it had a couple of the guys from the Rainbow that I was in, I think it would’ve drawn more of a crowd and people would have seen it as being a real band, but I saw it almost as a session. People have told me that it was a bit lifeless and limp. Now whether it was that way, I couldn’t tell you, but they just said that it wasn’t Rainbow as such.

Joe [Lynn Turner] thought that he was going to be chosen. I said to him… This was when Ronnie was still alive, because I did some gigs with Joe a few years ago and Ronnie was still alive. He said that there was probably going to be a Rainbow reunion thing, and that they were going to ask him to do it because he did more albums, had more hits, or whatever. I said ‘Maybe, maybe, but if they’re going to put Rainbow back together, it should be with Ronnie and the other players from when Rainbow was first formed. Not me, not you, but the other guys that were original members.’ So, I wasn’t expecting to be asked. I knew I wouldn’t be, and I didn’t think that he would be.

Anyway, I was right (laughs). Neither of us were asked to do anything. It was a bit of a shock to him, I think, but I never saw it. I could never imagine being asked to do that because it’s old news, and I don’t think Ritchie would want to do that again. I don’t know. Maybe he would; maybe he would want Joe, or me, or whomever to play with him again, but that would be a serious venture because that would mean money, actually (laughs). It means a lot more money than he would probably want to deal with, because he would have to pay players that are a bit more serious than the band he put together. I don’t know if they were unknown people, but to me they were unknown, so that means that they were paid less. Anyway, that’s what I think (laughs).

If Ritchie asked me to play with him tomorrow, I’d play with him tomorrow. For like a one-off, of course I would because he gave me a new career, so to speak. I went into a direction I never thought I would be going in, compared to the stuff that I had done before. Man, of course I would.

I’m sure Joe Lynn Turner would, too, but it’s a matter of who it would be. I just think that that was a money venture, I really do, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not knocking Ritchie for that. We all need to make money, and that’s why we’re all out playing live now. We don’t sell records any more; people are downloading music, and it’s not like it used to be. We’re all getting older and worried what the hell we’re all gonna do if the music business for this kind of music just crashes, so we’re getting in there while we may.

Read the rest of the interview on Metal Forces.

Graham Bonnet Band upcoming tour dates:

JANUARY
6th: Ayers Event Center, Corpus Christi, TX
7th: Cadillac Bar, San Antonio, TX
8th: Trees (Elm St), Dallas, TX
20th: Malones, Santa Ana CA
28th: Rockbar Theater, Reno, NV

FEBRUARY
8th: Circus, Helsinki, FINLAND
9th: Klubi, Tampere, FINLAND
10th: House Of Rock, Kouvola, FINLAND
11th: Rock The Night, Aubiere, FRANCE

MARCH
13th: Umeda Club Quattro, Osaka, JAPAN
14th: Club Quattro, Nagoya, JAPAN
16th: Tsutaya O-East, Tokyo, JAPAN

APRIL
15th: Club Destroyer, Sundsvall, SWEDEN
21st: Madam Felle, Bergen, NORWAY
22nd: Hard Rock Cafe, Oslo, NORWAY

The band is now comprised of:
Graham Bonnet – Vocals
Conrad Pesinato – Guitars
Beth-Ami Heavenstone – Bass
Jimmy Waldo – Keyboards
Mark Zonder – Drums

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

Four Rainbow shows in June 2017 are being advertised by British concert ticket vendors: London O₂ on the 17th, Manchester Arena on 22nd, Glasgow SSE Hydro on 25th, and Birmingham Genting Arena on 28th. All appear to be reserved seating and go on sale December 8 at 10:00 a.m.

Tickets will be available through:

• Ticketline
• Myticket
• Seetickets
• AXS

Update (Dec 7): All 4 British shows have been confirmed by Blackmore’s management, who also informs us that “there will be no other Rainbow concerts in Europe in 2017”.

The record company has posted a second teaser for the new Deep Purple album inFinite, due to be released early next year:
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