If you have already forgot about the teasy-whimsy Now what?! promotional campaign, a reminder arrived today in the form of the new profile picture on the official Deep Purple Facebook page and a video teaser to the earMUSIC Youtube channel:

Now, knock yourselves out with speculations.

New European tour dates have been posted to Glenn Hughes’ web site. As you might remember, he was booked on an extensive tour of the continent co-headlining with Living Colour, who pulled out at the 11th hour due to being double booked by their management. Consequently, the whole tour had to be scrapped.

We are now happy to announce that a new tour has risen from the ashes of this screwup. It will start on January 20 in Newcastle, UK, cover the isle, then move on to the continent, visiting France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, and wrapping up on February 23 in Tilburg, Netherlands.

British band Stone Broken will be supporting Glenn on this tour.

Full details and ticket info (where available) in our calendar.

Thanks to Daniel Bengtsson for the info.

Ian Gillan was interviewed by Andy Fox for his Rockshow on the occasion of the Vinyl Collection release. Of course, Andy knows his Purple stuff (he even played Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming on this show), so the interview turned out to be rather entertaining.
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A 1981 vintage interview with Ian Gillan, done by Australian journalist Donnie Sutherland is available on Getty Images. Since they are trying to sell those clips, there appears no possibility to show it here, but you can watch the interview clips for free (albeit watermarked) if you head over there.
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Several Purple related tracks are featured on a new 3CD compilation called Air Guitar Anthems. What distinguishes this particular compilation from the gabazillion of similar ones is that the songs were selected by a distinguished riffmeister Brian May.

Here is what made Dr. May’s cut, from Buddy Holly to The Darkness. (Note: performers are listed as included on the album, not necessarily the original authors):

Queen — Bohemian Rhapsody
Led Zeppelin — Whole Lotta Love
The Rolling Stones — Start Me Up
ZZ Top — Gimme All Your Lovin’
T Rex — 20th Century Boy
Meat Loaf — Bat Out Of Hell
Ram Jam — Black Betty
Deep Purple — Smoke On The Water
Bachman-Turner Overdrive — You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet
Metallica — Stone Cold Crazy
Alice Cooper — Poison
KISS — Crazy Crazy Nights
Motörhead — Ace of Spades
Thin Lizzy — The Boys Are Back In Town
Whitesnake — Here I Go Again ’87
Derek & The Dominoes feat. Duane Allen — Layla
Rainbow — Since You Been Gone
Boston — More Than A Feeling
Dire Straits — Money For Nothing
Journey — Don’t Stop Believing
Status Quo — Down Down
Bryan Adams — Run to You
Free — All Right Now
The Who — I Can’t Explain
The Kinks — You Really Got Me
Muddy Waters — Mannish Boy
Bad Company — Feel Like Makin’ Love
Billy Idol — White Wedding
George Thorogood & The Destroyers — Bad To The Bone
Survivor — Eye of the Tiger
Cream — Sunshine of Your Love
Chuck Berry — Johnny Be Good
Buddy Holly — That’ll Be The Day
Small Faces — All Or Nothing
Sex Pistols — God Save the Queen
The Animals — The House of the Rising Sun
Brian May & Kerry Ellis — Parisienne Walkways
Def Leppard — Pour Some Sugar On Me
The Police — Message In A Bottle
The Darkness — I Believe In A Thing Called Love
Stiltskin — Inside
The Knack — My Sharona
Toto — Hold The Line
Lynyrd Skynyrd — Sweet Home Alabama
Rush — The Spirit of Radio
Mötley Crüe — Girls Girls Girls
Twisted Sister — I Wanna Rock
Mott The Hoople — All The Young Dudes
Joe Walsh — Rocky Mountain Way
Blue Öyster Cult — (Don’t Fear) The Reaper
Dio — Holy Diver
Soundgarden — Black Hole Sun
Robert Palmer — Addicted To Love
Shadows — FBI
The Troggs — Wild Thing
Queen — We Will Rock You

Advertisement for the compilation:

Brian May discusses his selection:

Bonus from THS — Brian May performs cover of Since You Been Gone with Cozy Powell on drums:

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

Two more preview tracks from Rainbow Memories in Rock – Live In Germany live album recorded this summer.

Spotlight Kid (Bietigheim-Bissingen, June 18, 2016):

The second one is Man on the Silver Mountain from Loreley, June 17, 2016. You’ll have to got to third party sites to watch this one as Powers That Be™ made it impossible to show it here.

My guess this is it for the previews as the album is out tomorrow, November 18.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

Ian Gillan has appeared today on the ROCK FM radio in Moscow. He spoke about his current tour with Don Airey Band, the new Deep Purple album, his charity work in Armenia, religious censorship, the state of his relationship with Ritchie Blackmore, and the English national soccer team.

You can listen to his interview on rockfm.ru (scroll down the page for the little black audio player under the text).

Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov (deep-purple.ru) for the info.

August 2016 issue of Japanese magazine Player carried an article detailing equipment used by Steve Morse and Roger Glover on the recent tour of the country (May 2016). The article is pretty technical, so it proved to be too difficult for a full reverse translation. Nevertheless, we are happy to present you with the scans and summary courtesy of our contributor Akemi Ono.

Steve Morse

Guitar 1: Steve Morse Y2D prototype by Music Man. This guitar was developed to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the collaboration between Steve and Music Man. [According to Steve, it was supposed to be released in 2000 and called Y2K, but was delayed, hence Y2D(elayed). — THS] (page 163 left)

Guitar 2: The finished product based on the prototype above. According to Steve’s guitar tech, Steve uses this for the second tune in the show. (page 163 upper right)

Guitar 3: Music Man Y2D, a new color introduced in 2014. Used for the Highway Star and other Blackmore days DP tunes on occasions. (page 163 lower right)

Guitar 4: Music Man Y2D with see-through blue finish. This was on the market before guitar 3 above. (page 164 top)

Guitar 5: Music Man Y2D which stayed at the wings of the stage as a back-up guitar. (page 164 bottom)

Amplifier: Steve Morse Signature 100 (E656) x 2, Invader 100 (E642) x 1, both by ENGL.

Effects: Ernieball VP Jr volume pedal x 3, Keeley compressor, TC Electronic tuner & polytune

Roger Glover

Guitar 1: Vigier signature model, burgundy red, used for the Highway Star. (page 165 left)

Guitar 2: Vigier signature model. Roger mainly used this and the above during the show. (page 165 center)

Guitar 3: Rickenbacker 4001. Old fans may remember that Roger used Rickenbacker in the early 70’s. It was a moving moment when he used this to play Smoke on the Water. (page 165 right)

Amplifier: TC Electronic Blacksmith x 2

The re-release of Jon Lords “Gemini Suite” has been postponed to December 9, 2016

There are a couple of items posted on the official Youtube channel worth your attention (in case you’ve missed it).

Deep Purple Mark 4 live at The Capital Centre, Landover, MD, USA, on January 15, 1976. It was the second date of their mainland US tour.

A very energetic short set performed by Gillan for British TV in 1982: