And the new year is shaping up to be a busy one.

Glenn Hughes will kick of the touring on January 20 in the UK, which will be followed by a month long European tour. And right now he is in the studio recording the fourth Black Country Communion album, which we also might expect some time later in the year.

The NAMM convention is going to be held on January 19-22 this year, so Glenn would probably have to miss it, but Steve Morse usually makes an appearance there as well. In December Steve also took part in the Flying Colors writing sessions for their third album. Fingers crossed this will bear fruit in 2017.

Ian Paice has a handful of dates booked in January through March, appearing with Purpendicular and Forever Deep tribute bands across Europe.

Nick Simper continues playing low key gigs with the Good Old Boys in clubs and pubs around London, and also has a couple of dates booked in Austria in March with Nasty Habits.

Don Airey will embark on a short European tour with his band in March (which threatens to become an annual event by now).

Which all brings us to the main dish: the new Deep Purple album inFinite is scheduled to be released on April 7. And if past is any indication, it will be followed by a heavy media blitz until the band starts the massive European tour some time in May (the earliest surfaced date so far is Bucharest, Romania, on May 13). It will continue well into July and will be followed with a UK tour in November. No other dates have been publicized so far, but the word on the street is … uhm, that i should shut up at this point 😉

In June Ritchie Blackmore will play four dates in UK with his latest incarnation of Rainbow. The customary Blackmore’s Night summer tour of German castles may or may not follow.

Glenn Hughes reports via his Twitter that Joe Bonamassa, Jason Bonham, Derek Sherinian, and himself are back in the studio and recording a new Black Country Communion album, with Kevin Shirley producing.
Continue Reading »

Further details continue to trickle down on the new Deep Purple album inFinite. The track list has surfaced on Amazon:

1. Time for bedlam
2. Hip boots
3. All I’ve got is you
4. One night in Vegas
5. Get me outta here
6. The surprising
7. Johnny’s band
8. On top of the world
9. Birds of prey
10. Roadhouse blues

By perusing various online retailers one can also deduce that the album will be available as a standalone CD, limited edition CD+DVD, 2LP+DVD, “small” box set (1CD + 1DVD), and a “large” a.k.a. “fan” box set (2LPs, 3 10″ singles, CD, DVD, t-shirt, poster, photo prints, and a sticker). And, of course, the ever so intangible downloads.

Release date is still set for April 7.

Thanks to Lutz Reinert for the info.

While doing his tour with Don Airey Band and the local orchestras earlier this year, Ian Gillan appeared on a talk show in Serbia (recorded November 6, broadcasted November 11). There were few (if any) “Mr. Gillian” moments during an hour long show, as the host apparently did his homework pretty well. And don’t be too quickly put off by the language barriers — the bulk of the show is actually in English.

This post was brought to you by our better-late-then-never department.

…And their producer:

Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov for the info.

Don Airey was a guest on Rick Wakeman’s Key to Keys this Wednesday, December 21, which aired on BBC Radio 2.

In this first show Rick also chats to fellow rock pianist Don Airey. Keyboard player with Deep Purple since 2002 he has also written and played keyboards for artists like Gary Moore, Ozzy Osbourne, Rainbow and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Rick and Don chat about how he started his career playing on a cruise ship before being spotted playing live in a London club and being invited to play with Cozy Powell. Don also treats us to a live version of one of his own compositions on the Elton John piano.

Lots of hilarious anecdotage in this one, from the story of Jon Lord meeting Brian Wilson, to the 5-minute audition for Purple, to “I surrender, I surrender, livin’ down the road from our Brenda”.

The show is also available via BBC iPlayer (and will be available there until January 20th). Don’s interview starts at approximately 32 minutes into the show, right after Hush.

Thanks to Nigel Young for the info and the clip.

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.