Doogie White celebrates 20th anniversary of Stranger In Us All with this podcast special, full of good old Scottish joviality and excellent music:

And because Doogie is such a good lad, we’ll also plug a new album with his old pals from La Paz — Shut Up And Rawk! — to be released in April.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

From thew latest installment of Dear Friends published on Caramba!, it sounds like Gillan will not be accepting the induction:

Dear Friends, Families and Fans,

Putting the past shenanigans to one side, the induction is not – in clear fact – for Deep Purple.

It is an arbitrary selection of past members, which excludes Steve Morse and Don Airey; both of whom have been with the living breathing DP for a very long time.

Obviously this is very silly, and so my response is quite simple: ‘Thank you very much’.

And….what a coincidence…This morning I got an invitation to a wedding from some dear old friends. Unfortunately my family was not invited and they said that I would be required to sit next to my ex (we divorced decades ago) at the wedding feast.

They were shocked when I called to thank them and decline the invitation.

Cheers,
Ian Gillan

On the same note, very thoughtful comments on HoF from a fellow inductee Steve Miller, who called the Hall “an exclusive private men’s club” with “an elitist nominating committee” and “cynical” voting process. Miller seems to know what he’s talking about as he himself sits on the board of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. His interview in Milwakee Journal Sentinel is well worth a read.

Thanks to CP and nupsi59 for the heads up.

Billboard has an interview with Paicey (who seems to be the go-to spokesman for the band these days). He didn’t say anything he hasn’t already said to Rolling Stone, just reconfirming the talking points:

• somebody probably will show up at the induction ceremony;
• who that will be and who will be performing what (if anybody and anything) is still up in the air at the moment;
• everybody who was and is in the band should have be inducted.

Not surprisingly, Glenn Hughes is very enthusiastic:

There’s a lot of mumbo jumbo from other members, but I’m excited. I don’t have anything to say negative about this. And more importantly this is really important to the fans of the band Deep Purple, the four or five decades this band has been around making music. It’s a grand step in music history for anyone. There’s only so many people who get into the Hall of Fame.

Read more in Billboard.

Hot on the heels of the Hall of Fame announcement, Rolling Stone magazine has published an interview with Paicey:

Do you think part of the problem is so many voters are in America and you were never quite as big here as you were overseas?
Of course, that does effect what people are aware of. If you’re not seen on the U.S. touring circuit very often, then why would U.S. voters pick you? It’s not a criticism. It’s just a reality of life. Certain parts of the world have different musical tastes now. I’m not saying there aren’t a lot of rock & roll fans in the States, but what is covered by the media and what is thrown in front of people by TV, like the flavor of the month, segregates things quite badly.

We’ll do a show where we’ll have a wonderfully mixed audience of kids in the front, then people that are slightly older until you get right to the back. In other countries, you just have an audience of more mature people or just kids. It’s been broken up in a way, which is so sad. The best shows are where everybody, of whatever age, are experiencing the same thing and getting the same buzz out of it. You need the kids to kickstart it, and once they get it going, the old folks remember why they went to a rock & roll show in the first place. It’s a wonderful feeling when it all kicks off like that. In the U.K. and the States, the media has cut the generations in half away from each other. It’s very sad.

You’re going to come and perform, right?
I have no idea. All I’ve heard is we’ve got the thing. I just learned this two nights ago, and I’ve kept my big mouth shut. This is the first time I’ve discussed it with anyone. Whatever else is decided, we’ll make a decision on that when it comes through.

I’m sure in the coming months a lot of fans are going to fixate on who exactly will play that night, and whether or not Ritchie is going to come.
As an ongoing band, we need to take into account how the present members feel about that, the guys that aren’t involved in this evening. We don’t have salaried guys with [keyboardist] Don [Airey] and [guitarist] Steve [Morse]. They are fully accredited members of the band and they share in everything, and into decisions as well. They will have to be consulted and see how they feel about anything that the three of us originals think we would or wouldn’t like to do.

Read more in Rolling Stone.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

Apparently it happened, nevertheless. There’s no word at the moment whether this involves just the Mark 2, Marks 1 to 3 (or 4), or the whole shebang, though.

Update: according to Billboard, it is Marks 1 to 3 that are inducted, while New York Times gives a list of members that include the first three lineups with the notable omission of Nick Simper.

Induction ceremony will be held on April 8 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

HoF Foundation President and CEO Joel Peresman smugly remarked to the Billboard:

It’s very interesting that people have certain opinions about it when they’re not inducted, and for the most part they put that past them and realize what an honor it is and really embrace it.

This reporter sincerely hopes that the band will do the honourable thing and show them the finger.

Well, if one good thing came out of this whole Hall of Fame saga, it’s additional publicity for the band. And in show business there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

In anticipation of 2016 inductees being announced on December 17, Classic Rock reached out to Paicey for a comment:

Well, who would they induct? There have been so many members of this band, even if they say it will be core members, who would it be?

You also have to bear in mind, that if some people are inducted together, it could end in a punch-up. I don’t need to tell anyone certain key members and former members of this band do not get on. Personally, I think they would be better off inducting us individually. That avoids the problem.

Hmm, maybe they should just have a boxing match in their performance stead.

As for playing live, again who would be involved? You’d have the same situation as for an induction. This one won’t play with that one – it could be a mess.

The Hall Of Fame should be embarrassed for not inducting us already. Look at some of the non-entities who’ve got in. I won’t name them, but just have a look at some of those names, and you’ll know who I mean. What have they ever done for rock’n’roll? Nothing. Having these artists in before Deep Purple undermines what it is supposed to represent.

Thanks to Classic Rock for the fodder.

Ritchie Blackmore and Candice Night were interviewed on Rich Davenport’s Rock Show that aired on Total Rock this past weekend. They spoke (mostly) about All Our Yesterdays, which was released back in September. Ritchie reiterated that his foray into rock will be a brief one, but “if it works”, more dates could be added.

Selected quotes:

When I play rock all the time, I play with a plectrum, and now that I play this style, I’ve adopted a different finger style way of playing; I have to grow my fingernails so long, and it becomes very awkward if I’m playing electric. That’s quite a challenge in itself.

[…] In rock, I was just kind of churning out heavy metal riffs and it was becoming stale and kind of redundant what I was doing. I got kind of bored with the whole thing. Now I’m always sitting with a guitar and playing finger style when I’m trying to come up with new ideas and progressions, and it’s a very natural process. Whereas I felt that in rock, it was becoming contrived. We’d need to rehearse and it would have to be a hard rock, riffy number, and [I felt like] I was starting to just repeat myself in a way.

I feel at home playing both styles — whether it’s finger style or electric. I just like the difference. It’s almost more of a challenge to go on stage and play with an acoustic guitar very quietly. For me, that’s a lot harder than the rock style, ’cause [when you play heavy rock], you rely on the amplifier to kind of excite people and turn up the energy. When you’re playing acoustic, you’ve gotta try and excite and move an audience with just technique, and I find that a lot harder. But it’s very rewarding. When it works, it’s great.

Blackmore’s Night will go on, and this is just a brief intermission of playing some good old rock, but with some good friends and some good musicians. And hopefully everybody’s there for the same reason, which is it’s good music and it’s nostalgia, and hopefully everything goes well. And if it works, we’ll do, obviously, more dates. We’re only doing three this first time. But, like I said, if it works, we’ll do more later on.

The complete show is now available as a podcast:

And in case anybody had any doubts that Blackmore’s Night will go on, tickets for two German shows next July are already on sale.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

Kinda sorta news from the yet-another-re-release department: Universal Music is putting out a box set containing 7 studio albums on vinyl. And a bizarre selection it is — starting with Machine Head, and through to The House of Blue Light. The albums are claimed to be remastered, and the box is priced for preorder at £88.99. Release date is penciled in for January 29.

Ian Gillan has an interview in Cricket Monthly, of all places. He talks about his passion and how his dayjob interferes with it:

What is your favourite ground to watch cricket?
I don’t get to a lot of cricket because I’m on the road non-stop. We played in 54 countries last year, so I have to watch it on TV, and when I can’t do that, I keep up on the computer.

Read more in Cricket Monthly (if you’re into that sort of thing, that is).

Thanks to Marcus Streets for the info.

Classic Rock has an opinion piece by Neil Jeffries titled Will Ritchie’s RAinbow rise… or plummet down to earth?. Which, really, says most of it. He has his doubts, and so does truly yours.

So, almost two decades after giving up rock to play alongside his wife in the semi-acoustic Blackmore’s Night, the Deep Purple and Rainbow guitar god Ritchie Blackmore is back… to plug his Stratocaster into a Marshall stack and crank it to 11 for one last hurrah.

Well, three last hurrahs – two festivals in his beloved Germany and the indoor gig at Birmingham’s Genting Arena. He says he’s “doing it for the fans”. But I’m worried.

I’m worried that next June’s shows could do to the reputation of Ritchie Blackmore what the Come Taste The Band tour did to the standing of the 1970’s version of Deep Purple. The situations are different, but the outcome could be the same. In 1976 Purple were debuting an unfamiliar line-up and all eyes were on the guitarist: Tommy Bolin, the new guy. Come next June another unfamiliar line-up will debut, and all eyes will once again be on the guitarist: Ritchie, the old guy. To be blunt…

Blackmore will be a 71-year-old man fronting a recently formed covers band.

Continue reading in Classic Rock.

Thanks to Danny N for the heads up.