As Roger Glover wrote, he guested at Don Airey’s gig in Switzerland on March 13. You can check out a video clip on Facebook:

Thanks to Gloria Lu for the video and to Yvonne Osthausen for bringing it to your attention.

Ian Gillan sends a message about Deep Purple in Cyprus scheduled in May:

Dear Friends
There’s a bit of a hoo-ha going on about our forthcoming show in Cyprus, so here are some thoughts on the issue.

As it says in the Caramba disclaimer, my views are not necessarily those of the rest of the guys in Deep Purple. So, please take this as a personal opinion; IMHO as I used to say.

We – DP – have never been on one side or the other when it comes to performing music. I remember – during the cold war – hearing about visits to London by the Bolshoi Ballet and the top football teams from Moscow, also the Cossack dancers, and many other cultural exchanges between The West and The Soviet Union. The diplomatic and cultural side door was always open for art, entertainment and sport, no matter how frightening and confrontational all the rest of it was.

Continue reading on Caramba!

Backgrounder: the gig is to take place in Northern Cyprus.

Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov for the info.

Don Airey was interviewed in Austria by the Mulatschag TV. Plenty of amusing anecdotage from his illustrious career. He also mentions that he has recorded an album of piano jazz pieces, which shlould be coming out later this year.

And just to make the things even more interesting, we’ll leave you with his band’s performance of Child in Time on March 22:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCtV–EqxbU

Mini Suite from Prague on March 21:

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info, and to Franko Koch and chotovice for the videos.

RockPages.gr has an interview that they recently conducted with Bernie Torme. No wonder that a large chunk of it is about his Gillan years:

Your career includes many and very significant collaborations. You are well – known from the period with Gillan. What does Bernie Torme feel for this period among all the other collaborations of his career?

Well…pride! When I joined the Gillan band I was unknown and by the time I left Ian I was a name in the industry. It was definitely a great band to be in. Ian was a fantastic guy to be in a band and I vividly remember our smooth collaboration. Ian never told anyone how to play and what to play. He let complete freedom to the musician and that’s evident to all the Gillan releases. It was an extremely democratic band…possibly quite anarchistic band (laughs)! In the end, there were a lot of arguments about…everything really but all these things belong in the past and I’d be more than happy to have a drink with all the guys from that band…great guys, indeed! I don’t think, though, that we will work professionally again as anyone has moved to different paths.

Read more on RockPages.gr.

Thanks to Yiannis Dolas for the info.

Don Airey was interviewed for the Heavy Demons Radio Show backstage before his show in Brescia, Italy on March 14th:

Then on March 16th he spoke to the Rock Rebel Magazine in Genova:

And just to leave you with some music, here’s a great clip from Don & Friends’ performance in Vienna on March 18th:

Keyboards: Don Airey
Drums: Darrin Mooney
Bass: Laurence Cottle
Guitar: Rob Harris
Vocals: Carl Sentance

Thanks to Yvonne Osthausen and Blabbermouth for the info, and to Reigen Live for the live video.

Enjoying a brief lull from the touring schedule, Roger Glover writes about his experience at the London Bass Guitar Show, as well as a few other random things:

In case youʼre interested Iʼve just made a fresh coffee and am ensconced before my computer, wanting to post something on the website, and wondering what it might be. As you may have noticed, Iʼm not one who cares to bleet or twog like some, several times a day even. Where do they find the time? My time is spent, as it happens, just like yours – second by second, hour by hour, etc… and itʼs a precious commodity.

But here we are with a dribble of minutes and Iʼm off the road, enjoying the unseasonably warm weather in Europe, at least the part of Europe I think Iʼm in.

Continue reading on RogerGlover.com.

American photographer Tom Franklin has published online several snaps he took at a Mark 1 show at Exhibit Hall at the Teen Fair in Phoenix in November 1968. Check them out.

Thanks to Yvonne Osthausen for the info.

The record company has published promo video for Sweet Tea – a track from the upcoming BCC4 inaugural California Breed album:

A promo feature with several quotes from Hughes accompanies the video release in USA Today:

We were there for 17 days, and we completely recorded it — here’s the kicker, all live onto two-inch tape. It’s the first time in my career where I sang the entire album, from tip to toe, live.

We recorded each track twice, drums and guitar, then I over-dubbed the bass on the comps of those songs. I sang the songs twice, and Dave comped my vocal tracks from each song, and we had a full, complete album.

On meeting Andrew Watt:

I saw this kid walking toward me, and he looked very much like I did in 1970 — long hair, had a really cool hat on. He spoke my language musically.

It’s not so much shredding guitar, it’s coming from Mick Ronson, it’s coming from John Frusciante, it’s coming from Jimmy Page. I thought, this would be really good if we could make a trio of this, and there was only one guy in mind to play drums. That was Jason.

Thanks to Amit Roy, BraveWords, and USA Today for the info.

Classic Rock has an interview with Coverdale entirely devoted to his short lived collaboration with Jimmy Page:

Whose idea was it was to make a record together?

David Coverdale: The synchronicity was rather special. I’d spoken to a mutual acquaintance, my friend and agent, Rod MacSween, and said that I was taking some time off to recover from four years of non-stop hard work. Around the same time, Jimmy told Rod he wanted to get back to work and could he recommend any singers. That was all the energy that was needed.

What are your memories of making the album?

DC: Working with Jimmy was an utter treat. He was, and still, is a hero of mine. The album took longer than we’d hoped, but I treasure every aspect. The hardest part for me was losing my mam during the recording, but Jimmy was very gracious and supportive and we put the work on hold so I could be with her. 
Nothing else came near to being as hard as that time for me.

Read more in Classic Rock.

Glenn Hughes will be the guest on an upcoming episode of US cable That Metal Show. He will be joining them via their “Metal Modem” segment. The episode will premiere on VH1 Classic on Saturday, March 15 at 10pm EDT and will be repeated throughout the following week.

Thanks to GlennHughes.com and Tracy Heyder for the info.