Back in 2006, when Deep Purple undertook a massive tour of France, their support was a French band called Café Bertrand. Their guitar player Stéphane “Steph” Honde moved to California a couple of years ago and there he befriended Tim Bogert of Vanilla Fudge fame and convinced him to play on his debut album. The project took name Hollywood Monsters, and recently signed with Mausoleum Records to release their debut album Big Trouble.
And undoubtedly, in 2006 Honde made a good impression on Don Airey, as the latter is among the guest musicians on the album.
Glenn Hughes was interviewed during the Newport Beach Film Festival at the premiere of Well Now You’re Here, There’s No Way Back: The Quiet Riot Movie documentary. He spoke about his connection to Frankie Banali and late Kevin DuBrow, California Breed, and things he learned from David Bowie:
Deep Purple have won in the Comeback of the Year category at the Golden Gods 2014, an awards show organized by the Revolver magazine. The awards are based on the results of online fan voting, and the comeback in question apparently refers to the excellent last year album Now what?! The band came on top of stiff competition in the face of Black Sabbath (they’ve won Album of the Year instead), Carcass, Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, and Suicidal Tendencies.
The awards were presented on April 24 at the Nokia Club in Los Angeles. The band did not attend, opting for a prerecorded video appearance to a largely indifferent crowd:
For his efforts in rebuilding the musical school in Armenia, Ian Gillan has been named Friend of the Armenians 2014 by the Eastern Diocese of Armenian Church in America.
He will be presented with the award at the 112th Diocesan Assembly in New York City. The presentation will be made during the assembly’s gala banquet on Friday evening, May 2, starting at 7 p.m., at Haik and Alice Kavookjian Auditorium of the Diocesan Complex. For information on the banquet, contact Lorraine Marootian at (201) 560-1482.
An author going simply by the name Pozzo has published an account of his personal quest to find Rod Evans. And while it contains many digressions (or maybe because of them), it’s quite an amusing read. Joanna’s call for arms here gets a name check, along with DPAS and Simon.
… I handed over my two pounds and took the album home. My parents’ stereo (old enough to merit the archaism, “gramophone”) was not the greatest sound system in the world, but it was better than nothing and I carefully placed my booty on the turntable, positioned the needle, sat back and listened. The music was heavy, complex, involving but – er – bluesy and there was even a hint of something calypso-like on one track. It was wonderful, sure, but not quite what I expected. Most seriously of all – what was wrong with Ian Gillan? There were two singers, apparently, one screechy, one souly, but neither sounding remotely like the guy I’d heard on “24 Carat Purple”. It was only then that I checked the names of the band’s membership. There was no Ian Gillan, no Roger Glover, but someone called Glenn Hughes (never heard of him!) and David Coverdale of whom I had heard, but only as the lead singer of the then-currently-popular Whitesnake.
This was an epiphany. It was the realisation that there had not merely been one Deep Purple, but many, different incarnations of the band – or different “Marks” as they preferred to call them – each with their own distinctive sound. It was like the moment I realised that there had been more than one Doctor Who. I discovered that “Burn” was by Mark III and that Ian Gillan and Roger Glover had belonged to Mark II. This begged a question: what had Mark I been like? My investigations began…
Read the whole book at autonomy.com. Word of caution: while not quite a novel in size, at 25,000+ words it’s a lengthy read. But it’s worth it. If you’re a regular on our site, you’ll probably find yourself chuckling once or twice, recognizing certain feelings and trepidations.
California Breed’s record company apparently decided to inundate us with hype about their first album by posting a new promo clip every week. This one is supposed to be behind the scenes from recording, while in reality is just talking heads.
Subsequent episodes will premiere every Tuesday until the album is released on may 20 on Guitar World
We have a whole bunch of tour dates for The Good Old Boys, the band that features Nick Simper on bass and Pete Parks (of Fandango and Warhorse fame) on guitar. The lineup also includes Alan Barratt singing, Simon Bishop on guitar, and Richard Hudson on drums. They continue to gig quite extensively in local clubs and pubs around London. These dates come directly from the band, and are confirmed to the best of our knowledge. That being said, due to the low key nature of the band it is always a good idea to double check with the venue before heading out.
Deep Purple with friends and family perform an extended version of Hush at the conclusion of Celebrating Jon Lord event at the Royal Albert Hall on April 4:
![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan1.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/glover.jpg)
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing