On September 21, 2012, a very special double header happened at the Reigen in Vienna, Austria — Nick Simper & Nasty Habits and Don Airey Band were performing on the same stage.

Nick Simper opened the night with Nasty Habits. Their setlist:

1. And The Address
2. The Painter
3. Mandrake Root
4. Emmaretta/Drum Solo
5. Chasing Shadows
6. Lalena
7. Wring That Neck
8. The Bird Has Flown
9. Slinky
10. Why Didn`t Rosemary
11. Roadhouse Blues
12. Please Don`t Go
13. Hush

The Nasty Habits are:
Peter Brkusic – Drums
Christian Heissenberger – Guitar
Christian Schmid – Vocals
Helmut Puschacher – Keyboards

Don Airey Band setlist:

1. Spotlight Kid
2. People In Your Head
3. Shooting Star
4. Still Of The Night
5. Weissheim
6. The Way I Feel Inside
7. Tribute To Jon Lord & Gary Moore
8. Fire
9. Wrath Of Thor
10. Tobruk
11. Is This Love
12. Over The Rainbow
13. All Night Long
14. Lost In Hollywood
15. Since You’ve Been Gone
16. Black Night

Don Airey Band:
Don Airey – Keyboards
Carl Sentance – Vocals
Rob Harris – Guitar
Tim Brown – Drums
Alex Meadows – Bass

Thanks to Christian Schoen for the info and pictures.

Marshall Amplification’s 50th anniversary event 50 Years Of Loud took place at Wembley Arena in London this Saturday, September 22. The event featured performances of number of guest musicians, with Glenn Hughes, Joe Satriani and several members of extended family among them. Glenn performed Black Country, Mr. Big (by Free), Mistreated (with Malmsteen on guitar). Smoke on the Water was performed for the grand finale, with Hughes, Satriani, Malmsteen, Ripper Owens, Phil Campbell, Paul Gilbert, Doug Aldrich, Soren Andersen, Nick McBrain, Jaz Lochrie, Chris George, Brian Tichy, and Adam Wakeman.

Thanks to Daniel Bengtsson and BraveWords for the info.

Andreas Thul has written a review of the studio recording of Jon Lord’s Concerto For Group and Orchestra which will be released on September 28. The review is in German. If you understand the language, you can read it in his blog. And if you don’t, you can always try your luck with the automated translation to get the gist (in short: it’s rather good).

Ian Paice’s drum kit is for sale on the Pearl forum. Apparently this is the actual kit Ian played for the last couple of years, not a replica. Apparently it is being sold by the son of Steve Morse’s guitar tech, to whom Paicey gave the kit. As we have no reasonable means to verify validity of these claims, interested parties are advised to proceed strictly at their own peril.

Thanks to Marcel for the info.

While in Nashville working on the new Purple album, Ian Gillan spoke to Guitar International. The interview mostly evolved around the WhoCares project, with briefly touching Jon Lord’s memory at the end:

Robert: With so many years of working with tremendous bands and creating great material was it difficult to pick the songs that would make up the [WhoCares’] 2 CD set?

Ian Gillan: Yes, it was quite a task. I had to turn my studio upside down for old tapes and cassettes but with the help of Max Vaccarro at Edel Records in Hamburg I think we have ended up with an intriguing collection. My favourite today is ‘Dick Pimple’ a perfect example of Deep Purple at work in the studio.

Robert: Can you share a favorite memory about Jon Lord as a remembrance to him?

Ian Gillan: Unfortunately my fondest and most hilarious memory of Jon is something I couldn’t possibly make public [Laughing]. However, he was a wonderful man, a great musician and an avuncular source of inspiration to me and many others. I wrote a line which is included in one of the new songs, ‘…souls having touched are forever entwined’.

Robert: What can people do to help your cause?

Ian Gillan: Buying the record would be most helpful.

Read more in Guitar International.

Thanks to BraveWords and Yvonne Osthausen for the info.

Apparently Glenn Hughes may be now banned from visiting the entire country of Azerbaijan. Glenn was in the neighbouring Armenia with Derek Sherinian earlier this month to perform with a local band called The Dorians. After the concert in Yerevan, they went to the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is disputed between the two countries, and played another gig there on September 13. They even met with the local authorities. It is the official policy of Azerbaijan government that any foreign nationals who visit Nagorono-Karabakh without their permission automatically become personae non gratae in their country.

Thanks to Kevin Dixon for the info.

Rumours of a new supergroup comprising Joe Lynn Turner, Michael Anthony, and Carmine Appice started flying over ’em old interwebs a couple of days ago. JLT has issued a press release denying this:

Both Appice and Turner have officially dismissed this news as a rumor.

The musicians said that there was never any press release sent out by either of their media representatives or their record companies. While both of them agree that they have had casual conversations about musicians they would like to work with, including Michael Anthony, this news of the formation of a “supergroup” is not official or confirmed.

Turner admits, “Carmine and I are longtime friends and we have talked over the years about working together on future projects. These are conversations musicians like us often have all the time. These conversations are not ‘official news’; it is just casual talk. Like many artists, we exchange ideas about people we would like to work with if given the chance. Names like Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Michael Anthony are all musicians we both admire but we never released any official news stating that we were planning to launch this so-called supergroup.”

Turner and Appice would like to specifically apologize to bassist Michael Anthony (Van Halen, Chickenfoot) and his fans for any confusion this rumor or any casual conversations might have caused.

Appice confirms, “We had nothing to do with the publishing of any of this news about this project and neither of us talked to any journalists or media people ‘on the record’ about a possible supergroup. Having said all this, Joe and I have worked together in the past and can’t rule out the possibility of working together in the future.”

Thanks to Lisa Walker for the info.

David Coverdale and Doug Aldrich continue to interview each other. They play and sing some blues too.

Thanks to Daniel Bengtsson for the info.

There seems to be a lot going on in the BCC camp these days, with PR campaign for the new album kicking into high gear and what not. So, instead of putting up a bunch of separate short news items we decided to consolidate them here.

You can absolutely legally download for free (in exchange for an email address) the song Confessor from the upcoming Afterglow album here.

Glenn Hughes’ appearance on a BBC morning show happened on September 19. You can watch the interview fragment where he talks about why he’s paying tribute to Jim Marshal and why his pinkie is in a cast (of sorts).

BCC’s apparently the only 2013 performance in UK, on January 5 in Wolverhampton, has been announced just a few days ago. Planet Rock even started a ticket presale. It has already been cancelled due to, as the press release puts it, “unforeseen circumstances”. People who have already purchased the tickets will receive a full refund.

Thanks to Daniel Bengtsson and Yvonne Osthausen for the info.

Paul Mann, who was instrumental in reviving of the Concerto for Group and Orchestra and is conducting the studio recording (to be released at the end of the month), has written a detailed essay on his engagement with its inspirational composer. The essay has been published in the Arts Journal.

The 28-year-old Jon Lord, with no experience at all of writing for orchestra, had a matter of three months in which to produce a full scale Concerto armed with nothing but Cecil Forsyth’s Orchestration, his prodigious imagination and a lot of coffee. Returning to his London flat each night, often after a Deep Purple gig, he spread himself out on the floor (he didn’t have a desk big enough) and composed in ink, straight into full score. (“I later learnt to use a pencil”, he said, somewhat ruefully.)

That the resulting work is so rich in invention, sound in structure, and sophisticated in craftsmanship says a great deal for the white heat of Jon’s inspiration. The fifty-minute piece broke new ground at the time, and seems only to have grown in stature across the intervening forty or more years.

Read more in the Arts Journal.

Thanks to Yvonne Osthausen for the info.