Roger, Paicey, and Simon discuss Simon’s first gig with Deep Purple. Continue Reading »

Black Country Communion’s new album V is now out, and a new video for the track Letting Go has been released as well. Continue Reading »

Deep Purple have started their 2024 tour in earnest, and at the first show in Madrid on June 13 two new tracks were presented to the audience. The first one is marked in the setlist as Bleeding Obvious, while the title of the other one is still unknown most likely is A Bit On The Side. Continue Reading »

Metal Talk has a review of Black Country Communion’s new album V (due out tomorrow, June 14th). And this one is not shy with superlatives either.

Forget the Hanging Gardens Of Babylon or The Great Pyramid Of Giza; one of the true seven wonders of the world is the 72-year-old voice of Glenn Hughes.

In an age where the authenticity of both live and studio vocals are looked on in some quarters with suspicion, the purity of the Wolverhampton man’s pipes are beyond astounding. On the blues fuelled Red Sun and Restless it’s no exaggeration to say he is performing at an even higher level than when he parachuted into Deep Purple Mark III in 1973.

Read more in Metal Talk.

Blues Rock Review has a positively glowing review of the yet-to-be-released Black Country Communion V, and gives it 9.5 out of 10.

Not many modern outfits give me the itch to dust off my old Led Zep and Deep Purple records. Then again, Black Country Communion are no ordinary sons. A renowned supergroup that suffuse the sky with the black smoke and soot of the Black Country (an area of England’s West Midlands), and the patriotic stars and stripes of America, their camaraderie was (and thankfully still is) immediately evident.

If you thought classic rock was dead and that old-school punch had been knocked out long before 2010 (the year of BCC’s self-titled LP), allow me to introduce you to this outrageously talented line-up. Keyboard phenomenon Derek Sherinian (ex-Dream Theater) and blues-rock titan Joe Bonamassa make up the American contingent. The other half of this musical power plant are the two boys representing the Black Country — thunderous drummer Jason Bonham and the ageless, evergreen ‘Voice of Rock’ Glenn Hughes.

They pick out Red Sun as the big hit of the album.

Continue reading in the Blues Rock Review.

Guitar World is celebrating the 70th anniversary of Fender Stratocaster with an anecdote of how Blackmore bought his first one from an Eric Clapton’s roadie:

I was in Deep Purple in 1969, and I was living in Acton, London. We were all in the same house, the whole band, and Eric Clapton’s roadie came by the house because he knew one of my roadies, and he brought a Strat with him.

I think it was black. So I said to him, ‘Do you want to sell that guitar? It looks interesting, and I wanted to try out a Strat.’ He said, ‘I’ll sell it to you for £60.’ I said, ‘Okay, you’re on.’ So, for £60, I bought one of Eric Clapton’s old Strats that he obviously didn’t want because he gave it to the roadie.

That guitar was used to record Emmaretta, but was retired shortly after because of a bowed neck.

Thanks to Guitar World for the info.

Louder Sound has a article on Machine Head remix, based around an interview with Ian Gillan, with some contributions from Ritchie Blackmore, Dweezil Zappa, and Bruce Dickinson.

Couple of quotes from Big Ian:

I can see why [the record companies] are doing it. They have to make the music reach today’s audiences, I suppose. Everyone has to work their catalogue, so from a business point of view it makes complete sense. I think this new version will reach a lot of people who weren’t there at the time.

Roger and I were at my place in Portugal working on the new Purple album when we were sent the new version of Smoke On The Water, and we went: ‘Oh my God’. It’s hard for me to compare the two versions, because obviously one is ingrained in your mind over a very long period of time. But having said that, there’s also the fact that the Smoke On The Water that I know best is the one that we do on stage. From a subjective perspective, I’m quite happy with all of this.

Read more in Louder Sound.

Louder Sound reprints an old Classic Rock feature on the formation of Mark 2, from Chris Curtis to Fireball. This was originally penned by late Pete Makowski for the Re-Machined: A Tribute To Deep Purple special issue.

It all began when Chris Curtis, the former drummer/singer with Merseybeat band The Searchers, approached London businessman Tony Edwards in the spring of 1967 and told him, “You could be the next Brian Epstein. You should be my manager!” It makes no sense, but this invitation to handle these legendary, yet in truth fading, beat boomers led to Edwards, a clothier with rock biz aspirations, becoming involved with one of the most successful yet self-destructive bands in the history of heavy metal.

Chris Curtis was a legendary character, but pharmaceutically challenged by the excesses of the 60s, to the point where his Scouse mate George Harrison dubbed him, “Mad Harry”. Curtis quit The Searchers and intended to put together a trio called Roundabout. He envisaged a constantly changing line-up revolving around himself and two other musicians, fiery guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and classically trained organist Jon Lord.

Continue reading in Louder Sound.

As promised earlier, Sound & Vision publishes their full review of the 2024 Machine Head remix:

The more aurally adventurous among us are in for one helluva ride. Dweezil’s stereo remix will indeed grab you in somewhat unexpected ways (a la “Never Before”), but it’s in Atmos where Machine Head gets to do some literal space truckin’ nonpareil. “Highway Star” is a balls-out ferocious assault wherein you can discern the layers in Ian Gillan’s stacked lead vocal tracks and get blown over by the clockwise swoosh of the keys-and-guitar-solo section. The 1974 quad version of “Highway Star” is a bit more compartmentalized, though you really do feel Ian Paice pummeling his drum kit. Back in Atmos, Ritchie Blackmore’s searing guitar solo on “Smoke on the Water” takes to the upper stratosphere — and be sure to listen for the vocalized, FZ-related Easter egg at the very end. Jon Lord’s keyboard clinic all throughout “Lazy” in Atmos almost makes the 2012 5.1 mix seem like it’s, well, sleepwalking.

Read more in Sound & Vision.

Scenestr has a short interview with Simon McBride on the occasion of the impending release of =1.

When you join a band like that, as you mentioned all the iconic players, there’s always that little bit of expectation from the fans I believe. They all want you to play like they want you to play. Some of them want you to play like Ritchie, some of them want you to play like Steve or Tommy or Joe.

I said to [Don Airey], ‘I don’t know what to play. I don’t know whether to play like Ritchie or play this or do this’, and Don says: ‘Just play. Be yourself. Don’t worry about anything that Steve did or anything that Ritchie did. That’s history, this is a new thing. Just be yourself and just play.’

Read more in Scenestr.

Photo: Stefan Brending, cc-by-sa-3.0 de