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Deep Purple (Overseas) continue their expansion into the digital world with a republishing of the original Sunbury ’75 event program on the Kindle format.

The Sunbury Rock Festival was an annual Australian rock music festival held on
a 620-acre private farm between Sunbury and Diggers Rest, Victoria, which was
staged on the Australia Day (26 January) long weekend from 1972 to 1975. It
attracted up to 45,000 patrons and was promoted by Odessa Promotion as
Australia’s Woodstock. The Sunbury Pop Festivals signalled the end of the
hippie peace movement of the late 1960s and the beginning of the reign of pub
rock. In 1975 Deep Purple were head-liners.

Also due soon are reproductions of the Rainbow 1976 and 1978 tours…..

more details here

with thanks to Dr Drew Thompson

Ian Gillan was recently interviewed by The Express and Star newspaper about the upcoming Deep Purple tour in the UK.

For a man with no ambition he seems to have achieved rather a lot and there is no sign of that stopping any time soon, with Deep Purple and their 38-piece orchestra descending on Birmingham’s LG Arena on Sunday, November 27, 2011, on their ‘The Songs That Built Rock’ tour.

Gillan winces at the name of the tour: “Don’t get me into that. The title of the tour, well it’s a marketing thing. It just seems a little trite to me but I guess you’ve got to name it something.”

With a history over four decades and counting, it’s not the first time that Deep Purple have worked with orchestras of course, most famously when performing former keyboard player Jon Lord’s Concerto For Group And Orchestra with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1969 at the Royal Albert Hall.

“Jon Lord with his orchestra composition, brought all of those elements. Ian Paice, big band swing, of course. Ritchie with his studio experience, rock and roll and all that sort of thing. I had my soul music and blues. So there’s a great deal of structure in these songs that lend themselves to different interpretations. This is a new interpretation for us and it’s very exciting.

Gillan continues: “The orchestra is very much integrated into the band. We don’t actually use them on every song. There are some songs where there’s no validity for having an orchestra, which makes it even more dynamically interesting during the show.

“It’s fantastic, when you hear something like Perfect Strangers, the orchestra gives such power to the riffs and to the structure of the song. And then you hear them swing like a train on songs like Lazy. It’s incredible, it’s quite an experience.

“It’s totally different to an ordinary Deep Purple show. It’s edgy, very edgy . . . with lots of mistakes!”

Read more about the upcoming tour and the plans (or not….) for a new record: http://www.expressandstar.com/entertainment/2011/10/25/deep-purple-and-orchestra-to-play-birmingham-lg-arena/

The official Deep Purple video channel has posted a brief interview with Colin Hart:

Colin’s new book A Hart Life is out (well, almost) on Wymer Publishing in the UK.

Thanks to Yvonne Osthausen for the info.

Last week Jon Lord was working at the Abbey Road in London on the studio recording of the Concerto for group and orchestra with Paul Mann, Joe Bonamassa, Kasia Laska and Steve Balsamo.

Kasia Laska tweeted on October 14:

Just bought a ticket to London. Going to record Concerto For Group and Orchestra part next week. So happy!

And later, on October 20:

Oh,And guess who was there?Yes, Jon Lord.It was so great to see him again!

Bonamassa writes on Facebook:

Great day in London.. Thank you Scott at Classic Rock for the great hang and to the wonderful Jon Lord for allowing me to play guitar on his symphony today.. It was such an honor and a thrill for me.

Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov and Yvonne Osthausen for the info.

Teenage Cancer Trust is holding an eBay auction for a pair of tickets and backstage passes for any one of the four Deep Purple UK shows:

• Glasgow, November 26
• Birmingham, November 27
• Manchester, November 29
• London, November 30

The auction closes on October 23. The tickets and passes have been donated by Roger Glover.

Thanks to Lee Worrall for the info.

Ultimate Guitar has a new interview with Roger Glover. He talks about If Life Was Easy, the state of music, his influences, his producer work, Purple history and present day, and many other things.

Episode Six came out of the English music scene in the late 1960s when everyone from Led Zeppelin to the Jeff Beck Group were around. That must have been a truly spectacular time.

It was although at the time it just seemed like a time. It’s only looking back that you realize how important or magical it was. It was the end of the ‘60s or probably even in the middle of the ‘60s, it was when the artists took over and it wasn’t the music business anymore—it was the music. And the music generated everything and all of a sudden you could sing about anything; you could play in any style; there was a great deal of freedom going on.

The music business today is completely different—bands don’t seem to have that same sort of unlimited expression.

It’s not quite the same now although it’s changing; it changes all the time. But for the great deal over the last 20 years or so, it’s been very, very business-driven. I don’t know how I feel about that—actually I do know how I feel about that and I’m just trying to be polite.

No need to be polite here.

Musicians shouldn’t be pawns in the money trade. Of course that’s gonna go on but a good musician is not gonna allow himself to do that. Not necessarily a good musician but a good artist is gonna follow his own bent and if it goes against the grain actually that’s probably a better thing. Because if you seem to be chasing money, success and fame, that’s got no credibility to it whatsoever. I think you have to be true to your roots and your instincts.

Read more on Ultimate Guitar.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

A 48 minute edit of this year Deep Purple’s appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival apparently has been shown on the Swiss channel TSR2. The complete show will be released on DVD and blue-ray on November 7 via Eagle Rock. Meanwhile, here’s a preview:
Continue Reading »

Rick Freeman offered us for publication an interview with Doogie White that he did recently.

Rick: How did the solo album come about? Hard to believe that this is your first!

Doogie: Well I had a great many songs kicking around that I had written over the years and during the down time after parting from Yngwie I decided to record an album. You either step up or get off.

Rick: Did you go into the studio with songs to record or did you work them out during the sessions?

Doogie: The songs were all demoed with the other writers and sent out to the musicians. They then played and recorded their parts and Pontus Norgren put it all together.

Rick: When you write a song what comes first, the Title, the lyrics or the music?

Doogie: It can go either way. I tend to have lots of scraps of paper or notebooks with ideas lying around. I also tend to put ideas down on a small recorder for riffs or melodies. It’s a very organic spontaneous way of working. Sometimes someone will send me music and I have to work round that.

Rick: What was the atmosphere like in the studio making your first solo album, were you the “Boss” or did you work as a band?

Doogie: I did have final say on what was included but the musicians are all top class and know their craft so it was never a problem.

Rick: In retrospect, do you think you should have recorded a solo album earlier as opposed to working with so many others?

Doogie: Well the songs have been ready for a while, but I was so busy with various other musical endeavors that to have released it any earlier would have left me competing with myself. I am happy with everything.

Rick: Do you look at your volume of work as a time of learning, a great experience?

Doogie: It’s not anything I have reflected on. From Cornerstone to Tank and all in between have been great fun to do, even in the more challenging of times or when the well is dry. But it’s all a journey that I am pleased to be on.

Rick: The first thing I noticed is that this is a guitar album in the vein of AC/DC, and The Rolling Stones among others not in the style of a guitar virtuoso.

Doogie: Well I did the guitar virtuoso stuff with others and this was to be a strong song adventure. However, there are very strong guitar performances from the chaps. “Secret Jesus” was the first song written after I left Rainbow and had no solo in it at all but Phil Hilborne found a gap and put a blistering flurry of sonic loveliness in there.

Rick: Are you paying homage to groups that you like on this album? In the intro I hear a echo of “Kashmir”. “Come Taste The Band” just the title along seems to be a tip of the hat. “Catz Got Yer Tongue” is Rock and Roll from the title to the final beat. I can hear AC/DC easily recording this one. The first two words “Brown Sugar” had me smiling.

Doogie: The song CTTB, the first song on the album, was written for my Rainbow audition in the style of Mk4 Deep Purple. Ritchie liked the song and thought it was cheeky of me to do it. It’s the song that I guess people expected me to do, so its first and the only song like that on the album. Catz is from the same writing session.

Rick: Tell us about this fantastic group of musicians you have assembled.

Doogie: I did not want it to be a band but a group of friends making great music. So I asked people who I had traveled the rock n roll world with to join in and they all did. We worked round everyone’s schedule. Of everyone I asked only Ritchie declined.

Rick: Do you plan to tour or just play a few selected shows to support “As Yet Untitled”?

Doogie: I record albums hoping to take the music to the live arena. This one is no different. Talks are taking place.

Rick: You are in such demand. You along with Paul Rodgers are the only two singers that seem to be able to not only fit in but, sing anything. I can see you fronting Queen, and Aerosmith among others. I personally enjoyed your work with Jon Lord. I hope that you will work with him again in the future. With everything going on with Tank, recording with Kruk, Demon’s Eye to name a few I was surprised you found the time for a Solo CD. Was it hard to squeeze in the time?

Doogie: Wow!! That’s a statement!! I am just a singer who happens to sing rock music because I love it. I have done sessions for publishing companies for pop songs but I don’t really get the vibe. I love big guitars. There are 52 weeks in a year I try to work, if I can, in most of them. To work with Jon Lord was a serious highlight for me and if I have one wish it is that I get to sing with Jon again, hopefully in 4 or 5 years time.

Rick: At the moment you are recording with Tank, correct?

Doogie: We are writing the new album between doing shows. There is pressure for this one as the last one “War Machine” was so strong. It’s coming together quite well, we will write 15, record 12 and put 10 on the album.

Rick: Can you tell us about any other projects you have in the works?

Doogie: Not at the moment. I am concentrating on promoting the solo album and looking at tour dates. Also with Tank live shows and a new album in the works that will take me to Christmas.

Rick: One last question, is there anyone you would like to work with that you have not?

Doogie: I wrote and performed with Michael Schenker and hope we can do more together. I would quite like to challenge myself with Tony Iommi but I guess every singer in rock would love to do that. Also I would like to finish what Ritchie Blackmore and I started in 94. It seems unfinished to me. I think that’s wishful thinking though.

Rick: Thank you for your time. Best wishes for the album “As Yet Untitled”. Very enjoyable, both the album and the interview.

Doogie’s new solo album As Yet Untitled will be released via Metal Mind on October 24 in Europe and November 7 in the US.

Track list:

1. Come Taste The Band
2. Time Machine
3. Dreams Lie Down And Die
4. Lonely
5. Land Of The Deceiver
6. Secret Jesus
7. Sea Of Emotion
8. Catz Got Yer Tongue
9. Living On The Cheap
10. Times Like These

Personnel:

• Patrick Johansson (Yngwie Malmsteen) – Drums
• Thomas Broman (Glenn Hughes) – Drums
• Derek Sherinian (Black Country Communion) – Keyboards
• Tony Carey (Rainbow) – Keyboards
• Neil Murray (Whitesnake) – Bass
• Greg Smith (Ted Nugent) – Bass
• Paul Logue (Edens Curse) – Bass
• Pontus Norgren (Hammerfall) – Guitar
• Marcus Jidell (Royal Hunt) – Guitar
• Phil Hilborne (Queen Musical) – Guitar
• Mick Tucker (Tank) – Guitar
• Patti Russo (Meatloaf, Cher) – Guest vocals

Preorder the album from a store near you:

Trevor Morris, a student at Ravensbourne College, is working on a research project and is hoping to gain some insight from the Deep Purple fan community. He looking for your views on the following:

1. When attending a concert, what are the main issues with finding your way to the event?
2. How do you tend to order tickets? Online, through an app, over the phone, mail order etc?
3. Have you ever experienced a VIP service provided by either Deep Purple (perhaps a competition), or one provided by the venue? If so, what was the experience, what stood out to you and could it have been improved? If no – if you were to attend an concert as a VIP, what would you expect?
4. What is your age?

Please email your answers to Trevor at createdbytrev@gmail.com