Next week starting Monday October 10 Planet Rock will be running an unusual promotion for the Deep Purple UK tour in late November.

All next week we are going to be giving you the chance to do something most people can only dream of – you could be part of the road crew for one of the biggest bands of ALL TIME.

We will be giving you the chance to become a roadie at one of Deep Purple’s shows on their forthcoming UK tour.

You’ll be able to see what happens behind the scenes at the show, take part in putting the gig together, watch the sound check and then see the main show. It’s an extraordinary once in a lifetime opportunity for one lucky listener and we’ll be telling you how to get involved next Monday.

Black Country’s Communion Live Over Europe will be shown on US cable channel Palladia HD on October 22 at 9 pm and repeated on October 23, 12:00 am and 4:00 pm, October 26, 4:00 pm, and October 27, 11:00 pm (time zone not specified).

In the UK, it will premiere for one night only on November 1 at 7:30 pm in selected Vue Cinemas.

In related news, Glenn Hughes was featured in the Shockwaves / Hardradio podcast episode #54. You can listen to the podcast here.

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

Ritchie Blackmore and Candice Night recently spoke to Italy’s SpazioRock. Well, Ritchie mostly kept quiet leaving his missus and the interviewer to do the talking.

And this statement definitely proves wrong all those who – fifteen years later – still think that Ritchie Blackmore was somehow “pushed” by beautiful Candice into leaving Rainbow in order to found a band with her. In case anyone hasn’t realized yet, with “Sixteenth Century Greensleves” – released in 1975 when Rainbow made their debut – Ritchie was already stating his own ideals musically. Along these years your band has undergone many line-up changes, and I’ve wanted to ask you this for a long time: why did you choose not to make any official statement about the reasons of such changes?

Ritchie: Its not of importance or interest to people. I’ve done it too many times. Only the end result, the music, is what is of importance.

Now you are in Germany for the traditional tour through castles and medieval towns, and we will be there from Italy like we do every year. Playing in castles is fantastic, much better than theatres: why is it so hard to arrange a castle tour in Italy, even though our castles are among the most beautiful and fascinating in the world?

Ritchie: One word: promoters.

Candice: Unfortunately that’s true. Trying to organize a tour in Italy is incredibly difficult. Add to that the fact you want to play in beautiful castles instead of rock clubs and its almost impossible.

Read more on SpazioRock.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

On Wednesday, one of Scandinavia’s most classic venues burned down. KB Hallen in Copenhagen has seen many stars raise the heat in the hall and was of course the venue where the classic Deep Purple DVD from 1972 was recorded. Purple has played there many times after that. The latest DP related concert in the 3.000 capacity hall was Black Country Communion this summer.

There are now discussions between the owners of the hall and the city of Copenhagen if the hall can be rebuilt again. The hall has been rebuilt once before, when it was bombed by Danish nazis in 1944. Since it’s opening in 1938 lots of prominent names in music has played the venue, among them The Who, Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Led Zeppelin.

Deep Purple backstage at MK. III’s first gig in KB Hallen, December 9, 1973. (Photo: (c) Jørgen Angel)

Highway Star live in KB Hallen 1972.

Pictures from tv2.dk and Scanpix.

While the fans are still hoping and waiting for a new DEEP PURPLE studio album, most of the current band members release solo stuff or team up with other musicians for album projects: Ian Gillan joined forces with Tony Iommi to record two songs under the “Who Cares”-banner, Steve Morse teamed up with singer/songwriter Sarah Spencer to form “Angelfire” and Roger Glover revivied the Guilty Party to release “If Life Was Easy”.

Don Airey, not only playing on several third party albums also finished “All Out”, his second solo release since the latest PURPLE output “Rapture of the Deep”.

While “A Light In The Sky” used travelling through space and time as theme, “All Out” does the travel music-wise. The songs capture the mood, sounds and feelings of different points in time – the instrumental “Estancia” reminds of a modernized Emerson, Lake and Palmer while the inclusion of Bernie Marsden on “Running From The Shadows” brings some WHITESNAKE memories. “People In Your Head” offers another special guest – this time it’s Joe Bonamassa (trying to break Dons “albums I played on” record) who adds a BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION feel to the song. Two songs however fail to convince: the first is the Jimmy Hendrix cover “Fire” where the organ just doesn’t fit the overall picture  while “Tobruk” gets lost somewhere within its ten minutes.

With most songs sounding different than their neightbours, “All Out” offers a lot to discover but also leaves a feeling of being “just a bunch of songs” instead of something more monolithic. A good rock album – nothing less and nothing more.

Glenn Hughes will do two solo tours of the UK in the upcoming months. In November he will appear on a 5-date stint tied up to the paperback release of his autobiography (due on November 1 in North America and November 11 in the UK). These shows are billed as acoustical and including “excerpts from his life story”.

He will return to the UK in May 2012 for 3 solo performances, supported by Fish. Tickets for those went on sale last Friday.

Full details in our calendar.

Slipped Disc reports that Moray McMillin, Deep Purple’s front-of-the-house sound engineer between 1995 and 2004, has passed away. He died of lung cancer.

I had the privilege of meeting Moray on his last tour with Purple in 2004. A lovely man and a consummate professional. Anyone who wishes to pay final respects via a donation, please address them to the hospice that looked after him: The Hospice of Saint Francis, Spring Garden Lane, Berkhamsted, Herts, HP4 3GW, UK.

Roger Glover did an interview with the Swedish based Metal Shrine blog. He spoke about If Life Was Easy, divorce, fatherhood, Barbie Benton, Phil Collins, and touring with orchestras, among other things.

During all these years, were any of these songs stuff that you brought to Deep Purple or were they just made for a solo record?

RG: The thing about Deep Purple is that you don´t bring a song to a writing session, because they don´t like that. I mean, we don´t like that! If anyone brought in a song that was completely finished and all we had to do was copy it, neeehh, that´s not what Deep Purple is. Deep Purple starts its songs… I mean, we don´t write songs for start, they kind of evolve from a series of jams and really what you want to bring into a Deep Purple session, is just a riff or a chord sequence or a rhythm or a line or two and that´s all and then everyone else just kind of join in. There are a couple of ideas that I might have considered for Purple, but we had a writing session and a lot of my ideas went into the writing session anyway, and that was in March. There´s a Purple album bubbling under and we´ll get to it next year.

Read more on Metal Shrine.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

Black Country Communion has launched an official YouTube channel. It is promised to be updated on a weekly basis. The latest track posted is the Song of Yesterday (audio only) off the upcoming DVD Live Over Europe. You can also download MP3 of the track from their website.

Thanks to Guillermo Gonzalez for the info.

Don Airey will do a couple more radio appearances to promote his new solo album All Out.

On Wednesday, September 21st, he will appear on BBC Radio Cambridge in the Sue Marchant evening entertainment show. The show runs between 7 and 9 pm, with Don scheduled to appear between 8:00 and 8:30 pm. The show is also picked up by BBC Essex, BBC Radio Norfolk, BBC Radio Suffolk, BBC Three Counties Radio and BBC Radio Northampton. It should be available for listening online for 7 days after the broadcast.

On Monday, September 26th, he will appear on Planet Rock‘s Nicky Horne show. The show runs between 6 and 9 pm with Don scheduled to appear between 7:00 and 7:30 pm. Planet Rock broadcasts worldwide online.

Thanks to Nathan Sage for the info.