Last weekend BBC Channel 4 have aired a documentary called Heavy Metal Britannia that covers the earlier history of development of the hard and heavy music on the island, from You Really Got Me to The Number Of The Beast. A number of key figures of the era recall their first hand memories, including our own Ian Gillan and Jon Lord, as well as Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward, Mick Box, Rob Halford, Lemmy, Biff Byford, and Bruce Dickinson.

The documentary will be available for another 6 days for online viewing from the BBC. That is, if they think your internet connection is sufficiently “British”. The rest of us who would like to see it have to resort to other means.

Thanks to Daniel Bengtsson for the info.

Fame Games‘ Radio Show dedicated to the memory of John Coletta was aired in two parts back on July 19 and 26th, 2006. The show obviously covered a good chunk of Purple history with Derek Lawrence, among many other people, on the phone.
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French fans will receive a massive dose of Purple this year. First, the band will make a stop in the summer to play Festival les Deferlantes in a seaside town of Argelès-sur-Mer. They will head back to France in the Fall to tour every nook and cranny of the country in two legs: one from November 5 to 10th and another one from December 1 to 13th, for a total of whopping 16 dates in 2010. Tickets for most of the French dates are either already on sale or go on sale Tuesday, March 9th. Full details in our Purple calendar.

Note: as of the time of this writing, none of those dates have been confirmed by the band’s management. Update: all French dates have been confirmed on March 16.

Black Country, the new band featuring Glenn Hughes, Joe Bonamassa, Jason Bonham and Derek Sherinian, need to think up anew name.

“There is a band already called Black Country and their legal representatives have already reminded us of that fact,” Joe Bonamassa told Undercover.com.au.

Bonamassa told Undercover that the name was never have meant to have been made public when it was. “It jumped out of the gun. It got leaked inadvertently and it has spread like wildfire,” he saidr. “It wasn’t anybody’s fault, it just got leaked. Somebody overheard a conversation. The definition of overhearing a conversation is putting it online and acting if its fact”.

“We will finish this thing in March and we’ll have a united, clear-cut name. It is still a work in progress.”

If you like funny tour stories, and as a bonus, if you are a fan of any or all of Pink Floyd, David Gilmour, Coverdale-Page, Whitesnake, Bryan Ferry, Madonna, The Smiths, Michael Jackson, you should read bass player extraordinaire Guy Pratt‘s book “My bass and other animals”.

The Coverdale-Page/Whitesnake chapter is pretty short but as the rest of the book, very funny. Doing drugs and shopping for bootlegs in Tokyo with Jimmy Page (well, they got to pick whatever they needed, of course) is entertaining to read about. You also get another view of the big rock star David Coverdale. When Pratt was recording the Whitesnake “Restless Heart” album, he stayed at DC’s place in Lake Tahoe. Pratt got to lend a sweater and “a rather spiffing pair of jammies” from DC. He also forced Pratt to take a fishing trip with his tour manager close to his house.

“David called a couple of times to make sure I was all right/having a good time/warm enough/had a hanky/been to the loo.
(…)
Who would’ve thought that this giant, thrusting rock figure would turn out to be the Jewish mother I never had?”

In the small world that is British rock’n’roll, we can also note that Guy’s wife Gala Wright (daughter to Richard Wright from Pink Floyd) is best friends with Jon’s daughter Sara Lord. Pratt writes that he thinks that DC’s way with words are funny. When DC found out that Gala would bring Sara to DC’s house, the first time in 15 years DC had seen Sara, DC said:

“Sara? That Precious flower? Why bring her forth that I may rest my eyes upon her again!”

Pratt also mentions that DC did all his guide vocals during run-throughs in an octave lower than he did when he did the actual recording of the album. This apparently sounded much better but Pratt didn’t dare to tell him.

“But what was I going to say? ‘Hey, David, you know how that ball-busting heavy-metal singing’s all bollocks, yeah?'”

A small German company called BSM will present it’s new treble booster guitar pedal at the upcoming Musikmesse which will be held in Frankfurt at the end of March. The pedal aims at recreating the Mk2 Blackmore’s sound. BSM already has a line of booster pedals built to emulate the tone of various guitar players with several Blackmore models among them. They also have a series of well researched articles on their website on the finer points of Ritchie’s guitars and pickups, amps and pedals and the iconic Aiwa tape machine. They are worth reading for anyone interested in Blackmore’s gear or vintage electronics in general.

Billboard reports that Carlos Santana is going to record a cover of Smoke on the Water for his next album:

Santana hopes to keep the love going on his next album, another project overseen by [Sony executive] Davis that continues the guest-laden path of “Supernatural,” “Shaman” (2002) and “All That I Am” (2005) — only this time adding iconic rock songs to the mix. Among those are Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” with Thomas, the Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” with India.Arie and Yo-Yo Ma, Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing” with Joe Cocker, the Rolling Stones’ “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking ” with Scott Weiland, Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son.”

This Sunday February 28, Classic FM will air a brand new interview with Jon Lord along with an exclusive preview of his forthcoming album, To Notice Such Things.

The show goes out on Sunday, February 28 at 9pm GMT.

Listen online via http://www.classicfm.co.uk/ or find your local UK frequency: http://www.classicfm.co.uk/on-air/ways-of-listening/.

Jon Lord’s new album, To Notice Such Things, is released on March 29 through Avi Records. Read all about it on JonLord.org.

Leading up to the 44th Montreux Jazz Festival (which will be held in July), MontreuxJazz.com started a weekly column of ‘behind the scenes’ reminiscences. This week Claude Nobs recalls the events of the Casino fire in December 1971. Nothing really new in his story, but there are photos of the fire that I’ve never seen before.

And once you’re there, check out the festival gift shop that still has the 2006 posters.

Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov for the info.

Back in 2008 Metal-Temple.com published an interview with Neil Carter of UFO/Gary Moore/Wild Horses fame, who is now teaching music at Brighton College. Here are the juicier bits:

A special quote should be given for Glenn Hughes: your impression, working with him?

He was a great influence on me, I loved TRAPEZE and DEEP PURPLE although working with him, albeit briefly was a bit surreal. I am not even sure he registered I was there actually. He made Gary’s life hell at the time and the ‘old school ego’ was still very much to the fore. I hear he has found God now which is better than Mars bars.

And what about Cozy?

Same thing really. I was very disappointed it didn’t work out but, without speaking ill of the departed, he really was rather arrogant, a bit of a let down and didn’t live up to expectations.

Do you listen to any ‘current’ Rock/Metal music these days? In addition, do you still listen to your all-time heroes? Any gigs? QUEEN is touring with Paul Rogers, DEEP PURPLE and URIAH HEEP is still here, LED ZEPPELIN created hysteria when they announced they’d do one single show some months ago… Rock will never die, eventually?

No, sadly, and I haven’t been to a gig in years; in fact, the last one was Gary Moore when he played Brighton with WHITESNAKE. Gary was fine but David Coverdale looked like a pantomime dame and it all looked a bit ‘Vegas’ to me. We spent most of the time giggling. I see in my students the great affection for 70s Rock and it still touches young people so it won’t die. There were some really classic songs in that era and classic bands but some don’t know when to bow out gracefully it seems.

Thanks to Daniel Bengtsson for the info.