We have closed our comments yesterday due to a quickly deteriorating signal-to-noise ratio. Unfortunately, our warning was ignored by the intended recipients.

Our comments facility was never intended to be a public forum. It is simply a quick and convenient way to contact us, to provide feedback to the stories or ask relevant questions. Consequently, we have to read each and every comment. Apparently some of our readers can not fathom this nor can they apply the simple rule of “if you have nothing to say, say nothing”. (We can name names, but you and we know who they are.)

The comments will be open again soon. This time all comments will be pre-moderated. No comment will appear on THS automatically like before, but only after an approval from one of the editors. Comments will be approved or rejected based on relevance, (lack of) redundancy and the manner in which a particular opinion is expressed.

No, we don’t see a contradiction between moderation and freedom of speech. This is not a public soapbox where anyone can post whatever they want. We expect our readers to behave, otherwise we may be forced to throw them out. Any ‘dissidents’ are free to go and start their own website and set their own rules. That’s how freedom of speech works on the internet.

While this new setup will give us more unnecessary moderation work, we hope it will also make visiting The Highway Star a more enjoyable experience for the vast majority of our readers.

Thank you,
The Highway Star Crew

Ian Gillan stopped in The Netherlands Belgium on his way to Dubai to appear on TV talk show. Watch his appearance to learn about adrenaline problems, who is Dan, and what do Japanese firemen have in common with Brazilian strippers.
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Bob Ruggiero of The Houston Press did an interview with Ian Gillan. There is some typically Gillan anecdotage besides the usual story behind his latest album:

The funniest thing was when we did the tour for House of Blue Light in the late ’80s and somebody, without telling me or the rest of the band, decided to get a modern stage set. I mean, we don’t mind having a screen behind, but this was like the deck of Star Trek or something. Anyway, I was appalled and it was a shock to me.

It was the opening night of the tour in Austin, so I went down to this fine joke shop. I bought about 20 plastic urinals and managed to attach them to the stage set all around, so it made it appear as if the whole stage was one giant washroom. I even stuck one on the front of Jon [Lord’s] Hammond organ. And of course, the Texas girls in the old days were, uh, second to none!

Read it online at the Houston Press’ Classic Rock Corner.

Thanks to Bob Ruggiero for the info.

Both Jon Lord and Glenn Hughes are confirmed to appear at the ChildLine Rocks 2009, which will be held on June 1 at the indigO₂ in London. Last year’s Childline Rocks have seen the first appearance of Glenn Hughes and Ian Paice together on stage since 1976.

ChildLine Rocks is an annual rock concert to raise funds for the UK charity helping children in distress or danger. Trained volunteer counsellors comfort, advise and protect children and young people who may feel they have nowhere else to turn.

Sons Of Albion, Jessie Hunter, Andy Newmark, Tyson Schenker and Molly Marriott will also perform at the event.

Childline supporter and radio DJ Bob Harris says:

Glenn was with us last year for Childline Rocks and was an absolutely unbelievable success, he was the star of the night in many ways. So we invited him to come back again, so he’s flying in from Los Angeles especially for the concert. We have got Steve Balsamo from one of my favourite bands The Stories and have got Justin Hawkins previously with The Darkness now with his new band (Hot Leg).

Thanks to BraveWords and metro.co.uk for the info.

There will be a couple of Tommy Bolin specials on the US college radio in the coming months.

Saturday May 2nd, KUNM 89.1 FM in Santa Fe / Albuquerque, New Mexico, along with Dr. Rock & The Psychedelic Radio Head~Shoppe will be hosting a three hour Tommy Bolin radio special from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Central Time. Special call in guests will be Alphonse Mouzon and Johnnie Bolin. The show is also carried by KBOM 88.7 FM Socorro, KRRT 90.9 FM Arroyo Seco – Taos, KRRE 91.9 FM Las Vegas, and KRAR 106.9 FM Espanola. You can listen to KUNM online with MP3 and QuickTime streams available (kudos to the radio station for making it work without any fuss).

KRFC 88.9 FM in Ft. Collins, Colorado, with Chris K and The Colorado Sound will host a two-hour special on Tommy Bolin on Saturday, June 13 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Central Time. Expected guests are Tommy’s brother, Johnnie Bolin, Stanley Sheldon (of Peter Frampton fame) and Bobby Berge (Energy). The show is also carried in Colorado by KBUT and the Mountain Public Radio. You can listen to KRFC online (kudos to them too).

Thanks to Trace Keane and Blabbermouth for the info.

This was kept under a tight lid for a while, but with the official announcement now imminent, we were given the green light. Remember, you’ve read it here first.

Iron Maiden did a bold move with their Flight 666 project, but let’s face it — Sydney, Tokyo, Los Angeles and Rio are hardly unique places for a band to play. Deep Purple are known to boldly go and play where no band of such calibre has played before, be it on the snow high up in the Alps, at 8 o’clock in the morning on a London street, above the Polar circle under the midnight sun, or inside the communist China.

This coming New Year’s Eve the band will play under the midnight sun once again. yes, that’s right — in one of the most inhospitable places on the face of the Earth — the South Pole. The project is financed by an anonymous benefactor and sponsored by the Airbus Industries, who are giving them the use of one of the brand spanking new A380 Superjumbo jets in exchange for publicity. During one of the breaks in the busy touring schedule, Steve Morse will go to Toulouse to undergo training on the gigantic airliner that can take up to 800 passengers.

On December 31, Captain Morse and the band, accompanied by all their gear, press entourage and a film crew, will board Purple Air Flight 001 (freshly painted in appropriate colours) in Australia and fly to the South Pole. Once there, a portable stage will be unloaded from the cargo bay and set up on the ice, and the band will perform an open air gig for the staff of the the Amundsen-Scott Polar Station, toast the New Year, pack everything up and fly back. It is also our understanding that a very special guest will be joining the band on stage. The concert footage will be used for the upcoming muti-DVD box set Live Around The World Vol.2: Where No Band Has Gone Before.

There will be very limited number of seats available for the fans. They will be sold on a first come first serve basis. Watch this space for further details.

Next year the band will start training for a flight to space to perform on the Moon. NASA and the European Space Agency are already busy at work on reducing the weight of the Hammond organ.

Thanks to Hubert Jesslilt for the info.

We have a bunch of new Whitesnake summer dates. The European leg of the tour has lost the Classic Rock Festival in Norway (where the parent company went bankrupt), but gained a gig in Århus, Denmark on June 1.

The North American tour of corporate sheds on both coasts and open air festivals in the Midwest will start on June 26 and work it’s way around the continent until August 11. And we use the ‘North American’ moniker in a very broad sense as it includes only one date outside of the US — July 7 in Toronto, Canada. Many of these dates will indeed be on a double bill with Judas Priest, and whatever indications are available at this time point to Whitesnake opening for Priest.

Full details in our Purple Calendar.

Please note that the North American dates (nor the new Danish show) have not been confirmed on Whitesnake.com.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

A classic Purple interview with Ritchie Blackmore, conducted by Chris Welch and originally published in Melody Maker on September 26, 1970:

When Deep Purple smashed up their equipment on a TV show recently, there were howls of protest throughout the land. A flood of complaints hit MM’s Mailbag, and there were rumbles of discontent from Caithness to Beccles.

Chief among the targets for abuse is Purple guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore, a mild-mannered, dark-haired chap who occasionally sets fire to his amplifier.

(Don’t you love the British sense of humour?)

What did he think of all this controversy?

“Well, it’s better than nothing,” he smiled slightly, sipping tea. “The TV show from the South Bank just didn’t go off as well as we expected. It was a tele-recording, and they cut out some of our numbers and just showed the climax, which was annoying. Apparently the sound was bad and everything was cut to pieces. We just did our usual stage act and it didn’t come off. But so what? If we want to do it—we will. We’ll be changing our stage act completely soon. A lot of people have seen it now—especially reporters.”

Ritchie talked about his early influences: “I used to idolize Les Paul and Wes Montgomery. But it’s more of a challenge for me to play rock than jazz, and control a 200-watt amplifier. Sure rock is harder to play than jazz. You see, rock is so limited. In jazz, you can play anything. I don’t think there is a single guitarist who has MASTERED rock guitar playing.”

Read the whole interview at Wolfgang’s Vault.

We have previously featured the Southbank Summer footage discussed in the interview. Sadly, it’s no longer available on YouTube, but will be included on the upcoming History, Hits & Highlights 1968-76 2 DVD set to be released in June.

Thanks to Jim Collins for spotting the interview.

Gillan did another radio appearance on the weekend, this time on Planet Rock in the UK. We apologise that we have not been able to give you an advance notice. The show will be repeated on Tuesday, March 31, at 6 p.m.

We’ve got a couple of great features this weekend, starting on Saturday when Ian Gillan drops into the studio for My Planet Rocks

Tune in to hear Ian talk about his new album One Eye To Morocco, about his time in Deep Purple and their upcoming tour and of course the music that influenced him in the early days.

My Planet Rocks is on Saturday at 6pm, and repeated on Tuesday at 6pm.

Thanks to Doug A for the info.

Ian Gillan did an interview with UltimateGuitar.com and by all accounts he was as baffled as we are that a guitar site wants to interview him. Besides the obligatory talk of his new album, some insights into Big Ian’s reading habits, early music influences, and mildly amusing anecdotage have floated:

Two to three weeks ago, I took part in a photograph session in Milan. It was quite weird, actually. Quite a few girls were present, such as my personal assistant, the hairdresser girl, the makeup girl, the translator, etcetera etcetera. Quietly in the background, they gave ‘One Eye to Morocco’ a spin.. They chattered over the album, and no-one really listened. I saw something in the corner of my eyes though; I tried to concentrate on having my photograph taken, and noticed all their bums moving. I thought “Ahh. Mission accomplished here”. That’s exactly what I wanted. As opposed to Deep Purple type material, you might describe ‘One Eye to Morocco’ as more thrusting. The album is much more intimate, and seductive.

And as for the plans of Purple’s next album, the answer is not encouraging at all:

Could you provide an update regarding Deep Purple’s plans for the next several months?
Well, we have shows booked up until January 2010.. I’m just home for a day or two to do some laundry. We’ll be performing little one nighters in Brussels, Berlin and Dubai, and then we’ll perform dates in Japan, Russia, and a batch of European concerts. We have shows booked in South Africa and North America, as well as a UK tour in November. We’ll then tour France over Christmas and January, and on it goes.
Are there plans to record Deep Purple’s nineteenth studio album?
There are no plans, no. It’s like everything, I guess. We don’t make plans – it’ll just happen.

Read the whole interview

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.