The promo video for Roger Glover’s single The Mask from 1984 has surfaced on Youtube.
Peter Lippman directed the video for Roger Glover and PolyGram Records. He writes:
‘Gotta say, this was a unique video to work on! Roger’s song is very interesting and he has excellent showmanship!’
The album showed yet another fascinating side to the varied musical skills within the Purple family, mixing slight hints of The Police and featuring (among others) David Rosenthal on keys and Chuck Bürgi on drums (who went on to join Rainbow).
Back in 2006 Deep Purple were booked to play at the Baalbeck International Festival in Lebanon. The show had to be cancelled due to war that broke out in that country. The band were still committed to play up until the last moment when escalating violence forced the organizers to cancel the event. This year Deep Purple will make up for the cancelled show and play at the Baalbeck on July 25. Several more July shows have been confirmed, in Switzerland, Greece and Turkey. Full details in our tour dates calendar.
The Perfect Strangers of Finland is organizing a second Purple Night, which is now becoming a good tradition. A project called 10 Perfect Women will perform music from Deep Purple, Rainbow and Whitesnake. 10 Perfect Women includes singers Maria Hänninen, Lotta Lené, Erja Lyytinen, Maya Paakkari and Marenne. The house band will be Joe Doakes, a group formed by experienced musicians related to bands like Thunderstone, Stratovarius, Kotipelto, The Milestones, and Revolution Renaissance. The whole night will be hosted by Heta Hyttinen and Mimmu.
The second Purple Night will be held on Saturday, January 17 at the Tavastia Club in Helsinki. Tickets can be purchased via www.tiketti.fi.
Kansas are celebrating their 35th anniversary this year with a gala performance at the White Concert Hall in Topeka, the eponymous state of Kansas. Both founding guitar player Kerry Livgren and Steve Morse are confirmed as special guests. Steve was a lead guitarist for Kansas between 1986 and 1989 and played on two of their albums: Power (1986) and In the Spirit of Things (1988). The concert will be recorded for the live DVD and Blue-ray “There’s Know Place Like Home”. More details at www.kansasband.com.
Jürgen “J.R.” Blackmore talks about his career, his father and the Over The Rainbow project in a recent interview with Rockinform Magazine:
Your father is Ritchie Blackmore. How do you feel about it, that he’s a legendary guitarist?
Jürgen: – Oh well……it was a very hard childhood time for me because everyone is looking at you, as if you are something special…but i wasnt’. I was just a normal boy and I hated it (the way people reacted). Mostly I never told anybody about my surname…I never bragged about it. But gossip travels fast in the music business…. so in the end people found it out. I am proud that my father is a great guitarist but I always only wanted a normal Dad.
Read more at the freshly inaugurated official Over The Rainbow Myspace page.
I remember my 14 year-old niece. She was wearing a t-shirt that said “The Beatles” as everyone in her school wore them.
I asked her if she ever listened to “The Beatles” and she replied “Who?” and I said “The Beatles, you know like your T-Shirt says.” and then she said “What kind of music do they play? Are they rappers or techno or heavy metal?” I said “No, they were Rock and Roll, classic Rock and Roll, like from the 1960’s.” and she said “What kind of songs did they play?” and I said “Yellow Submarine, Yesterday, A Hard Day’s Night, and a few others.” she said “They sound silly, are they still alive?” I said “No, two of them are dead.” and she said “Then how do they play their music, did they replace the two dead guys yet?” I said “They had like over 200 songs and they are trying to digitze them into new formats.” and she said “How can they digitize them when half the band is dead?” and I asked “How could you wear a Beatles logo T-shirt and not know who they are?” and she said “It is a fashion trend at our school, everyone is wearing them because our grandparents used to wear them. You know, Hippies and stuff like that. Retrofashion is so in now.”
All the Scandinavian dates that we had listed in our tour dates calendar for a while now are also confirmed. One more date was added: Meri Päivät (Sea Days) Festival in Kotka, Finland on July 17. (I know, technically Finland is not Scandinavia, but let’s not raise a fuss about it, shall we? )
Ian Gillan and Glenn Hughes, along with Brian May and Bryan Adams, will appear on Planet Rock in Tony Iommi’s Guestlist show on Sunday, January 11, at 10 pm. Planet Rock broadcasts worldwide via the internet.
Two tour legs have been confirmed by Deep Purple management: 6 dates in Japan in April and 4 dates in Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia in early May. Our tour dates calendar has the details.
As usual, please mail us any corrections, additional venue and info, etc.
Jon Lord has posted a comment on his website to recent press rumours of an impending Deep Purple Mark 3 reunion with Lars Ulrich offering himself for the drum stool:
‘It all seems like a lot of hot air and wild speculation to me,’ writes Jon Lord, and states that he has not been asked to be involved in a Mark III reunion – and even if he were, ‘I would not be able to even imagine it without the presence of Ian Paice.’
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Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing