Klaus “Pyro” Porzia passed away. He was a great photographer and a dedicated Purple fan. One of us, people who love this band. I have met Pyro on several occasions while following Purple tours in Europe. He was always there, every single show, always with his cameras.

His nickname came from an incident before one of the concerts, when he accidentally put out his cigarette in a pyrotechnic contraption on stage, with spectacular consequences. Ever since everybody called him Pyro. He loved that name.

Steve Morse mentioned Pyro’s death in his latest note from the road and Roger Glover commemorated him on rogerglover.com. The band also have sent flowers to his funeral. They were the only musicians to do so. Nice touch on their behalf. The funeral took place on Friday, October 24, near Darmstadt, Germany.

You can see Pyro’s work at his Myspace page and in the artwork of recent Deep Purple and Gillan releases.

Rest in peace, Pyro.

Thanks to Michael Meier for the info and picture.

Steve Morse sends another message from the road. Junkyard Wars, “ticofi”, and in memoriam of Klaus “Pyro” Porzia — read it on stevemorse.com.

Thanks to Daniel Bengtsson for the info.

Deep Purple started it’s tour of Ukraine and Russia. On October 12 in Dnepropetrovsk they were greeted at the local airport by two girls in traditional costumes, welcoming the band with an ornate loaf of bread and a capella folk songs. This turned into an unexpected jam when Steve Morse pulled out his guitar to provide instrumental accompaniment for the singers.

Setlist for the most shows have been so far:

• Pictures of Home
• Things I Never Said
• Into The Fire
• Strange Kind of Woman
• Rapture of The Deep
• Contact Lost
• Well Dressed Guitar
• Mary Long
• Wring That Neck
• The Battle Rages On
• Don Airey solo
• Perfect Strangers
• Space Truckin’
• Highway Star
• Smoke On The Water
• Hush ~ Ian Paice Solo
• Black Night ~ Roger Glover Solo

Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming was also played in Cherkassy on October 17.

More pictures:

• Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, October 12: airport and hotel, concert
• Kiev, Ukraine, October 15
• Voronezh, Russia, October 20

Thanks to SubAqua and www.deep-purple.ru for the info.

In his latest installment of Notes from the road Steve Morse talks about his pet peeve — air travel, reminisces on the last tour leg, and touches on the topic that stirred so much controversy in THS comments:

Afterward, I was upset to learn that some bloggers had chosen to politicize, or criticise the band’s show being in Russia, forgetting that we play pretty much everywhere in the World for people. Generally, we just like music lovers, that’s all we ask for, doesn’t much matter geographically where, just as long as there are human beings who want to hear our music.

Read more on Stevemorse.com.

Thanks to Daniel Bengtsson for the info.

Crossword puzzles, Ritchie’s mother in law, and the Big Bang theory — what do they have in common? Read on. A very entertaining interview with Ian Gillan done by George Anasontzis.

Thanks to Kevin Dixon for the info.

Deep Purple’s appearance at The Sunflower Jam turned into a very different show, high on improvisation and special guests.

Introduced by Yes’ Rick Wakeman, Deep Purple got under way with Pictures of Home and a pumping start.

– That’s Johnny Lord!, exclaimed Ian Gillan after Hush with an extended solo from Jon Lord – and then Gillan introduced Wring That Neck from The Book of Taliesyn – ‘I must have been only 15 in those days.’

For the encores of their 65-minute set, Deep Purple were joined by Bruce Dickinson and Ade Omotayo from Amy Winehouse’s band. Together they did a rare version of Little Richard’s Lucille.

Read the full report and see all the photos at JonLord.org.

Roger Glover has contributed one of his paintings to Status Quo’s ‘Pictures’ Auction, which is taking place on November 5th at Bonhams in London. Proceeds of the sale will go to British charity Prince’s Trust.

Entrance to the auction will be strictly by invitation only, but from 1 October all of the paintings are viewable online. Online bidding for is available on Prince’s Trust website. Online bidding will finish at midday on November 5 and the highest bids will be transferred to the auction room with the highest online bidders given the opportunity to continue bidding.

Further information available on Status Quo’s website.

Roger’s painting is at Lot 14 and at the time of this writing highest bid for it is £45.

Thanks to Mike Paxman for the info.

Richard Hugh and Candice Lauren were pronounced husband and wife at 4:48 pm on October 5, 2008, at a small gathering of friends and family.

Update [Oct 15]: pictures from the wedding are available on Candice Night’s website. More pictures here.

Thanks to Mike Garrett for the info.

Yngwie ‘Unleash The Fury’ Malmsteen talks in a recent interview about Purple being his major influence:

How do you write? Music is in your blood isn’t it – are you the sort of guy that has music flowing through you all the time?

Well, in fact, it’s hard for me to listen to anything without hearing it as a producer does. You know, I wouldn’t have put that snare there or in that way. I can sit at home or anywhere and hear something and grab my guitar and start working with it. It was like when I first heard Deep Purple’s Fireball. My sister gave me Fireball and I was like, ‘wow’, and I went out and bought In Rock. I was eight years old and by the time I was ten I could play note for note Made In Japan. In fact I heard Made In Japan before I heard Machine Head. When I did hear Machine Head I thought ‘mmm this sounds quiet you know’.

Now I’m getting a bit out of my depth here, but I would say your music is more Bach or Vivaldi influenced than, say, Purple.

Let me tell you, yesterday I was doing something for television with VH1 and their thing was to ask everyone, ‘who was the most influential heavy rock band Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin?’ When it came to me I said Deep Purple. They looked at me like I was crazy. But it was hearing the power of In Rock that did it. I can remember seeing Hendrix on television and watching him burn his guitar. Then I listened to In Rock and that was it. I knew what I wanted to be.

In case you’re interested, the interview is in Blogcritics Magazine.

Peter Brkusic (drummer from Nasty Habits) writes:

I’m very sorry that I must inform you that the 3 shows from Nick Simper & Nasty Habits in November in Austria and Germany are cancelled. We are very sorry for all the fans who are waiting to see us but Nick has very serious private reasons for that.

We hope to play this shows in spring next year.

We all at The Highway Star sincerely hope that the “very serious private reasons”, whatever they are, will not turn out to be really serious and the gigs will be rescheduled next year.

Good luck to Nick and the Nasty Habits.