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.

Thanks to Lisa Walker for the info.

For now particular reason. Just made me burst.

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.”

As told by Orion Blastar.

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.

Thanks to Mike McBain for the info.

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.

Thanks to Monika Schwarz for the info.

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.’

Read the full story on JonLord.org.

Rumours of a Mk3 reunion have been flying around for a while now, always turning to sum up to about exactly nothing. In the most recent resurrection of the idea, Peter Makowski of Classic Rock talks about it like of a definite possibility:

In separate interviews David Coverdale, Glenn Hughes and Jon Lord have all intimated they would be up for it, and all parties have recently been in contact with Ritchie Blackmore.

The interviews in question will appear in the February issue of Classic Rock Magazine which goes on sale (even in it’s home country) tomorrow, so we’ll have to take his word on it. But as recently as in 2007 Coverdale stated in no nonsense terms that he has not agreed to a Mk3 reunion “in any way, shape or form” and that “now it’s Whitesnake time” for him. “The Whitesnake time” is going pretty well so far, with the new album, awards and all. And the criticism of David’s vocal conditions notwithstanding, the tour still has to hit the highly lucrative North American market.

Now, hypothetically speaking of course, if this particular wave of rumours turned out to be true, this still leaves open the little question of who’ll bang the skins for them. Makowski speculates:

In fact the only block to the band re-forming, surprisingly enough, could be Ian Paice who as a member of the current Purple would probably find it difficult and uncomfortable to get involved.

Enter Lars Ulrich, a self-professed hardcore Purple fan:

I know there’s talk about the fact that if they got Coverdale, Hughes, Lord and Blackmore together they would have four members who aren’t in the current Deep Purple – then they just need a drummer, I’ll volunteer myself for that [laughs].

If they need a drummer, David Coverdale has my number.

Keeping in mind the hypothetical spin on the whole story, would Ulrich be the right man for the job in the first place? From everything I’ve heard from Metallica, his style is very different from Paice. He’s a drummer of the “bombastic” school of John Bonham, Cozy Powell and Bobby Rondinelli. Paicey, on the other hand, grew up on the music of the Big Band drummers — Gene Kruppa, Buddy Rich, Max Roach. Which makes him rather unique among the hard rock drummers. The two can hardly be any more different.

But then again, after the banjo player took a hike, they’ve got Steve Morse. To make things any more different, they must have gotten John MacLaughlin.

And it worked out pretty well.

Discuss.

Thanks to Blabbermouth.net and Classic Rock for the info.

Update (Jan 6): Jon Lord has posted a comment on his website where he states that first, he has not been asked to be involved in any kind of reunion, and second, he can’t imagine this happening without Ian Paice.

The wedding & Christmas special issue of the Blackmore online fanzine Cartouche is out.

In this issue:

• news from the marriage of Ritchie and Candice
• retrospective reviews of Christmas Carols and Beyond The Sunset
• interviews with Candice, Carole, members and entourage of Blackmore’s Night
• review of the Blackmore’s Night Christmas performance in Long Island
• messages from the fan clubs and street teams from around the world
• lots of pictures

As usual, Mike and Kev did a splendid job putting it all together.

The fanzine is available for free:

• JPEG files: Photobucket, Myspace
• or download the PDF file for offline reading/printing

Thanks to Kevin Dixon for the info.

UK digital radio station Planet Rock has complied another indispensable top list that we can get upset over and correct to our own liking. Because we always know best, don’t we?

The Greatest Voice in Rock Top 40 was compiled by the station’s DJs, presenters and listeners with the help of musicians, rock critics and experts such as Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi, Phil Manzanera from Roxy Music, Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin biographer Mick Wall.

And here are the results from the aforementioned jury:

1. Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin)
2. Freddie Mercury (Queen)
3. Paul Rodgers (Free/Bad Company/Queen)
4. Ian Gillan (Deep Purple)
5. Roger Daltrey (The Who)
6. David Coverdale (Deep Purple/Whitesnake)
7. Axl Rose (Guns ‘N’ Roses)
8. Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)
9. Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones)
10. Bon Scott (AC/DC)
11. David Bowie
12. Jon Bon Jovi (Bon Jovi)
13. Steven Tyler (Aerosmith)
14. Jon Anderson (Yes)
15. Bruce Springsteen
16. Joe Cocker
17. Ozzy Osbourne
18. Bono (U2)
19. Peter Gabriel
20. James Hetfield (Metallica)
21. Janis Joplin
22. Chris Cornell (Audioslave/Soundgarden)
23. Roger Chapman (Family)
24. Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy)
25. Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple)
26. Steve Perry (Journey)
27. Jim Morrison (The Doors)
28. Alex Harvey (The Sensational Alex Harvey Band)
29. Rob Halford (Judas Priest)
30. Ronnie James Dio (Dio/Rainbow/Black Sabbath)
31. Sammy Hagar (Van Halen)
32. Meat Loaf
33. Alice Cooper
34. Geddy Lee (Rush)
35. Brian Johnson (AC/DC)
36. David Gilmour (Pink Floyd)
37. Fish (Marillion)
38. Dave Lee Roth (Van Halen)
39. Biff Byford (Saxon)
40. Neil Young

This one is for the science geeks. You’ve all heard Smoke On The Water, perhaps several times too many. But ever wondered what it looks like? Here’s your big chance. An inventor from Norway demonstrates his gas burner that visualizes sound waves (in quite ingenious way, I must say). A tank of propane gas, a long pipe with lots of small holes and a membrane at the end, and a speaker. Now fire up the burner, hook up a guitar to the speaker and play. And what they’re playing? You’ve guessed it.

Thanks to Anders Danielsen for spotting this and for the translation.