Finally the remastered Stormbringer arrives. A few Day One observations…

The 2LP is of course gorgeous with the colours brought out much better on the lavish gatefold sleeve which feels terribly luxurious. A really nice move. Thank you!

Sadly the fascinating rehearsal photos from Clearwell Castle are actually smaller on the vinyl bags than in the CD booklet. Check out the Blackmore and Lord stares. Also the revised and simplified Mk 3 logo on the front doesn’t fit the artwork as well as the original version which had more colour. Nit picks – discuss!

The vinyl remains unplayed yet, but the CD bonus tracks are an instrumental take of High Ball Shooter (previously available on the Listen Learn Read On box set?) and four new remixes by Glenn Hughes:

Ritchie’s solo in Holy Man sounds strangely subdued (Glenn will join Roger on Blackmore’s blacklist of disrespectful remixers!). You Can’t Do It Right features a crunchier bass and a more commanding opening synthesizer fill. Coverdale’s vocals are louder and come from a different vocal take altogether. Lord’s synth solo in the middle is louder (and excellently so!). There is an extra organ solo towards the fadeout and some weird guitar sounds that are more aimless dooddling than an actual solo.

Again, the guitar solo over fade-out of Love Don’t Mean A Thing sounds distant, while Hold On also features different and more raw vocal takes altogether from both Glenn and Coverdale. These are very nice and add a new freshness. Jon’s electric piano solo is also slightly louder – thank you!

Overall the remixes are mainly of interest in the vocal department. Glenn Hughes has brought out the vocals more (both his own and Coverdale’s), but at the expense of some of the other instruments. The choice of tracks to remix is both weird and highly predictable as they seem to be Glenn’s personal favourites.

They are not at all representative of the album, and allowing Glenn to remix just those four tracks gives the remastered album an uneven feel – and in choice and execution they perfectly illustrate the issues that originally made Ritchie pack his bags!

It’s unfortunate that not more unreleased historical material could be included. Coverdale nixed an early and very different take of Soldier of Fortune (shame!) so we are left to feast on Glenn Hughes’ questionable remixes and the quad mixes on disc two.

Anyway, the original album of course sounds wonderful, so the bonus stuff shouldn’t scare you away. 🙂

Almost a year ago Russian band Pushking started working on their new album called The World As We Love It (working title: Pushking Duets). The goal of the project appears to be essentially similar to Gillan’s Inn — re-record an album worth of old numbers with guest appearances from as many big name musicians as possible (although, in all fairness, I don’t think most of the guests ever heard of this band before, unlike of Gillan).

So far, with the help of producer Fabrizio Grossi they have secured contributions from an impressive list of rock luminaries — including several members and relatives of the Purple Family — Glenn Hughes, Joe Lynn Turner, Graham Bonnet, Matt Filippini, John Lawton, Udo Dirkschneider, Dan McCafferty, Steve Lukather, Eric Martin (ex-Mr. Big), Jeff Scott Soto, Alice Cooper and his guitarist Keri Kelli, Steve Stevens (Billy Idol), Joe Bonamassa, Jorn Lande, Eric Ragno, Stevie Salas, Steve Vai, Billy Gibbons and Paul Stanley. And the list keeps growing.

Basic tracks were recorded at the Matt Filippini’s studio in Italy, while various guests do their bits mostly in studios around Los Angeles.

The project will be ready, well, when it’s ready. You can follow the progress at pushking.eu.

Thanks to Kostya from deep-purple.ru forum for the heads up.

Nevsky Express TV has published a live video of Street of Dreams from the recent Over The Rainbow gig in St.Petersburg, Russia. The video is rather high quality and appears to be shot with two professional cameras. You can watch it on their web site. Further instructions same as the last time.

Thanks to Tatiana Marshanova for the info.

This April Deep Purple are going to make a stop in Moscow on the way from Japan to Poland. Today Russian promoters SAV Entertainment have confirmed that the band will play two gigs at the Club B1 Maximum on April 18th and 19th. Tickets are on sale. Please note, however, that both these dates are not yet confirmed by Thames Talent.

Thanks to deep-purple.ru for the info.

Classic Rock Revisited has a recently published interview with Don Airey, done by Jeb Wright. Don talks about his solo album A Light In The Sky, his life, his illustrious career over the years, and the circumstances of replacing Jon Lord:

Jeb: Was Jon an influence to you growing up?

Don: I always loved Purple and I loved what he was doing. Even though Jon is a virtuoso, it is what he doesn’t play that I love. Jon is the second best Hammond player I have ever heard, with Jimmy Smith being the best. I loved what Jon did on the early Purple albums but he changed his style when they did In Rock. The guy that really inspired me was Keith Emerson. He just blew me away and he still does. I was lucky enough to meet him a few years ago and I was charmed.

Read the interview at Classic Rock Revisited.

Thanks to Mike Garrett for the info.

Over The Rainbow management has issued a press release concerning ticket sales for the first 3 OTR shows in Belarus and Russia. It appears that out of the three shows one was oversold and the other two very nearly sold out.

• Minsk, Sports Palace: 4,000+ (capacity: 4,500)
• St.Petersburg, BKZ: 3,500+ (capacity: 3,727, all seated)
• Moscow, B1: 4,000+ (capacity: 3,000+)

Photo galleries: St.Petersburg, Moscow.

Thanks to Lisa Walker for the info, and www.darkside.ru and www.deep-purple.ru for the photos.

Who would have thought that a mere re-release of one of the more controversial albums in the Purple history could have chart potential?

Remastered 35th anniversary version of Stormbringer went on sale across Europe today, February 23. Usual disclaimers apply, but at the time of this writing (3 p.m. GMT / 16:00 CET) it is at the following chart positions in Amazon stores:
UK:
#52 in Music
#1 in Music > Rock > Classic Rock
#7 in Music > Vinyl > Vinyl Album
Germany:
#158 in Music
#38 in Music > Rock

This could, just could be an early indication of a possibility of entry in the official Top 40. To put things into proper perspective, last year, Whitesnake’s latest, Good To Be Bad, was at #15 position in Amazon UK charts the day after release and that same week ended up at #7 in BBC Radio 1 Top Albums chart. And we’re talking overall music charts, not single (sub)genre.

You can do your part of putting Stormbringer in the charts here.

Thanks to George for the alert.

My prediction: sooner rather than later, the band will be playing South America more often than Germany (not speaking of US or UK). Why? See for yourself.

Rapture of the Deep (a little heavy on the bass, but prime position for the cameraman):

Keyboard solo ~ Perfect Strangers:

Nice job is that you have up there, Reverend 😉

Black Night (see and hear that crowd):

Hush ~ Drum solo ~ Bass solo ~ Black Night (different angle alltogether):

I rest my case.

Thanks to Daniel Bengtsson to get my train of thought rolling.

Italian Deep Purple official fanclub and online community Deep Purple Italia is one of the six Italian online fan clubs featured in the latest (February 2009) issue of Rolling Stone Magazine, an Italian monthly version of the popular US magazine.

The special feature presents the people who run “the most authoritative and active online fan clubs in Italy”. Besides Deep Purple Italia, Depeche Mode Italia, Nirvana Italia, Velvet Goldmine (David Bowie), RioCarnival fanzine (Duran Duran) and Marilyn Manson Italia are also featured.

Fan club directors Stefano Serafinelli (30, founder, currently in Spain) and Francesco Colombo (25, currently in the UK) stated:

We are delighted that Rolling Stone chose our website as one of the best online fan club to be reviewed and featured in their one-off special. This is a great achievement for us, and it’s due mainly to the band and the site ‘s supporters that keep it active on a daily basis. We thank our visitors and members very much for their support and loyalty over the years.

We understand that lately we couldn’t update the news section as often as before due to personal issues. From now on we plan to give our readers the best information service possible, as it used to be.

Deep Purple Italia went online in 2001 and quickly became the main virtual meeting point for Italian Deep Purple fans. Featuring one of the most active web forums dedicated to the band, a daily updated news section, exclusive interviews and extended discography, deep-purple.it is one of the biggest Deep Purple fansites on the Internet.

We all here at The Highway Star congratulate our friends in Italy with their achievement.

Thanks to Francesco for sending us the press release.

Japan is full of musical genius, it’s just getting lost in translation. In further establishment of the proof of this self obvious thesis, we present you with this little gem:
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