Speaking of the “best of 2024” lists, Machine Head made it to the Classic Rock magazine Best rock reissues of 2024:

Yup, the one with Smoke On The Water. That song, and this album, made Deep Purple legends all over the globe. This, essentially, is a three-CD version. The first disc pairs the Dweezil Zappa 2024 Remix with the 2024 Remaster; the second contains In Concert ’72; the third delivers the previously unreleased Montreux ’71.

Given that you already own at least one copy of Machine Head and possibly bought In Concert ’72 on CD in 2012, you’ll need to know that this £100 box also contains: a 60-page booklet, Dweezil’s remix on vinyl in gatefold sleeve, and a Blu-ray audio disc containing a Dolby Atmos version, the 1974 quadraphonic mix and some Dolby 5.1 surround versions.

If you’re curious, check out other entries on Louder Sound.

=1 made its way into several best of 2024 lists. For example, it is at #9 on the Ultimate Guitar Top 20 Albums of 2024. Meanwhile in Germany, it tops Metal Hammer’s 2024 annual review in Hard Rock & Rock category, as evidenced in the January 2025 issue.

Update [Dec 29]: the deluxe box set made it to the Goldmine magazine ‘top box sets for 2024’ list. Continue Reading »

Snakecharmer General answers fan-submitted questions (Christmas Edition) Continue Reading »

To prove his thesis that “Life in Deep Purple has never been dull”, Geoff Barton lists 25 of the maddest moments from the band’s history. And California Jam is not one of them.

If you’ve been around here for a while, you probably already heard about most all of it. Nevertheless, here we go:

1. Rock’n’Roll Circus nightclub, Paris, October 1970: As Ian Gillan went to sit down, Ritchie Blackmore pulled away Gillan’s chair. Blackmore: “What I didn’t realise was that behind us was a big drop of about 15 feet and Gillan fell down – crunched his head… after that he was never the same.”

2. The Mk II line-up got together in the studio in 1970 to write a hit single but the inspiration didn’t flow. They went round the corner to the pub – the Newton Arms, near Kingsway, London – and returned to the studio pissed. They immediately laid down their biggest UK hit: Black Night.

Continue reading in Louder Sound.

In a recent interview, singer Marc Storace of the Krokus fame talks about his audition for Rainbow circa the Down to Earth sessions Continue Reading »

Louder Sound reprints a 2009 Metal Hammer feature on the hairspray era of Whitesnake, based around an interview with David Coverdale.

For the first few years of the 1980s, David Coverdale was an incredibly busy man. After the demise of Deep Purple, the band he’d sung with since 1974 and that had made him a star, he embarked on a solo career, which eventually morphed into the tight, swaggering blues rock outfit known, with a lascivious chuckle, as Whitesnake.

Starting in 1978 with the Snakebite EP, featuring one of the band’s signature songs, a cover of soul standard Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City, David’s new project swiftly became one of the most popular hard rock bands in the UK, releasing a steady stream of well-received albums including classics like Lovehunter, Ready An’ Willing and Saints And Sinners.

Always an ambitious man, David was never going to be content with simply following the usual album/tour/repeat schedule when there was a whole world out there waiting to be conquered, and so by the time Whitesnake arrived at their sixth album, Slide It In, he decided that a whole new approach was called for.

Continue reading in Louder Sound.

Harp playing Amy had a very purple weekend with listening to Highway Star and Smoke on the Water Continue Reading »

Retropop magazine reports that Glenn Hughes will be among the guest musicians on the upcoming Robbie Williams (of Take That fame) album.

Glenn Hughes from Deep Purple played on something. Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath played on something. I know – Black Sabbath to Deep Purple.

The yet unnamed album is due some time in 2025. Continue Reading »

Taking full advantage of the lull in touring schedule, Paicey resumes the regular programming on his Drumtribe channel.

Shape of Things off the Turning to Crime sessions, and all that went into it Continue Reading »

Several press clipping that are of a too marginal interest to post them individually.

Australian Guitar has a short feature on Hughes/Iommi collaborations on the occasion of recent reissues:

“I’ve always liked Glenn,” Iommi says. “We’ve been friends for many years and go way back. I’ve always loved his vocals. When they get older, most singers tend to lose their top range, but he can still do it. He can sing like there’s no tomorrow… It’s brilliant. And he’s very creative. It was a good thing when we started writing together. I still like a lot of the songs we recorded together on Seventh Star. It was very different for Sabbath, just because of the way he would sing and approach stuff.”

Guitar Player has some Blackmore quotes from over the years, talking in his infamously dry manner about various musicians:

Stevie Ray Vaughan was very intense. Maybe that’s what caught everybody’s attention. As a player, he didn’t do anything amazing.

Ian Anderson is a genius, especially with his later stuff. It’s horrifying to think how he wrote that stuff. But if you talk to him, he goes, ‘Oh, I just count two.’ But you can’t count two over that — it’s 9 over 5 1/2! Martin Barre and the rest of the group must have memories like computers to remember that.

Martin Popoff delves deep into his idiosyncrasies with a Goldmine piece titled The Top 20 Heavy Metal covers gone wrong. Hush is at #7, and Rainbow take on Black Sheep of the Family is at #4.

7. Deep Purple – “Hush”

I’m actually going with what’s known as “Hush ’88,” from the Nobody’s Perfect live album, because Deep Purple weren’t anywhere near a heavy metal band when they first covered this maddening song, along with the equally maddening “Kentucky Woman.” But in the ‘80s, sure, they were arguably a “heavy metal” band. What’s worse, however, is that the guys insist on playing this horribly dated, sing-songy, jittery and awkward Joe South song to this day, with your intrepid chronicler having to sit through it in Toronto as recently as 2024. Na (na na na) thank you. And by the way, thanks also for sticking “Roadhouse Blues” on Infinite.

Far Out magazine has some quotes from Gene Simmons and Brian May praising Ritchie Blackmore:

He even heralded a new brand of rock ‘n’ roll, and somewhere down the line, in a truly nebulous sense, you could argue that he is partly responsible for the new folk revival of the indie age thanks to the way he reappropriated the past. As Simmons explains: “When Ritchie plunged into medieval music it wasn’t so much as a surprise as a natural course of events. You know, there are people who enter this band thing for lots of different reasons. For money, for fame and for the chicks. It seems to me Ritchie Blackmore entered into this for the music.” Thus, he has never stopped exploring.