A very amusing and offbeat interview with Roger taken probably in the summer of 2007 when the band was touring North America and stopped in Chicago. Roger handles the reporter (who had one too many) with his usual class and eloquence.

Their website also has transcripts of two lengthy and rather interesting interviews with Roger and Steve (not the same as in the above footage).

Roger Glover talks with Ken Payne about:
• Writing music with the band as a unit
• Ritchie Blackmore’s departure (In the middle of a tour!)
• Jamming with Steve Morse
• Being a producer
• How he met Ronnie James Dio

An in-depth conversation between Steve Morse and Kim Katz on:
• Being a pilot
• Joining Deep Purple
• Steve’s new project with Sarah Spencer
• Stem cell treatment
• Staging a protest in high school
• Guitarist awards
• An unusually cool wedding

Read them both at Buzznews.net.

Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov for spotting this.

Fin Costello did a lot of photograpy for the Purple family back in the 70s. He is now taking his work on the road for exhibition around Norway. Roy Hilmar Svendsen from NRK spoke to him and published an interesting interview. ‘Cos Fin has a heck of war stories to tell:

At the time I was also putting together «Long Live Rock & Roll» for Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow. It was originally called «Kill The King», a title taken from one of the songs on the album. We shot a photo in California on a hill, with a skeleton in a suit of armor, as if a king had been killed in a old medieval war, with grass growing up through the skeleton, and a sword sticking in it which went around the fold of the cover. The shield of the fallen had the cover of the previous album, «Rainbow Rising», on it. A concept cover, and all that. My sister even found some rattlesnakes in the grass, and we put one around the sword. We thought it was a great idea, it looked really good. And we took it to Polydor, the record company – and they said: «Forget it! No snakes!».

The story behind the Kiss Alive cover, how Rush got pissed at Fin, and advise for young music photographers — read it all at nrk.no (don’t get spooked, it’s in English).

There’s a full-page interview with Don Airey in the September issue of BBC Sky at Night magazine.

In the interview, Don talks about his passion for astronomy and how it inspired his solo album Light in the Sky. Interestingly, he also mentions how he takes inspiration from Rob Hodgkinson, Deep Purple’s sound engineer. Rob recently won our monthly ‘Hotshots’ competition when he sent in an amazing picture of a galaxy.

There’s more info about Sky at Night magazine at www.skyatnightmagazine.com

Thanks to Graham Southorn for the details

Russian press has coverage of the last weekend’s Deep Purple visit to Khanty Mansiysk. They have headlined the eighth annual Yugra Festival, which was sponsored by oil companies and this year was dedicated to the 9,000,000,000-th (metric) ton of oil extracted from the fields surrounding the city (10 billionth ton is expected somewhere in 2012, so we can only assume that will be a really big deal over there). Italian duo Ricci e Poveri and Swedish pop band Secret Service, along with local acts, were also on the bill.

Regional edition of the rather respectable Russian business oriented newspaper Kommersant speculated:

Of course, artists’ fees for the festival are not publicized. But according to the president of Premier company Veniamin Kontraktov, Deep Purple’s fee for such a festival could not have been less than $200,000. “And after the Gazprom show in February and news that Deep Purple is the favourite band of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, their fees have doubled”.

Remember, kids: there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov, Kommersant Yekaterinburg and Tiumenskiye Izvestiya for the info.

Still fresh from disturbing the priest, Deep Purple gained another unusual support act for September 9 performance in Tel Aviv, Israel — a Spinal Tap-ish muppet outfit called Red Band, which is a regular on local TV:

Throw into a blender the puppet mastery of The Muppets, the satirical insight of classic Christopher Guest music spoofs like Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind and the teen grossout dialogue of cartoons like South Park; add a dollop of Israeli sensibility, pop culture and slang, and you get Redband, featuring a scruffy trio of life-sized puppet musicians. Orbach, Lefty and Poncho make up the fictitious rock group Redband, and they are joined by a cast of human actors. The show aims to both shock and amuse, and it succeeds on both counts.

One of the main reasons for the final choice made by the promoters (and, apparently, by the band themselves) is due to the programme’s slogan — “Rock’n’roll is back, and in purple” –- referring to the purple-hued lead singer, confusingly named Red.

Thanks to Jerusalem Post and Nightwatcher’s House of Rock for the info.

Steve Morse will hold a guitar clinic in Bocholt on November 13 before the Purple show in Oberhausen later that day. He will present his Music Man signature guitar. The clinic will be at the Alte Molkerei and will start at 16:00 (doors open at 15:00). Entrance is free, but interested parties are advised to make reservations by emailing Jochen Methling.

Martin Ashberry has started a project of enormous proportions, which goal is to catalogue not only all Purple concerts, but include descriptions of all corresponding audio and video live recordings (including bootlegs), document setlists and support acts.

Anyone who has specific recollections of setlists for the shows they’ve been to are cordially invited (nay, begged) to let me have them, should they feel so disposed. It covers 1968 to the last gig performed.

Deep Purple Live Index now includes setlists for 284 shows [368 at the time of this writing — Ed.], based on live tapes, reviews, official releases etc., and will increase in fits and starts as I get down to it. So far, the bulk of the sets are 84-87, 94, 75-6 and some other odds and sods. I’ve listed around 2,100 shows in total so I’m not even at 15% yet (and some of them will never be known, I imagine) but if you’ve anything to contribute, please click down through the individual line-ups and, if there’s a ‘Click!’ in the link column of a gig you’ve been to, feel free to check and let me know. If there’s no ‘Click!’ and you have the setlist, I’m open to any incoming information.

Trivia fact: Of the 284 shows I’ve documented so far, the set list had 95 variations for the main set or encores.

You know when you start something that’s really far to big to ever finish but you just can’t help yourself….?

Cheers for now,
Martin

Martin’s contact details can be found on the front page of his site. Go there, check it out and if you have anything to contribute, please get in touch with him.

Bernie Marsden’s Party in the Paddock is back for a third time!

After a two year rest the event is back with a bang and a great lineup featuring:
Roger Daltrey (The Who)
Zak Starkey (The Who)
Don Airey (Deep Purple)
Adrian Smith (Iron Maiden)
plus members of Marillion, The Earth Band and a host of world class musicians and bands playing for charity.

The event is to be held at West Well Farm Barton Road Tingewick Buckinghamshire MK18 4BD

Tickets cost £60 and include the following:

* Pig Roast or Veggie Option
* Dessert
* Drinks (Wine, Beer, Lager, & Soft Drinks)
* Live Music
* Great Musicians

The evening starts at 8pm on Friday 19th September 2008 and ends at at 12.30am

Tickets are very limited and selling fast so visit the website:
www.partyinthepaddock.co.uk to get yours now for what promises to be an amazing evening of music.

The two previous events have raised more than £50,000 for charities and with this years lineup even greater success is hoped for.

Thanks to Mark Smith for the details

Change in lineup – Sep 10
Unfortunately Bernie has just reported a lineup change: no Adrian Smith due to other commitments but we now have more Marillion members playing an acoustic Marillion set (Steve Hogarth, Steve Rothery and Pete Trevewas). Everything else remains as was! Very few tickets left now!

Jon Lord has published a new piece of music on his website. Titled Air on the Blue String, the piece – which is a work in progress – was partly inspired by classical musicians’ ability to improvise and blends blue(s) notes with a classical theme.

Air on the Blue String was first performed and filmed at Zermatt Unplugged in Switzerland in April. Watch it on JonLord.org.

Another one from the vaults — Stormbringer performed live in Germany some time in 1975. Although recording quality is far from great, the band is on fire. This recently surfaced clip also gives hope that there might be a better (and even longer!) tape sitting on a dusty shelf somewhere…
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