David Coverdale has posted this message somewhere on his band’s official site:

It is true that tour dates for 2008 are currently being put in place. We will likely start in New Zealand (Rock2Wgtn festival in Wellington) for a one-off in March. We are exploring the possibility of nipping over to Australia for a pint and a show, or two…but, at this time there is nothing positive to offer you. It looks very likely we will be having the distinct pleasure of returning to South and Central America in May, before starting our European run.

We have some absolutely splendid stuff planned… I can promise.

The U.S. still manages to elude us, for whatever reason, but, as always, we don’t take no for an answer… so, we are still working toward something in my adopted homeland later in the year. In fact, we will try to go anywhere and everywhere we can to present our music to those who want to be bitten by the snake.

The album is done and has been delivered to the record company as their Christmas present. We’re very happy with it, as I have reported to you throughout the year of creating it. I feel it has all the elements Whitesnake can offer, and hopefully a little more.

The new Whitesnake album will be called Good To Be Bad and is scheduled for release some time in the Spring of 2008. It has been announced that the drummer Tommy Aldridge has been replaced by Chris Frazier.

Whitesnake has also been announced to play in Europe for a string of summer festivals. Check our Family Tree tourdates for the latest state of affairs.

Thanks to Daniel Bengtsson and Blabbermouth.net for the info.

Jon Lord’s official website is previewing audio clips of Jon’s new CD, Durham Concerto, recorded with the Liverpool Philharmonics and to be released on January 28.

JonLord.org is also showing a three minute video from the world premiere of the Durham Concerto at Durham Cathedral on October 20.

Audio and video clips of the Durham Concerto at JonLord.org.

Deep Purple fans are a varied bunch. We come in all colours, shapes, forms and ages. We come to our site from all corners of the world. In the course of this year, no country spared interest in The Highway Star — from United States to Saint Vincent & Grenadines (ever heard of the latter? me neither).

Our server collects extensive statistics and we decided to take a look at what countries are in the lead. Not surprisingly, United States came at #1 (due to it’s sheer size), followed by Germany, UK, Italy and Canada. A much more interesting picture, however, emerged when we normalized the figures to the number of Internet users in each country (which varies wildly between 5% and 80% of the total population). We’ve cut off countries with less than 10,000 page views in the whole year, which left us with 51 remaining (plus grand total for the whole world).

Like any statistics, this should be taken with a grain of salt. Numbers for the Internet usage are rough estimates, particularly for less developed countries, and are very unreliable. Besides, ranking produced in such a way reflects not only the band’s popularity in a particular country, but also how widespread and well understood is English language, how often the people are willing to go on the ‘net for information and what is our “competition” in a particular country.

Having said all that, it looks like Finland is in a position to lay a very strong claim for the title of the HighwayStarest country of them all. 😉

And here are the results:

[TABLE=8]

Thanks to AWStats, GeoIP, and Internet World Stats.

Hyvää uuttavuotta to our friends from Suomi and Happy New Year to everybody!

Here’s a little something for you to remember the year of 2007 by.
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Joe Lynn Turner did a couple of dates recently with an outfit known as Scrap Metal Band. Tracy Heyder was at one of the shows and reports:

On Dec. 15th, what turned out to be the ’80s rehash band known as “Scrap Metal” played at the Wildhorse Saloon, in Nashville, Tennessee. They called their show the “Jingle Bell Rock Party”. Not knowing anything about this band, I assumed it was a band headed by Joe Lynn Turner (since it was listed in the JLT Tour Update section in the Highway Star). I was wrong. Joe Lynn Turner was only a “Special Guest” along with Jimi Jamison (from Survivor). During the 2 hour gig, JLT only participated in 5 tunes.

It turns out that the actual band is made up of: Mark Slaughter (from Slaughter), Gunnar and Mathew Nelson (from Nelson), Eric Martin (from Mr. Big), and Kelly Keagy (from Night Ranger).

The first hour and a half was just the main band doing songs from each of the members prior band days with much gloating and bloviating in between tunes bragging about how great their song were in their day. They come across like an amateur “Cover Band”. The first guest was Jimi Jamison, whereby they covered a string of his tunes from “Survivor” such as Eye of the Tiger (Yuk).

Then came JLT. They introduced him as the singer for “Deep Purple”. I couldn’t believe my ears. Yes I know he sang on one Deep Purple LP, but that is hardly the main point of his career. To not pin him to Rainbow instead was way out of line. He strutted out and sang 2 songs: “Stone Cold” and “Street of Dreams”. Fairly good renditions of each, but he hammed it up so much you wanted to punch him or puke. Then he was joined by Jimi Jamison and they did the Night Ranger Tune “Rockin’ America”. They ran around trying to “Out Cool” each other. This was followed by a really bad version of “Jingle Bell Rock” where they brought on stage some of their kids and friends and they just butchered the song and continued to ham it up. Then as the closer was announced, I couldn’t believe my ears again…..”Highway Star”!!!!!! By far, the worst version of this song I’ve ever heard. JLT just ran around strutting and flicking his hair and screaming out the words as though it was his first and last time to ever hit the stage and came across like a teenager dying for attention.

All in all, I have to say………”Do Not Waste Money On This Show” if it comes to your town.

Tracy Heyder

Tracy’s pictures from the show:

Glenn Hughes has posted a new voice message on his Myspace page.
Glenn talks about his new solo album that is due in the spring, calling it his “greatest work” and describing it as “very, very funky” and “extremely soulful.” He also announces a live performance with Chad Smith that will take place on February 24, 2008 in Detroit, Michigan. Hughes also mentions that he will appear with Chad at the annual NAMM trade show in Anaheim, California on Friday, January 18, 2008, as part of a Sabian Drums event.

Thanks to Blabbermouth.net for the info.

Roger Glover has posted this year’s round-up on his website:

Of all the tours we completed this year, the reception we received in France was exceptional. In Paris, Gérard, our promoter, presented each of us with a “Gold Ticket” – a great looking plaque commemorating our box office achievement – we sold more tickets than any other band this year. I sincerely thank him and his staff. I’ve never seen anything like it before but it seems symptomatic of the way the business, at least our business, has changed. Live music rules!

Read the rest of December Words on rogerglover.com.

Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov for the info.

Deep Purple gave a closed private performance on December 18 at the Congress Centre in Zurich, Switzerland. According to Swiss websites 20min.ch and blick.ch, the gig was organized and financed by Swiss banker Stefan J. and three other individuals. About 1000 people attended the concert.

Reportedly, Ian Gillan started gig with the announcement “Hello and welcome to the Led Zeppelin reunion!” 😉

Thanks to Jörg Planer and Andree Schneider for the info.

Glenn Hughes has posted a holiday message on his Myspace page:

Hi Everyone,

Wow, what a year!!!!

It is a time for me to give thanx to my Higher Power, for, one more time, givin’ me the gifts to, make music, both on tour and in the studio.

It has also been a time of loss…the Passing of my very close friend Kevin Dubrow, has left a void in mine and Gabi’s life. He was, is, part of our family. Words cannot describe how deeply saddened we both are…..Like Tommy Bolin, I will honor his name….I knew a very personable, intelligent, generous and hilarious KD…..may he rest in Peace.

Wanna thank you the many people who attended my Concerts this year, from LA to New York, from Moscow to London, from Rio to Kiev…thanx for growing with me.

Now…..I have just completed my new album……we are mixing @ the moment, and will be mastering in January……I’m always excited about recording new albums, the songs are personal to me, as they are constantly being shaped thru out the year.

Well here goes….I have never EVER had an experience like this B4…..this Music is changing my life, it feels like these songs have been livin’ inside of me for quite sometime, waitin’ for the right moment to be born.

These songs are a gift to myself, those that are closest to me are saying that this is my greatest work…simply because I was not afraid to show myself as an Artist…and, I really pushed myself as a songwriter, both musically and Lyrically to the MAX.

If you want a comparison, there isn’t one, but it’s in the “Play Me Out”, “You are the Music”, and “Feel”…..”vibe”. It will change the way I make music for the rest of my life…there is no doubt in my mind, that this work will enable me to become a better person, God wants us all to have our innermost hearts desires, and this is mine…… It will be released Worldwide in April….It is the greatest high I’ve ever had, better than Drugs, Food, Sport, and yes even better than Sex.

I got somethin’ cookin’ for ya…..

Glenn
Xmas, 2007

Thanks to Daniel Bengtsson for the info.

Blackmore’s interview from the Arte TV show “Tracks” has been rebroadcasted on the French version of the channel and here you can actually hear what he’s saying as the interview itself is without the voiceover translation.
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