Gillian Glover has confirmed a number of live dates in the coming months. Back in the studio, Gillian will record a follow-up album to her debut solo album ‘Red Handed’ in the New Year, and this should be released in July 2008 with Gillian performing through next summer at festivals.

Sim Jones, who has previously played live with Ian Gillan and on ‘Gillan’s Inn’, and who also played on ‘Red Handed’ has joined Gillian’s band for all live dates and recording of the new album.

Live dates

Tuesday 25th September 2007, The Comedy, Leicester Square, London, UK.

Thursday 27th September 2007, Fibbers, York, UK. Tickets.

Friday 28th September 2007, Hotel California, Birkenhead, UK. Tickets: 0151 666 1668

Friday 14th December 2007, Whitechapel Gallery, Aldgate East, London, UK (supporting Glen Matlock). Tickets: 020 7522 7888

Saturday 15th March 2008, Hark to Towler, 43 Market Street, Tottington, Bury, Gtr Manchester, UK.

Thanks to Tim Wilcox for the info.

Glenn Hughes played and sang with Ken Hensley (ex-Uriah Heep) and his Live Fire band last weekend (Aug 4th) in Gressvik, Norway, as part of the 4th edition of the annual Ken Hensley Summer Party. The concert was sold out and singer Jorn Lande also guested on “Burn”, singing David Coverdale’s parts whilst Hughes sang his original ones of course. Glenn also sang and played bass on “Stormbringer”, “Might Just Take Your Life”, “Mistreated”, “You Keep On Moving”, as well as on Hensley’s tracks “What You Gonna Do” and “The Last Dance” (which were also sung by Glenn on Ken’s album “Blood On The Highway”, released earlier this year).

For a report and some photos from this special concert, please go to www.ken-hensley.com and check the “News” and the “Live Reports” sections.

Thanks to Rodrigo Werneck from ken-hensley.com for the info.

I have written before about the hidden treasure of reviews in the Music Street Journal. Their excellent recent review of Montreux’2006 DVD got me thinking. (Thinking is a difficult thing to do. Good thing that from now on, computers will do all the thinking for us.)

For my money, I could have lived without “Smoke on the Water,” but to expect DP to do a show without that one is naïve. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I dislike the song, but my god, it’s been played to death. I’m sure it’s the band’s least favorite part of the set, feeling like drudgery.

This is quite a popular sentiment among us die hard Purple fans (and not so die hard, as it turns out). I myself could live without hearing a yet another Smoke on the Water for the rest of my life (I can still close my eyes, click the remains of the brain and mentally play the Made in Japan version, warts and all). So why the band keeps churning out Smoke night after night for the gazillionth time? The cynics among us say it’s surely just to please the crowd. I would disagree. They do it because it feels good.

Imagine yourself on stage in front of several thousand people. Imagine you have a magic button. The button works like this — you press the button and in a split second, no matter what you’ve played or how you’ve played before, the whole place goes absolutely completely bonkers apeshit. It works at any time of day, in any country, in front of any audience. No matter what. The audience goes nuts in three… two… one… NOW!

Imagine you had such magic button. Would you get tired of pressing it?

I rest my case.

• Joe Lynn Turner will be featured in the Fall 2007 issue of 22nd Century Rock Magazine that is due on September 21. Inside there will be a feature on JLT with an interview done while Joe was on tour with Classic Rock Cares. You can also order the magazine online from their web site at the link above.
• The latest Joe’s album will be released in the US on August 28 and is available for preorder via Amazon.
• Pictures of JLT performance with Brazen Abbot at the Berkrock Festival in Bulgaria have been posted online.

Thanks to Mike Garrett for the info.

Ian Gillan has contributed some lyrics and vocals to a Japanese videogame Blue Dragon developed by Mistwalker and distributed by Microsoft. The game was released in 2006 in Japan and will see an international release at the end of August 2007. The track in question is called Eternity and is co-written by Nobuo Uematsu, Hironobu Sakaguchi and Ian Gillan. In Japan it appears on the 2CD soundtrack album accompanying the game and also was released as a single.

Here’s how it appears in the game:

Thanks to Al Erikson and Akiko Hada for the info.

Blackmore’s Night performance at the Schloss Gymnich in Germany on August 7 has been cancelled “due to technical problems at the local venue”. We have no information on whether tickets will be refunded, or performance will be rescheduled.

Thanks to Carole Stevens at Blackmore Productions for the info.

There is a short interview with Don Airey in the August 3 issue of New Jersey newspaper The Express-Times. You can read it online (nj.com requires cookies enabled in the browser).

Thanks to Mike Garrett for the info.

Three Deep Purple albums — Stormbringer, Come Taste The Band and Made In Europe — have been recently re-released in USA on the Friday Music label. They are being marketed as remasters, but reportedly have little (if any) difference in sound with the earlier CD releases.

Both studio albums are being remastered and remixed by EMI, so at this point there’s little reason to pick up Friday releases unless you’re a die hard completist. Even given the EMI’s track record of remasters being delayed for years.

What follows below is a pure speculation.

As Friday releases are legitimate and were properly cleared by Warner, it appears that Warner does not think those albums have any market as proper remasters. That makes us wondering if EMI remasters will see the light of the day in the States.

The EMI versions will have extra tracks. It will be interesting to find out what else they have left for Come Taste The Band, if anything. The extras for Stormbringer will probably be that instrumental of High Ball Shooter, that was in the Listen, Learn, Read On box set. And the quadro mixes as well.

Thanks to Kevin Dixon and Ron Harper for the info.

Titled ‘ Danger White Men Dancing’, a 13-track studio album is the second collaboration between Jon Lord and Bob Daisley’s Australian combo The Hoochie Coochie Men. The album should be out within the next two months. Ian Gillan sings on two tracks.

Track list: (click over for large version)
1 – The Blues Just Got Sadder
2 – Gotta Find Me Some Fire
3 – Twisted System
4 – Over & Over *
5 – Let It Go
6 – Heart Of Stone ~
7 – If This Ain’t The Blues *
8 – Danger White Men Dancing
9 – Dead Presidents ¤
10 – Hoochie Coochie Man ~
11 – Bottle O’ Wine ¤
12 – Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven
13 – Tell Your Story Walkin’

Featuring Hammond and/or piano from Jon Lord on all tracks, the album mixes covers and Hoochie Coochie originals. Only ‘Over & Over’ credits Jon Lord for writing.

Ian Gillan – lead vocals on *
Jimmy Barnes – lead vocals on ~
Jeff Duff – lead vocals on ¤

The Hoochie Coochie Men:
Bob Daisley – bass, harmonica, vocals
Tim Gaze – guitars, lead vocals
Bob Grosser – drums, percussion

The album takes on from Jon Lord’s Australian club tour with the band in 2003, which resulted in a live album and DVD.

In January 2003 Jon Lord was in Australia to perform the ‘Concerto For Group And Orchestra’ at the Sydney Opera House with Australian band George and premier ‘Boom Of The Tingling Strings’ at Melbourne.

An accompanying club tour of Jon’s solo material had to be changed when a small injury in Sydney put his piano playing abilities out. The Hoochie Coochie Men came to his rescue and the solo dates were changed from strings and piano to smoking Hammond tinged blues rock.

Read more about Jon Lord’s 2003 Australian shows.

‘Deep Purple has aged well,’ writes the Boston Herald in their review – click to read.