The last issue (issue 147, Feb 07) from a Brazilian magazine called Backstage has Steve Morse on the cover.
Thanks to Albertino Viveiros for the information.

Iceland maybe a small nation, but not without it’s passions. We’ve been informed that May 27 show in Reykjavik is already almost sold out and Deep Purple has sold the most tickets by single band in Iceland beating bands such as Metallica, Roger Waters, Foo Fighters, Led Zeppelin, Incubus, Bryan Adams, Iron Maiden and many more.

Thanks to Simsmiðurinn for the info.

Deep Purple family extends far and wide and one of it’s members is in need for help.

Gordon ‘Gungi’ Paterson, long time sound engineer for Deep Purple, Rainbow and a host of other bands was diagnosed with cancer last year and needs assistance. A website has been set up by his good friends in the entertainment industry to assist Gungi and his family in their time of need. Visitors to the site can simply send their well wishes or participate in prize raffles, the prizes having been donated by famous musicians.

The website set up to assist Gungi is called www.friendsofgungi.com. This is not a scam. Fiona Apple and Tears For Fears will both be doing benefit shows to help him out. Go there and see if you can help out.

Thanks to Rob Fodder and Danny Nichols for the info.

David Coverdale has become a U.S. Citizen. On Thursday March 1 he raised his right hand in Reno, Nevada, and swore to the U.S. Constitution. He has been living on the north shore of Lake Tahoe for the past 22 years (that’s since 1985, for the mathematically challenged of us). I’m no lawyer, but to the best of my knowledge this means that he had to get out of British citizenship as UK doesn’t allow it’s citizens (or are they subjects?) to acquire passports of another country.

Thanks to Reno Gazette-Journal for the info.

As we announced earlier, Blackmore’s Night are featured in issue 53 of the Renaissance magazine. Ritchie is on the cover and there is an extended interview with both him and Candice. You can subscribe and order back issues on their web site, although issue 53 is not in the back catalogue yet.

In other news, several new Blackmore’s Night fan sites are now operating:

• http://www.blackmoresnightukfanclub.com/
• http://www.blackmoresnight.no/
• http://www.blackmoresnight.com.br/

UK Fan Club site has a long way to go in terms of filling it with the content, but already has a lively forum. Norwegian site has an English section which is so far empty, Brazilian site is all in Portuguese. Being linguistically challenged in both languages, I can’t comment on the contents of either. Nevertheless, we wish them all good luck!

Thanks to Mike Garrett for the info.

The new Joe Lynn Turner’s solo album Second Hand Life will be released in Europe by Frontier Records on April 20. The album features a track co-written by Ritchie Blackmore and Roger Glover called “Stroke of Midnight”. This one is probably a from the sessions for a follow-up to Slaves And Masters. Joe also collaborated on the songwriting for the album with Jim Peterik (ex-Survivor), Bob Held, Karl Cochran (Ace Frehley), and Martin Briley. Karl Cochran also played guitar and bass on the album, Bob Held bass, Gary Corbett keyboards and Michael Cartellone (ex-Damn Yankees, now with Lynyrd Skynyrd) drums.

Second Hand Life track listing:

01. Love is Life
02. Got Me Where You Want Me
03. Second Hand Life
04. In Your Eyes
05. Blood Red Sky
06. Stroke of Midnight
07. Over the Top
08. Cruel
09. Sweet Obsession
10. Love Is On Our Side
11. Two Lights (European exclusive bonus track)

You can check out audio samples at Frontier Records.

Thanks to Blabbermouth.net and Frontier Records for the info.

We have reported yesterday that Gillan is unhappy with BMG re-releasing the Birmingham NEC 1993 show on CD. The plot thickens. In an interview conducted by BBC he said that the album was re-released without his knowledge. BMG immediately announced that they are withdrawing the album, all the grand total of 2,000 copies that were printed and distributed.

Many questions remain unanswered as to why nobody protested when the NEC show was released years ago as the Come Hell And High Water video (so in fact it’s a re-re-release). But the cynics between us say that the UK tour is coming up and Gillan has his own DVD and solo album re-releases to sell.

And there’s no such thing as bad publicity…

UPDATE: You can listen to the whole interview in it’s entirety from the BBC here. Two points there:

1. Gillan’s position makes much more sense than his individual comments taken out of context and plastered on the net (like we are guilty of doing ourselves). He also categorically denies that this is a publicity stunt designed to attract attention to the upcoming UK tour.
2. Our own THS editor Rasmus Heide was interviewed alongside Big Ian. Cheers to Rasmus!

We will try to negotiate with BBC to be able to post the interview here.

Thanks to BBC and Reuters for the info.

As we announced earlier, Glenn Hughes has appeared at the Musician’s Institute in Los Angeles on February 15. Here’s a brief report from the Institute’s graduate and teacher Christopher Maloney:

Glenn Hughes was one of the most entertaining and enlightening performers we’ve ever had at the Musicians Institute. His stories of his own personal and professional challenges and achievements were inspiring even to the most apathetic student. His vocal and musical talents are well obvious, but it was his charm, frankness and sincerity that really came across to his audience, who rewarded him with a huge standing ovation (a rarity for ‘school events’). Most impressed were the faculty members who were in attendance, many of whom cancelled their classes and required their students to attend the Glenn Hughes event. The faculty knew the importance of their students hearing someone of Glenn’s status, experience and talent. In fact, the instructors were just as blown away by Glenn as the students were. Overall, it was an amazing event, and we would have Glenn come back anytime.

Pictures from the event can be found at the GHPG.net forum.

Thanks to Blabbermouth.net for the info.

The Live in Europe 1993 4CD box set containing both Stuttgart and Birmingham shows from which Come Hell And High Water CD was compiled, have been recently rereleased by Sony/BMG as two individual 2CD sets. Apart from an obvious attempt of milking the cow to the last drop on behalf of BMG, the rerelease of the infamous Birgmingham NEC show apparently pissed off Gillan to no end. He called the record executives behind this decision ‘opportunist fat cats’.

BBC Radio 4 will be covering the story tomorrow February 27, on the Today Programme.

Thanks to contactmusic.com for the info.

In the wake of JLT, Glenn Hughes started today his massive tour of Russia. The tour kicked off in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on the Pacific coast and will work it’s way west. Glenn and his guitar player arrived to the city just two hours before the show after a 42 hour trip from Los Angeles via Seoul and Vladivostok, complete with weather delays.

Set list:

The Valiant Denial
Orion
Land Of Living
Mistreated (incl.guitar solo)
Coast To Coast
You Got Soul
Don’t Let Me Bleed
Getting Tigher
You Keep On Moving
Steppin On
Stormbringer
encore:
Burn

Thanks to Pavel for the info.