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.

Ritchie Blackmore becomes a grumpy old man and complains about modern times from his basement. Continue Reading »

Don Airey has received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from the University of Sunderland. The ceremony was held at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland on Wednesday, 27 November 2024, where he was joined by friends and family. Don thus joins the ranks of the academic community within the band. Continue Reading »

Joe Lynn Turner has a couple of collaboration tracks out.
Continue Reading »

Everything you wanted to know about the infamous bogus Deep Purple 1980 tour and then some can be found on a website dedicated to the debacle. Lots of quotes, pictures, reports from the press and duped fans who were actually there, etc, etc. Nice of them to acknowledge our own coverage of the events from the early days of our site. Continue Reading »

Music Radar has a feature on how Whitesnake turned into a hair metal band, in the process nearly running itself into the ground. It is based on a 2021 DC’s interview with the Outlaw magazine.

It was one of the biggest rock albums of the ’80s. Whitesnake’s 1987 – titled simply Whitesnake in America – was a multi-million selling blockbuster that yielded a US number one hit with the anthem Here I Go Again. But as the band’s leader and frontman David Coverdale revealed, the making of this album was a nightmare of epic proportions.

At one point, Coverdale was struggling with an acute sinus infection and fearing that his career as a singer might end. As recording was delayed, he was warned that he was $3m in debt to his label Geffen Records. And before the album was completed, guitarist John Sykes was dismissed after allegedly suggesting that if Coverdale lost his voice, Whitesnake should continue with a different singer – a proposition as ridiculous as it was mutinous.

“It was,” Coverdale said, “a very troubling time in my life.”

Continue reading in Music Radar.

Louder Sound reprints a Prog magazine short feature on the Butterfly Ball project, stemming from a 2018 interview with Roger Glover.

In 1973, Alan Aldridge and William Plomer published a picture book titled The Butterfly Ball And The Grasshopper’s Feast, based on a 19th-century poem of the same name by William Roscoe.

On the surface, it seemed unlikely to stir any conceptual inspiration from a former Deep Purple member – but, as Roger Glover recalls, it did just that.

“I’d seen a four- or five-page feature in the colour supplement of a Sunday newspaper, and I thought then it looked a bit lively,” he says. “Then in 1973, after I had left Purple, I went into our management’s office one day and saw the book on a table there. And at that point I was asked if I fancied doing an album based on it.”

Continue reading in Louder Sound.

Over the years, we’ve announced a multitude of side projects and guest appearances for the various members of the Purple family. Quite inevitably, we’ve missed a few. Here they are, at least some of them. The last number in parentheses refers to the number of tracks the corresponding musician appears on, whenever known.

Don Airey:

• Robin George: Asia 2: The Marquee London live ’86 (digital download) (2021)
• Kristy Frank: Freedom (2006)

Glenn Hughes:

• Eric Church: 61 days in church (recorded live on 5/April/2017) (21/4/18) (1 track)
• Eric Church: 61 days in church (idem) (2019 digital download) (1)
• Hawkestrel: SpaceXmas (2020) (1)

Joe Lynn Turner:

• The Way: Frequency of spirit (2005)
• VA: It’s so easy: A millennium tribute to Guns n` Roses (2005) (1)
• VA: Lick it up: A millennium tribute to Kiss (2008) (1)
• The Prog Collective: Worlds on hold (2021) (1)

Steve Morse:

• The Fusion Syndicate: Beautiful horizon (2023)

There are also some Satriani entries on the list, but since we’ve never opened that particular kettle of fish, it’s probably not the time to start now.

Thanks to Jose ‘no stone left unturned’ Galvan for the info.

Saxophone player Terry Marshall (of the Marshall amplifiers fame) has released his first album Living the Blues on October 11, 2024, via Marshall Records. Besides working alongside his father Jim, Terry became an accomplished session player, but up until now never got around to recording under his own name.

Nick Simper plays bass on the record, that’s how we heard about the project.

Other musicians include:

Krissy Matthews – Guitar, Vocals
Alice Armstrong – Vocals
Robert Hokum – Guitar
Paul Gordon White – Drums
Emma Wilson – Vocals
Peter Parks – Guitar
Paul Long – Organ
Kev Hickman – Drums
Zoe Schwarz – Vocals
Hugh Budden – Harmonica, Vocals
Robin Bibi – Vocals, Guitar
Laurence Jones – Guitar
Oliver Brightman – Guitar

Track listing:

1. Hoochie Coochie Man
2. Phone Booth
3. Voodoo Woman
4. Worried Dreams
5. I Got All You Need
6. Help Me
7. Dr Feelgood
8. Long Grey Mare
9. Me and my Gin
10. I’m Ready
11. Smokestack Lightning

Review: Rock and Blues Muse.

The album can be ordered and streamed via this link.

Thanks to Arch and Uwe Gerecke for the info.