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Mail is working again
Our mail is up again. The mail outage also affected some moderation of comments in this blog but everything has been approved now and all should be back to normal operations.
Mail problems
We’re having mail problems again. If you want to reach any of us, mail me at svante.pettersson@gmail.com and I’ll forward the mail to the right people. You can also leave a message here in the blog. Thanks.
Deep Purple goes balalaika
A member of the Russian group called “BaBaDoBas” posted a sound file of a Deep Purple medley in the Russian Deep Purple forums. It is done in Russian folk music style and it is pretty cool if you ask me. You can download the song here.
Sound clips after all
Edel gave us permission to link to three sound clips from ROTD today. We also got permission to publish the lyrics. Check out our updated ROTD special!
An evening with Ian Paice
Yesterday evening, Ian Paice was in Stockholm, Sweden. He was doing a drum clinic at Bass’ n Drum 2005. The audience could see him druming, ask some questions and after the show they could get things sign. Earlier in the evening, I met Ian for an exclusive interview. We talked most about the upcoming album, Rapture Of The Deep. It will be included in our special feature as soon as possible.
ROTD US track listing
There has been some comfusion about the correct track listing on the US release of “Rapture of the Deep”. This is mainly because of Amazon’s listing of the album, which has a track listing that seems to be partly based on alphabetical order… Amazon probably got that from Eagle Rock’s ROTD page which has the same track list. But a press release from the US label Eagle Rock today shows that the track listing is the same as for the European limited edition.
No sound files
We will not be able to post any sound clips from “Rapture of the Deep”. Sorry.
Someone is going to be disappointed
A RotD promo is being offered on eBay Germany. Whoever pays 40+ Euro for this item will be disappointed when they realise it is the version with, not only just eight tracks, but only a minute or so of each track… And the seller is probably sitting on the full promo now and can make some good money on something he don’t need.
It’s also interesting to look at the bidding history. Someone called “edel_records_ag” has put in a bid for 40 Euro for the record. If this is the record company and not just some guy who thought they chose a smart nickname, it’s pretty smart. 40 Euro is pretty much for a CD if you are a regular fan. 40 Euro is nothing for a big record company though if they want to prevent a promo from coming out on the market. And they can give it to someone else, who won’t sell it. Also, 40 Euro is nothing to get hold of the guy who put it up for sale. He will never receive another promo again.
Reviewing Rapture of the Deep
Rob asked in a comment on this blog if I could post my track-by-track impressions of “Rapture of the Deep”. I was about to post it here in the blog when it got too long and I decided to include it in our ROTD special instead. Not my first impressions though but my impressions after hearing the album six times or so. Sorry it took so long.
It’s wierd for me to review Deep Purple albums. First, I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly good reviewer. Second, it’s hard to write something that makes sense when you’re a fan. It’s easy to fall into “whoa! Amazing” and that really isn’t helpful to anyone.
It’s a bit confusing when I put on a new Deep Purple album. I am one of those people who are lucky enough to so far always have enjoyed what Deep Purple has recorded, no matter who was in the band. Over the years, I’ve been accused of being part, or even head of, a “Deep Purple can do no wrong mafia” but that’s simply not true. I think most people who know me know that I can be very critical of the band, especially when it comes to what they are playing live. But when I listen to the album and think about what I should write about it, I can’t really think of anything else than “whoa!”, “great!” and “yeah!”
I’ve always had this problem but it got worse since I started working as a journalist. But then I have to realise that this site is not a regular paper for lots of “normal” people with perhaps, at most, a casual interest in the fact that one of the classic bands in the history of rock has released a new album, this is a site for Deep Purple fans. If I had reviewed a CD for a paper, it would certainly have looked different.
So, even though I’m not a big fan of track by track reviews, that is what it became this time. You can read the thing here.
G3 Smokes
The upcoming double CD and DVD from G3 (Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, John Petrucci) will include a cover of Deep Purple’s “Smoke On The Water”. The CD/DVD is called Live in Tokyo and the CD can be found here.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing