Since the first collection seemed to go down well, the inimitable aficionado of Gillanisms David Black has sent us another one. No Staffordshire bull terriers were harmed while preparing this for publication. Or so we’re told.

Smoke On The Water — Nobody’s Perfect

This may seem like a devilish ploy, but it’s one way to bring the proceedings to an end.

Hard Lovin’ Women – Pforzheim 1987

This is a little folk song. Actually, genuinely, this song is about nothing to do with anything apart from tits. Nothing to do with the person attached to them or anything. An entity, I mean, give them a fair shake. Let’s be fair. It’s called ‘Hard… (band kicks in Gillan’s pause) …Lovin’ Women’

Knockin’ At Your Backdoor (clarification) – Paris, 1985

One thing I ought to tell you before we go any further. In case you got the wrong impression earlier on. When we were doing Knockin’ At Your Backdoor and I was talking about nice slippery bums and all that, anal sex and everything else. Heaven forbid that you got the wrong idea. What I was talking about was good old upright Christian heterosexual buggery as opposed to the other kind.

Perfect Strangers – Nobody’s Perfect – Irving Meadows, 1987

Untold crimes. They used to asphyxiate people with a bunch of cohorts. It’s named after him in fact, and it’s called Perfect Stranglers

The Unwritten Law – Irving Meadows, 1987

The inspiration for this song we found in a bowl of entrails of a barely dead Staffordshire bull terrier. We did. Jon wasn’t there. It’s a thing called the Unwritten Law.

Bad Attitude – Budapest, 1987

It’s a new song from the new album, and it’s deadly serious, so shut up. It’s called Bad Attitude.

Dead Or Alive – Stockholm, 1987

This one’s all about what you shouldn’t be doing with hard drugs. It’s an anti-cocaine, anti-smack, anti-whatever. It’s a serious story. It’s a gentle ballad called Dead Or Alive

The Unwritten Law – Kalamazoo, 1987

While recently examining the entrails of a Staffordshire bull terrier we discovered the secret of diseases, and it’s not only coughs and sneezes, but it’s also an unwritten law. That’s the title of this song. It’s called don’t give people what you got in the first place. Staffordshire bull terriers, entrails, diseases. That’s what this song is about. The Unwritten Law.

Child In Time – Budokan, 1973

— It’s an old one, a great favourite of ours.
— (possibly Ian Paice) Oh no, it’s not.
— Oh yes, it is. Did you understand that? Have you ever been to a pantomime? It’s called Child In Time.

Talk About Love – Nancy, 1993

Thank you very much. Just sitting here thinking about Jamie Lee Curtis. Practising my overture and what I wanted her to do with my neck. Here’s one that make you go ooh! It’s called Talk About Love. Ooh!

Twist In The Tale – Nancy, 1993

Here’s another one about Jamie Lee Curtis, and it’s all about her tail.

Lazy – BBC In Concert 2017

This is from a long while ago. It was on a windy day, actually, and she was walking down in front of us. She leant forward into the wind, and I could see her nib-nubs rising above her wellies, closely guarded by four perfect tendons. The like of which you won’t see better this side of Wembley. And then she licked her lips lasciviously, and I thought I’ll do the same.

All I Got Is You – BBC IN Concert 2017

That was a few marching tunes to get us going, now time for a little light jazz with a few involuntary avant-garde passages about two disgruntled flat mates.

The Surprising – BBC IN Concert 2017

Beware of the chair that isn’t there, it’s a furniture illusion. If you ever squat on a chair that’s not, you’ll suffer some confusion. The monks of vine, crush the wine, get in on their smocks. It dribbles down their legs to their intoxicated socks…
(Don interrupts to start.)

Perfect Strangers – Osaka 1st night 1985

This is a story of an affair I had once with our manager’s dog. And has since had to have a hysterectomy because we weren’t truly matched. We still communicate with each other from time to time and I send her flowers, and I still point my finger in the right direction. This is very important when you’re thinking about the whole story because you have to bear in mind due to the underlying emotion. It’s called Perfect Strangers

Under The Gun – Osaka 1st night 1985

This is something that’s about the things that generally piss us off. Annoying things like god brothers, perpetrators of the worst crimes possible — like people who think they can leave stupid spotlights on during a laser show and everything else you can think of. This one in German is called — Under Ze Gun. Thank you.

Child In Time – Osaka 1st night 1985

This song was written in 1969 in a small room about half the size of this stage. Well, maybe four seventeenths or five seventeenths and a half. It’s stayed with us for a long time, and it’s called Child In Time.

Anyone’s Daughter – Birmingham, 1993

We now have the imminent arrivement, arrivement? arrivement, arrivement. The imminent arrival of a stool. Upon this tool will be sitting a person, here is a microphone and here is a pedal. This pedal will become a blur as the evening wears on. And I’d like to introduce our guest percussionist, Elton John.

Battle Rages On – Birmingham, 1993

A song about love and hate and how hate always seems to come out on top.

Space Truckin’ – Birmingham, 1993

A little, a little err, a little – what was it? — a little Rock and Roll, that’s right. A little Rock & Roll. Nice Bristols, see the tits on that, Rog? Corrgh.

Smoke On The Water – Genoa, 1973

Just over a year ago now we were in Montreux in Switzerland recording the Machine Head album and this tells the story, this song of the burning down of the casino in Montreux while we were there and all the other silly things, insignificant things that happened while we were there. Actually, basically it’s about the burning down of Claude Nobs. We tied his elbows together behind his back, so I think it’s chest Nobs – if you don’t believe that, then I’ve nothing else to say. It’s called Smoke On The Water, this one.

Mary Long – Genoa, 1973

Here’s one now, it’s a new thing off our platter out at the moment. It’s all about an evil situation in England which we’re trying to put to rights. And it’s basically about doing away with people like Colin Hart and that sort of person. It’s a thing called Mary Long.

Space Truckin’ – Osaka 1973

Here’s a song you can fiddle about in your trousers to.

Battle rages on – Stockholm 1993

Here’s a song about love and hate. And how, over the years, over the times, hate always seems to win.

The year was 1976, and on March 24 Sweet were playing a show in Santa Monica, California. It was just days after the death of Paul Kosoff, so they decided to pay him a tribute by performing a cover of Free’s All right now for the encore. Ritchie Blackmore was in the neighbourhood, and joined them on stage for the occasion.

Sweet guitarist Andy Scott recalls:

It was completely spontaneous. We had met him a couple of nights earlier, and the one thing that he’d said to our tour manager, who used to work for Deep Purple a guy called Mick Angus was ‘You’d better let me get into the gig tonight. Because the last time we’d played Los Angeles he hadn’t been able to get into the show, because our management at that time and the record company had virtually sold out the gig even before tickets went on sale.

Ritchie said to [Mick Angus], ‘I’m gonna come, and I’m gonna get in this time.’ And we said, ‘Of course you are!’ And somebody made the joke, ‘If you want to get up, put your guitar in the boot.’ There was an offer to set up another stack, but I think Ritchie just said, ‘Plug me into anything, I’ll be alright.

And I think the only amps on my side of the stage that were available for him to plug into were the amps that I think were monitoring the synthesisers, which had a couple of horns in them, which left him with a rather loud and clear sound.

Thanks to Louder Sound for the quote, and to Sweet official YouTube channel for the clip.

Steve Morse recently sat down to chat with American Musical Supply about all things music, from guitar tone versatility to J.S. Bach. This is a long conversation, at an hour plus, but if you watch it directly on YouTube, there is a convenient table of contents with direct links to individual chapters. Or just sit back and watch the whole thing here.

Bonus: Steve Morse & the AMS Jam Band cover Jeff Beck’s ‘Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers:

Thanks to SteveMorse.com for the heads-up.

Steve Morse collaborated on a new track with guitar player Angel Vivaldi. They have recorded a cover of New Country by Jean-Luc Ponty. Continue Reading »

Ritchie Blackmore recounts George Harrison joining Deep Purple on stage on the Perfect Strangers tour in Australia Continue Reading »

An online publication called Cult Following somewhat belatedly, but eloquently reviews =1:

New hard rock from the Smoke on the Water gang. Some things never change. With Deep Purple, a lacklustre album image and the promise of unwavering rock fundamentals are a guarantee. No problem for those stuck with this sound for decades but some bands never evolve. Does =1 give Deep Purple a chance to grow their noise? Yes. Do they take it? Sort of. The variations to their style and sound here are unexpected but not necessarily unique or all that world-beating. If anything, the band has turned away from the rock which formed them and towards alternative rock. It will send shivers down the spine of those ABandOn purists. Shivers of joy. There is a grunge feel to =1, a deeper feel to their sound which gives way to a surprise depth and interest. A blur of noise worth listening to.

Continue reading in the Cult Following.

Another Glenn Hughes Australian interview, this time with the Spotlight Report.

SR. Now that you are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Burn, how does it feel to look back on such a landmark album?

GH. Look, it was a moment for all of us where we were at a castle writing that album, having fun, not really knowing how it was going to be received. I just knew at that time we all felt it was a strong piece of work. All these years later, reminiscing about it, playing these songs for myself and people that want to come and hear it is a very feeling to me.

SR. That’s incredible. What inspired you to embark on this anniversary tour?

GH. I may be the only one that is doing this, you know. I think Coverdale did something like this about 12 years ago, but for me to say goodbye to that era is an opportunity I just wanted to make sure was going to exist. Because I can’t keep doing this. So, it’s important for me to close the door on this particular show, which I will do in Dubai.

SR. Apart of celebrating this 50th anniversary, are you working on something else?

GH. The album, I just made an album in June in Copenhagen, it’s coming in March. So next year will be a new Glenn album. I’m looking forward to releasing it.

Continue reading in the Spotlight Report (caveat: there are transcription mistakes).

In anticipation of his Australian tour, Glenn Hughes recently spoke to The Rockpit:

Andrew : How did you find working with Blackmore? At that stage he was moving more towards a classical style that has distinctively become his over the years.

Glenn : Ok Andrew, let’s talk Turkey here. The Holy Trinity, in my opinion of the early 70s, was Blackmore, Beck and Clapton and then of course, Tony Iommi. I joined the band with John Lord and Ian Pace and Blackmore, who was a very strong soloist as well. It was a different thing for me to do. As i mentioned to you before it worked because they didn’t want to replicate Mark II. Why would they want to have somebody sounding like Ian Gillan or somebody playing bass like Roger Glover? It wasn’t working to them any longer. David and I came in and refreshed the band.

Andrew : Working with a young unknown at that stage in David Coverdale what was that like? What did you find that he brought to the band and especially “Burn”?

Glenn : When he passed the audition they didn’t tell him for like two weeks they kept him waiting. When they did get a hold of him, David came down to see me at my house and we became very fast friends as we were going to be singing these songs together, so my friendship has been very good with him from all these years ago. He’s got a great voice, he is a funny guy and again Andrew, I think the vocal arrangement and the partnership we had vocally on the “Burn” album, “Stormbringer” and “Come Taste the Band” is exceptional.

Read more in The Rockpit.

In other Glenn related news, his former guitar player JJ Marsh is releasing a new album with a project The Master´s Brew, led by keyboard player Tomas Bodin (of The Flower Kings fame). The album is called Elixir, and you can find more information on bodinmusic.com.

Thanks to BraveWords for the heads-up on Glenn’s interview, and to Pär for the JJ news.

BBC Four TV channel will be showing a Radio 2 in Concert Deep Purple appearance from November 16, 2017, playing in front of a live audience at the BBC Radio Theatre. It will air on October 4, 2024, at 22:05 local time, and will be available on the BBC iPlayer for 30 days after that.

Setlist:

1. Announcement by Jo Whiley
2. Time For Bedlam
3. Fireball
4. Bloodsucker
5. All I Got Is You
6. Uncommon Man
7. The Surprising
8. Lazy
9. Birds Of Prey
10. Perfect Strangers
11. Smoke On The Water
12. Hush
13. Black Night
14. Goodbye with Jo Whiley

The contemporary blurb from 2017 reads:

Jo Whiley presents highlights from Deep Purple’s recent concert at the BBC Radio Theatre. One of the biggest names in rock, they perform some of their biggest hits from the past 5 decades. These include Black Night, Hush, Perfect Strangers, Bloodsucker and the classic, Smoke On The Water as well as tracks from their latest album, Infinite.

Before their November performance, the band’s drummer and founding member Ian Paice said: “We’re really looking forward to performing for BBC Radio 2 In Concert. It’s been many years since we did something like this. But through all those years one thing has never changed. Playing live is the only way to capture the spirit of Rock n Roll music, because even 60 years after it reared its wonderful rebellious head that’s what it still is! There is no safety net of the recording machine to ‘fix things later’, you get it right or get it wrong. For the musicians it’s, an adrenaline rush, concentration and invention, but most of all it’s fun. That’s why we started doing it when we were kids. We hope you have fun too being on the receiving end.”

The recent series of special In Concert performances were held to mark BBC Radio 2’s 50th birthday, featuring a line-up of legendary performers from the past 5 decades.

Thanks to Marcus for the heads-up, and to Deep Purple Tour Page for the setlist.

Nathan and John at the Deep Purple Podcast are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Concerto for Group and Orchestra resurrection with a couple of episodes. The cherry on top is a bonus podcast with almost an-hour-and-a-half chat with Paul Mann. We highly recommend picking up a time to listen through it. Continue Reading »