Sweden Rock Magazine issue #5/2024 features the 1971 Blackmore/Paice/Lynott project Babyface as their cover story, with a seven-page feature inside. Also in the issue: 4-page feature on the current Deep Purple, with Roger Glover being interviewed. The magazine also mentions that “Glenn Hughes has finished writing the music for his first solo album since 2016”.
The magazine (which is, naturally, all in Swedish) can be ordered through the publisher.
Thanks to our editor emeritus Benny Holmström for the info.
Reprint of an article from New Musical Express, June 26, 1971, on Deep Purple’s visit to Iceland and review of the gig, in which the author reveals that he has absolutely no clue what Aurora borealis actually is. But that’s beside the point.
A trot round town revealed every record shop with its windows full of Deep Purple albums, kids selling Purple posters in the streets and signs advertising the concert everywhere. But we didn’t see one Eskimo, Igloo, Polar Bear or Rudolph, and felt quite cheated. On the other hand, the scenery was breathtaking and our hotel was situated across the bay from a snow-capped volcano that was last active 40 years ago.
In the dressing room prior to the concert, typical Purple humour broke out and I witnessed the amazing Jon Lord-Ian Paice mock wardance, a spate of tonking (a particularly sharp smack on the crown of the head), threats to Roger’s career, a decision to do away with Jon’s organ and switch Ian Gillan to electric piano (“Then we’ll get the same riff all night long,” – Jon) and fruity renditions of “Tie My Kangaroo Down, Sport” and even “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep.”
Roger gave me the honour of carrying his spare bass on stage for him and I was rewarded with a rousing cheer from the audience. As the group filed on, something akin to Beatlemania in volume greeted them.
Read more in My Things – Music history for those who are able to read.
Thanks to Geir Myklebust for putting this up.
Tony Iommi made an appearance on SiriusXM’s Eddie Trunk show on May 22, 2024, and was asked about the remix of Born Again. The master tapes for the album have been found nearly 3 years ago, yet we haven’t heard much of the progress. His answer didn’t shed much light on the matter either.
Well, eventually we got the tapes, but we couldn’t find them for years. We didn’t know where they were. And [my manager] located somebody, and they were in a record [company’s], in their archives tucked away somewhere in one of the record companies. I don’t know how they got them, but they did. And so eventually we got them, and then we’ve had them, or [we are] having them transferred, ’cause obviously it’s tape. And so we’re having them transferred so we can have a look at that. And that’s sort of a plan as well; I’d like to do that. And I know Ian would like that to happen as well. Well, Geezer [Butler, SABBATH bassist] would as well, I’m sure.
So, apparently everybody wants it to happen, yet here we are…
Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info and the quote.
Couple of interviews courtesy of Made in Metal. Roger Glover and Ian Gillan talk about Machine Head, Loosen My Strings, poetic licences, Ritchie’s shoes, and other interesting things. Continue Reading »
We haven’t seen opera singers being properly awestruck by our boys doing their thing in a while on these pages, so here you go. Continue Reading »
Stereophile has a review of the Machine Head 50-ish anniversary reissue with comments from remix producer Dweezil Zappa:
Zappa’s changes to “Lazy” are more subtle. He discovered a noise issue that had to be dealt with. “If you really listen to what’s happening with the rhythm track, it’s a blues progression very much in the same world as the song ‘Green Onions’ (the 1962 instrumental hit by Booker T. & the MGs). It’s a faster ‘Green Onions.’ When you listen to the new version, where Ritchie is playing rhythm guitar under the keyboard solo, I put a spring reverb on it to give it more of a ‘Green Onions’ feel, which isn’t on the original. You’ll also hear that the vocals in ‘Lazy’ are much more up front. And the harmonica solo is louder.
“The other thing about ‘Lazy’ is that on the master recording, the guitar tone, his main lead tone for his solos, is very different than what ended up on the record. It was much brighter, closer to what you hear in the beginning of the song. The problem was that while it was being recorded, they had some kind of technical issue where noise was introduced into the recording. You hear a lot of crackling. They had to muffle and mute the guitar tone in terms of the EQ to get rid of that. When I first got the track, I thought with modern tools I could get rid of that noise. But when I did that, it didn’t have the vibe. It was brighter, but it didn’t sound like the original vinyl anymore.”
Read more in Stereophile.
Steve Morse has recently appeared on The ProgCast. Once again, it is one of those long form video chats that became popular recently due to the pandemic. It’ll be worth your time to set aside at least an hour to go through it. Caveat: the conversation mostly revolves around Dixie Dregs and the early days of Steve’s career, with only a scarce mention of his Purple tenure. Continue Reading »
Ian Gillan provided his top 5 favourite Purple tracks to Louder Sound:
Mary Long (Who Do We Think We Are, 1973)
“I’d like to point out that I’m choosing these songs spontaneously, they could all change tomorrow. I like Mary Long because nobody had written a song like that before. [The name Mary Long was a composite of the ‘moral crusaders’ Mary Whitehouse and Lord Longford, who were particularly active in the 60s and 70s. Its opening lines were: ‘Mary Long is a hypocrite/She does all the things that she tells us not to do’.] I was twenty-something years old and full of opinions.”
Read more in Louder Sound.
In this short clip, Roger Glover, Don Airey, and Ian Paice talk about old rumours. Continue Reading »
Hot on the heels of his predecessor, Glenn Hughes’ top 6 list appears in Louder Sound:
Burn (Burn, 1974)
“We were at Clearwell Castle when Ritchie said: ‘We should write song called Burn.’ He had the idea of the title already. The five of us wrote that song together in the Castle’s crypt in the key of ‘G’; Jon’s Bach instrumental, inserting the riff… it felt magical. Burn is such a great, dramatic rock track. It stops, starts, turns around, and there’s the Bach influence and vocal harmonies. It was completely different to anything that Deep Purple had ever done before. It ticked all the boxes of those that questioned whether the new line-up could work.”
Continue reading in Louder Sound.
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