Jens Johansson, the keyboard player for the last incarnation of Rainbow, spoke to Blabbermouth on the future prospects of the band:

I don’t know. You never know. At the moment, of course, with the pandemic, everything went completely right down to zero, all activities. I think he’s back to doing some stuff with BLACKMORE’S NIGHT. To be honest, that’s where his heart is. If he has to focus on one band, that would be the number one priority. I was always joking that BLACKMORE’S NIGHT was ‘the’ band and RAINBOW was his basement band. [Laughs] Like a project. Whenever we would do European gigs with RAINBOW, it was somehow that the gigs would be placed around when certain castles were unavailable. [Laughs] It was like, ‘Sweden Rock has 40 to 50 thousand people.’ They’d say, ‘No, it’s on the wrong weekend. This castle is available, so fuck Sweden Rock.’ That was the attitude that BLACKMORE’S NIGHT is the priority, which I think is cute.

It was a lot of fun. But most people understood that this was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Ritchie, he’s a little bit like a cat: You never know what he’s going to think. The next month he’s ‘No, I don’t want to go out.’ Then it’s ‘No, I don’t want to go out. I want to go in.’ You can’t predict which way he’s going.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a new documentary about Ronnie James Dio out. Truly yours ventured to movie theater this past weekend (for the first time in umpteen years), and here are some of my thoughts.

It is fairly well put together. David “Rock” Feinstein, Roger Glover, Glenn Hughes, Wendy Dio, Lita Ford, Rob Halford, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward, Vinny Appice, Sebastian Bach, and many others were interviewed for the film. I guess expecting an appearance from His Blackness was too much to ask, and absence of Vivian Campbell who even after all these years is not on speaking terms with Wendy Dio was rather conspicuous. Many an anecdote was shared, a lot of previously unseen footage was shown, and even more of the previously seen, but long forgotten. The film goes into great detail of Ronnie’s early years, but is also quite skimpy on his career between early 1990s and the Heaven & Hell reunion. And from our point of view that includes the glaring omission of his participation in the 1999 Concerto celebrations at the Royal Albert Hall and subsequent tour with Purple.

Verdict: not sure i can recommend going to a theater, but if you have a chance to catch it on a streaming service, do so without hesitation. And if you do end up in a theater, stay put until after the credits finish rolling and bonus outtakes start — they are hilarious.

Australian musician Stefan Hauk have previously appeared on these pages for his collaboration with Paicey. Stefan not only plays guitar and sings, but also does keyboards, drums, and bass. On top of that, he has the cojones to tackle Child in Time all on his own. Continue Reading »

A rare beast in this universe — an interview with Nick Simper, courtesy of Karen Beishuizen for the the RingSide Report.

KB: You played bass on the first 3 Deep Purple albums and then left: what happened?

To say exactly what went wrong could be a book in itself! The whole episode is a very long story which I will soon be dealing with in depth during a future chapter on my website. The short version is that a new vocalist was secretly selected without my knowledge, and he came with a bass player as a complete package. The group chose expediency over loyalty, which became their trademark, and so I left before I could be pushed!

KB: In 2016 Deep Purple was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Alle members from 1968 – 1974 were inducted but you as one of the founding members were snubbed: Why and how did you feel about this?

I never viewed the Hall of Fame as relevant to rock n roll and as such it held little interest for me. Of course, to be honored after a lifetime in music would have been appreciated although not expected. In the end only one original member of the group was present, and apparently even the other members were uneasy at my exclusion, but to me it held little importance and was a farce very quickly forgotten.

Read the whole thing in RingSide Report.

Nick is performing with Nasty Habits in Vienna on October 8.

Steve Morse has recorded an instructional video of him performing a bespoke piece The Dude Ranch written by Jason Sidwell. The full video, audio, backing track, tab/notation transcription, and chord chart will feature in Guitar Techniques magazine issue GT341, available from 19th October 2022. Continue Reading »

This gentleman going by the online moniker Börje Unchained definitely has an unchained imagination. He records instrumental covers of metal songs as if they were written and performed by another metal band. He went all out for Smoke and did it in no less than 6 different styles: Testament, Metallica, Pantera, Slayer, Slipknot, and Tool. And by the way, the dude is looking for a singer…

Yet again it’s time to check out how things would have gone in a parallel universe. Or in 6 different parallel universes. What if Tool made Smoke on the water? What if Metallica wrote it? Slipknot? Well I visited a few alternative timelines just so you guys won’t have to. I listened these songs there and they were all hits there and I brought them home with me. Check ’em out. Peace and love! ☮️❤️

It ain’t everybody’s pint of lager, but enjoy if it’s yours!

As the saying goes: it’s not a tree, it’s a jungle. Several branches and vines of said jungle have intertwined on a new album by Ruffyunz. It is a project of bassist Randy Pratt (Cactus/The Lizards), engineer/producer with songwriting credits JZ Barrell, and session vocalist Ed Terry (Stevie Wonder, Slash, John Lennon, Keith Richards, Talking Heads, Simply Red, Little Steven, David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, David Lee Roth, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, and Tina Turner — to name a few!) The band’s concept is to invite well known drummers, guitarists and keyboard players as guests on their records. Guest artists featured on the project’s second offering Ruffyunz II include Don Airey, Bobby Rondinelli, Dave Maniketti (Y&T), Pat Thrall, Tracy G. (Dio), and Joel Hoekstra (Whitesnake).

Randy Pratt says:

Hey folks, here’s a first look at a video for a song from our upcoming release Ruffyunz II, reuniting my longtime rhythm section partner, Bobby Rondinelli on drums. We have a groovy list of guests Don Airey (Rainbow, Ozzy and Deep Purple for decades) on smoking Hammond B-3, Dave Maniketti on BADASS guitar, Tracy G. (Dio & WW III) on BRUTAL guitar, Joel Hoekstra from Whitesnake…AND starring in our video, Pat Thrall from the CLASSIC Pat Travers band line up, Hughes Thrall, Asia…and if you’re old AND cool enough to know the band AUTOMATIC MAN…that’s Pat! Please check out ‘Hype in My Head’ and watch for the imminent release of our new album, Ruffyunz II on Hyperspace Records.

The album is available for streaming courtesy of Hyperspace Records:

Thanks to BraveWords for the heads up.

In this new interview with Blabbermouth, Doug Aldrich talks about working with the diverse vocal talents of Ronnie James Dio, David Coverdale and now Glenn Hughes — all members of the Purple family one way or another.

Blabbermouth: What was the situation like when Glenn came down with COVID-19 and you had to enlist Dino (Jelusick, vocals, WHITESNAKE) and Yogi (Lonich, bass)?

Doug: We were bummed. We were concerned because we tried to protect Glenn and make sure he didn’t catch anything the whole time. In fact, when I caught it, David and I got it right before a big festival in France. We had to cancel the festival and the one the next day. David tested positive the next day, but I was still negative. To be safe, I tested myself again and I was negative. Then, I tested Glenn and he was negative. Later in the day, I tested myself again and was positive, so I was like, ‘Oh, shit.’ I was worried about Glenn catching it. We were just going to go home. We didn’t want to do anything without Glenn. There was one thing — everyone was bummed because there were a couple of shows, one in Switzerland and in Germany, that were headline shows. We had promoted it and gotten so many people from other parts of the world who made plans to fly in. It was this extravaganza — basically, a hangout, a musical hangout. We were bummed we would have to make people change or cancel flights and hotels. All of a sudden, you know, everybody knows everybody — Yogi had been filling in already for a couple of shows over the years for David. Yogi knew the set. He had done one show with us and knew the set. Then, we didn’t think of anything, but somebody said, ‘Dino is home because WHITESNAKE just canceled because David [Coverdale] had a sinus thing.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute — both of those guys are in Croatia. That could work.’ Of course, we didn’t want to do anything without Glenn, but with his approval, we finished the tour and maintained our commitments. That’s all we were trying to do. We didn’t want to let the fans down who were planning to come party with the band. We carried on. It was nerve-wracking. I felt responsible for making sure we didn’t suck.

Continue reading in Blabbermouth

Photo: © 2015 Eddietherocker, some rights reserved

The Dead Daisies have announced a short tour of Britain and Ireland coming December 2022. They are headlining a string of shows with FM and Graham Bonnet as support. Graham will be the sole support on the two Irish dates, promising an “exclusive acoustic performance”. Tickets are already on sale, further details in our calendar.

Ear Music has released a Deep Purple concert from Mumbai, India on April 8th, 1995. The show was professionally recorded for TV, and was released on VHS and DVD video around year 2000 – or Y2K as those of us who remember it might refer it as.
The concert was later also released as part of the «Around the World» DVD set.

The new release is the first time the set is officially out on vinyl, and probably also on CD, to the best of my knowledge. Both versions come with the DVD from the show. «Fireball» is omitted on the vinyl and CD versions.

First of all – widescreen on TV was still a few years off from becoming usual in 1995. This is a 4:3 format (SD) video.
But it is a pro job, multiple cameras, rather good editing (although the «Copenhagen 72 Syndrome» – seeing other band members than the guy who’s actually soloing – is prevalent).

The video seems to be lifted straight off previous releases. This DVD seems to be straight Dolby stereo. Not very punchy sound, but OK.

I think it’s more or less the complete show, besides the start of “Fireball” being clogged by the press conference jitter. (Steve Morse says he’ll probably be playing parts of the Blackmore solos far closer to studio versions than Blackmore ever did, before going off on stage to do no such thing, apart from those runs on «Highway Star» and «Smoke on the Water».)
I think Jon’s keyboard solo and Steve’s guitar solo are cut – they seem much shorter than normal – but I’m not sure.

Anyway – what do we get?
This is unique footage from the few touring dates that «Mk Morse» did in 1995. After the summer tour in Europe in 1994 with Joe Satriani on guitar, the band did a couple of gigs with Steve Morse in November 1994, two in Mexico and one in Texas.
Then they played two gigs in Florida in early March 1995, when they were recording what would become the masterpiece «Purpendicular». Next up where two concerts in Seoul, South Korea, then nine dates in South Africa in March and April, before they headed off to India, where they played Mumbai and New Delhi.

I’d received tapes from the Florida gigs before I heard this concert. I can’t remember now if the South Korea gigs were circulated on video or just tapes, but I had those as well. And the unplugged South African radio session, with an instrumental version of what would become «The Aviator», and four other songs.
So I’d heard the concerts where early versions of «Vavoom: Ted the Mechanic» (often dubbed as «Ken the Mechanic» on bootlegs back then), «The Purpendicular Waltz», and, sadly just once, «Soon Forgotten» were played.

We only get “Purpendicular Waltz” from the then new songs here, but that song is very well played.

In retrospect, watching «Mk Morse» live in this early stage is interesting. Not only because Steve Morse hadn’t acquired the fan that kept his hair looking lit at this time. This is a multi camera job, so we get great shots, like Ian Gillan at the back with the congas, watching Steve Morse soloing with a big smile on his face. Ian’s pleasure of sharing the stage with Steve is evident throughout the show, right down to him ad-libbing (what I think is) «What’s that you say, I’ve got Steve re-Morse» on the last verse of «Lazy».

There’s incredible close-ups of Jon Lord’s fingers dancing across the keys now and then. We get to watch Jon in the foreground of the screen, watching Steve laying down a run Jon then has to mimic during «Speed King», and nailing it, even though Steve is way outside the territory Ritchie used to stay in.

The synchronization of the sound is not perfect. Especially during close-ups of solo performers, I notice that there’s a lag between what we hear and what we see. As it’s been twenty-odd years since I last saw this, I don’t know if the original was like this as well. This is my main gripe with the product.

The performance is good, but we notice it’s early days for the five of them. Ian Gillan is mostly in good voice, perhaps struggling more towards the end of the show. Seeing Steve’s playing now is very interesting. At the time I was still adjusting to this new guitarist. I see now, after a quarter of a century with Steve as Deep Purple’s guitarist, that he plays effing well – for instance during the solos on «Pictures of Home», which are outstanding.

For fans of Deep Purple after the golden age of the 70s, this is music history well worth diving into. It’s documentation of a transitional phase for Deep Purple. Even though the two concerts in India were the last in 1995, they were a more coherent band when they hit the road for the «Purpendicular Tour» proper in 1996.

(I’d love to have an official, great sounding recording of the first leg of the «Purpendicular Tour» btw, while they still were playing upwards to seven of the songs from that album, if my memory from Brixton in March 1996 serves me well. It might, but who knows.)

On a closing note: While «Child in Time» is performed here, probably for the only time ever in Mumbai, there’s no mention in sleeve notes of Jon nicking the chords from It’s a Beautiful Day’s “Bombay Calling”, which this album is named after.

Is this release worth having? Definitely. If you have the DVD already, you’ll have to consider if you need a physical audio copy as well, of course. Your mileage might vary.

Trond J. Strøm