This gentleman travelled all the way down to Montreux to tell the story we all know. The short film is nicely put together, and he managed to get inside the Résidence des Alpes (née THE Grand Hotel). Continue Reading »

Fans of Mark 3, rejoice! Glenn Hughes has opened his 50th anniversary of Burn tour with a couple of shows in Gothenburg, Sweden. Here is a video from the concert on May 6, 2023. Continue Reading »

A heavily augmented remix of Rainbow take on Since You’ve Been Gone is used in the Volume 3 of the Guardians of the Galaxy fairy tale superhero franchise. Continue Reading »

A pro shot video of an almost complete Deep Purple’s concert in Buenos Aires on April 28, 2023, appeared on YouTube. It looks like the feed that is shown on the giant video monitors during the show, so the editing and the sound can be a bit iffy at times. It is still a couple of steps above the usual smartphone fare. The video has been already taken down at least once by the copyright police and appeared back, so hurry up, as it may disappear for good any time now.

Set list:

1. Intro
2. Pictures of Home
3. 7:35 – No Need to Shout
4. 10:48 – Into the Fire
5. 14:40 – Uncommon Man
6. 24:30 – Lazy
7. 33:22 – When a Blind Man Cries
8. 38:30 – Anya
9. 43:16 – Keyboard solo
10. 47:40 – Perfect Strangers
11. 54:20 – Space Truckin’
12. 1:00:00 – Smoke on the Water
13. 1:07:24 – Hush
14. 1:14:35 – Bass solo
15. 1:16:36 – Black Night

Thanks to Tobias Janaschke, Juan Flier, and janbl for the heads-up.

Metal Edge magazine has an in depth retrospective interview with Geezer Butler, touching, among other things, on the various interactions of the Sabbath camp with various members of the Purple family. Here’s an excerpt covering Gillan’s stint with the band.

What are your thoughts on the controversy surrounding the Born Again record?

Butler: I have to say, I actually liked most of the songs on the Born Again album. I didn’t particularly like a couple of lyrics, but I thought there was some good stuff on there. And I recently listened to it a couple of years ago, and after not hearing it for some time, I had forgotten how good of an album it was. The issue was, once again, once we got out on tour with Ian [Gillan], we found that he didn’t bother to learn any of the lyrics to the old Sabbath tunes. I thought that was ridiculous. I mean, if you’re gonna go out on tour with us, give it your all, or maybe get a monitor or something.

But again, it was obvious that Ian wasn’t 100% into it, and then in the middle of the American tour, he finally revealed to us that Deep Purple was getting back together, which screwed us.

Many people feel that Born Again shouldn’t have been called a Sabbath record at all.

Butler: We agreed, and we didn’t want it to be. But that was the problem we always had; we’d go to the record company and tell them things like, “Look, we’ve got three Sabbath guys, and Ian from Deep Purple, who has an R&B core, we don’t want to call this ‘Black Sabbath,’ ” but they weren’t having it. They’d tell us, “Okay, you don’t want to call it ‘Black Sabbath?’ Then retire or go somewhere else. We don’t want you.” The truth is – like several of Sabbath’s records – Born Again wasn’t a true Sabbath record, but we got stuck calling it as such. I regretted it then, but I’ve gotten used to it now.

Read more in the Metal Edge.

Ultimate Classic Rock has an interview with David Coverdale where he is discussing, among other things, his plans to celebrate a life changing job offer he got 50 years ago:

With me celebrating the 50th anniversary of Purple, we’re going to be doing something, probably around October. I spoke with Glenn Hughes last year and asked if I could fly him up, to just sit down there and video us talking about our memories of getting the gig. He got the job with Deep Purple before me.

I’m hoping I can pull that off, so we can just put that on the internet for both him and I and our respective social media. Because it’s such a fucking game-changing, life-changing thing. This is how the universe works. Last week, I came into the studio and we were going over stuff to do. They said, “Oh, what do you want us to do about that huge trunk downstairs?” I went, “Uh, what huge trunk?” They bring up this thing I’ve never seen before. I said, “What’s in it?” They said, “It’s locked.” I said, “Well, break the fucking thing open!” It was my mother’s belongings. I lost my mother 20 years ago.

There’s this gift from the grave, which sounds awful, but it’s the tape that got me the audition with Deep Purple. That’s one of the things that we’re putting together now for a special release in October.

Read more in the Ultimate Classic Rock.

Louder Sound publishes what appears to be a transcription of the Machine Head recording story as told in the Classic Albums series documentary by everyone involved.

Deep Purple’s Fireball was the second album recorded with the Mark II line-up. It was another No.1 hit in the UK, but despite its success there was a nagging feeling within the band that the best was yet to come.

As 1971 drew to a close, it was time for a change of scene.

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Roger Glover (bassist): We needed to make another record, and we’d become pretty successful, and accountants and lawyers and management said: “You know, if you record outside of England you pay a different tax rate.” And that’s the reason we were in Switzerland. It could have been Germany or France, anywhere as long as it was out of England.

Jon Lord (keyboard player): We’d heard the Rolling Stones had a wonderful mobile studio, so we contacted them and we were able to get hold of that. And the reason we went to Montreux was because we were going to be in America at the end of 1971, but Ian Gillan got ill. It was hepatitis, I think – which was the disease to have at the time.

Ritchie Blackmore (guitarist): It was a very fashionable thing to have. Gillan went down with it first. And then we went back to America to do the shows we’d cancelled. And then I got hepatitis, and I ended up in a Harley Street hospital, and had about two months off. That gave me some time to write something. I came up with Space Truckin’, Smoke On The Water and stuff like that.

Ian Gillan (vocalist): Fireball gave us a chance to actually bring out what I always call the funk in the band, instead of just pure English rock. However, when we got to doing Machine Head, there was a lot of pressure to do what most people saw as a follow-up to In Rock. We’d got to get back to doing that rock stuff, and that was pretty much how we approached it.

Read more of the familiar story in Louder Sound.

David Coverdale appeared on the Rock of Nations podcast.

We are thrilled and delighted to have #Whitesnake mainman #DavidCoverdale back on the show! This time he’s talking about the brand new boxed set “Still Good To Be Bad”, featuring remixes and remasters of the heavy 2008 classic album. And of course Dave and Shane get into all kinds of other stuff with DC. Here is part 1!

The interview itself starts around 6 minutes into the podcast.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the heads-up.

Swedish Rock’n’Roll magazine publishes a 9-page Guide to Deep Purple in their latest (#4/2023) issue. It is accompanied by 3 pages of every studio album reviewed. And although this doesn’t sound like something most of our readers would be interested in, if you have to have it, the issue can be ordered through the publisher’s web store. Continue Reading »

Roger Glover was interviewed for Brazil’s Rádio Rock. The questions seem a bit contrived, so Roger is trying to make the best of it. See for yourselves. Continue Reading »