David Coverdale spoke to Planet Rock on the occasion of him being the recipient of their Rocks Honours Award. This another one of those relaxed video chats that became popular during the pandemic (and, hopefully, never going away). Enjoy! Continue Reading »

Ultimate Classic Rock has a decent writeup on the demise of Deep Purple Mk.4 that happened 45 years ago. It is not very likely that any of our regulars will learn anything new from there, but it’s well sourced and well written.

Pieces started falling off long before Deep Purple finally came crashing down in the ’70s.

First Ian Gillan and Roger Glover split, replaced by the more R&B-leaning David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes in 1973. Then the ill-fated guitarist Tommy Bolin took over for Ritchie Blackmore, and Deep Purple descended into malaise and addiction. Coverdale finally grew weary of it all and quit in 1976, only to be told that the group had already broken up. “A lot of drugs and alcohol were rearing their ugly heads,” Coverdale said in 2015’s Sail Away: Whitesnake’s Fantastic Voyage, “and there was a great deal of disrespect for the legacy of Deep Purple, which I still maintain.”

Coverdale had been plucked from obscurity by Blackmore, who immediately paired him with a more experienced second voice in the bass-playing Hughes. In fact, Coverdale’s first time in a studio was with Deep Purple, in sessions for 1974’s Burn.

“I got this opportunity and was literally, no pun intended, being thrown in the deep end,” Coverdale told Jeb Wright in 2015. “Thank God I swam, but it was with the help of those guys. The five ego maniacs fighting for a spotlight came later.”

Continue reading in Ultimate Classic Rock.

Thanks to Gary Poronovich for the heads up.

Roger Glover’s 2002 solo album Snapshot will be re-released later this year in updated format. It will feature the original 14 tracks remastered, five demo bonus tracks, and new artwork. The new release will be available on CD on October 8, 2021, and 2LP on November 19. That’d be the first time the album is available on vinyl as the original was released only digitally. Continue Reading »

Orange Amplifiers is launching the Glenn Hughes Signature Crush Bass 50 amp. This model of the amp was originally released in 2016 in 25- 50- and 100 watts lineup. Apart from the purple trim, the signature model does not appear to have any significant modifications from the stock amp. Continue Reading »

There are covers, and then there are rip-offs. Under normal circumstances the following would fall into the former category, however credits accompanying the video put it squarely into the latter:

Song : Aisa Zakhm Diya Hai
Music : Anu Malik

No mention of the co-authors. Were there any? Let’s see…

Yup, this appears to be a rip-off of a rip-off, of a rip-off 😉

Thanks to raj kishore for the heads up.

Classic Rock has an illustrated piece about 8 songs that changed Ian Gillan’s life:

Music has been an ever-present constant in Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan’s life for as long as he can remember.

“My grandad was a bass baritone and sang opera, my uncle was a jazz pianist and my grandmother was a ballet tutor, so the house was always full of music, Chopin and Verdi to boogie-woogie,” he recalls. “I was a boy soprano in the church choir, so I always knew I could sing.”

And then Gillan got bitten hard by the rock’n’roll bug. In his first band, Garth Rockett and the Moonshiners, the youngster played drums in addition to singing, but he moved to centre-stage with his next group, The Javelins. Rather remarkably, to the delight of his old pals, the singer resurrected the quintet in 2018, more than fifty years after they disbanded, revisiting their 1963 set-list over five days in a Hamburg recording studio, to produce Ian Gillan And The Javelins.

“It worked out brilliantly,” Gillan enthuses. “It was like stepping into a time machine. The hairs on my arms were rising, because it was like I was 18 again.”

Here then, are eight of the songs that set one of rock’s greatest frontmen on the path to glory.

Continue reading in Classic Rock.

Thanks to Gary Poronovich for the info.

Ritchie Blackmore reminisces about his days in Deep Purple, including a rather convoluted explanation of the story behind the infamous spaghetti incident. This looks like it was recorded a few years ago. Continue Reading »

The Ultimate Guitar has a nice writeup on why Paicey is one of the best drummers of all time.

Inspired the Blast Beat Technique

Ian Paice is not thought of as a technical drummer, but in fact, his skills were incredibly impressive at the pique of his career. His drum parts have inspired countless drummers who openly talk about that from Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith to Metallica’s Lars Ulrich. Some of the things Paice did, transferred to much heavier genres like death metal and grindcore since one of his trademark techniques was the fast hand-foot combinations that occasionally resulted in drum fills that would have fit perfectly in a much heavier setting. Just take a listen to one of Deep Purple’s biggest hits “Black Night” and go to the 2:23 mark to listen to what might just be the first blast beat in heavy rock or metal.

Read more in the Ultimate Guitar.

And we’re leaving you with an all star performance of Black Night from the Sunflower Jam 2012:

Thanks to Gary Poronovich for the info.

Lots of people seemed to like what Sons of Apollo did with the Gates of Babylon. On the last tour before the proverbial excrement hit the proverbial fan, they regularly used to do a cover of Burn. Tony MacAlpine was supporting them, so he was joining to jam on this one. The only downside seemed to be that despite we were getting two guitar solos and a bass solo, it’s as if Derek Sherinian was lugging around that Hammond of his for nothing.

The video is from the Corona Theatre in Montreal, February 3, 2020, courtesy of TheMetalSyndicate.

Glenn Hughes spoke to a Michigan based radio station WMPA, promoting Dead Daisies live dates, and talking about his Blackmore experience, among other things.

When I joined the band, the first weekend I joined the band, we flew to Hamburg together and had a boys weekend. We sat on a bar stool and had a lot of fun. Ritchie, behind the scenes, when I joined the band, was great. And I’m saying this smiling, but when we started working, when the band started kicking into gear, I didn’t spend a lot of time with him, ’cause he had his own dressing room; he traveled alone; he was isolated. He was a little difficult. I’m smiling and chuckling. I love Ritchie. He’s difficult. People are difficult to work with. The band on stage was firing on all cylinders. But off stage, it was a little strange, as we traveled separately.

Listen to the whole thing:

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info and the transcription.