Two more shows

from 1971, added to our gig list thanks to a site detailing the history of the Newcastle Mayfair (1961 – 1999). It’s amazing to think of Deep Purple playing in ornate dance venues like this, especially for 90p a ticket!  If any of you went to the venue do check the link as there is a book coming out, and if you saw Deep Purple there in 1970 or 1971 please get in touch with us…

Purple on black

Three vinyl reissues which may have escaped people’s notice. Flagged up here as DTB Online Store has been able to get more stock of them all at last. Purpendicular came out again in 2011. Slaves & Masters was reissued last year, while Battle Rages On, one of the rarest of the band’s albums in vinyl, came out a couple of months back. These are all European pressings on heavy-weight vinyl. Check to store out or give us a call for more details.

Jon looking down…

UPDATE – it is a montage, and was done by David Plaisance, thanks to him for letting us show it.

If you missed it (and we did), BBC Radio 4 have extracts from what they say was Jon Lord’s last ever interview available. Rock and Roll in Four Movements was first aired in August 2012 and talked to four rock musicians involved in the rock and classics movement; Rick Wakeman, Keith Emerson, Roy Wood (instead of Procul Harum? Strange) and Jon.  It only runs for half an hour and is fronted by the ubiquitous Stuart Maconie (there is a great spoof on the ever busy Stuart ‘outsourcing his recollection quotes to China’ in the curent issue of Viz). It’s on the BBC iPlayer now. No rush, it’s available until August 2099 in fact.

Talking of Jon, someone sent us this shot they found recently. I don’t know if this is for real, ie. they’re doing a slide projection, or if it’s just a photoshop montage, but we did find it kind of touching. Hope we’re Ok to post it, let me know if it’s your work so we can credit.

Threesome

UPDATE – Thanks to all who commented. To sum up, the badge on the cabinet reads 100, and was applied to cabs designed to work with four 25 watt Celestion speakers inside. The unit on the right is a Marshall reverb, and he can be seen kicking it on film shot at the Royal festival Hall in 1970. The reverb inside was made by Hammond. The slightly larger speaker is just an older model. Ritchie himself claims he did use all three stacks  ‘during extra loud passages’, but normally just used two. If so they must have been set to a low level. The AC30 can be seen on stage in front of the Marshalls in some Mk 2 photos. Jim Marshall suggested he was asked to put the Vox inside one of their similar Marshall Combo amps, which makes more sense. Thanks to: Brent Dehn, Konrad Stief, JP, Matt Love, Tim Campbell, Chris Parsons, Madrakeroot and MIJFenders.

Thought we might throw this out for comment. Blackmore took three Marshall stacks on the road with him for a short period in 1970.  Finding a clear shot of this isn’t easy but this one gives you the idea. What our techie consultants are pondering is how the stacks differ. The right hand one clearly has a taller bottom speaker. The left hand pair have badges of some sort top left, not there on the middle pair. And lastly what is the fourth amp doing propped up on the chair?  There has been talk of him ramming the guts of an old AC30 into a Marshall to use during Child In Time – but (if it’s even possible) would this explain it? Jon Kirkman wonders if it’s some sort of slave amp to provide distortion, and points out that Paul Kossoff was using a triple stack at the time (as indeed did Hendrix). One of the reasons was that PAs were a lot less powerful, so this gave the volume.

And lastly how flipping loud would this lot have been?!  If anyone can shed light on all this do let me know.  Love the bemused look on the gent on the right, seemingly one of the hall staff waiting for it all to end…

Wait For The Ricochet

43 today! A forthcoming book which tells the story of one of rock’s greatest albums. Wherever you first came to be aware of Deep Purple, or indeed whenever, Deep Purple In Rock is the reason you were there (whether you knew it or not!). Everything came together for the group during the second half of 1969 and Wait For The Ricochet gives a narrative overview of events. From the auditioning of Gillan and Glover, the early productive rehearsals, the juggling of recording sessions and constant touring, and the amazing success which followed the release. It goes beyond that to look at the recording of the tracks, the inspiration behind them, and their legacy. Many of the key personnel have contributed, DTB have raided their archives for illustrative material, fans have provided rare ephemera and numerous photographers have licensed some great images. You may have seen some of the material before, you may have read bits of the story in the past, but this book brings it all together in context for the first time. The story runs up to the tail-end of 1970 amidst riots in Germany (and Scotland!) with the group topping the album charts abroad and achieving the sixth best selling album of the year in Britain. From Jon Lord’s mum defending her lad in the Melody Maker, to Roger Glover’s hints for dying crushed velvet trousers green. From the location of the gig where Gillan was auditioned, to the band out shopping for strobe lights. From the In Rock engineer’s matter of fact description of Ritchie recording the guitar solo for Child In Time,  to Ian Gillan explaining the need for tight trousers to sing the vocals, it’s all here.

front page of the NME 1970

The book will be available through high-street book stores and indie record shops later in the year, but pre-ordering means it will arrive hot off the press many weeks early. And everyone who pre-orders before the book goes to press will have their name printed in the book’s credits to say thank-you for supporting the project. Pre-orders are best done through DTB Online store (the publishers have arranged an extra discount for DTB people).
You can read more on the site at the book section and see a couple of trial spreads. The book is illustrated throughout in full colour. Even for the b/w images!
ISBN : 978-0-9561439-6-9. The title is published by Easy On The Eye, whose first book last year got lots of acclaim across Europe for the high quality of the layout and content.

43 this week

In Rock out June 5th

I’ve been listening to Deep Purple In Rock now for 43 years. Not continuously I hasten to add, with an album this venerable it’s important not to over play it. So I like to save it up for a treat when I’m really in the right frame of mind. But even if I’m not blasting it out as often as I used to, I still know In Rock well enough for it to remain one of my all-time favourite hard rock albums by any band. Fireball might just pip it to the post, but without In Rock there would not have been any Fireball, so maybe it ought to stand as their finest hour (or thirty plus minutes).
Some of the band (indeed many musicians) get rather dismissive about people as they see it ‘obsessing’ on moments from the past and as with any creative work, the creators generally move on.
Personally I really enjoy going back into time, whether it’s standing in the Tudor kitchens at Haddon Hall and seeing the soot marks left by candles nailed into the crude wood paneling 400 years ago by some over-worked cook, or wondering who penned the busy press release which Deep Purple’s publicists issued in the second week of May 1970. They’re both equally ephemeral moments.
You would think that a press sheet announcing the date for the release of Deep Purple In Rock would lead off with just that. Not a bit of it.  Instead the sheet talked about an impressive American record deal, the delayed release there of The Concerto, details of the follow-up work by Jon, etc., etc. Only then did it let slip (almost in a ‘by the way’ sort of fashion) that the band’s new studio album would be released three weeks hence, before carrying on with details of live dates in Germany and UK one-nighters.
Some of the music papers copied the information more or less in full, others just cherry-picked the news they thought would interest their readership. Deep Purple after all were still not a huge name, and given that for many readers The Concerto was perhaps their only point of reference for the band, maybe whoever had written the press release had been wise to lead off with that.
I like to think of the people reading it who felt a sense of anticipation, perhaps having seen the band live or heard them in session, and were keen to hear the first studio album from the new band. Planning a trip down to their record shop on June 5th, or maybe placing a pre-order (as a lot of people used to do in those days, paying a deposit over the counter). They would not be disappointed. Wait For The Ricochet.

News round-up.

A few updates around the site this week…

Rod Evans • there’s a live archive Captain Beyond CD due in America, from 1973. Details here.
Ian Paice • turns up on the cover of the June 2013 issue of Drum Magazine, check the cover out here.
Jon Lord • A link to a special 50 minute Israeli radio program, featuring the man himself and many more. Read details on our JL page.
We’ve also got two more possible pre-Purple Blackmore sessions documented. Check out this feature on the site and have a listen to one of them, and see what you think.
And if you fancy reading about the connections between Deep Purple, Leo Sayer and the UK’s first ‘bubble in’ (I’m so tempted to try and organise the second!), take a look at our new Deep Purple gig list entry for January 1970
EMI • the break up of EMI is causing all sorts of unforeseen consequences. For the Deep Purple catalogue it now looks as if the first wedge of the core albums will be moving over to the Time Warner label in Europe, and the later albums going to Universal. Which means that the classic run of albums from 68 to 76 will be split up for the first time. If you want any of the EMI originals I suggest you grab them quick (we do have some left at the DTB Online store).
Last word today goes to Gareth Toms: “I saw Bill Bailey last night play the riff to Smoke’ on his guitar, strumming it with a ten foot long dowel rod…”  Was it an instrument or a prosthetic we wonder?
Actually last word goes out to our effing useless Government. Instead of spending billions on HS2, a train service none of us will ever be able to afford to travel on, why not spend the money sorting out the UK broadband network, something we all use (says he after it went down for the sixth time today)…?
Thanks also to Jeff Breis, Stephen Clare.

Snippets

Details of the Deep Purple Vincent Price single release have been confirmed. There is a 7″ vinyl edition in a pic sleeve (sadly NOT featuring the dancing nun!) and a 5″ CD. Both formats include the non album cut First Sign Of Madness. The CD also has the promo video for the single which we’ve discussed before. It can be pre-ordered at DTB Online store.

Whitesnake – full details of their next live album Made In Britain are now with us. It’s a 2CD set, twenty five tracks. CD1 is from the UK tour in 2011, the second disc from rest of world shows. It includes versions of Soldier Of Fortune, Burn and Stormbringer.  More details on the Coverdale page. It’s available in July, and can be pre-ordered at DTB Online store.

Lastly I can’t be the only DTB person who was a fan of The Doors and Ray Manzarek’s very individual keyboard work; if so you might be interested in a detailed interview with Ray Manzarek which our friend Jon Kirkman did four years ago. He has dusted the tapes off and is airing it as a special tribute to Ray, who died a few days ago. It’s on Classic Rock Radio on Saturday afternoon at 4pm UK time. You can listen later at www.classicrockradio.eu

Pole dancing nuns.

In answer to a few emails, the bonus Now What track It’ll Be Me is a track IG has covered before, back in 1994 on the Javelins CD. Interesting to do a then and now comparison. Less interesting to realise we did that project twenty years ago now…

For those wanting a look at the Deep Purple Vincent Price video, it’s on the Classic Rock magazine website. Pole-dancing lingerie clad nun (all done in the best possible taste) and more.

It’s pure MTV hokum of course, but they’ve had a bit of fun putting it together, filming in the Berlin Dungeon with a David Thewlis lookalike as Price (and even a vaguely Madeline Smith lookalike for the nun).  Interesting to see someone has (rather badly) replicated Ian Paice’s 1969 bass drum head.  The audio seems tweaked a bit for play-back on PCs and the like compared to the CD too.

On the Rainbow scene, Jeff Cramer has done a pretty no-holds barred interview with the elusive former keyboard player David Stone which you can read at Jeff’s website. One or two suggestions need taking with a pinch of salt; and having double checked with others we find it hard to work out how he could possibly have played on Rainbow’s On-Stage album despite the claims!

Whitesnake? “Thunder great. Journey predictable. Whitesnake awesome, great mix of old and newer tracks and Mr C was in fine voice (Japanese tour voice worries seem to have been overcome). A few surprises but he asked us not to give away the set list. So I won’t!” Keith Livingstone.

And if the recession is getting to you as well, then according to Steve Allum there’s a copy of the first DPAS newsletter up for auction online right now with a ‘buy it now price’ of just $399.  Blimey.

Thanks to Michael Saloharis, Jamie Woodward, John McEvoy.

Deep Purple on cover of Metal Hammer magazine Poland

Gillan and Paice looked relaxed on the Later with… TV show on Tuesday evening. Jools Holland banged on about the album sleeve for a bit and then (for some reason) asked IG how dressing room riders had changed over the years? This prompted a nice (but barely audible) IG riff about asking for a rhino full of tartan ice cream and milk from two dogs! Holland then wheeled out the old Top Of The Pops clip – again – and asked them to come back and play on the show sometime. Paice said they would make that happen. IG mentioned that Roger couldn’t come as he was in hospital but didn’t say what was wrong. They may have a longer chat on the show’s repeat.
The DTB Mail Order Store have been told the Now What vinyl edition has sold out. The distributors are checking to see if any extra stock about, or if the label might be repressing given the demand.
Rolling Stone magazine have run a story asking readers for their list of bands which should be ion the rock and roll hall of fame but are still missing. Deep Purple tops the list. They were nominated for this year, and the next list will be announced in 2014. The place is fast becoming something of a laughing stock. Here’s the story. And even I know how to spell Nirvana correctly.
Also worth reading, a really well put together review of the new album and where it sits in the band’s career, in the Albany Democratic Herald. Nice to see such good journalism surviving in odd corners, it sure beats some of the shallow stuff which passes itself off in the UK qualities these days.  And when you’re finished reading it you can even get a Beaver Sports Update… A fairly positive review in the Independent newspaper in the UK too although the writer seemed to think that Don was a replacement following Jon’s death.
The Wednesday after Jools, Coverdale popped up on the BBC Breakfast TV sofa looking chipper and plugging the tour which starts Saturday. Dates are on the Coverdale news page. There are strong rumours to the effects that Bernie will pop up again at some shows, and even that Micky Moody might join him, but we’ll have to wait and see.
The next installment of the Whitesnake live album releases has been announced, a double from the UK and ROW, the details again on the Coverdale page shortly. It looks like they decided to combine two releases into one. Apparently they decided to record every show, and the CD production team then had to sift through over eighty concerts to make the selection…
It looks as if Coverdale guests on a track on Bernie Marsden’s upcoming solo album, as well as Joe Bonamasa (it is coming out on Joe’s label).
Finally who is the scallywag who posted this comment on a YouTube clip of Ritchie and The Outlaws some years ago (hoping it might become part of Blackmore myth)? It has finally been refuted! “Not many people realise that Ritchie Blackmore wrote and played most of the music for children’s television through the 1960′s – this was just before purple made the big time: Magic Roundabout, Chigley and Camberwick Green to name a few.” Mind you two more mid-sixties sessions have been mooted by one of the old engineers, so we’re trying to confirm.
Oh, and still wondering why Amazon are so cheap? Staff at their German offices have had to stage a strike just to try and get their wages up to the German state minimum.

Thanks to Mark Maddock. John McEvoy. Jamie Woodward. Stephen Clare. Tim Summers. Timothy Campbell.