Nice photo by Tarik Burcoglu; Roger Glover at the Kongresshalle, Schwerin, Germany.

One of my early New Year tasks was to finish the scanning of a wedge of previously unpublished negatives of DEEP PURPLE taken in 1976 on and off stage. The backstage shots are fascinating, and I thought I recognised one of the hangers on – sure enough it turned out to be Geoff Barton, working on his lengthy US tour review for Sounds. He’s now after a copy for his wall! I’m hoping he will help us identify some of the other back-stage characters too.
Talking of Deep Purple, two decent soundboards of a show in Helsinki and another in Oslo late last year on the recent tour have been doing the rounds, albeit it as downloads only so far. Some fans have been having fun speculating as to who recorded them!
From the looks of things we’ll all be scratting around for new stuff as IG has just been quoted as saying that they will not now release a new album until 2013, backed up by a world tour. The idea is to take more time between breaks on the current world tour (which began in 2006) to write and record. It’ll not take the statisticians long to work out that the gap between LPs will be longer this time than the period the group were originally together.
More on the Canadian DP ticket prices which took fans there by surprise last year; there are also three levels of VIP, from $180 – $380 – the last price offers a side stage “experience”, a meet and greet, some merchandise and front row seats. But if you’ve got front row, I’m not sure what the stage side experience will be – unless you get a couple of numbers there, then off to your seat. At least one of the Feb shows has been pulled as a result of slow ticket sales, yet in other places they have doubled up shows due to demand. As for the band they’re pretty much booked up now until March time and beyond although no more UK shows pencilled for the time being.
Highway Star made number 11 in the NME Top 50 Guitar Solos poll in January. Amazed anyone on the staff there even knows who DP are!
Claude Nobs, the man who rescued Machine Head, features briefly in a new TV commercial for bankers UBS while Bono from U2 has been heard rubbishing DP again recently. It’s strange, according to our research, they used to spend their early rehearsals playing Smoke over and over…
Bjorn Sund has been asking about a vinyl copy of Made In Japan he picked up. It looks like the EMI 25th Anniversary Edition, except that instead of the machine numbering on the cover, it’s done by hand (a supposed edition of 500). I’m pretty sure this must be a pirate, so do be careful if you’re offered one.
BBC4 TV is trailing a show about British Rock In America, starting on January 27 (tonight!). The fast moving selection of clips clearly shows Blackmore attacking the TV camera at the Cal Jam, though we do not know if the group are featured in the programme. Looks worth a view though, indeed the channel has had a lot of good music relating programmes lately.
It’s been a little busier on the solo front; Neil Hunt let us know that Don Airey features on the new Wishbone Ash album Elegant Stealth (“their best album in years!”), specifically on the instrumental track Mud-Slick. A band I really liked (and saw a couple of times) in the 70s, so will try and check it out.

Paice with the band

Ian Paice is doing two more shows with the Deep Purple tribute outfit Purpendicular in March 2012 as part of a Machine Head 40th Anniversary Tour. Paice will appear 21.03.12 – Z7 – Pratteln – Switzerland, 23.03.12 – Colos Saal – Aschaffenburg – Germany. The picture on the left shows IP with the group, from the band’s own site.
Jon Lord‘s management are backing a petition organised by some of his fans to try and have his work featured at next year’s BBC Proms event. To add your support and sign the e-petition, follow this link: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/jon-lord-for-the-bbc-proms-2012/   If only Jon had done some lightweight incidental music for Dr. Who it wouldn’t be an issue! So far the petition has reached the number of signees to take it forward to the next stage.
Glenn Hughes was seen as part of the house band on VH1′s That Metal Show (17 December 2011). No singing, but some cool solo bass playing apparently (cable? We can’t even get Channel 5 on our service!). Glenn’s spell with Black Sabbath also adds a personal touch to the news that Tony Iommi has announced he has had an early cancer diagnosis. I’ve always had a soft spot for early Sabbath, and would argue that Iommi is responsible for more of the genesis of metal guitar than almost anyone else. Let’s hope this illness has been caught in time.
Which I guess takes us on to Ronnie Dio. A number of top stars are lined up for a tribute album which Wendy is planning, and both Ian Gillan and Glenn Hughes are amongst those in line to appear. Does this mean it’ll take the pair of them to equal one Dio vocal line?!
Glenn’s other old sparring partner David Coverdale has been subject to a fraud case recently; a guy who looked after their house and gardens was discovered to have diddled the Coverdales out of over a quarter of a million in two years through a false invoicing scam which came to light in March 2011.
Tommy Bolin has been voted into fourth place in a rather depressing poll as to which guitarist no longer alive we’d most like to see still with us. You can read the full results at http://www.guitarworld.com/poll-which-guitarist-do-you-most-wish-were-still-alive-and-creating-music
On a cheerier note that new ‘tribute’ Bolin CD set is due out shortly. It was announced late last year, albeit buried in the pre-Christmas rush, but distributors say it was hastily put back to 2012. The basic premise of the set is that guest musicians add their new parts to existing Bolin master tapes, largely the material which appeared on the Whips & Roses sets. Glenn Hughes is on two tracks, with Steve Morse adding some licks to Crazed Fandango. It’s a concept which may or may not work, and might cause some debate amongst Bolin fans too. CD 2 is devoted to an extended track, pushed to 25 minutes with all the guest guitarists playing in turn. We’ve added it to the catalogue at DTBOnline.
Hoping to have more news on the expanded Rainbow On-Stage album soon. It is looking like there will be some extra previously unissued versions of live tracks from the Japanese tour on disc 2. My ears are still ringing from a blistering version of Man On The Silver Mountain which I was testing last week. Sadly it cuts out not long before the end of the performance, maddening.

Flying Colours

Flying Colors is the name of a “new virtuoso prog/pop/rock band”, featuring drummer Mike Portnoy (ex-Dream Theater) and Steve Morse. Their debut CD is due in March (and can be pre-ordered at DTBOnline). Interesting cover art too, would look great on vinyl (sales of which by the way were up 40% in the UK during 2011).
Out now (and in stock) is the Tony Ashton autobiography Zermattitis. As you might imagine from someone like Tony, he pushes the envelope of the term autobiography to the limit in many ways! We did print a chapter some years ago in Darker Than Blue magazine with Tony’s permission. I was quite interested in working with him on the project after he sent me a draft but sadly he died a few months later and without him, I couldn’t really see how it could progress (he originally planned three volumes). Anyhow, the work he did is now printed. The publishers (Wymer) have also added a short six track DVD as a bonus item.

Sunstorm

There’s a new Sunstorm album due out right at the end of February, the band fronted by Joe Lynn Turner. The third by the group, it is titled Emotional Fire. Available at DTB Online Store.
Lastly Michael Schenker is touring the UK in May 2012 with Doogie White on vocals, four shows as part of a European tour. I have to say Schenker was great to watch when he guested with UFO as they supported BCC last year, so could be worth catching.
I’ve added the How I Got Into Deep Purple feature to the blog recently, check it out and see if it inspires your own recollections.

As well as people noted above, my thanks to Jeff Breis, Damian Phelan, Vince Budd, John Blackburn, Tim Summers, Mike Galway, Stuart Hamilton, Seher Cosgun, Nigel Young, Matthew Kean for snippets this time.

Larry “Rhino” Reinhardt, founder of Captain Beyond with Rod Evans. Obituary.

Yes it is real!

DTB 2011/2012 Review • It’s been a busy year as ever for Deep Purple fans, culminating in a handful of live shows with the Orchestra in Britain. Well received by many who went but a worrying number of people who opted not to bother, ourselves included. Yet in terms of new material it has been a little sparse. Nothing new studio wise from the group of course, despite a short writing break and plans for this to happen (next year possibly maybe?). The word from the tour is that the group are likely to be in the road at least for another three years or so, but you feel it will be hard to sustain the core support without something new to get people interested. The gaps between albums these days are almost as long as the entire career of the original four line-ups!
On the retro scene it has also been pretty quiet. Phoenix Rising promised much but was a lot of hot air when you actually came to analyse the content, with the audio remixes sounding worse than on the last stereo edition. I suspect this is the way future reissues will be treated, there seemingly being no enthusiasm to carry on the in-depth archive projects. The trouble is of course that the longer they dither, the less people will be interested.
Which really left the BBC Sessions project to deliver anything in terms of unreleased audio. This I think it did, although plans to include more DJ stuff and jingles were thwarted over copyright worries. The box edition looked very handsome (I would say that wouldn’t I?), though in marketing terms I’m not sure EMI quite got the launch of the title quite right (and I’m still getting emails from reviewers who say they would have judged it very differently if EMI had sent this out instead of two CDRs and a text file!). In terms of my own airplay, it was the BBC material which topped everything else here in DP terms. I confess to not having got around to even watching Montreux 2011 on DVD yet (still got series 2 of Spiral to get through).

Next year will see more special editions, with Machine Head and Made In Japan likely to fall under the spotlight. There are also plans for other releases keyed in to the anniversary of Machine Head and another special release for Record Store Day in April. Indeed the continued interest in Vinyl shows little sign of going away, with a reported 40% increase in sales of the format last year.
Away from DP, once again it was Glenn who kept us all on our toes. I’m not sure the second BCC album had quite the musical clout of the first for me, despite improvements in production. Likewise the live shows were fine but I think I have enjoyed Glenn’s own shows rather more in the past. It’ll be interesting to see if the band can progress, or whether Bonamassa’s own workload will keep the breaks on it to some degree.
In fact it has been the book front which has perhaps thrown up more of interest lately, with Glenn’s autobiography much anticipated (especially by those of us who didn’t fancy the £500 first edition). On a more quirky level books from Tony Ashton and especially Colin Hart have been interesting, the latter throwing light on the often disfunctional goings on within the band’s organisation! The New Year promises more titles, with the massive Whitesnake biography leading the way in January (my Christmas was spent checking page proofs), the publication of the Deep Purple Diary, and the Story of Smoke On The Water amongst others.
Darker Than Blue is also set for a return in 2012 albeit also in book form, with titles devoted to specific areas of the band’s history. Details of the first two will be released early in the New Year and it is planned to continue the magazine issue numbering sequence with these. DTB people with subscriptions will be offered appropriate discounts.
Whitesnake have perhaps had the lions share of releases lately, what with the new CD and seemingly endless number of compilations, culminating in the box set to end all box sets. Still, got to pay the gardening bills somehow haven’t we? Impressive physically certainly, but a lot of people have found it difficult to justify buying just to get the DVD and Reading broadcasts. Let’s hope EMI issue these individually before much longer. Blackmore? Well some tentative steps with the Universal remasters may produce interesting editions of On-Stage in 2012 possibly including unissued Japanese recordings. Beyond that he seems content to remain on the edges of the rock scene with Blackmore’s Night. The God Of Guitar website have asked any fans to vote in their 2012 poll by the way, it’s online here: http://godofguitar.com/7.html
We’ll be back with our regular DTB news round ups next week. In the meantime let’s hope in wider terms 2012 will see things pick up for everyone. This especially applies of course to Mr. Jon Lord, and we’re all looking forward to the studio recording of The Concerto to hear those dulcet Hammond tones once again!

All the CDs and books mentioned here can be grabbed from the DTB Online store. Except the Spiral box set.

“And so we come to the final part of a trilogy of Deep Purple family gigs taking place this autumn/winter in the UK with the fourth appearance at the Newport Centre of David Coverdale and his ever changing support cast of Whitesnake (I make it version 16 – keep up at the back). In fact, this was the penultimate show of the 90 date Forevermore 2011 World Tour.

A sizeable crowd (including many familiar faces) turned up on a cold South Wales night to pay homage to one of the great frontmen of rock over the last 38 years, right from those early days of being plucked from obscurity to front Purple mark 3 which was, back in 1973, the biggest selling (and loudest) band in the world.

Once the excellent Red, White and Blues has fulfilled the support slot, it was time to get down and sing along to some of the signature tunes of 1980s rock: Bad Boys, Give Me All Your Love (youtube), Love Ain’t No Stranger, The Deeper The Love (youtube), Is This Love?, Fool For Your Loving (youtube), Here I Go Again, Still Of The Night and a collection of old Purple stuff in Burn/Stormbringer and Soldier Of Fortune.

Whitesnake - Newport, Wales, 7 December 2011

So what was it like?
First, the positives. Whitesnake have an impressive back catalogue with many tunes which will last for a very long time and, in David Coverdale, there is the very model of a heavy rock frontman: even at 60, in fine shape, eloquent and with hair the envy of men half his age.
His interaction with the crowd is well known, and this made for a real Christmas party atmosphere. His supporting musicians are well crafted, and shine most on the newer material like the new album’s title track “Forevermore” and, from the last album, “Can You Hear The Wind Blow?”

So it cannot be said that it was not an enjoyable evening.

But…
…even as an ardent Whitesnake fan…

…I have to point out that this incarnation of live Whitesnake is a mere shadow of days gone by.

It just has to be said that DC’s voice is a long way from the force it was and, to be brutally honest, varies between a husky growl and screams, with little in between on the ‘heavy metal’ numbers. The backing group help out enormously on vocals with as many as four of them singing out at some stages. Coverdale ducks out of many sections, leading crowd sing alongs of both a collective and, increasingly, individual nature by passing the mike to audience members.

My biggest criticism has to be reserved for what I consider to be the amount of time wasted. After an impressive start to the show for around half an hour, the momentum of the gig was completely ruined by an interminable instrumental section: around 10 minutes of twin guitar solos, followed by a mindnumbing drum solo (I lost count after 11 minutes – amazingly some people were still filming it) and an excruciating band introduction section complete with cringeworthy cover versions of Cream , Aerosmith etc.

Not complete with that we had the appearance of a gift bearing Father Christmas during the classic Fool For Your Loving which, coupled with Coverdale’s increasingly scripted innuendos and gestures (he’s more like Frankie Howerd every tour), did make me wonder if the long awaited sequel to Spinal Tap was being filmed.

Whitesnake - Newport, Wales, 7 December 2011

So for all the goodies that a Whitesnake show can bring, this one brought it’s fair share of car crash viewing. Far better for those instrumental sections to be removed (it’s £40 a ticket y’know), get the bar stools out, and sing some blues / acapello. 1987 it isn’t. And I speak for many I think when I say that I want to see a performance not a pantomime.

Will it happen? Dunno, but DC could take a leaf out his old bandmate Glenn Hughes’s book and go back to basics, drop the heavy metal frontman image and act like the seasoned and talented pro he is.

If he doesn’t, he runs the risk of ridicule and unravelling a great reputation.

Will I go again? Dunno, depends on ticket price, locality and whether the show changes.

We can all hear the sound of the windmill going round. Perhaps it’s time the tune was changed before it stops turning altogether.

Ian Janes

Whitesnake - Newport, Wales, 7 December 2011

“Just saw the pictures of Whitesnake live in Newport 2011 on the site. Great stuff, but what a one sided review you posted along with them. The guy states he hasn’t seen the band for 25 years, and didn’t know the first 6 songs, which kind of indicates that hemay not be familiar with any of the albums for the last 25 years.

For the record the concert was a great performance, yes David Coverdale is ageing a bit and a 60 year old voice needs a bit of chorus help, but after allowing for that, I and all around had a bloody good time. In a festive night with the amps and drums decked out with fairy lights, and a guest appearance by Santa chucking presents out to the crowd, the band ripped through a great selection of old and new songs including a Deep Purple Medley of Stormbringer / Burn, and later Soldier of Fortune.

Also present were the old Whitesnake fan fave’s of Still of the Night, Here I go again, Fool for your loving, to name a few. If you hanker for a great classic rock act with a full repertoire of songs to choose from intermixed with guitar duels and ( God Forbid ) 5 min long drum solo’s from the 70’s this was your night !! I thought so, as did all the fans around me.”

George Thomas

Deep Purple have been garnering some great reviews from the UK shows (“I can honestly say that the Deep Purple gig tonight in Manchester was not only the best Purple gig that I’ve ever been to but was the best gig I’ve ever been to full stop.”). Do feel free to add your own thoughts. We have a selection of reviews on the DPAS website and more on the DTB blog.

Deep Purple on stage in USA June 2011

In the meantime the group have already announced a new set of dates for November / December. That’s November / December 2012! Running through France and Germany mainly. If you can’t wait that long to plan your holidays, some dates in Canada have been pencilled in for February. Doubtless inspired by the massive demand in France to see the band, they’re going after the French ex-pat market now (though some have questioned the wisdom given the likely weather there at that time of year). Check the dates on the deep-purple.net gig guide. Mind you, Chris Meloche in Canada says he got advance notice of pre-sale tickets and went to book a seat. Ticket prices were high enough but, when he got to the end of the purchase transaction, a service charge was added making the single ticket well over a hundred dollars! “Unfortunately, I am going to have to pass on seeing one of my favorite bands.” Just give thanks it wasn’t Paul McCartney at the O2 Arena Chris, best seats are over four figures. Actually some of the Canadian tickets were topping out at over $200; maybe this was a meet and greet sort of deal.
The Manchester Evening News’s Purple-friendly Paul Taylor gave the show a good write up: “Deep Purple always were the most eclectic of hard-rockers, with blues, jazz and classical influences jostling amid the busy brew. But with an orchestra in tow they range even further across the musical genres. And the whole things gels beautifully.” Read the full review here.
The Guardian also sent a reviewer (Dave Simpson) along. Once he’d got the clichés out of the way (and they did take up over half the review) he seems to have got into it. “Superbly conducted, the musicians know just when to swoop in, and when to let the evergreen hard rockers have their wicked way. Space Truckin’ rocks ferociously, Hush sounds symphonically psychedelic. Best of all is Smoke on the Water, accompanied by footage of what looks like a giant living-flame gas fire. It’s such a stupidly enjoyable fusion of rock and classical music you half expect the violinists to set their instruments ablaze.”
Someone pointed out it’s worth highlighting that Deep Purple’s show at the Gelredome, Arnhem, Holland on Dec 2. 2011 saw the first full live version of The Mule (incl. drum solo) since late 1972. Gillan sounded as though he caught up on this by listening to the Made in Japan. It was still in the set the following night too.
“The Spinal Tap moment for me was the merchandise stall,” wrote Jamie of the UK tour. “They were flogging T-shirts with the lyrics to Smoke on the back – and had managed to spell Montreux very wrongly”.
And no I didn’t go; I just increasingly of late have had this feeling that I need to draw a line somewhere. I’ve drawn it with the current output from Whitesnake, Blackmore, etc. And when I saw the venue list that settled it. My knees are still aching from the last time I went to the MEN! And no excuses for the venues either. Manchester has the Bridgewater Hall, Sheffield City Hall was designed to fit a full Hallé Orchestra onto the specially banked stage regularly…
Ian Paice was quizzed at a drum clinic in Italy recently about the next Deep Purple studio album, and is reported as saying the band parts are all finished and they were just waiting for Ian Gillan to do his bits. This does rather contradict the last information which came from Ian Gillan, and could mean all sorts of things. Perhaps there is a basic set of backings sorted and they will move forward when Ian has got some vocal ideas together. Or maybe just some demos. Anyhow, a glimmer of hope for something new in 2012. We’ve added a couple more reviews of the US leg of the tour to the site too, thanks to Harry Heathman (his wife took the great photo of the DP originals above in June).

Deep Purple • Retro – Thanks to those who spotted that the old Deep Purple Kinema ad I showed last time is from 1969 not 1970 as we put. I only stumbled on it hunting around doing some research on old cinema architecture after being allowed a peep round my old local flea-pit which still survives but is struggling despite the efforts of volunteers to find a way to reopen it.
Work on the California Jam book is progressing, and I’m in touch with the guy who introduced all the bands on the night. He also had to face up to Blackmore when it all kicked off backstage. Should be interesting. The band’s take on it all is of course well documented, but the pressure on the organisers and TV company must have been enormous given the way it was all set up, so it will be good to get a view from the other side. More details shortly.
I’ve finally got around to organising some of the Come Taste The Band remastered reviews on the blog.
The owner of one of the ultra-rare red vinyl Japanese copies of Concerto put it up for sale again recently. It started off at four figures, but appears to be dropping each time it doesn’t sell. Who will be the first to crack? Mind you, bargains can still be had; Jeff Breis just picked up a Tetragrammaton pressing of Concerto for $5.00. I offered to double his money but he wouldn’t take it! Also offered for sale recently was a poster from the band’s 1973 Japanese tour, but again it failed to reach the reserve of over $1,000.
A guy has come back out of the woodwork with around 300′ of super 8 film shot at the Radio City Music Hall in 1976 which sounds interesting. Though again like the MIJ stuff it is probably silent.
There is another wedge of paper sleeve reissues scheduled for Japan early in 2012. These include Coverdale’s first two albums, Live In London, In Concert 1970-1972, Live in Stockholm (UK Connoisseur sleeve) plus the first three albums Shades of Deep Purple, The Book of Taliesyn and Deep Purple 3rd album in both UK and US sleeves. Though quite how you’ll be able to tell the difference at CD size on the last two I’m not sure.
In the meantime we have started a 40 Year On Machine Head Diary on the blog (like the Motorcycle Diaries, but without the bikes. Or the jerks who rode them), which is a sort of day by day as it happens (sorry Jimmy) featurette from the upcoming Smoke book. Also new is a feature on Made In Japan sleeve copyists – more than you’d perhaps imagine.
Glenn Hughes • We’ve got a review of the Glenn Hughes solo show on the blog, which sounds very interesting. The final show in Manchester was recorded. The Glenn Hughes book – which these shows were designed to promote – is now back in stock at DTBOnline Store. I think most of the available copies went on the road so both their distributors went out of stock. The book is actually being printed in China, shipped to America and freighted over to Europe for some reason.
Meanwhile for anyone counting, the earlier limited edition version of Glenn’s book ended up as 500 copies, split as follows; 100 Deluxe version (550 pounds, packaged in white satin or something); 400 Signature version (300 pounds). Both were the same book but with different packaging. One guy we know who bought the posh version wasn’t too impressed to find several of his images in there uncredited and unpaid for!
Glenn also appeared on November 28th at the Royal Albert Hall as a guest at the latest Rhapsody of Rock show from Swedish pianist Robert Wells.
Ian Gillan • has been booked up for the next Rock Meets Classic Tour, January 2012 in Germany, along with Steve Lukather (Toto), Jimi Jamison (Survivor), Chris Thompson (Manfred Mann’s Earth Band), The Bohemian Symphony Orchestra Prague and others. The dates are on the website (dtb link)
Don Airey • Short interviews with Don and Doogie in Record Collector this month. Standard format (first record, most important, what are you after, etc). Doogie revealed he’d desperately like to re-form Rainbow with Blackmore… Gillan was interviewed by Stuart Maconie for twenty minutes the other night on BBC Radio 2, catch it on iPlayer.
Don Airey guests on two tracks on his brother Keith’s band’s (Aireya 51 – don’t groan) new album. Tim Summers says he saw Aireya 51 supporting Uriah Heep in Holmfirth the other evening and during the inevitable plug for the album on sale at the merch. stand, Keith said “It features guest keyboards by my brother Don, who can’t be here tonight as he’s busy with some dodgy little outfit called… Deep Purple”. Don is on two tracks.
Ronnie Dio • The Elves CD I mentioned last time (‘And Before Elf, There Were Elves’) is from one of the few bootlegs of the group around so looks like the label (Niji Entertainment) is making it legit. The problem is that the original bootleg from 1971 (‘Live At The Bank’) is twice as long as the official CD but the packaging is nice. It’s available at DTBOnline store.
Niji are issuing a Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll picture disc LP soon and an Elf (first album) picture disc LP on record store day in April next year (US we assume). You can also order a baseball from them with a facsimile of RJD’s autograph on it. Hmmm.
Rather more fun was hearing Ronnie get name-checked in the final part of BBC4′s story of American Art when one of the young turks was trying to explain his rather amazing sculpture pieces; a skeleton in rainbow colours (which he referred to as a rainbow in the dark and credited our Ronnie!).
Last post • Lastly as the snow tips down outside anyone wanting to order anything from DTBOnline Store is reminded of the dreaded ‘last posting dates’. Ann has emailed all our regular customers about this. We have added the latest versions of both the latest Catalogue Update and the Collectors Listing to the blog (the latter includes one one-off items, rarities, deletions, memorabilia, etc.).

Sadly we’ve been unable to source the Stargazer Lipstick in Deep Purple (see photo!) which James Bateman sent on to us. The ideal stocking filler, well for half the population anyway. Maybe they’re all out on the tour merchandise stalls as well?

Thanks to Jamie Woodward. Tim Summers. Masaki Tanaka. Allen Pamplin. Albertino Viveiros. Matthew Kean. Jeff Breis.