‘Ere Ear

The earMusic publicity machine seems to be grinding into action and speculation is that a May release for the new Deep Purple studio album (will they be calling it “Y And Beyond”? I dare them) seems to be on the cards. Ear have apparently (well Tim Summers told me, I haven’t got the patience!) been pushing out annoyingly short clips of Roger talking to producer Bob (and revealing very little in the process), but the feeling is that some actual audio snippets will not be long in appearing.  Some who have been privy to listening in claim it’s the best Morse-era material yet.  I know we shouldn’t get too excited at our age but I’ll get our laptop speakers dusted down in case …!

Meanwhile while we’re waiting, if you have half an hour free, see if you can spot parts of the Smoke On The Water riff in Jon Holmes amazing new BBC Radio 4 dark ‘comedy’ The Twister.

“Keep that lid closed guys, Carlos Ghosn slipped me a pony to put it on the next flight to Cuba…”

Candy Horizon

Glenn Hughes features on the cover of the latest issue of Rock Candy magazine in all his majestic monochrome glory. The cover suggests this is his “most revealing interview ever”, so ditch your copy of his autobiography now!  It’s not an easy magazine to find, but the newsagents over at Rochester Road in Sheffield had copies in when Simon popped in for some Old English flavour Spangles and a copy of Sounds just before Christmas.

Meanwhile Tom Dixon at his local newsagent (he doesn’t say which his favourote Spangles flavour was) has spotted an article in the 500th edition of Record Collector magazine, which discusses buying Purple albums on the strength of the covers. I don’t know which twerp would collect albums just for the sleeves (cue ironic laughter from the other sofa) but the author of the article rather spoils it all by twice calling the band “Midlanders”, and then “Brummies”…  Tom promises a written heckle on our behalf.

Nick Blagona

Nick Blagona, who was credited on numerous Deep Purple related albums died last week, having been seriously ill for some time. Seen above with Ian Gillan, Nick’s name can be found on the technical credits to Rainbow’s ‘Straight Between the Eyes’, Deep Purple’s ‘Perfect Strangers’, ‘House of Blue Light’, ‘Slaves and Masters’ as well as solo projects including Roger Glover’s ‘Mask’, Gillan/Glover’s ‘Accidentally on Purpose’ album and several of IG’s later solo releases.
As the recording engineer, Nick (nicknamed Nik The Knife by April Wine!) would be responsible for getting clean, balanced recordings of all the musicians as they laid down the initial recordings in the studio and his career (which began in London in the Sixties at Decca though he was based for most of his life in Canada) spanned some four decades. Needless to say his duties often went beyond recording engineer, for example he produced, engineered, mixed and mastered Ian Gillan’s ‘One Eye To Morocco’ album in 2009, his final connection with the Purple family. Nick was able to say farewell on social media, and thanked “every artist whoever entrusted me with their creative output and hope I did each of you proud.”

Santa’s Quiz

Here’s a little puzzle for the Deep Purple historians out there.  This building, which is in Salisbury, played a role in the development of their Machine Head album in 1971.  It might actually be the longest running purpose built hotel in the country and parts dates back to the C13, although that’s not a clue. See if you can guess! We will post the answer shortly.  In the meantime the best wishes to everyone for a decent break over the holiday season, and Simon just wants to say thanks to everyone who has helped and contributed to the site (and our Facebook page) this past year and for people’s support and patience as well.

Flower people 2

Here’s another one sent in by long time DP fan Stathis Panagiotopoulos, a Deep Purple Celosia Caracas. It cannot be long before we have a Deep Purple themed edition of Garden’s World on Radio 4! Just the thing for those last moment Christmas purchases for the relatives though.

Our last post on the subject is still up to read.

October fest

After all the teasers for Deep Purple shows around and in Europe we’ve posted here (see below, more to come) recently, fans in the UK get  their chance with the announcement this week of a five date arena tour in October 2020. Support band is Blue Oyster Cult and tickets go on sale – er – today at 10.00am. For people like us who don’t like these sheds, the word from fans locally (hello Mike and Tim) is that the new Leeds Arena (which we’ve not had a chance to go to yet) is better than most as it was built specifically as a concert venue, not a multi purpose sport arena, so better viewing all round (though Simon moans about First Direct sponsoring it, as they were the gits who took his account overdraft off him … because he didn’t use it enough!!!). So maybe see you in the Tudor Rooms fish and chip restaurant beforehand.  The band’s new album will be out ahead of these concerts, and Ian Gillan, apart from being busy overusing the blur function in Photoshop, is promising “a couple or three new songs”.

Limited edition of 20,000…

Deep Purple started their official live archive series from the Steve Morse reunion era earlier this year. These will be sold as limited numbered CDs, coloured vinyl and digital downloads. The second release is a show from Rome (that’s in Italy, the press info helpfully points out) July 22 2013.
The first, “an explosive show from Australia”, was so explosive we missed it altogether (Simon was “otherwise engaged” at the time). Tim Summers tells us it was from Newcastle, Australia, March 14 2001, copied from the soundboard series box set (remastered, it doesn’t say how), so most collectors will already have this.
Anyway track listing for the Rome 2CD set is:

CD1 Intro / Fireball / Into The Fire / Hard Lovin’ Man / Vincent Price / Strange Kind Of Woman / Contact Lost / Guitar Solo / All The Time In The World / The Well-Dressed Guitar / The Mule / Bodyline / Lazy
CD 2 Above And Beyond / No One Came / Key Solo / Perfect Strangers / Space Truckin’ / Smoke On The Water / Hush / Bass Solo / Black Night

A chance to check out live versions of three not often heard songs and get in on the ground floor of this series. It’s out at the end of the week via earMusic. Some of the cuts have already been out on the Now What live tapes edition, but this is the full set.
They’re pressing 20,000 on CD so no need to panic buy. Indeed it’s hard to see what is limited about such a long run. The label have borrowed (closely, but without any sense of adventure) packaging ideas from Pearl Jam who have been doing this sort of limited release since 2000 (much to Steve Grover’s delight! An example is below). Basic cover info and tatty bootleg style graphics (FYI edel design dept: NEVER EVER compress the typewriter font, it always looks awful).
It’s hard to know the rationale behind the series, i.e. what dictates a set will end up in this collection, or will ALL live shows from now on get this treatment? Will they go for rarer graded shows which might not be soundboard quality but would interest fans?
Still at least they’ve half tried, even if it has taken them 30 years or so! Thanks to Stuart Hamilton for the news; Edel’s people couldn’t be bothered to even email over the press release.

2 for 1

Very nice looking covers to the latest issue of the Spanish Deep Purple fanzine HUSH, it turns out that for a bit of fun they have sort of done two issues side by side, so you get two different covers, one showing Ritchie at his Rainbow concert there in Malaga, and other a great shot of Glenn from his recent Spanish tour.  These are written in Spanish but if you fancy copies for the den shelf contact Carlos direct via email – cadpurple1@mundo-r.com

Sorry mum, I broke it…

This went at auction in America a few weeks back, one of the replica Strats as destroyed by Blackmore on stage. I assume it comes from a show on Rainbow’s long trek there in 1979 on the Down To Earth tour. I have seen smashed – by – Blackmore guitars before, indeed I have one myself, but not autographed up so nicely. Although Ritchie has signed it on the back, so you would need a glass case to really show it off! They sold it for a few bucks shy of $1500, which to me doesn’t seem a bad deal especially with what this government is doing to our currency rate! My thanks to Tonny Steenhagen for the details.

Belgium, Denmark, Norway, France

Yes, the tour grows!  Four more big festival dates for Deep Purple in June / July now confirmed.  Full list on our 2020 diary page. Thanks again to Lutz Reinert and also Jacques Rolfo. Flyer for the Belgian event below.