RSD 2021

Record Store Day rushes round again though not sure I would wish to queue for the goodies in these Covid times even with the jab. There a Bolin related barrel scraper in America (June 12) called Energy 2, while Cherry Red are pressing the Trapeze show from Texas in 1972 which I think came out on CD some time ago. If you are really keen there is even a pressing of Sundragon, a really rare pre Purple session, though again that’s been out on CD in the past (and the Purple cuts were included on the Pre-Purple People which Simon put together years ago. Thanks to Mark Maddock for sifting through the releases for us. Take my advice Mark and skip past Tom Tom Club’s Good, Bad & Funky – it was terrible even when it came out (and I’d buy anything with Tina Weymouth on it!) SR

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DMX – X Moves

I don’t pretend to understand any of this but Ian Paice has been found laying down a heavy beat on the posthumous single from rapper DMX who died a little while ago (though it was cut before he became ill). It all kind of washed over me and the keyboards are amazingly dated but the involvement of Paice, Steve Howe and Bootsy Collins seems to get plenty of respect in the comments section below the official audio stream on YouTube. Thanks to Tim Summers for first giving me the heads up.

Sounds like…

Neil Young has been talking about a likely archive release of an album he cut in 2001 but shelved (“[It] was so sad that I couldn’t put it out. I just skipped it and went on to do another album in its place”). In doing so he refers to one track as being “like a Deep Purple hit”. This inspired Mark Maddock to hunt around for us and a live version from the time turned up. Called ‘Standing in the Light’ it’s not hard to see what Neil means! Even in bootleg form it sounds pretty good, so I’ll post and you can see how many seconds it’s takes to spot the influence.

Thanks to Mark for the story.

on lead vocals

There have been so many releases based around the Phenomena project by Tom Galley I confess I struggle to keep up, especially with all the reissues thereof. But this latest CD might have a place on your shelf as it brings together all the tracks featuring Glenn Hughes on lead vocals (as the cover sticker clearly indicates!). So if you never investigated this is as good a chance as any. The disc is out now, and our thanks to Stuart Hamilton for the info.

In town (shopping) tonight

£5.00 in 1980 WAS £5.00. But what do you do when you spot your guitar hero popping to to Burton’s the Tailors in Chester? Andrew Elsden braved the burly bodyguard who was with him and approached Ritchie for an autograph, but the only paper he had on him was this five pound note, which as a student he could ill afford to set aside. It must also be one of the few collectables that’s actually gone down in value since, given the drop in our currency (it’s worth about £1.25 today, I looked it up!). Ritchie was due to play Deeside Leisure Centre that evening (Feb 27th, the Down To Earth tour) and was just out killing time in the local shops. Though as far as I recall, Burton’s never did sell black spandex anythings.

Ronnie Dio writes

And the book will be out at the end of July. The publishers are promising all sorts of sensational stuff but it does mean we might get to learn more about the ins and outs of Rainbow 74 / 78 which has always fascinated fans of the band. What’s good is that Ronnie had done most of the early work and completion has been overseen by his widow Wendy and rock writer Mick Wall, so it is in good hands. It is published by Permuted Press and we’re looking forward to reading it (having now just about exhausted our lockdown book purchases!). Thanks to Tom Dixon for the news.

If you’re concerned about not adding to the coffers of you know who ($46 BILLION profit last year and still dodging taxes and treating staff like crap) then we can recommend Hive.co.uk as a reliable online supplier during lockdown who act as a clearing house for UK bookshops and support them. Bookshop.org do a similar job in US and donate to bookshops for every item sold (and have also now opened over here).

In town tonight

Were you one of the 1,000 people packed into the town hall fifty years ago for the band’s British tour supporting Strange Kind of Woman?  Let us know!  Read more about the show on our 1971 diary page.

In Concert

This is a nice collectable which Jeff Breis snapped for me recently.  Collectors of BBC rock and pop broadcasts will probably be familiar with the early Moody Blues live set aired in late 1969, which many regard as the first ever BBC Radio In Concert. Certainly it made for a dry run, with Jeff Griffin as producer, and inspired the show which started properly in January 1970.   This one however went out at 5.00pm on December 27th 1969 as The Moody Blues show, and featured two more Threshold acts, Timon and Trapeze. The latter were still a five piece with Glenn Hughes and this brochure was apparently issued to everyone who attended the recording, and was probably specially produced by the label rather than the BBC who do not get mentioned.  It’s a six sided fold out affair and quite smart, with a whole page given over to Trapeze.  There were tickets also printed for the event though these did not have Trapeze’s name on. The BBC are actually marking the 50th anniversary of the show at the moment though the list of 50 shows they have chosen has very little from the classic era.

Speedy King

Another group tackling the Deep Purple back catalogue, this time Saxon who have an album of cover versions due, featuring the tracks which inspired them as metal mad kids in sunny Barnsley all those years ago (I had a targeted email advert for retirement flats there only this morning – somebody at DHSS has been selling my personal data!). Speed King is amongst the set, taken at a blistering pace and with more extreme American style guitar histrionics than is perhaps good for you. It’s not my cup of Yorkshire tea that’s for sure but might find some admirers out there and some nice vintage rally footage slung together for the on screen video. What it proves if nothing else is that you can’t do Deep Purple without Jon Lord’s sound. Thanks to John Tucker for the heads up. SR

Micro Machines

It’s been a long time since this little collectable was featured in Darker Than Blue magazine! Steve Grover found it when he was on holiday in Australia in 1992 and brought it back as a souvenir (and teased me with it as soon as he got back). He has recently been trimming down his collection and decided this could go. He and I were both flabbergasted when it sold on ebay for over £900!
It turns out that MicroWheels are now becoming quite collectable as a brand; enough time has passed from their launch in 1987 for kids at the time to have reached that age when they enjoy collecting toys they had as a kid.
But what Steve didn’t realise is that this was very much a limited run, a series called Rockin’ Wheels, which was test marketed only in Australia. There were six bands featured, including Deep Purple and Whitesnake. As well as these six groups, a few more exist only as prototypes (Billy Idol being one, who thought that was a good idea?). Needless to say Steve rather wished he’d grabbed a few more, but it’s easy to be wise after the event, and the money will certainly pay for his next road trip (if we’re ever allowed such things again).
The Deep Purple set was licensed during the Joe Lynn Turner era from Bruce Payne, and so features graphics from the Slaves & Masters era. As the price Steve got shows, they are impossibly rare today. Even beat up played with examples fetch money and every collector’s site I visited out there has these in their ‘most wanted’ section.
Me, I shall stick to my early Matchbox toys. Though even there some of the prices are now out of my reach.