Released on bail

DP’s cover of Love’s 7 And 7 Is was pushed as the “single” on October 6, not that such things have much meaning these days – sadly. Is it any good? Well with players of this stature it was never going to be awful was it, but opinion does seem to be splitting amongst the “worldwide community of Deep Purple loyal fans” (© edel press dept) – or at least that small fraction I’m in touch with regularly – as to whether they will bother buying it or not. More exciting perhaps is that just as the world finally catches on to the harm the Instagram platform does, Deep Purple have launched their own account! So all those teenagers out there who couldn’t be tempted by the Deep Purple twitter and facebook feeds (and never knew what a web page was anyway) can now follow the band. Can a Bebo page be far behind?
The editions of the album have also been revealed to get collectors salivating / scratching round the back of the sofa for change. There will be (deep breath) a clear vinyl 2LP, the regular black vinyl 2LP, a cream 2LP vinyl edition, both digipack and standard CDs, a 5×12” single box set, which I assume divides the LP up into twin-deck disco chunks plus a bonus track, a cover of ‘(I’m A) Roadrunner’, and a bonus DVD. And of course there are the download versions. There is also a “Locked Up: The Making Of Turning To Crime” out on YouTube. Nice to see someone bucking the trend for shelf shortages here anyway. Some folk are still putting money on this album being volume one of two, as the first leaked press track list was headed Volume One, but I’m no Sherlock Holmes.
Thanks to David Browne, John Tucker, and many more for the in-tray meltdown!

Racing like a…

I feel I ought to mark the passing of fifty years since the release of Deep Purple’s FIREBALL album in September 1971 but unsure exactly how. Life these days just seems to be a repeated “jeez it’s XX years since” sort of experience and it all becomes a bit dull just to keep pointing the many anniversaries out. Not to mention the fact that I’ve splothered on about Fireball so often before, both in the old fanzine, then on the anniversary CD release (itself now some twenty five years old – though still the version I usually turn to) and that 6CD box EMI box set – while cruel people wishing to taunt me just have to say “textured vinyl”… But will people in the far distant future be splothering at such length about Whoosh? I’m not sure I’d put money on that. And I won’t be around to collect even if I did!
One thing which really annoys us at the DTB oldies office at the moment is this unquestioning story that the media have begun to run with that people have only just discovered climate change and planetary pollution. Apart from the fact that we’ve been recycling newspaper since I was a kid (I cannot be the only one who remembers those saturday morning newspaper collection drives), here was Ian Gillan railing against just such stupidity on No No No and to a lesser extent Fools five decades ago. Maybe the wonks in charge at Cop26 will make all the delegates sit and listen the former – loudly – before things kick off.
And if there is a better lyric pulling apart the vagueries of celebrity fame and fortune than No One Came then I’ve yet to find it. So a whole side’s worth of genius before we even start thinking about it. Sure, as Gillan is wont to say, Anyone’s Daughter does stick out a bit and would almost certainly have gelled better had they replaced it with the planned extended version of Strange Kind Of Woman, but it does somehow make a nice coda to an otherwise hard hitting record and it would be difficult for those of us who bought it on release to imagine the album without it.
Incidentally although in private ownership, you can rent one of the outbuildings at The Hermitage where the band began writing and rehearsing for the album as a holiday cottage now if you want to relive the experience. The evenings in the local pub however are out as it’s currently closed following a sale.
There is a minute of super 8 footage shot while the band were there, seemingly incomplete as it cuts out, but gives a glimpse of how it was – all set to snippets from The Concerto! If you shot this and know where the rest is get in touch…

Wanted for questioning

Slow catching up on this story due to techie issues at DTBHQ, but it turns out the upcoming DP album “Turning To Crime” is a collection of cover versions rather than the expected / hoped for new studio set. Vintage songs for the most part too, going back to Love who Episode Six used to cover in the late 1960s. It’s a curious move, and as it includes four songs on our own lifetime’s play list I think we will await the audio teasers (and really should anyone be allowed to touch Oh Well?). Still if The Big Sky Mudflaps can have a bash at Dylan’s Watching The Rover Flow, along with over two dozen other bands, I guess DP have every right! The Stones also did this apparently, on an Ian Stewart tribute album in 2011. In Stewart’s judgement it was “the only decent thing Bob Dylan ever did”. Ouch.

Anyway, here’s the official sales blurb – tip to Edel, maybe ask someone who is a native English speaker to write these in future?! Thanks to everyone who sent in the data. Someone in France is advertising a white vinyl pressing on ebay for 102 euros, though hey, that includes shipping! Release dates vary, some say Oct 6, others Nov 26. Cover art is as per our previous posting.

“Released in the midst of a pandemic, Whoosh, the latest album from Deep Purple was a real success and kept the group in a positive energy and full of adrenaline despite the complicated global context. This forced the members of the group to stay at home but above all to think differently about their way of creating music together. This led them to design Turning to Crime, a very special new project and a first in their career.
Entirely composed of “covers” of great rock classics and musical jewels carefully chosen by each member of the group, Turning to Crime includes titles by Bob Dylan, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Seger but also some nice surprises. Turning to Crime represents the moods of the group when they embarked on this project, and Deep Purple once again surprises its fans with an album different in every way from what Paice, Morse, Gillan, Airey and Glover have been able to offer. until now.”

01 7 And 7 Is (Love)
02 Rockin’ Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu (Huey “Piano” Smith)
03 Oh Well (Fleetwood Mac)
04 Jenny Take A Ride! (Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels)
05 Watching The River Flow (Bob Dylan)
06 Let The Good Times Roll (Ray Charles & Quincy Jones)
07 Dixie Chicken (Little Feat)
08 Shapes Of Things (The Yardbirds)
09 The Battle Of New Orleans (Lonnie Donegan/Johnny Horton)
10 Lucifer (Bob Seger System
11 White Room (Cream)
12 Caught In The Act (Medley) – Going Down (Freddie King)/Green Onions (Booker T. and the M.G.’s)/Hot ‘Lanta (The Allman Brothers Band)/Dazed and Confused (Led Zeppelin)/Gimme Some Lovin’ (The Spencer Davis Group)

Crime Watch

Thanks to Mathieu Pinard / Rock Hard magazine

Out of town tonight

While tickets and the like are great souvenirs, this page from one of the crew’s passports illustrates the every day routine of touring really nicely. One images a secretary at the HEC office rounded up the band and crew passports, and took them en masse down to the Japanese embassy in London so they could be stamped for entry. This image courtesy Aleksey shows such an entry dated August 8th 1972, clearing the holder for a visit to Japan within four months of the date shown. Fans will spot this to be the legendary Made In Japan tour. There was a fee of £1.35p payable for this (which was doubtless deducted from the next wages!). The visa has then been over stamped in Japan at the airport to show it has been used. If you wanted to go again, that would be another £1.35p.

Whitesnake expand

Well perhaps we have all eaten a bit more than we should during lockdown but no. In DCs case he’s added another singer to his group, which seems a bit of a left field move. His name is Dino Jelusick and he will join them for the delayed world tour next year (along with the usual suspects and co-headliners). It reaches the UK in May. Flyer is attached above courtesy of Tim Summers, who also adds that Bernie Marsden has a new album out called Kings, which is his tribute to blues greats BB, Albert and Freddie. Such a neat idea you wonder why nobody thought of it before. Nice sleeve too. He’s doing signed copies at his site and the CD includes a cover of a cover Whitesnake did on Lovehunter, Help Me Through The Day. It’s lovely. They are also planning a reissue of DCs Restless Heart album with all the trimmings. Thanks also to Tom Dixon.

Afterlife

People will very long memories may remember that Glenn Hughes was in the running for doing the original Ghostbusters film theme music back in 1983. He and musical partner Pat Thrall pitched their demo, which has just surfaced as an MP3 from Pat some 35 years on! It’s quite a strange thing to listen to, especially as it musically trundles along to much the same backing idea as the proper film theme. Tim Summers says this is because the producers got every artist on their list to use a Huey Lewis track called I Want A New Drug as a guide, as they knew this fitted the film sequence. Huey Lewis was apparently too busy doing Back To The Future to make his own pitch! Anyway, Pat and Glenn were one of some 50 acts who got rejected, and the gig went to Ray Parker Junior whose did turn in a cracking song. However someone had forgotten to tell Huey Lewis they were using his song as a guide and he promptly sued and got a pay-off in the end! According to Pat “The guy that mixed it had been awake for a week on cocaine. It is one of the worst mixes ever.”

ANYWAY, long story over, have a listen. There is a sort of Ghostbusters sequel due out any time with the original cast as guests. Looking forward to it.

The Sound of Music

I’m pretty sure Simon cried into his bottle of Rotring ink when he saw the first few of the band’s official bootleg series, but the ‘brown paper packages tied up with strings’ laziness continues on this next two. The Australian show will likely be familiar from the box set of bootlegs issued back in 2001, but the Hammy Odeon set from a year later is at least musically of interest. This is we think Jon Lord’s last concert as a full official member of Deep Purple. The band embarked on what was to be his final tour without telling anyone (though we seem to remember a certain fanzine broke ranks and blabbed all!), BUT everyone quickly went down with nasty flu and after the London show the rest of the dates were pulled. They were rebooked but played with two keyboardists, introducing Don Airey for half the show. The gig was recorded on multi track (and an audience bootleg is about) so let’s hope that’s been used (and not screwed with). And if you don’t have enough brown cardboard, vinyl editions will also be pressed. Thanks to Tim Summers, Matthew Kean for help.

The country where I quite want to be

Deep Purple have firmed up their concert dale in Finland next year, thanks to local Mark Maddock for the heads up (flyer below). Accept and Uriah Heep are the opening acts. Meanwhile one photographer has been busy posting about photo shoots of group members and then promptly taking the posts down again, suggesting he is doing material for a new LP sleeve and publicity material.

Going forward

As I think many of us felt they might Deep Purple have officially rescheduled the tour dates by around a year into late 2022. Tim Summers has sent us the revised flyer. It does make a lot of sense given the continued uncertainty surrounding both the pandemic, though it does mean this will be the band’s longest gap between tours since the split in 1976. There are continued stories on the web that they have been / will be / are working on putting a new studio album together in the meantime but we can’t shed any light on that and the graphic does still lean / promote Whoosh. Hard the think at least some of them haven’t had their notepads out during the break though!

UPDATE • from IGs spot on the radio last week (see story below) he implies they have not done any studio work on the next album BUT are now planning to get together towards the end of the summer to begin work on ideas and writing which does suggest they could have a new LP around the time of the rescheduled tour in 2021.