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Bitter? Moi?

(This editorial is brought to you from Amsterdam with the help of much Heineken^TM and a compilation of Tony Ashton [What a guy!] stuff)

Towards the end of last year, I started something ambitious yet untenable with the Deep Purple WWW pages: the idea of a weekly issue complete with editorial. After about five weeks circumstances conspired to render that impossible. The site moved both physically and in Internet terms a long way away from me and I changed jobs.

So, for the first time in about two months I find myself able to set the time aside to ramble on in an editorial fashion and ponder the state of life, the universe and stuff. Just to set the scene, I'm sitting in a hotel in Amsterdam listening to Portishead. Work that one out.

Attached to this editorial is a lump of rambling stuff I wrote on the way to Toronto in February. It's about one third complete as far as resignation letters go given that I was completely and utterly pissed off with the whole idea of running a website. As it's turned out, Svante Pettersson has taken over the day-to-day stuff and has done a completely awseome job of encouraging contributions, redesigning the look and feel and generally making the pages utterly spiffy.

This has allowed me to get on with the important job of taking the credit.

Such as it is.

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So, what's news?

The first leg of the European tour has been and gone and the second leg is scheduled. America is definitely on the cards for after that and then there's more European gigs. The Pacific rim is planned.

Whatever your reservations about seeing a Blackless Morsemania (sic) I can't possibly emphasise strongly enough: DO IT! What you will see is five of the greatest musicians in the world today on the stage having the greatest party possible. You may not see pyrotechics, dodgy hats (well, maybe a bandana or two) and Strat destruction, but what you will see is consummate bandsmanship and the sheer joy of playing.

By the way, we are absolutelty gagging for reviews, photos, samples of intra-song chat and so on for each and every gig on this tour - it's something completely deserving of recording. Send it all to Svante for collation.

There's been a new issue of the DPAS's organ "Darker than Blue" which contains much of what you'd already have learned had you been keeping track of the Deep Purple WWW pages but with the addition of Simon Robinson's entirely thoughtful and partisan prose.

The Deep Purple USENET group has been through a mid-life crisis recently with persistent trolling, rudeness and factionalism. Such is life on the bleeding edge. Aside from a couple of pinheads, the friction can be summarised as a certain defensiveness by those who hero is no longer a part of the band. There also has been a degree of insensitvity by those of us who have seen and heard the new lineup and for whom this expereince has put thirty years of music into stark highlight.

Thus USENET groups are born, grow, mature and die. And so new forms take their place.

Whatever. The fact is, the band has now had three "permanent" guitarists, three bassists, five singers but only one keyboard player and one drummer. Splitting the newsgroup may be inevitable but will only serve to confuse, antagonise and obfuscate.

To finish on a positive note, I'd like to thank all those who have contributed materially to the WWW site. There's too many to mention but include those who have sent reminiscences (what was that about having to break Joe Lynn out of his dressing room or play hunt-the-Glenn?), photos, audio, midi, suggestions and everything else!

May you all get to see the guys in your home town.

Vavoom!
Dave Hodgkinson