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In rock around the clock

Marcelo Velazquez writes to us: Hi, I made this video in honor of my all-time favorite band and I wanted to share it with you. I hope you enjoy it. And the video is Deep Purple In Rock, if it was recorded in the 50s: The immortal words of Arthur C. Clarke are very pertinent […]

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Truly sensational

A website aptly called Maximum Volume Music reviews the Birmingham gig of the band that once held the title of the loudest band in the world: From that song to that riff, and the main set ends with arguably the best ever, and as Simon McBride starts it up, all of a sudden the crowd […]

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Shock to the system

Ahead of the current =1 More Time UK tour, Ian Gillan spoke to the PA News Agency, and the conversation steered, of all things, onto the ’72 tour that produced Made in Japan. In Japan, I noticed the first thing was the cultural change. I was able to do two things, one to learn about […]

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Hammond organs don’t bend

Well put together documentary on Jon Lord before Deep Purple. It covers in fair detail the evolution of the Art Wood Combo / The Artwoods / St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

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Up top and down below

Westfälische Nachrichten reviews the October 26 Deep Purple gig in Lingen. It starts with mentioning the combined age of those on stage (354) and continues: Superlatives that raise questions among the 4,500 visitors in the sold-out Emsland Arena. Can the old rockers still do it, or are they resting on their laurels for “Smoke on […]

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It’s better than gold

Deep Purple were awarded platinum records for =1 by the Czech certification authority ČNS IFPI. The awards were presented at the recent show in the neighbouring Katowice, Poland. According to the Czech rules, an album can be certified platinum if it achieved a turnover based on wholesale price before VAT of at least 1,000,000 Kč […]

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Much too short

Deep Purple live at Emsland Arena (Lingen, Germany 2024-10-26) First the complaints: The gig in Lingen, Germany, last Saturday was much too short! They should have played at least 22 hours longer. Then I could have heard a good bunch of my favourite DP songs.. But after two hours the old and lazy sods seemed […]

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Up and down, in and out, back and front

Ian Gillan was interviewed by The Portugal News (which is kinda sorta his hometown newspaper now). He gave his views on the number of tracks from =1, and on the arrival of Simon McBride as the newest member of the band. Which was a good thing because… […] it put the band back into simpler […]

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Both West Midlands and California

Louder Sound reprints a 2005 Classic Rock feature on the Iommi/Hughes collaboration that resulted in the Fused album. The friendship between Tony Iommi and Glenn Hughes goes back more than 50 years – and Iommi even briefly enlisted the former Trapeze/Deep Purple man into Black Sabbath for 1986’s Seventh Star album. In 2005 they joined […]

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Concerto in Munich

A performance of Jon Lord’s Concerto for Group and Orchestra was held at the Herkulessaal in Munich on October 12, 2024. Performers included rock band Boxhead and Abaco-Orchestra conducted by Ina Stoertzenbach. Paul Mann and Pete York were in the audience, with Pete York delivering an introductory speech in German, reminiscing about the Windows event […]

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Rainbow video director passes away

The Hollywood Reporter writes that Edd Griles, director of Rainbow 1980s AOR videos Death Alley Driver, I Surrender, Stone Cold, and Can’t Happen Here, among other things, has passed away. The eulogy mentions that he has also directed unspecified Deep Purple videos, but our search for relevant credits didn’t return any matches.

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Making stroboscopes for submarines

This spoken word artist that is rumoured to dabble on guitar continues his Tales from The Tavern with an episode about Jim Marshall, Mitch Mitchell, and associated bits and ends.

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This is a towel holder

Paicey provides his tour kit rundown for the Modern Drummer video channel. TMI for the most of us, but if you’re a drummer, dig in! Caveat: the sound engineer needs to figure out how to record the voice, not just the drums, so you might want to try turning subtitles on.

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By the candlelight

Ritchie Blackmore talks about guitar players that influenced him in his early years — Big Jim Sullivan and Joe Moretti.

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The world’s on fire, apparently

The physical single for Lazy Sod was released on CD and vinyl on October 11, 2024, with a whopping circulation of 2,000 copies worldwide (not clear if this is for each format, or combined total). In this day and age, even that landed it in the British charts: #21 on the Official Singles Sales Chart […]

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Never completely uncontroversial

Back in 2021, around the time Nature’s Light was released, Ritchie Blackmore gave an interview to the German magazine Gitarre & Bass. And for a change, he seemed to be completely serious throughout. Which phase of your rock career is your songwriting today closest to? And which one is it most different from? To be […]

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Quite carried away

A vintage article about Roger Glover and his then upcoming project Butterfly Ball. This originally appeared in Sounds on November 9, 1974. Glover has a ball By Pete Makowski Roger Glover is a satisfied person nowadays. Since his departure from Deep Purple, Glover has steadily been building up a good reputation as a record producer […]

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At the controls of a spacecraft

On this slow(ish) news day, we will leave you with a couple of items that the mailman delivered to our trainspotting department. Sir Elton Hercules John writes about the keyboard geniuses who blew his mind for The Guardian. Jon Lord gets a mention: And as the decade progressed, keyboard players progressed too, away from their […]

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The melody is hot and the message so sweet

Deep Purple opened the final leg of the 2024 tour with a show at the Spodek in Katowice, Poland, on October 17. The setlist got a bit of a shakeup, with 6 songs off the last album being played live. Spoilers inside.

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Feeling slightly inadequate

A new instalment of tales from The Tavern by His Blackness. It’s short and sweet.

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