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Grit, edge, and balls

Louder Sound teases Gillan’s interview appearing in the current (#337) issue of the Classic Rock magazine. The interview largely deals with Gillan the band years, and the teaser is the story that most of us have heard before — of Blackmore trying to recruit Gillan to sing for Rainbow. The reason I had left Deep […]

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Trapped in undesirable circumstance

Louder Sound reprints online a feature on Gillan’s Magic, arguing it is a conceptual album of sorts in nature. Of the three major offshoots that emerged after the break-up of Deep Purple in 1976, Gillan (the band, not the man) was certainly the most musically daring. And Gillan’s most daring album just might be their […]

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The one with Smoke On The Water

Speaking of the “best of 2024” lists, Machine Head made it to the Classic Rock magazine Best rock reissues of 2024: Yup, the one with Smoke On The Water. That song, and this album, made Deep Purple legends all over the globe. This, essentially, is a three-CD version. The first disc pairs the Dweezil Zappa […]

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Just to keep things interesting

To prove his thesis that “Life in Deep Purple has never been dull”, Geoff Barton lists 25 of the maddest moments from the band’s history. And California Jam is not one of them. If you’ve been around here for a while, you probably already heard about most all of it. Nevertheless, here we go: 1. […]

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Jon turned it down, so…

Louder Sound reprints a Prog magazine short feature on the Butterfly Ball project, stemming from a 2018 interview with Roger Glover. In 1973, Alan Aldridge and William Plomer published a picture book titled The Butterfly Ball And The Grasshopper’s Feast, based on a 19th-century poem of the same name by William Roscoe. On the surface, […]

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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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Clenching and unclenching

Louder Sound presents a lengthy and very well put together feature on the current Deep Purple lineup, arrival of Simon McBride, the new album, and tour. With input from Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, and Simon McBride. The article also sheds some new light on the circumstances of Steve Morse’s departure from the band. Except Morse […]

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That dreaded dress code

Louder Sound reprints Ian Gillan’s 1973-84 out-of-Purple career retrospective that originally appeared in the Classic Rock magazine issue #92. There has never been a dull moment in Ian Gillan’s career. From his 60s bands The Moonshiners, The Javelins and Episode Six to his three separate stints in Deep Purple, via an unlikely one-album service in […]

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BCC Classic Rock bundle

Classic Rock magazine has a special Black Country Communion bundle for its issue 329. It includes the magazine itself with a bespoke BCC cover (regular edition has AC/DC on the cover), an exclusive lyric sheet (hand-signed by Glenn Hughes), two BCC guitar picks, and a limited edition drinks coaster. No matter how you get the […]

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Rain all day, and no piano

Louder Sound reprints a Classic Rock feature on Roger Glover’s Butterfly Ball that originally appeared in the magazine in June 2018. Of all the many Deep Purple offshoots and projects, there’s none more fanciful or just plain quirky than Roger Glover’s The Butterfly Ball And The Grasshopper’s Feast. A poem for children written in 1802 […]

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