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Access All Areas on the big screen
The Access All Areas documentary accompanying the new album =1 will be shown in cinema theatres across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland on July 18, 2024, one day before the album release. The event will also include screening of a brand-new interview with the band and videos for the three already released singles from the album.
Thanks to Tobias Janaschke for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
There has been a huge,pre-release, promotional push given to =1.
July 10th, 2024 at 20:39Here’s hoping that the album lives up to it.
My gosh, publicity-wise they are really pushing this album as if it were skin care in a leper colony. Very heartening.
July 10th, 2024 at 21:30https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AETG19R8RZQ
When you see these guys traveling and on stage, you don’t get the feeling that touring is a chore to them, it is their way of life and a natural habitat. And if you’re not like that – like Steve apparently was – you can’t help but begin to wonder whether this is the right place for you.
July 10th, 2024 at 21:40theres only one man who can compete with Purples “never ending touring” and thats Bob Dylan..he actually might still be the leader of the never ending tour…
July 11th, 2024 at 07:38Sometimes you just have to be frank and cut any BS. Bob Ezrin was never a fan of Steve Morse and it was pretty damn obvious in the documentary of the recoding of infinite and especially while recording Birds Of prey and you can see how Bob Ezrin was frustrated with Steven noting holding the notes long enough for the final part.
To be honest if I was Steve I would have left after this album as I think it was so degrading.
I know Bob has worked with top musicians but still he would have never done this other ones.
I know Steve left because of his late beloved wife’s treatment but the writing was on the wall.
Sorry if I offended anyone but sometimes you just have to cut the crap and BS
Peace ✌️
July 11th, 2024 at 07:45I agree with #5, but not 100%.
July 11th, 2024 at 10:01There’s a lot to discuss, but I don’t think I really want to.
Steve proposed Bob as a producer back in the day.
I didn’t like how Bob treated the guitar in the last few albums at all, especially in terms of mix. some said it was due to the fact that Steve has wrist problems etc etc.
I see him on tour with the Dixie Dregs and Steve Morse Band and it doesn’t take a scientist to understand that playing Deep Purple is a pleasure in comparison. so I think ezrin deliberately cut off a lot of possibilities.
and I didn’t expect another solo of “I’m not your lover” let’s be clear.. despite the fact that I liked the albums.
the fact remains that for me after Steve’s abandonment they should have stopped. I understand that they can’t promote the album by saying it sucks.
but guys, give up. Simon sucks. Ian Gillan no longer has a voice.
they turned the air conditioner up too high to get a fresh record, and that’s what they want to sell you… but someone got bronchitis. then honestly I don’t think Steve wanted to leave for writing reasons, he said he wanted to do another album and a tour…and then probably stop.They know too that they can’t go on. Ian Paice said, if we had stopped we would never have left again… what’s the point of necessarily bragging? at a certain point it becomes ridiculous.
they had a record called InFinite, double meaning ok.. but come on.
then Whoosh…because they had to go out slowly without making a big bang.
with and the address as if to close the circle.
long goodbye tour etc etc..album cover due to the pandemic ok..but as if to postpone the beginnings of the band and therefore close another circle..
and now Sten Lauren arrives and they are miraculously reborn? but please.
@Adel
You are right. Steve, after all, even despite his personal problems, could have been invited to attend concerts in the USA and studio sessions. He should have become a permanent member of the band and played with them when it was possible. I expected that after so many years. However, for some reason they didn’t. Meanwhile, a permanent member of Deep Purple became…. Bob.
Strange that – and what will they do if one of the Ian/Ian/Roger trio has personal or health problems? Deep Purple have become a [concert and record factory], sadly….
July 11th, 2024 at 10:38Am I alone eagerly waiting for part 4?
July 11th, 2024 at 13:38Can Bob Ezrin be invasive as a producer? Sure as hell. If he wants something, he wants something. Just ask Ace Frehley, Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, the Alice Cooper Group, Aerosmith or Roger Waters!
Ezrin
– chopped up Ace Frehley’s longer solo in I Was Made For Loving You into the few seconds note outburst we know today,
– called Dick Wagner to play the solo on Sweet Pain because Ace didn’t cut it,
– told a proud Paul Stanley that his composition could only go on the record if Gene Simmons sang it —-> God Of Thunder,
– had Gene Simmons rehearse the idiosyncratic verse bass run to Detroit Rock City overnight (it was Bob’s idea), so Gene could get it right for recording,
– called in Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter to play guitar on Alice Cooper Group records whenever he felt that the original guitarists were not up to it,
– deemed Joe Perry and Brad Whitford so inexperienced on Aerosmith’s second album that he had engineer Jack Douglas again call his dream team Hunter/Wagner to do the guitar parts on the whole record,
– listened to a composition of Waters only to tell him the bass line was jumbled crap and had him play something Disco soulish instead —-> Another Brick In The Wall, millions of butts have since moved to it in rock discos.
So even Steve Morse getting instructions from Bob was nothing new. What is actually more noteworthy is that Bob – measured by his own standards – intervenes relatively little in what the Purple guys play, a testament to their strength as instrumentalists. Otherwise we would have heard something like the Hunter/Wagner duo on a Purple release long ago! 😂 You bet he would have no qualms about it. (The acoustic intro to Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill is not Robert Fripp who mostly played on Gabriel’s debut, but – you guessed it – Steve Hunter; I guess that puts Steve Morse in good company.)
July 11th, 2024 at 14:275:
July 11th, 2024 at 15:55You forgot to notice, that Steve was the guy who recommended Bob as possible producer for Deep Purple and he was the only one with first-hand experience with him…..
You don’t hire Bob Ezrin to then not listen to what he has to say. He turned a garage band like the Hanoi Rocks were into something cinemascopic (just like he had done with Kiss on Destroyer):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BgkrfCvHqo
July 11th, 2024 at 23:56They swap to some random guy like Simon. They’re like a football team. With the name but changing members depending on injuries.
July 12th, 2024 at 08:34@ 9 – “Otherwise we would have heard something like the Hunter/Wagner duo on a Purple release long ago! 😂 You bet he would have no qualms about it. (The acoustic intro to Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill is not Robert Fripp who mostly played on Gabriel’s debut, but – you guessed it – Steve Hunter; I guess that puts Steve Morse in good company.) A totally different scenario Uwe. Robert Fripp was one of a few guitarists on those early albums. A friend of Gabriel’s & a ‘session’ guitarist in that light. Gabriel often had different musicians for his early studio recordings that I know. By the way you may be interested to know that I own the third album’ Melt’ & my version has German language vocals from Gabriel. I like the album & knew it before I purchased that cd. When I stumbled on that I thought why not. Even though I don’t speak German & the only words I am familiar with are a few from those little war comics that I used to read as a youngster. I quite like the language, as I do with a few others Dutch, French etc & even further up north from there. The Fripp situation was similar as also with David Bowie at that time. Of course Ezrin’s involvement with Pink Floyd’s The Wall album shows that side to his involvement in certain artists recordings. Bringing in additional musicians for the odd song here & there. Cheers.
July 12th, 2024 at 08:55That’s a highly unfortunate screening date btw – I will be watching them live that very same evening …
In what an unusually cruel predicament they have cast me! 😂
July 12th, 2024 at 14:21All of my brethren lamenting that Steve has somehow been rowed out of the band by Bob and assorted dark forces: If you had been to as many Flying Colors gigs as I have (I managed a proud three) in the last +10 years, you might have noticed that Steve’s stage enthusiasm with DP was waning. Not that he was playing bad or anything, he is too dedicated a musician for that, but he was visibly enjoying it less. The difference to Flying Colors gigs was glaring (and to me unsettling at times), there the all smiles, hunched over his EBMM guitar and athletically playing Steve still flourished. (And Flying Colors are great and of course offered him more space and variety to play to his best abilities which are after all considerable.)
Steve’s gradual withdrawal from DP had – ignoring the issues with his right arm and hand joint and the illness of Janine as the tragic “leaden straw” that broke the camel’s back – two other reasons IMHO: Jon’s departure and Don taking up more and more room. I don’t think that was a conscious move by Don who is an accomodating musician (or he wouldn’t have played sessions with gazillions of artists), but Steve simply worked better with Jon than with Don. In the winter of his DP years, Jon was no longer battling for supremacy, he had other things on his mind and other priorities. I remember an open air gig in Heppenheim in 1999, the one where they played the chorus of The Boys Are Back In Town as a starter (with Big Ian even singing it), Steve miraculously playing the twin lead guitar harmony parts of the song all by himself,
Intro: The Boys Are Back In Town
Pictures Of Home
Vavoom: Ted The Mechanic
Strange Kind Of Woman
Bloodsucker
’69 … live debut
Woman From Tokyo
Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming
Watching The Sky
Space Truckin’
Lazy
Riff Parade
Smoke On The Water
Keyboard Solo
Perfect Strangers
Speed King
—
Seventh Heaven
Highway Star
and I stood very close to Jon and while it was lovely to watch him I thought after the gig: He’s not really all that into it anymore. No criticism, you’re allowed to wish to do something else after – at that point – three decades of playing Hammond in a loud rock band. Been there, done that.
Anyway, Don and Steve, through no fault of either of them, just never clicked as much as Jon and Steve (or Jon & Ritchie or even Jon & Tommy).
July 12th, 2024 at 17:34PorcCow @17: Why is Simon more “random” than Ritchie was in 1968, Tommy in 1975 or Steve to the larger public (outside of GUITAR PLAYER subscribers and NAMM Show guitar clinic visitors) in 1994?
In 1968, Ritchie’s sole if fleeting encounter with musical fame had been playing the guitar on Heinz’ 1963 Top Five hit “Just Like Eddie” – uncredited btw (though he plays nicely on it).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z8vkrYX2lQ
Ritchie was anything but a household name in 1968, he was known to London session musicians in the Joe Meek universe and in the Hamburg live music scene.
There seems to be unfortunately no live or even only mimed footage of Ritchie with Heinz, but in the movie Telstar: The Joe Meek Story from 2008 a supporting character called Ritchie Blackmore is played by Mathew Baynton (a bit too old for a then still teenage Ritchie, but they at least matched his then haircut nicely!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fALJo4E0I1Y
So now you know where Ritchie learned his incredible dance steps!
https://i.gifer.com/1K7t.mp4
July 12th, 2024 at 19:44When I was listening to a few Abandon songs a while ago I did wonder, where is Jon Lord? I reckon he was half way out of that DP door by then. Cheers.
July 12th, 2024 at 22:52I really don’t think that Jon at the time of Abandon sounded like someone with his mind elsewhere, even if he had his own projects with the orchestra and Hoochie Coochie Men..
contextualizing the period we can say that Abandon was the album of the formation’s maturity with Morse (after the Purpendicular experiment), is perhaps the most guitar-oriented record, Steve gained more confidence in the band, and Jon who had been pulling the cart like a mule since 1993, was able to relax a bit
July 14th, 2024 at 22:52