David Hodgkinson, who has died aged 58, was a technologist, programmer, and software engineer. Quite possibly, he will be remembered more for his huge footprint in the online fan community for veteran British hard rockers Deep Purple. This is certainly the case for most readers of this obituary, published as it is on the website he initiated, and which he and I created together nearly 30 years ago.

Dave Hodgkinson (right) and Trond Strøm backstage at the Brixton Academy in London, March 9th 1996. Photo: Håkon Vold-Johansen

I met David – or Dave, as he will be referred to from now – online during the summer or early autumn of 1993. I had just finished my librarian college education and had a temporary position at the Oslo University Library. I’d worked there as an extra for some months before finishing my education, and so happened to witness the launch of the World Wide Web (WWW) – or the Internet, as we’ve come to know it – with the launch of the first graphical web browser, NCSA Mosaic.

The Newsgroup

I soon found that there was something on the Internet called the Usenet, which had lots of newsgroups for a far range of subjects. Basically, it was the 1993 equivalent of Reddit. But I could not find a group dedicated to Deep Purple, which was what I wanted to discuss with other fans out there. Eventually, quite a few like-minded people descended on an unsuspecting newsgroup called alt.music.rock-n-roll, or something similar. The Brit Dave was one of the guys and (occasional) gals I found in that group who shared my urge to discuss Deep Purple.

At the time, Deep Purple’s classic Mark II lineup – Blackmore / Gillan / Glover / Lord / Paice – had released a new album, after a none-too happy interlude with another vocalist. And so, the most legendary Deep Purple lineup was touring Europe during the Autumn of 1993. A planned US tour had been cancelled. Rock legends in their late 40s weren’t necessarily a commercial success at that time in history.

When I saw them at Oslo Spektrum on November 15th 1993, I was aware through the newsgroup that guitar legend and compulsory difficult human being Ritchie Blackmore had handed in his resignation letter. But somehow, the tension resulted in a great concert. Far better than the first time I saw them in Oslo, six years earlier.

Around that gig, one of the Purple people hanging out on alt.music.rock-n-roll and myself managed to create a dedicated Usenet group for Deep Purple fans: alt.music.deep-purple – more colloquially known as amd-p among friends and fiends.

Through amd-p, a community of fans could communicate around the world. While Blackmore leaving the band hardly was mentioned in the general press, we could follow Deep Purple playing in Japan, with contemporary guitar hero Joe Satriani stepping in as the guitar player in December 1993. We saw a European summer tour with Satriani being announced in 1994. We got reviews of the gigs, and some of us managed to arrange a trip to see a concert, even though the tour didn’t visit our hometown. Some audience recordings might have been distributed as well.

Near the end of 1994, we got reports of low-key concerts in Mexico and Texas with Deep Purple trying out the new permanent guitarist, Steve Morse, of Dixie Dregs and Kansas fame.

The Webpage

During the first part of 1994, Dave approached me regarding setting up a web page for the band. He was a programmer, and had a job at some financial institution whose name now eludes me. That company had a web server. This was back when you probably could count the number of web servers around the globe in hundreds or thousands. The WWW was so small that trying to arrange a catalogue of all web pages seemed like a good and feasible idea. Dave had the skills and the hardware available. And back then, I was good at remembering stuff that interested me when I read it, so in the community I was regarded as an authority on the factual stuff concerning the band. Dave convinced me that learning how to code web pages in HTML was easy. And indeed, back then it was. The website went online on April 11, 1994. «It's all a bit thin at the moment», Dave wrote in his initial announcement. But it would expand.

The typical early workflow would be Dave setting up the website, and me creating much of the content. (Some of it is still up on the web page, like a partially very outdated FAQ.) But there’s also lots of concert reviews submitted by amd-p members around the world from that period, which today give important insights into this period. In the very early days, much of the web page content originated from the alt.music.deep-purple newsgroup.

The Band Shows up

When Deep Purple played some low-profile concerts in Florida in March 1995, testing out some songs from the album they were recording at the time, things took a new turn. Bassist Roger Glover’s stepson found reviews of the concerts online, and showed them to Roger. And suddenly Roger, keyboard legend Jon Lord, tour manager Colin Hart and the band’s manager Bruce Payne turned up in the newsgroup.

Direct access to communication with musicians in a band which had been one of the world’s biggest bands for some years during the 70s, and had made a massive comeback in the 80s, was basically unheard of at the time. And this made the online community very special.

The idea of a 70s hard rock band ending up as pioneers in rock band online presence was not at all obvious. These days, artists may be available readily through various online platforms. But back in the 90s, communicating with musicians you related to was unusual.

We got insights into the creative processes in the band, and we could ask about things we’d wondered about from the band’s history. Also, you might find yourself at the end of a well-formulated scolding from the master of the Hammond organ, if you had posted some stupid rumour you had heard.

The newsgroup was a vivid and good community for some years after this. Eventually, the trolls would destroy it, and Usenet newsgroups generally became obsolete, but that’s another story.

The first big amd-p gathering at a pub relatively close to the Brixton Academy, March 1996. From the left side: Svante, Trond (me), Christer, Anders, Garry (I think), Tom Eirik, Erik, Dave, Håkon, and Colin. (Photo: Private)

Purpendicular Daze

The first Deep Purple album with Steve Morse as the guitarist was eventually released in February 1996. We followed the creation of the album from the sidelines via studio reports which the producer himself, Roger Glover, posted on amd-p. (These were later also published in the tour program.)

The band kicked off a tour promoting the album Purpendicular with a long UK tour. The two concerts at the Brixton Academy in London, March 8th and 9th, also turned out to be the first big physical gathering for the amd-p newsgroup. People from all over Europe met up. Dave arranged an amd-p meetup before the first concert at the Hope and Anchor pub, not too far from Brixton Academy.

(This was before Google Maps. Well, before Google, come to think of it. Dave chose the pub looking at a small-scale map. Turned out it was a fair walk from the concert venue.) And many of us would meet backstage after the concerts as well.

Myself, Mike [I think!] and Dave at the Hope and Anchor pub near Brixton Academy. (Photo: Håkon Vold-Johansen)

As a twist in the tale, this would end up being the only time I met Dave in person. But he would continue to arrange meetups like this. I think the next big one was in Hartford, CT, USA in November 1996. Swede Svante Axbacke, who was in the web page editorial team by then, remembers them creating the design for the rebranded web page as «The Highway Star» in an Italian restaurant in New York. The design is still in use.

«I still have the napkin somewhere», Dave would say.

Svante and Dave – with some funny guy – backstage at a US gig in November 1996. (Photo: Private)

There were several meetups at different locations over the years, possibly with the anniversary shows for the Concerto for Group and Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in 1999 as the largest gathering.

Afterwards

Myself? I was busy starting a family and drifted out of the running of the web page quite early, and I didn’t have the economy to go travelling around the globe at the time. I eventually ended up as a researcher and journalist in a Norwegian newspaper.

Even though we didn’t stay close, there was always some contact with Dave, for instance via a mailing list for the old web page crew and eventually social media.

It must be said that Dave’s written communication at times could be a bit confusing. Especially for us non-native English speakers. He could be very brisk, and probably ended up annoying people at times.

Of course, there were disagreements and fallouts in the community as well. And Dave could easily be at the centre of them. At the same time, he would be very open and welcoming when including new people in the online fan community.

I also witnessed some strange phases he went through on his social media. For instance, for a period, he was convinced there is no human-created climate crisis, contrary to all scientific proof. But he did come to his senses on that subject after a while.

On the more sensible end of the spectrum, one of his last personal campaigns on Facebook was posting news reports of American religious leaders etc. accused of sexual violations, under the hashtag «not a drag queen» – a none-too-subtle commentary to the neo-conservative moral panic over trans rights and drag artists in the USA.

Dave took some detours from his work with programming and coding. In the early 2000’s, he tried running a corporate web page for Deep Purple for a few years. The original web page, The Highway Star, continued as a fan-based page. [Huge kudos to Nick Soveiko in Canada for keeping The Highway Star alive over the last couple of decades are due!] Dave also had a period where he tried his hand as a professional concert photographer.

But he mostly worked with information technology. He moved several times between the UK and Amsterdam in The Netherlands. In 2022, he found himself in Amsterdam again, after his second marriage had dissolved – quite surprising for him, it appears in a blog post he wrote.

Many of the old amd-p people gathered for a Deep Purple concert in Copenhagen, Denmark in October 2022. It was the first big gathering for this community which I attended since the mid 90s. I met people I only had communicated with online decades ago for the first time. I was in touch with Dave regarding this gathering, but sadly he couldn’t make it.

But last year, the two of us did a common project again. And it worked out just like 30 years ago. Dave sent me a spreadsheet where he’d started gathering a list of Deep Purple live videos online. I extended and organized the list. Dave wrote some code to have it published. It’s up on The Highway Star.

But now I don’t know how to update it… [We’re working on it — THS]

Near the end of 2023, Dave had moved back to the UK. In a message on his Facebook page after his untimely passing, his daughter writes that he moved back to Bath to live closer to her brother and herself, his children from his first marriage, Ed and Grace. Sadly, Dave’s time on this planet was running out. During the first half of December 2023, he unexpectedly passed away.

Many people in our loose online community have been deeply moved by the message of Dave’s death. I know I was.

As a staunch atheist, he wouldn’t have had thoughts about an afterlife. But I do know that lots of people around the world will remember him for years to come. And as long as a person is remembered by someone, he is not gone.

Trond J. Strøm