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All the bogus you can eat
Everything you wanted to know about the infamous bogus Deep Purple 1980 tour and then some can be found on a website dedicated to the debacle. Lots of quotes, pictures, reports from the press and duped fans who were actually there, etc, etc. Nice of them to acknowledge our own coverage of the events from the early days of our site.
Thanks to Uwe Hornung for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Interesting… I was in brief e-mail contact with Dick Jurgens 20+ years ago before he blocked me. I later thought out he believed I was too connected with the band and would sue him…
November 30th, 2024 at 22:10Anyway, he did say that before the legal action, the line-up had recorded an album of new material with a Genesis sound.
Well one thing we cannot say is ‘mother please forgive them for they know not what they do’. They all knew exactly what they were doing. Karma is gonna get ya! It certainly did just that & rightly so. Cheers.
December 1st, 2024 at 06:54“Interesting… I was in brief e-mail contact with Dick Jurgens 20+ years ago before he blocked me. I later thought out he believed I was too connected with the band and would sue him…
Anyway, he did say that before the legal action, the line-up had recorded an album of new material with a Genesis sound”.
Well… in that case… that would have been a (Bogus) ‘Deep Genesis’ record (and propably they would have been sued by Genesis aswell hahahaha! etc).
December 1st, 2024 at 09:02If they had stuck to Mk I material and played that reasonably well, I think I would have forgiven them touring as, say, “Rod Evans’ Shades of Deep Purple”, but instead they played unbelievably crap (even for an amateur level), were underrehearsed, untalented and lied about their identity, massacring songs from later periods and not even getting the two chords to the verses of SOTW right. That was a bit much.
And it was obviously a fraud cottage industry as they had done the same thing to Steppenwolf before. I have zero respect for the musicians that were part of this. Rod was probably deluded and talked into something, but still showed appalling lack of judgement.
December 1st, 2024 at 10:03Guitarist Tony Flynn prefers to speak of “New” Deep Purple. The concert dates are available here … https://www.purple.de/dirk/purple/new-deep-purple.php (tour dates)
December 1st, 2024 at 10:22I remember seeing an ad in a music magazine saying Deep Purple were playing at this club in my area. We went to check it out, after we paid $10 to get in, about half way down the hall a large sign said ” Deep Purple consists of Rod Evans and 4 other guys I’d never heard of. Well needless to say the people began to riot and the band never saw the stage. I got the hell out of there. Flying beer bottles is not my kind of fun.
December 1st, 2024 at 13:36It’s amazing they went on as long as they did – with no one cracking down with a cease & desist on them earlier. That enterprise was bad faith in so many ways.
Tony Flynn, one of the perpetrators, still apparently thinks the whole affair gave him some credible association with DP:
https://youtu.be/XaEbvjmHpDs
https://youtu.be/dRxNCg1-7S8
December 1st, 2024 at 16:29I can’t believe this thing went as far as it did. To almost get to the point where they could have released an album. WOW! Beyond words.
December 1st, 2024 at 23:45The live performance of Smoke was awful and WTF was that noise at the beginning, finger snaps?! Finger snaps in a Deep Purple song?! If this was on vinyl on a turntable I’d have to gently remove it then throw it out the window. And I deplore violence.
That other song Rod did after leaving Purple sounded like something The Fifth Dimension would do. Horrible.
All I can say is I hope these people bask in their obscurity and we never hear from them again.
@1 – Interesting to read that the lineup recorded an entire LP.
The website itself says “a few songs”, and names five: “a new version of Deep Purple’s first big hit in America, Hush, and two songs titled Hold On Me and All I Am Is Blue, two other titles of the tracks are known, Blood Blister and Brum Doogie, but any tapes seem to be (or are wanted to be) lost.”
Seem to recall reading elsewhere that the tapes were ordered to be destroyed.
It would be interesting to hear, if any copies still survive. Probably the last time Rod ever set foot in a recording studio.
Though the title of the last one sounds like it would be an instrumental.
December 2nd, 2024 at 03:12Myself and my brother were victims of this fraud. A bus ride from Montreal (home town) and we were at the show ( I wrote a brief (retro) review here in the hallowed halls of The Highway Star some time ago) – And left after 2 songs; Their version of Highway Star in which the “guitarist”, all dressed in black, kicked a beer bottle across the stage and then moved into “And the address”. The rioting started not long after. The only “good” to come out of that was a simple “fact” – We did get to see first Deep Purple singer. I wonder what ol’ Rod is up to these days?
December 2nd, 2024 at 12:44To this day I can’t believe that he left a great band like Captain Beyond, but would do this instead.
December 2nd, 2024 at 15:49From what I read in Bobby Caldwell interviews over the years, John, Rod left out of frustration with Capricorn Records, their record company. They didn’t know how to promote CB and found their music stuck out like a sore thumb in their roster of bands. Repeatedly, the band was nudged to de-complicate their music and sound “more Southern”. That is why Caldwell left after the first album, didn’t join the recordings for the second one, but then returned after a few months. By that time Rod had – to lend a phrase from Journey – stopped believin’ and just left the music business. Caldwell, these days the only remaining survivor of the original CB line-up (with the exception of Rod, should he still be alive), never says a bad word about Rod’s departure and is adamant to this day that Rod was THE SINGER for CB. According to Caldwell, the music of CB’s debut was mostly his and Rhino’s do, Lee Dorman having very little input, with lyrics provided either by Rod or Caldwell himself. And his favorite CB song is one he didn’t play on, namely Starglow Energy from their sophomore effort. Which is indeed a beautiful piece of music, and when Rod sings it my hair stands on end in a good way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnJfzPhTxSE
They still do a nice version of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJpa8YTDZuc
It’s become a mini-classic of sorts and is often covered, particularly by female singers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0Q_HFgK0lg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_m5ROkSlAM
There are still pockets of Captain Beyond fans out there!!! 😁
December 2nd, 2024 at 18:24Does anyone know if Rod is still alive, and if so, where & what he is doing? In an interview I read a few years back, Big Ian was very complimentary about Rod’s voice, and even said he would write & record with him if given the chance.
December 3rd, 2024 at 00:03I have no idea whether Rod is today, in 2024, still alive or not.
In 2017, however, he seemingly was, at least if you trust the words of Captain Beyond drummer Bobby Caldwell (BC) here:
https://myglobalmind.com/2017/09/08/interview-bobby-caldwell-captain-beyond/
QUOTE:
MGM: Now speaking of Rod Evans, I’m sure you get this question all the time. He’s become a mystery almost, like Loch Ness Monster or Big Foot, everybody is like what happened to Rod? Nobody quite knows, which leaves for endless speculation online. Is he still living in the US or did he move back to the UK?
BC: Oh yeah. He lives in Northern California. He’s in the respiratory therapy field. He’s very happy, his wife is a respiratory therapist as well. And he’s doing great, he’s happy. I mean he just doesn’t want to play anymore. That’s about all there is, he just doesn’t want to play anymore. He’s an outstanding talent. He is a giant, I mean had Captain Beyond, in that time period, remained together. Even if it had been five more years even, he wouldn’t have had to work again. Because when he had decided that he had had enough, we were right on the verge of major stardom. I mean right there, everywhere we went, we were just taking out everyone we played with. Yeah, it was a big loss, a blow to the band, and to a person, I just think is a great talent.
MGM: That’s great he’s doing good.
BC: Yeah, last time I talked to him. We talk every so often.
MGM: I read something that said you’re one of the few people in the music business to talk to him. So we thought we had to ask that question.
BC: It’s probably true. He’s very reclusive. He doesn’t speak to anybody, and I guard his phone number like it’s Fort Knox.
UNQUOTE
Respiratory therapy career or not,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_therapist
Rod, who will be turning 78 this January, should be retired for a long while now. Why he never showed up at the RRHoF, I dunno, it seems to me that everyone from the Purple Camp had forgiven him his 1980 bogus foray (and he had paid compensation via his royalties for a long time). There are so many bands with ex-members who have totally left the music business of their own volition and not regretted it (it’s not for everyone), yet they still regularly show up at commemorations of their former bands and why not? At the very least it’s entertaining for the grandkids to watch: grandpa was a rock star once!
But even if you google after Rod hospital- and health-related – I have never found anything. My hunch is that he has taken on another last name, perhaps the one of his wife? But why he has cut out the rock musician part of his life so radically is anybody’s guess, I don’t see the harm of naming DP (never really a very scandal-prone band) on a medical CV if afterwards you underwent all the necessary academic education as a medical specialist.
Jackie Fox, original bassist of The Runaways became the entertainment lawyer Jacqueline Fuchs (her real name) and studied law in Harvard together with Barack Obama, I’m sure her Runaways days always made for a nice small talk conversation in business matters too.
https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1389344880/de/foto/runaways-bassist-jackie-fox-onstage-at-cbgb-new-york-2nd-august-1976-it-was-the-los-angeles.jpg?s=612×612&w=gi&k=20&c=KdgKcugyaF2tSisInNyFELWmTzl13j4vidLUo3DtqZo=
https://media.pitchfork.com/photos/5c1aec9263dcfd5fb4073e5c/4:3/w_524,h_393,c_limit/Jackie-Fuchs.jpg
‘Tis all a bit strange with Doctor Roderic Evans, RT, the man who sometimes unsettled/bewildered patients with impromptu singing to himself: “I’ve got a mandrake root, it’s a thunder in my brain …” 🤣
December 3rd, 2024 at 09:22There is a discussion among people in the respiratory profession on LinkedIn about what some of them did before turning to medicine
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/briankwalshrrt_a-heavy-metal-legends-past-as-a-medical-activity-7089056480011698176-3RHj/
where a fellow respiratory therapist throws in:
QUOTE
Dave Richardson
Respiratory Therapist at St. John’s Medical Center
‘Rod Evans of Deep Purple became an excellent Respiratory Therapist.’
UNQUOTE
That might indicate that at least in the community of respiratory therapists Rod was once/is known and that the claims about his health services career are not made up.
For what its worth, there is also a lady named Dana Evans who is the President of the American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC)
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipM9bKvCMXQWK6w1SUn2IKklSBnzicNl7a6nEE7o=s1360-w1360-h1020
https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D5622AQHNzX1EFfzy2w/feedshare-shrink_800/feedshare-shrink_800/0/1692217400649?e=2147483647&v=beta&t=B11x1r8_Jufol-C9POo22_VqEcx2FXeIMwWHau6c3vw
Whether that is just a name coincidence or she is indeed a wife (she’s a bit young!) or daughter of Rod, who knows?
In any case, there is so little available on Rod’s medical career it makes you wonder. No publications, no speaking slots on seminars, no mention of him holding a position with a hospital or medical organization. If your presence in the net is so slim, you generally must be doing something active to keep your profile that low.
There is also a blogspot dedicated to his search
https://findrodevans.blogspot.com/?view=sidebar
which features posts like
“Anonymous28 February 2016 at 01:15
That is most definitely not Rod Evans the singer from Deep Purple. Rod Evans lives on the West Coast of America. He has 2 kids from his third marriage. He moved far away from LA to a small town many decades ago. He worked as a Respiratory Therapist at a hospital until the late 1990s. I could tell you where he is at, but he would have hundreds of weirdos hanging out in his backyard. I don’t think he would like that, since he has been in hiding since 1980.”
or
“Anonymous1 September 2016 at 01:35
I worked with rod’s wife,and talked w him(rod) 2 or 3 times on the phone,he was super nice!I dont think he wants to be found,it’s amazing that the internet has no idea where he is.I worked w his wife 15 years ago,so he probably is in the same little town( I wont name it)I think it totally sucks that DP sued him and took his royalties away.they were millionaires and he ,at the time,was just a blue collar worker with kids!(around 1980)He is a very intelligent person to do the job he did at that time (all I will say is it has to do w therapy)I wish he had continued to sing,but the music buisness sucks! chris l maeder (youtube)”
or
“Anonymous10 January 2020 at 17:38
EVANS, ROD
LICENSE NUMBER: 9441 LICENSE TYPE: RESPIRATORY CARE PRACTITIONER
LICENSE STATUS: LICENSE REVOKED hint EXPIRATION DATE: JANUARY 31, 1997
SECONDARY STATUS: N/A
CITY: GRASS VALLEYSTATE: CALIFORNIACOUNTY: NEVADAZIP: 95945”
But P L E A S E, for all I know this might all be complete bogus on the man who once sang for Bogus Purple! My two cents are: If Rod was still alive in 2016, it is extremely unlikely that he did not hear about his induction, someone in his more immediate circle would have surely made him aware even if he doesn’t follow anything rock music at all anymore. And if he then decided to neither contact the RRHofF or the Purple Organization, then I guess that is a clear sign of him wishing to completely and permanently disassociate himself from his past. Which Dr Evans, RT (retd) has of course a right to do.
December 3rd, 2024 at 14:15