I bet they’re gonna call the album Question Mark or something like that. I only say it because this is the second press release to mention that the title is a question mark and they haven’t figured it out yet. Whatever. A new Deep Purple record, however they decide to title it, should be fascinating, and name-dropping the ’70s in the pre-album hype is at least an interesting move however appropriate it may or may not turn out to be once the actual thing arrives.

If the minute-long teaser followed by PR wire info below is anything to go by, sounds proggy. Dig it:

Deep Purple Release Teaser For Upcoming New Album

Deep Purple have released the following video teaser for their upcoming as-yet-untitled new studio album, to be released stateside April 30, 2013 via earMusic/Eagle Rock Entertainment. Recorded and mixed in Nashville with famed producer Bob Ezrin  (Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Alice Cooper), this is Deep Purple’s first new album in eight years. Blending the spirit of the band’s 70s sound with modern production, the album promises to be a poignant mix of rock’s classic era and a progressive mindset.

“The title of our new album is still a question mark to all of us,” states vocalist Ian Gillan. “We have recorded a new album, and it’s a fantastic collection of songs. At the moment that’s the only affirmative point we can offer…”

Deep Purple‘s Machine Head Classic Albums documentary isn’t quite as much of a classic as the album itself, but it’s getting there. Whatever else may fall to either side, this is one thing you can genuinely say Deep Purple did better than Black Sabbath, whose Paranoid Classic Albums DVD paled in comparison to Machine Head. From Ian Gillan trying to intellectualize lyrics about banging whores to Ritchie Blackmore taking us deep inside the fingering technique of “Smoke on the Water” in his castle, to Roger Glover, well, being awesome, if you look at it on the level of Monty Python-esque absurdity, it’s even more fun to watch.

With a new Deep Purple record on the way this April (the countdown is on), and the fact that the tracks on Machine Head rule blah blah blah, I figured it’d be a fun and a bit of a different way to end the week. I’m still a bit under the weather, but was back at the office today unlike yesterday, when I worked from home. My understanding though is I’m not the only one sick. That time of year around these parts.

By way of a last-minute plug, if you’re in Philly, you should go to Clamfight‘s CD release party tonight at Kung Fu Necktie. They’ve got copies of I vs. the Glacier that they’re selling on the cheap, and Kings Destroy will also be there, playing material off their forthcoming album, which I don’t think I’m allowed to say the title of yet so I won’t. Anyway, it’s a great show, if I could be there, I would, and you should go an tell me about it later so I can live vicariously through your exploits.

Fun stuff to come next week. We’re about a hair away from another reviewsplosion as I continue to feel overwhelmed by the pile of stuff waiting to be written up, but in the meantime, we’ll do another Duuude, Tapes!, I was gifted a very special piece of Buried Treasure this week and I’ll write on that, and we’ll have more updates as the Clamfight presales get ready to go out, plus reviews of Wheelfall, Fire to Fields and others. I’ll also be updating The Obelisk Radio through the weekend, so keep your eye out for new adds there and we’ll have a new Add of the Week next week and more good fun to come.

As for tonight, it’s my mother’s birthday, so family times abound and I plan on dedicating as much time as possible over the next couple days to recuperation, and by that I mean staying in my pajamas, listening to records and playing Final Fantasy IV on The Patient Mrs. iPad. I don’t have a vision of Utopia, but if I did, that might be it.

Whatever your plans or health status, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. I’ll be checking in on the forum too and hope to see you there  — talk just started about the forthcoming Clutch record, so that rules — and we’ll be back here as usual on Monday, sinus congestion or no.

It would seem the countdown is on to the release of the first Deep Purple studio album in the better part of a decade. The actual counter the band has launched on their new website (pictured below) is a pretty good indicator, I guess. Don Airey, Roger Glover, Ian Gillan, Steve Morse and Ian Paice toured this past summer, taking the hits on the road in North America with an orchestra in tow, and they seemed in good spirits, so hopefully that carries into the record as well, which I’m sure will be hailed by Deep Purple fanatics as the best thing ever since the last one and largely ignored by everyone else because Ritchie Blackmore isn’t on it. So it goes.

This off the PR wire:

DEEP PURPLE CONFIRM NEW STUDIO ALBUM IN APRIL

“The title of our new album is still a question mark to all of us… We have recorded a new album, and it’s a fantastic collection of songs. At the moment that’s the only affirmative point we can offer…”
(Ian Gillan, December 2012)

Eight years after the release of “Rapture Of The Deep”, following many rumours later revealed to be unfounded, Deep Purple, one of the most important and influential British rock bands of all time, have confirmed the release of a new album completely made of new studio material. This yet-to-be-titled album will be released stateside on April 30, 2013.

After various songwriting sessions in Europe, the band recorded and mixed the album in Nashville with producer Bob Ezrin (in his impressive hit record: Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, Alice Cooper and many others).

The album is rumoured to be the perfect match from the original spirit of 70s Purple, and a fresh and modern production.
Ian Gillan has recently revealed a few working titles of songs that might appear on the album: “Out Of Hands”, “Uncommon Man” and “Hell to Pay”.

Deep Purple’s record company earMUSIC will reveal details about the new album in real time as soon as they will become available on a dedicated website where all band members will also be able to post and interact with the fans: www.deeppurple2013.com

He collaborated with entire symphonies throughout his career and oversaw numerous solo outings and projects, but Jon Lord will always be remembered most for what he added to British rock heavyweights Deep Purple. It’s been reported that Lord died today, July 16, following a pulmonary embolism and a long fight with pancreatic cancer. He had turned 71 last month.

As the organist for Deep Purple, he was among the main distinguishing factors of the band. In a crowded and still just burgeoning heavy rock scene, his Hammond organ became their signature. Until he retired in 2002, he was a constant in an ever-changing lineup, and his influence can still be heard around the world today — not to mention Deep Purple‘s work itself, the appeal of which has only grown with time.

On behalf of myself and The Obelisk, condolences to Jon Lord‘s friends and family and to Deep Purple fans everywhere.

A hearty “damn you all” to the members of Mark II Deep Purple, mostly for putting out this awesome album and then consciously refusing to do anything else nearly as awesome. Though I like Fireball a lot, and it’s “Space Truckin’” from Machine Head that’s been stuck in my head all night, so I guess In Rock ain’t totally the shit, though you’d never know it listening to “Speed King.” Fucking song is righteous in the most religious sense of the word.

I was supposed to go to Brooklyn tonight to see Drew Mack‘s last show with Hull. Why I didn’t go is a more complicated situation than I really feel like typing out as we approach one in the morning and I wrap up my umpteenth and apparently final beer of the night, but Arzgarth‘s words of wisdom on the forum were a source of inspiration worth mentioning. Aside from that, it has to do with a trip to Long Island tomorrow, driving here and there and back again and all around, and me being old and lame. There. I guess that’s the whole story.

Anyhoozle, if you went to the Hull show, I hope you had a great time. The evening tonight I spent mostly in the back yard. I had some quality one-on-one time with one of the oldest friends I have (rare in these wifely days), and drank a not insignificant amount of bottled brews — a sixer of Bells Amber Ale that I brought back from Michigan and then some — while eating local-type pizza and listening to the Yankees lose on the radio. It was a good time, wrapped up by watching Super Troopers on the tv and, finally, putting on the Deep Purple album to which you’re hopefully now listening.

Thanks to everyone who downloaded the podcast. If you missed it, the podcast I’m talking about is here. I guess 76 times in less than a week isn’t bad, but still, I’d take more if more was an option. Whatever. The day’s worth of work I put into it and I hope you dig it. As for the rest of this week, it was a fitting amount of madness. Well, fitting in the way size 26 pants are fitting — which is to say not at all — but so it goes. I’ll crash out in a couple minutes, either having or not outlasted this Jon Lord organ solo, and that will be that. No frickin’ regrets.

Next week, my interview with Tommi Holappa of Greenleaf goes up, as well as a Buried Treasure on the last Argus record and whatever else I can think to review. It’ll be July, so we’ll do the June numbers, and I’ve got feelers out on a giveaway/album stream that I’m not yet at liberty to reveal, but it’s worth staying tuned to find out what it is and if it comes together. I guess that’s the best I can say about it at this point.

Hope you have a great and safe weekend. I’ll see you on the forum and back here just as soon as the ibuprofen kicks in. Monday sounds about right.

One of the things I like best about Whocares is the fact that you can almost imagine the conversation where the formidable personnel involved were sitting around in the studio, deciding what to name the project, and someone finally said, “Who the hell cares what we call it?” and it stuck. It’s a valid point, since no matter what name they gave it, it’s the names Tony Iommi and Ian Gillan that were going to draw eyes to the debut Whocares charity CD single (when was the last time you saw one of those? In a full jewel case, no less!), Out of My Mind/Holy Water (Armoury). The band, centered around the Black Sabbath guitarist and Deep Purple vocalist, was put together to benefit an Armenian music school. The story goes that Gillan — whose history in Armenia going back more than 20 years to the aftermath of the 1988 earthquake there is chronicled in an included documentary video – and Iommi were in Armenia to receive medals from the prime minister for the work they did and the money they gave helping rebuild after that quake, saw the school, and decided to help out some more. What it rounds out to is the first time Iommi and Gillan have paired on new studio material since Black Sabbath’s underrated 1983 offering, Born Again.

That alone has drawn eyes and hears to Whocares and the Out of My Mind/Holy Water single, but the fact that the guitarist and singer – two figures whose influence over hard rock and metal simply can’t be measured – are joined by the likes of drummer Nicko McBrain of Iron Maiden, former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted and ex-Deep Purple organ master Jon Lord is even more fodder for the salivary glands. The above, as well as guitarist Mikko “Linde” Lindström of HIM (also Iommi’s son in law), comprise the Whocares lineup for “Out of My Mind,” the focus track from the single and the song for which a video was made that’s also included here. On the somewhat less star-studded, “Holy Water,” Iommi and Gillan are joined by guitarists Steve Morse (Deep Purple) and Michael Lee Jackson (a Deep Purple backup and Gillan solo guitarist), bassist Rodney Appleby and Hammond player Jesse O’Brien (both also of Gillan’s band), and drummer Randy Clarke. “Holy Water” also has a duduk contribution from Arshak Sahakyan and a key intro Ara Gevorgyan, for that Armenian flavor. It’s essentially two different bands led by Iommi and Gillan, one mega-supergroup and one regular old supergroup, operating under the same moniker to benefit an Armenian music school. Sure, they probably could have cut a check and been done with it, but one assumes (at least hopes) this was more fun.

Read more »

I haven’t done one of these in a while (it might actually be since last Thanksgiving), but today’s the perfect opportunity for it. Maybe you’re stuck in the house with your entire family and you want to get away for a little bit — no better way to do it than with the clips below.

For the puritan in all of us, there’s the creepy heavy ’70s rock of Salem Mass, for the doomer, The Obsessed live in 1992. Steven Seagal shows up in the Masters of Reality video. Christopher is bound to fill your psych needs, and if it gets more stoner rock than Fu Manchu doing “King of the Road,” I don’t know how. And finally, if you don’t feel like listening to or watching music at all, there’s Ian Gillan telling stories about his time in Black Sabbath. Hope you dig it and Happy Thanksgiving (or whatever day it is when you see this).

I don’t know if all the crap in the title of the above video is true or not. It sounds like a load to me, but on the other hand, the audio within of Deep Purple doing “Maybe I’m a Leo” from Machine Head live at the BBC rules, so I’ll put up with whatever the title wants to say about it. I’m partial to this song not only because I’ve been feeling the old man rock lately, or The Atomic Bitchwax covered it, and they’re Jersey like me, but also because I think it’s one of the earliest and best examples of the stoner rock bop that bands today still try and emulate. Killer riff, and I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you about it.

Was a hell of a week around these parts. Thanks again to everyone who checked in to read the Solace in-studio stuff. There was a lot of it, but the report from Justin is that they got through the two songs the next day and, pending the approval of vocalist Jason and one final go-over, the long-awaited A.D. is mixed. Pretty badass if you ask me.

One thing I think got overshadowed and maybe shoved off to the side by all the Solace posts was the news Karl Daniel Lidén revealed in our brief Q&A about his new project with Dozer‘s Tommi Holoppa and Johan Rockner, called Dahli. If you missed that, it’s here.

Enjoy your weekend and get some rest if you can. I know I’ll be trying. If all goes according to my evil plan, next week starts off with a new podcast, so keep it tuned in. Hopefully it’ll be up at some point over the next day or two.