The puzzle over who wrote the lyrics to Smoke On The Water may be a step closer to being unravelled, thanks to Grollywood. It is well known that Ian Gillan liked his paperbacks, taking inspiration from these for a number of song ideas over the years.

Could this best selling title from publishers Badger Books have given him the concluding lyric for the opening line of the chorus to Smoke? Or did he just buy it for the guaranteed treatment to stop hair loss advertised inside the back cover? If so, it was the best 25 shillings he ever spent.

For those who have invested much of their income over the years in Deep Purple, we at Grollywood can now give you a good tip on how to get some of that loot back - without selling your precious collection. Whack a wedge on Deep Purple, a horse which has already won five consecutive races at Ascot. Tipped by Ron Cox in The Guardian newspaper, "Soft ground is the unknown factor, but Deep Purple showed some ability on it in his days racing on the Flat." Which we're sure means something to someone.

Our recent racing tip posting produced news of further Deep Purple related horse's name, courtesy of our man on the turf Keith Livingstone. "There are also horses named Highway Star, Black (K)night, Smoke on Water, Burn, Gillans Inn (somebody owes somebody money on that one surely), and Morse!"

Martin Cook tells us that back in the eighties, Ian Paice owned a flat race horse called Perfect Strangers, trained by Patrick Haslam, and it had some success. "This nag ran up quite a string of wins, not quite enough for me to recoup my outlay on DP related merchandise and concert going, but a decent return for a few quid with Mr Ladbroke!"

I seem to recall Grollywood's staff journal Darker Than Blue covered this at the time Martin. Ian later sold his interest because it was not making enough of a return on the investment...

According to our investment advisor Audie Philips, you could soon be getting your gas from ... Whitesnake!

The energy suppliers Centrica are currently exploring in Norway. Each field they get to explore is given a name, and for some reason they've decided to use names of seventies rock acts. In the past they've had T-Rex and the latest set includes Santana and Whitesnake.

Motto if the new field proves worth exploiting: Love To Keep You Warm? Mind you I'd be a bit worried about the Whitesnake meter readers if I were a lonely housewife...

We've often heard Ian Gillan described as the silver-throated screamer. Rod Evans has always been a little miffed that he never had a similar soubriquet, and so he has now decided to come up with his own trade-mark name - 'The Gilded Tongue'.

To help promote this, he has put together his own book, which we've not yet had the pleasure of seeing for ourselves, but looks like it could be full of his fabulous lyrics for many Mk1 classics. We're looking into the possibility of Rod being a guest speaker at one of our Grollywood members days, when we shall also chide him for not spelling gilded with a gu...

Thanks to Nick Robinson

Remember those two world record attempts we reported last year? The most people gathered together to play Smoke? Well Guinness World Records office has officially confirmed the new record for the "Largest Guitar Ensemble" with 1,802 players was set on June 23, 2007 in Leinfelden, Germany. What's more a German label is issuing the whole thing on a CD along with a couple of other strange covers (including Pat Boone's infamous version from some years ago). Guinness also say that the German record beat the American attempt three weeks before by less than 100 guitars!

Thanks to Zounds/CMS.

If eBay has done one thing, it is to revitalise the cottage industry in ways never dreamed possible just a few years ago. Want to see your idols fronting fridge magnets? Fancy seeing them converted into Andy Warhol-style primary colours? No problem!

The newest craze are "Life Without?" stickers for your car bumper. Except they forgot the question mark - Keith Livingstone saw this one and couldn't resist!

Which inspired us here at Grollywood. You know those road-rage inducing WWJD (what would Jesus do) stickers you see about? We're going to start a range of WWBD stickers - What Would Blackmore Do...

(Answer - Set fire to your bed?).

We've just been sent an advert for a German group called Cheap Turtle In Rock. After pondering for a time whether this is the worst tribute band name ever (or whether perhaps it's a band that likes to cover Deep Purple, Cheap Trick and The Turtles), we then had an even more worrying thought - perhaps it's not a tribute act but (given 2008 is the anniversary year and everything) the band's new album title. We have written to Roland Karlen in Switzerland (who submitted the picture) for more details. Urgently.

Update: Since our feature on Cheap Turtle, angry Germans have contacted us to say that of course this is not the worst Deep Purple tribute band name, and this accolade for sure belongs to a group called Die Bärbel im Rock. This roughly translates as Barbie in a skirt and also turns out to be a German pun: if a drunken Frankfurter (not a sausage, but a native of Frankfurt) tries to pronounce Deep Purple in Rock in his local dialect, it sounds phonetically exactly like Die Bärbel im Rock. Apparently.

Thomas Duve kindly offered to demonstrate but then we discovered that we'd have to cover his bar bill, so as yet this theory remains unproven. Nevertheless, our entertainment manager Richard Head is busy planning an evening of German tribute bands right now.

Grollywood are pleased to announce a tie-up with Marks & Spencer. It's often difficult to decorate your Deep Purple 'den' at this time of year, but M&S are now selling a proper Deep Purple coloured Christmas Tree. It stands five feet tall, so you can hang your CDs on it for a nice glittery effect. If you want to order one, it's called Shanghai and will set you back about £25.

When we rang M&S to discuss this, they had yet to decide who would be the model for the fairy to go on the top of the tree.

Our thanks to Carol and Brian Froggatt for the details.

Well, thanks to some hard work by Frans van Arkel, we can now show you the prototype of the Deep Purple set. You can see why it would take some tough negotiating, but with Blackmore getting top doll, it can now go ahead. You may think Lord looks more like a gay French priest but we think he looks ... distinguished.

Frans tells me that if you can't get down to Grollywood's own shop, some of these dolls are already being sold on internet auction sites.

Thanks Frans!

Our souvenir stall has been working hard to bring visitors something new for anyone wanting an unusual gift this Christmas. Our latest item is - as we're sure you'll agree - a real talking point; a set of authentic wooden Blackmore's Night Russian Dolls! You can clearly recognise the boss and his partner Candice. The rest of the band are all there. So, don't miss this sure to be collectable item on your next visit.

We had hoped to do a Deep Purple set as well but nobody could quite agree on who should be the larger figure, and until Rod Evans and Nick Simper can work this out these will have to wait. (update: see above!)

Many thanks to John Blackburn for his help.

Our skilled operatives are on hand during regular hours, so if you  fancy a break during your visit to the theme park, relax in one of  our studio chairs and choose from our extensive range of Deep Purple  and associated designs. There's a special offer on the Slaves &  Masters cover image right now.

A recent satisfied customer was Ger Leenders, who had this striking image of Ian Gillan eating an ice-cream tattooed onto an appendage. We charged more than normal for the extra chins.

Our thanks to Ger, who lives happily in The Netherlands with his tattoo.

The Mel Galley impersonator was exposed in the week leading up to Sept 15. when the Derby Evening Telegraph took the real Mel along to his house. Ken "Mel" Grimley took the real Mel on a tour of his house, signed autographs and gave him a plectrum before a reporter explained to Ken that he had the real Mel as a guest. After apologising for any offence he might have caused, Ken got the real Mel to sign one of his guitars and said he would stop his impersonations. But he carried on claiming he'd played with Clapton and Elvis, had a £22 million mansion, three Rolls Royce cars and that the terraced house in Ripley was just somewhere he could use to escape the fans and pressure. The real Mel added that it had been 'disturbing'. "I found the experience really eerie. All I wanted to do was get out of the house."

Thanks to Damian Phelan, Mel Galley for the update. Photo shows the cover of the local newspaper's expose.

For more info see www.ghpg.net

Grollywood prides itself on making sure star guests who visit our theme park are the real thing, so it is with some concern that we have been warned of a con artist pretending to be a member of the Deep Purple family - impersonating former Whitesnake guitarist Mel Galley.

This happy shopper lookalike has been frequenting pubs and clubs in the Nottinghamshire / Derbyshire area, autographing CDs, handing out plectrums and boasting of plans to record with Tony Iommi. When fans ask for a guitar demonstration however, "Mel" suddenly brings up the hand injury he sustained many years ago and says it has stopped him playing. Which as anyone who saw the Trapeze reunion some years ago will know is not true. As the real Mel says: "I have had messages thanking me for watching bands I have never heard of, in pubs I have never been to! Sorry to disappoint those of you who think you have met me."

In the light of all this we will be instigating DNA checks on future star guests, starting with the suspiciously bargain priced supposed ex-Gillan bassist we booked to open our new kiddies adventure park 'Caught In A Trap'; we've seen better bald wigs on 1970s Dr. Who aliens.

Thanks to Mike Garrett for the alert. For more information on Galley, visit http://www.myspace.com/melgalley & www.ghpg.net

The BBC news team have been reporting on Aug 3. 2007 that Mr. Black bear was confronted by a David Coverdale near its cave in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

"It gave me quite a shock, I can tell you," said the bear. "When I saw this figure with all the blonde hair walking in the shadows I thought my wife, Mrs Bear, had been down the hairdressers, but then it shouted 'Don't mess with me' and started singing so I ran for cover..." Hearing of the trouble, wildlife rangers quickly arrived and the Coverdale, which was a long way from home, has been returned to it's natural habitat. "Would I lie to you?" said a ranger later.

During the severe flooding which occured around Gloucestershire on July 20 and put several water treatment plants out of action, local radio was the best source of information. When the supply was reconnected for non-drinking use only, 330,000 people were warned on air that they mustn't drink the water that was going to come through their taps soon. BBC Radio Gloucestershire then played 'No Solution' from the Butterfly Ball album; the words were amazingly appropriate - (almost as amazing as the fact that anyone there knew the song and they had an audio source to hand!). Our thanks to Mark Jones for the story.

As someone who was crossing the area that afternoon to attend a wedding and then for a week's break, we saw it all at first hand, narrowly escaping the eighteen hour jam on the motorway and ending up stuck in Malvern overnight as the roads ahead filled up with floating cars, and the roads behind were inundated (the couple getting wed saw most of their guests unable to attend. The wedding cake got stranded and they ended up cutting a ceremonial cheesecake out of the fridge!). Let's hope our ex-Iron Chancellor now returns the money he nicked from the Environment Agency and allows them to get on with overdue flood defence work which would have lessened the impact of this event considerably.

Remember that attempt to break the world record of most number of  people playing "the popular early '70s guitar riff" Smoke On The  Water together which Harrods in London cancelled a few months ago?  Well some spark at the local radio station in Kansas City decided to  take up the gauntlet after reading about the store bowing to pressure  from local miseries, and decided to have a go themselves. So 1,683  guitar players (including some from as far away as Germany) turned  out on June 4 and took part in what the organisers say was a world  record rendition. They've now sent the evidence off for verification.Thanks to Mike Eriksson and Steven Murdoch

Regarding the Smoke On The Water world record, Europe is miffed to see this possibly ending up in America so even while the Kansas documents are being examined the Germans are planning to have a go at breaking it themselves. On June 23rd at the Leinfelden festival area near Stuttgart airport to be exact. They have an impressive list of sponsors and are hoping for 1,600 players to turn up. If you are planning on going, do contact the organisers direct first to avoid a wasted trip in case it has to be rescheduled, etc. There is a website (in German) at www.gitarrenweltrekord.de

Clearly inspired by the rampaged success of Grollywood (which turned away our 53rd visitor this week for not adhering to the 'smart/ casual' dress code), Cornwall County Council have jumped on the Deep Purple theme-park bandwagon and launched Gillan. If any of you are in the area you can take a look, but when we sent David White along to take this picture, he said all he found was a fairly ordinary village with nothing of note for Deep Purple fans whatsoever (although planning permission for a lifesized wooden replica of John McCoy and a Jerry Witherstone Was Here plaque is on the Parish Council agenda for next month).

David decided to forward the report to Ian Gillan who said he's never visited the place, but plans to do so soon. Gillan Parish Council be warned!

We love our local BBC radio stations we do, especially Radio Sheffield. We've loved them ever since we found one of their DJs in a second-hand record store trading in unopened copies of a local group's new record we had dropped off at the station less than 24 hours earlier (he'd have got away with it except the guitarist was serving behind the counter...).

We love them even more now they've just run a competition for a copy of Deep Purple's Montreux 2006. The presenter tried to remember the names of the band. She got as far as "I know that the guitarist was called Ian Gillan," clearly unable (or unwilling to read the credits). Happily a listener was on hand and texted her to correct it. She fessed up. "I've been told the guitarist was in fact called Jimmy Page".

Thanks to Nick Robinson's bass player who heard all. You couldn't make it up! Still, far better to ship them free copies and stop the fan club from having one to review isn't it?

Synopsis :

"Rainbow suddenly seem to be losing members to unfortunate accidents. The bass player's bed catches fire. The keyboard player finds himself bricked up in his hotel room. The Men From UNCLE are soon on the trail of the mysterious man in black. Will they triumph and keep the world safe for rock and roll - or will forces from the medieval past return? An exciting new novel based on the highly successful MGM TV series."

"I thought that I would sample something from the Deep Purple Menu. As a pudding I thought the 'Reading Roulade de Blackmore' looked particularly interesting. Customers beware! It is deliberately served 20 minutes late, there is not much too it but it does actually take 70 minutes to digest, is very expensive and leaves a sour taste in the mouth for a long time afterwards! Happy Eating." John Hansford

"I tried a bottle of the British grown vintage Deep Purple 2007 but I found it a bit unsatisfying, and after a while I'm sorry to say it started to repeat on me...." Simon Robinson

Blackmore's Night graced the same stage at the Hexagon in Reading on June 14th as Jethro Tull did a couple of months ago, though to a somewhat smaller crowd. They opened with Past Times In Good Company (which Tull first recorded in 1979 calling it King Henry's Madrigal), which then ran into a cover of Tull's Rainbow Blues. Later in the set, they introduced Play Minstrel Play, which Ian Anderson had guested on, by saying CN "We have a special guest on this song - is it Ian Anderson?" RB "Not unless he's wearing a dress. It's Ian Anderson in drag!"

MK (photo: Daniele Purrone)

You might not think that a singer who mostly performs barefoot would be the best person to open a shoe shop, but Deep Purple's Ian Gillan relishes the challenge. "It all began when I realised I had all these stage shoes kicking around doing nothing, so I decided to sell some of them off. It went so well that I decided there was a huge demand, so I bought a shop. At the moment the opening hours are a bit erratic as I'm on the road for about 360 days each year, but you can always pop next door and Mr. Evans, who owns the trouser store, will open up for you. Usually with a verse from Mandrake Boot."

Mr. Gillan plans to add Indian shirts to his stock soon, and is thinking of selling a range of hand-crafted bandanas from the Roger Glover range.

Our thanks to David Black who sent us the snap, from Ballycastle, Northern Ireland.

Purple was once again the "in" flower colour at the Chelsea flower show 2007, but there was an uncanny bit of programming in the coverage. The presenter moved straight from an interview with garden designer Caroline De Lane Lea to take a look at the Blackmore & Langdon stand, where the first plant to be featured was a "deep purple" (his description of the colour, not its actual name) Delphinium.... Spooky!

James Bateman

Did Whitesnake look to Twiggy for inspiration for their 1982 hit Here I Go Again? Pictured is the song as performed by Twiggy back in 1976, a hit from her debut album released that year. Closer inspection however reveals that the song she covered was penned by Country Joe McDonald back in the late sixties, so it must be coincidence. Mind you, Twiggy and Coverdale did both appear together on stage at the Butterfly Ball concert in 1976, so maybe not...

"After reading that our beloved PM (Tony Blair) had seen DP in their  heyday I thought he might be proud to know that he had inspired the  lyrics of one of their songs and so emailed him the relevant lines  from Wrong Man, arguing that while he's not mentioned by name, the  linking of "Prime ministerial" and "Lie" must surely be down to his  performance over the past decade," writes James Bateman.

He was perhaps not surprised to find the PM too busy (with a new  policy initiative no doubt) to reply, but was very spooked to find  that somehow the original email disappeared from his sent folder.... I was going to add that you'd expect the secret services to have  better things to do with their time these days, but then realised how  foolish I'd look.

I know a few people are grumbling about the UK tour - £35 + booking fee + travel costs for three bands, two of whom most people wouldn't go to the end of street to see (Thin Lizzy? Anorexic Lizzy more like)... but spare a thought for web man Dave Browne's manager who wants to go and see The Rolling Stones' next tour. £150 each for him, his wife and two kids. £15 per ticket admin (clearly tickets this costly require more expensive handling), plus travel. It's not far off a grand for one show. Then there are The Police and Genesis at £150 a pop. So Grollywood says stop your carping in case our project director Bruce clocks these and gets ideas. Buy a vibrating banana and make him happy!

photo: Deep Purple showered with flower petals in Monte Carlo 2006. (Martin Ashberry)

Grollywood has just had a one-line fan letter for Rod Evens (sic) from America. We can't work out if this is a long delayed letter posted back in 1968 or if someone has been smitten more recently by the sight of those trousers in the Grollywood museum. As the sender kindly enclosed a dollar bill we'll send her details of the DPAS magazine, chase up those plans for the new theme park ride Raging River Of Fear, and make sure the cafe is stocked up with Bright Blue Tango.

Matthew Kean tells us he went to see the acoustic Jethro Tull tour in March 2007 (no news as to whether fans who donned a codpiece got to sit in the front two rows). Ian Anderson introduced Aqualung by saying "this is probably our most famous song, see if you recognise it. And don't you dare shout 'Smoke On The F**king Water!'"

Deep Purple are in a number of newspapers today (Feb 26) telling people not to buy the Live 1993 CD sets from Sony BMG. The group tell the reporter they were going through a bad patch at the time and one of the albums is from their worst gig ever. Never mind that the set was actually first issued last year, as far as I know taking an album to the shop and asking for your money back on the grounds that the band say it's rubbish isn't going to get you very far! "Have you got the receipt and a verified quote from the band sir?"

And was it really their worst gig ever? Let us know if you disagree and why. Our glamourous assistants are waiting for your call and there's a free copy of the utterly awful compilation Purplexed for the best response (and two copies for the runner up).

Is Ian Gillan auditioning for a new adult version of the children's classic Swallows And Amazons books?

Or perhaps he's setting sale for the stranded container trawler on the south coast of Britain in search of all those missing glo in the dark vibrating Bananas en route from China (now repackaged for the latest tour with the slogan "Bring yourself Rapture from the Deep")?!

Harrods, the once renowned London department store, is having a guitar exhibition running from Feb 2nd to March 3rd (no mention of any of Ritchie's gear being on show). Alongside this they are having a live stage with events. One of these is an attempt to stage the most number of people hammering out the Smoke On The water riff at one time. More info at the store's website I assume.

Thanks to Audie Philips for the news.

"Without doubt this is the best advertising tool we could have", says painter and decorator Nick Simper from Middlesex. A friend suggested that a Minor van would be good for business, so Nick immediately took their advice. "With a two-tone paint job and attractive sign writing Harriet the '68 1000 LCV looks in great shape - you'll see no brush marks here! It's a hell of a lot of fun to drive too," says Nick.

The above was spotted on the Morris Minor Owners Club site, reprinted from an article dated 1998.

Thanks to Nigel Young .

We all remember our school text books. They haunt you for ever (Most of mine had large squashed bluebottles between selected pages. They were designed to haunt whoever got the book after me!). Tim Sinzenich has sent us a school-text book which featured Deep Purple!

Published in 1974, MODEVERHALTEN was a book which discussed fashion, how pupils behave towards fashion, why  they use which clothes, etc. It was written for German school teachers to help them to understand the different fashions, how it was affected by the mass media and impacted on the behaviour of pupils..

The cover featured members of The Bee Gees, The Rattles and ... Roger Glover, looking cool in his 1971 all-over Demin ensemble and Doctor Who knitted scarf. Watch the price of this suddenly sky-rocket on eBay! .

"A combination of traditional sedative herbs and vitamins for the temporary relief of insomnia and disturbed sleep patterns." So says the Australian company behind this and many other herbal remedies. Some might feel that Ritchie's CDs alone could do the trick these days, but the similarity to the band's name, the purple label colour, surely something must be going on here.

Thanks to John Blackburn for the prescription. Dosage Adults - Take one to two tablets half an hour before a concert, or as professionally prescribed?

Ian Janes wrote to us recently: "I'm trying to persuade my Head of Department to see Deep Purple on the 2007 UK tour. He's not seen the band since Kempton Park 10th August 1968! Would a gap of 39 years between seeing them for the first and second time be some sort of record?"

I'd have to say we would imagine it is. The news does raise three questions though. 1) Can your boss remember anything about the show or the festival which would be of interest to other DP fans? 2) Were they really so bad that he was put off seeing them again for so long? 3) Will he still be able to recognise Rod Evans?!   

photo © Franz Murer http://www.ukrockfestivals.com

With dodgy dogs in the news at the moment, it reminded us that back in the sixties, the owner of the Top Ten Club in Hamburg owned a Boxer as a guard dog, which began to take it's duties so seriously it would go for visiting musicians, chasing them round the club. In 1964 The Outlaws were playing there and the dog took a dislike to Blackmore big time. He nick-named it The Hound Of Hell and tried hard to avoid running into it.

Blackmore was relieved when the group returned to the club next tour to discover that the Boxer dog had died of a heart-attack chasing a bass player up the stairs!

Thanks to Fiesta Magazine 1978

Grollywood would like to draw visitors attention to the rules of admittance to the park which states that "All owners must be accompanied by their dogs"

According to their local paper (and next to an advert for a Molecatcher - "No Mole - No Fee"), children at Midsomer Norton Methodist Church have devised a retelling of the traditional Nativity Bible story, using a group of handmade puppets and some musical numbers. One of these is Deep Purple's Smoke On The Water, rewritten as "Walk On The Water". Let's just hope they cleared it with the music publishers! I for one won't be able to watch a DP show without thinking of this from now on (and I'm a fully paid up member of the Richard Dawkins school of non-believers).

If you missed their debut on December 10th 2006, the Fingers And Thumbs Puppet Group are planning to tour other churches during 2007.

Courtesy The Midsomer Norton, Radstock and District Journal, submitted by John Hansford..

Plans for the Grollywood Theme Centre are having to be redrawn after an offer for the former Springs Hotel (believed to have been part cash, part several thousand mis-pressed copies of Living For The City picture disc with the wrong b-side) was turned down by the present owners, and the consortium are now actively engaged in seeking a suitable building site somewhere on the Heston/Heathrow industrial park. Plans have apparently been submitted to the local authority for a Tunnel Of Love in the shape of a giant grand piano. The consortium were hoping to build a Read Your Fortune booth in the shape of a scaled-down Deeves Hall, but this has been refused.

SR

Most biographies reckon the name Deep Purple came from Ritchie's grandmother's favourite tune. But what if they were named after his grand-dad's favourite cigars? Thankfully they decided to drop the 5 cent cigar bit.

SR (Thanks to Tomasz Szmajter)

When Gillan issued the Nightmare single in 1981 (doesn't that make you feel old?!), we all thought it was a garishly coloured shot of Ian Gillan on the sleeve. And we were wrong. Sorry Ian! Recent investigative work in the laboratories of the National Portrait Gallery (and not Simon tinkering with the density filters and channel options buried in the depths of PhotoshopCS2) have revealed the hidden picture beneath the felt pens. In fact it is a snapshot of a Mrs.O'Leary, wife of the designer Steve who did the sleeve artwork! I wonder if she knew?

SR

"When I started work in London I worked for a small design studio called Market Share in High Holborn. Market Share was run by Pete and Pam, and I worked for them. There were also three freelancers renting space from them, one of which was Steve O'Leary.

I think the photograph on the front of Nightmare is actually of Pam (it sure looks like her anyway) and I don't think Steve was even married."

Thanks to Neil Cutler for the extra information.

SR

Inspired by Dolly Parton's Dollywood Theme Park and Ripley's Believe It Or Not sideshow, the DPAS is proud to announce the opening of Grollywood, a virtual theme park, entertainment and amusement complex devoted to the World of Deep Purple. The first few exhibits are now on display and more will follow.

Funds are being raised from the sale of the Minidisc single version of Smoke On The Water. All contributions are welcome. The virtual rollercoaster is now being built, and will reach from a high-point of 1971 at the Fireball Peak to a depth of 1980 at the Rod Evans Plunge.

SR

So successful has Whitesnake's resurgence been lately that David Coverdale has begun to invest his money in a chain of carpet stores.

Rob Wainwright has spotted the latest in St. Helens. And you can perhaps imagine the sales patter, “Would madame be interested in an underlay, or perhaps a nice deep shag?” Rumours that he'll be opening a boutique in Redcar next selling flares and scoop neck t-shirts have been denied. SR

Now you think we've made this CD sleeve up in a moment of extreme boredom don't you? If only! What's more we don't even know much about the guy who did, except that he sits on the back cover dressed to look like the king on a pack of playing cards, with a box of Kleenex, a Stratocaster and a magazine... This bizarre breakneck run-through of Japanese vocal versions of Deep Purple classics (from 1995) is simply bonkers. Instrumentally pretty faithful, the singer is clearly on another planet. A fifteen minute medley of titles - plus instrumental versions so you can top up on Saki and have a go!

SR

Following the success of the Ritchie Blackmore signature guitar model a few years back, the Steve Morse model and the recent Ian Paice signature snare drum, TKMaxx and Grollywood are proud to announce a sure-fire collectors item every Deep Purple fan will want; the Rod Evans signature Gold Lamé Trousers.

These trousers are carefully modelled on the famous pair worn by the former Deep Purple singer during his American tour of 1968, and immortalised on the Playboy TV show. Each pair are faithful replicas and have a Rod Evans signature reproduced across the reverse (as the singer could not be contacted that's a Mr. Rod Evans of Dock Avenue, Bristol). A certificate of authenticity will accompany each purchase, and this offer will be limited to three pairs per order.

Coming soon, Ian Gillan signature flip-flops and Nick Simper replica horse brasses.

Warning: the fabulousness of the trousers may be slightly less fabulous than the pair shown here. No responsibility can be accepted for trousers worn within 15 feet of a naked flame such as a lit cigarette.

SR