You say that, but I bet YOU don’t still have nightmares after being asked to design an S&M (NOT the Purple one!) website by a very pathetic-looking bald bloke in 1999.
PS - I said “no!”
And I could have had some ideas …
When I dream SM, it‘s never a nightmare to me, quite on the contrary. 
I got into Purple through a cousin who played Made In Japan to me and my 3 years older brother, I was 8 years old and couldn’t believe what I heard - that long feedback note from the guitar in the intro to Highway Star. That set me off, and I was hooked and have followed the band and their offshoots ever since, seen them on many occasions and with different line-ups.
Their musicianship set the benchmark for me, I do like lots of other music and music styles today, but it has to be really good musicians for me to fully enjoy it. Happy to be living in a time where so many great bands have been around.
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Born in 1980
I discovered Deep Purple around 1990 through forays into the library (as a child). I remember the release of The Battle Rages On… and wasn’t so sure about it. But when Purpendicular came out later, it really struck a chord with me.
Loving them ever since and saw them live many times
Reading the highway star newsblog for many years (without posting much myself)
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Slightly off-topic, but I spent many an hour in the 1980’s playing “Q*Bert” at the arcade!
Happy memories 
Have a great time,
J.-
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I know what u are talking about =)
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Welcome Qbert! Enjoy us before you start to hate us
Have a good time here, great to have you!
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I doubt that. Even I don’t know what I’m talking about
One of my female cousins, some 10 years older than me, was not talking to her mother in 1983 and stayed for a while with us.
She had a boyfriend, a nice chap (but not nicer than her future husband), who gave her some vinyls that she forgot at our place when she moved back and broke up with the guy.
In 1990 my mother bought a new stereo and I wanted to test it with albums that were not with songs about animals or cheesy stuff like Roberto Carlos and Morris Albert. So I raided my cousin’s albums. Nice things there: Queen’s “A Night at the Opera”, Santana’s “Abraxas”… And Stormbringer.
Side B had moth holes, so I decided it must be good. Even the moths liked it!
Lady Double Dealer. The drums. The riff. The voices. And especially the solo. Heck, that solo. Every afternoon, coming back from school, I’d go back to that solo and play air guitar like crazy.
The next year I had my first job (at 14) and with my first salary I bought Deep Purple’s recently released album Slaves and Masters. I have fond memories of it, even if it’s not musically my favourite. But none of my favourite Purple albums was taken to a party at a colleague’s home so I could dance Love Conquers All with a green-eyed girl I didn’t have the courage to talk to. I can’t hate that song, as much as my taste wants me to.
After that, Deep Purple seemed to be everywhere I looked. King of Dreams was a clip playing on the nascent MTV Brazil (where I went to work much later). Every month I raided the used vinyl stores for more Purple, and in June or July an ad on TV had the Smoke on the Water riff playing to announce the band was coming to Porto Alegre.
At the day of the concert, I went to the front of the hotel to try to meet the band, and met some people I still see online to this day. We all went to try to see the soundcheck. Of course, I was too young and had no money, so I could not go to the show. 30 years later, I stayed at that hotel with my wife – it was now affordable because of time and the pandemic – and I can’t describe the joy of riding the elevators they certainly rode (and probably were not replaced since).
In 1992, Gillan took the Toolbox tour to the city and I was there to help him out of the car. Had my first gig, my first booze and was roughed by the police for the first and only time in my life. Those were the days. But I got it easy in comparison to some dumbasses who kicked a hole at the external wall of the auditorium. One broke in. The second passed. The third had his back hit by a brick thrown by the police. When I told Ian Gillan that story, two decades latee, he laughed in delight. Those were the days.
When I got into college, in 1995, I joined the Usenet and began lurking at rec.arts.music.deep-purple, the original myth of this website. My English was terrible, so I dread to imagine what I posted. But I met people there and since whom I get to meet every once in a while when geography helps.
Once someone asked me why Deep Purple, of all things. I could be a decent supporter of Internacional, my soccer team from Porto Alegre. And there are plenty more popular bands to be excited about. But I was the kid who liked Deep Purple at school when everyone was into Nirvana and Guns’n’Roses. Now I became the uncle who has a Purple reference for literally everything.
There is a good Argentinian movie, “The Secret of Your Eyes”, in which a drunk prosecutor finds out how to catch the killer. At the bar, he had a mate who was crazy for the same soccer team as the killer, and got all the references in the letters they had found at his mother’s place. And the prosecutor says this:
“You can’t switch passions. You move from home, you change girlfriends, you get a new family, but your passion will always be the same.”
And it is true. I moved to another city, stayed for a while in another country, changed jobs, broke up with my first wife, lost my mother, lost hope, regained hope, and Deep Purple was always playing. My second wife, the woman of my life, met the band before meeting my own father.
(I was ashamed of that, in fact, so some months after her meeting the band we went to my old man’s city. It was a great conversation. But I can’t help talking more about the band than about my relatives.)
That’s why I’m here.
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I almost bought that one in Berlin, but I had to make mindful choices because everything I bought there would be weighted on my suitcase when I came back to Brazil. A compilation from East Germany which includes Lady Double Dealer must be good!
Karin, how was it like to read Bravo in Denmark as a teen? Did you understand the German?
I ask because the last time I went to Denmark, after living in Germany for a few months and learning some of their difficult language, guessing all the signs and publications looked a bit less difficult than in previous times. (Back to Münster, afterwards, German looked much easier.)
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Similar, but older than you.
First current LP bought => House of Blue Light (the Nobody’s, then S&M, etc)
First DP vinyl sighting => A few years before, WDWTWA from my uncle’s bedroom, ruined with cigarette burns (the LP, not my uncle!). However, a whole track had dodged the burns, it was the first song of Side B: “Rat Bat Blue”. Curious about that old artifact (the LP) I put the song. Could not believe what I was hearing. “What is THIS amazing electronic nuclear plant fascinating barrage of noise??!!” It was Jon’s Hammond-into-Marshall (a.k.a. The Gorgan) ultra powerful sound. I loved Jon even before I knew his name. I still do.
“Toolbox” tour show in my hometown? Check.-
Stalking Ian? Check.-
USENET group, alt.music.deep-purple, modem dial-up? Check.-
First (and only) DP show → ‘Purpendicular’ tour (Buenos Aires)
“El Secreto de sus Ojos” → AMAZING movie!!! (still have a crush on Soledad Villamil, I affectionately call her ‘Sole VillaMILF’ 
)
Not going to DP this round to avoid a divorce, as I already made plans for Iron Maiden and later Rush in the upcoming months.
Regards, J.-
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I’ve recently seen a film with a more mature Soledad, and wow.
When you visit Sao Paulo, please tell me! I only went to Montevideo once, in 2004. It was another world. Looked like Porto Alegre in the 80s and I felt at home.
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Oh so sorry I have just seen your post now.
I answer immediately 
Well, since Bravo was the only magazine I could get my dirty little hands on, it was more of a necessity I read it.
When I was a kid, we lived in the southern part of Sjaelland, where we had some German tv channels, and in that period there was only one (1!) Danish tv channel, so I was glued to the screen whenever I could. From that I learned a good deal of German.
Later on we moved to Jylland, and I was ok at German in school.
So, I really didn’t have a lot of trouble reading Bravo. But of course the articles I really wanted to understand I went through with a dictionary nearby 
In Denmark we had some magazines for young people, ‘Vi unge’ is the one I remember best, but that was merely how to choose the right shade in lipstick and which deodorant fit your zodiac sign 
German is a beautiful language and I remember I liked the grammar very much, compared to the English, because the German grammar is very logical, just like the Latin grammar is.
English grammar is mostly exceptions
But let me check if you can speak a little Danish:
Drikker du kaffen med mælk?
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I can mostly read Danish, but writing is a whole another world. (I do drink coffee with milk, but only before 4PM or else I won’t sleep well).
My ancestors came to Brazil from Malmö in Sweden, so I always feel at home in that part of the world. Even if my language skills need a lot of improving!
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So you are somewhat of a Samba Knäckebröd, Mærcelø!
I thought as much, there are strange things a-happ’nin’ everyday.
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