Nick Simper - Latest news will be posted here

http://www.myspace.com/nicksimper

Chapter 9 of Nick's story Nick finds Mick Stewart, and the new Pirates begin rehearsing. Any initial nervousness is soon dispelled as the band get new stage clothes and hit the road to packed houses. "These guys are the best Pirates I've ever had!" says Johnny Kidd. 1966 is shaping up to be a really good year..... Read his story here.
Message from Nick Once again I would like to extend my gratitude and best wishes for your interest and kind messages. Last March saw the 40th anniversary of my joining with Bobby Woodman, Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore to begin the embryonic Deep Purple. No-one could have guessed back then that our records would still be remembered in 2008, with our first single, “Hush”, being used to advertise Jaguar cars!! The Good Ol’ Boys were invited to Austria at the end of April, where we celebrated the anniversary, together with the great Austrian rock band “Nasty Habits”. We really enjoyed the two gigs at Graz and Vienna and it was lovely to meet so many great people. My old “Renegades” pal Rich Bennett came from Atlanta USA with his son Jeff, also my son Rich and webmaster Mike MacKechnie made the trip. A great time was had by all, due in no small measure to the wonderful hospitality of Peter Brkusic, the other members of Nasty Habits and their friends. Thanks lads! We look forward to doing it again next year! Thanks also to everyone who attended the other 40th anniversary gig at the Esquires Club, Bedford, on May 3rd with the Good Ol’ Boys, Glenn Hughes and Burn. Everybody had a great day, due mainly to the sterling efforts of organiser Jerry Bloom. Cheers Jerry!! Nick Simper 8th May 2008
Deep Purple Convention

Nick meets Glenn Hughes at the Deep Purple Convention at Esquires on Saturday May 3rd. Well done to Jerry Bloom of MBTP for putting together a fantastic event. Click here for more details...

Tribute Gig for Lord Sutch & Carlo Little
Ace Cafe, London Friday 20th June 2008 7p.m. £7 on the door, proceeds to charity. With Paul Neon & The Saints, Bessie & The Zinc Buckets, The Good Old Boys, Tonto's Horse And special guests. http://www.carlolittle.com/suchnight.htm

Interview with Dimitry Epstein
Nick has done another e-mail interview, this time with Dmitry Epstein from the excellent "Let It Rock" web site. You can read Nick's interview here, or you can pay a visit to Dmitry's web site.

Message from Nick


left to right.... Mick Ralphs, Nick Simper, Simon Bishop behind
I have recently done a couple of gigs with an all star line up, featuring Richard Hudson of the Strawbs on drums and two other "Good Old Boys" Pete Parks and Simon Bishop on guitars. On vocals we had Ali McKenzie who featured with the "Birds" in the 60's, and the addition of "Bad Company's" Mick Ralphs really put the icing on the cake!! With Pete Parks on my right and Simon Bishop and Mick Ralphs on my left I really was in guitar heaven! A good time was had by all, during which Mick swapped me a wide Gibson strap and short guitar lead for my narrow Fender strap and long lead. Just for an extra bonus he presented me with one of his signed plectrums! (see photo above) Using the working title "Pieces Of Eight" we all enjoyed ourselves immensely and hope to do it again in the near future.

left to right..... Ali McKenzie, Nick Simper, Richard Hudson, Mick Ralphs	left to right..... Pete parks, Nick Simper, Simon Bishop plus assorted guitars

Message from Nick

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who has taken the time out to visit my web site, and to say thank you all for messages of support, which I do read carefully.

Whilst it is not possible to reply to everyone individually, I realise that many messages contain questions. I am unable to supply music, photographs or lyrics, but I will endeavour to supply answers to questions asked in the near future.

Thanks once again, and best wishes to you all,

Nick Simper May 2007

Warhorse Poster

Another rarity from Gerhard Koritnik; a Warhorse poster, autographed by the members of the band!

Click on the picture to see it full size. You can then click on the autographs to see them close up.

This picture has been watermarked, so no copying without permission from Gerhard!

Nick on YouTube

Danny Vaughn has a few clips of the Good Ol' Boys at the Jolly Anglers in West Drayton, Middlesex in October 1997, which you can see here.

Meanwhile here is the Deep Purple performance on Playboy After Dark in 1968. Most of you will have seen the performance of "Hush" before, but this clip includes the intro to And The Address and a bit of Hugh Hefner mucking around on Ritchie's guitar.

Other YouTube Deep Purple clips:

And The Address Chasing Shadows Shield / The Painter	Photo collages with the album tracks.

River Deep, Mountain High Wring That Neck Help Kentucky Woman Hush Hey Joe Mandrake Root	recently discovered videotape of Deep Purple at the Inglewood gig in October 68. The picture quality is poor but the sound is reasonable.

The performance of "Ritual" for the Beat Club session has reappeared, although this time it's a dreadful second generation copy that looks like it's been recorded on a mobile phone from a cheap TV screen.

Pete Parks remembers: "..the Beat Club session in Bremen like it was yesterday. The German engineer walked off the set and left the production to us. Apparently the volume we were playing at was affecting the cameras. As a result were ended up with a decent rock video instead of a Euro-Pop travesty."

There is also a YouTube clip of Nick playing with the Marsha Hunt band at the Bilzen Festival in 1969, here. Deep Purple MKII also performed at that festival! Thanks to Gerhard Koritnik for the link.

Here's a rarity, kindly given to us by Gerhard Koritnik; a flyer from Deep Purple's show at the Salem Amory, on April 5th 1969, autographed by all 5 members of the band!

Click on the picture to see it full size. You can then click on the autographs to see them close up.

This picture has been watermarked, so no copying without permission from Gerhard!

Johnny Kidd - a personal message from Nick

Saturday 7th October 2006 was the 40th anniversary of the death of a much loved and much missed hero of the British 60's music scene.
Nick was with Johnny Kidd and the Pirates from May to October 1966, and was a passenger in the car that so tragically took away "the Kidd".

Visit the Johnny Kidd web site to find out more.

Nick interviewed by the Deep Purple Fan Club of
Argentina!

In the Summer of 2006, Nick replied to an interview letter received from Gabriel Gonzalez of the Deep Purple Fan Club of
Argentina. The letter was translated into Spanish and published in their fanzine "Deepest Purple". and we have been given permission to reproduce it here. We have translated back into English, using our Collins dictionary and a very rudimentary knowledge of Spanish... here.

Good Ol' Boys at the Mick Jagger Centre

The Good Ol' Boys are playing at the Deep Purple 40th Anniversary gig, at the Mick Jagger Centre, Dartford, on Saturday 6th September. More details here.

The "Boys" are back in Austria 2008

The webmaster took a long weekend break to see the band play their second gig at the Reigen in Vienna on 27th April. A fantastic time was had by one and all, and it was great to meet Christian, Ralph, Wolfgang, Gerhard, Tilly & Swanage, and "Nasty Habits". Thanks to everyone for contributing loads of photos, which you can see here. Nick joined Nasty Habits for a rendition of "Emmaretta", he first time he'd played it in nearly 40 years! It was recorded for posterity below:

See you all again next year?

Exclusive to Confessions Of A Sixties Drummer

Buy your very own copy of 'The Carlo Little Night of Honour' on a jam-packed double DVD. A rare, explosive and entertaining mixture of blues, rock and roll, and 60's R&B performed by some of Britain's most legendary and talented musicians in honour of their friend, mentor and colleague, Carlo Little at York House, Richmond on 26th March 2006.

Featuring Dick Taylor & Phil May (The Pretty Things), Wee Willie Harris, Ray Phillips & John Hawken (The Strawbs/Nashville Teens), Mickey Waller, Vince Eager, Mick Avory (Kinks), The Good Old Boys featuring Nick Simper from Deep Purple, Julian Dawson, Ali McKenzie (The Birds), Downliners Sect, Art Wood, John Idan (Yardbirds) ...and more!

Click here for a video clip taster, featuring Paul Neon & The Saints (Windows Media format)

Only £15 + £1 p&p. Pay securely with Paypal. Quotes for uk only, email for international rates. All profit to South Tyneside Hospital, Ward 10, where Carlo spent his last weeks.

photos courtesy of Wolfgang Jaafar and Christian Schoen. Click here to see more pictures.

For anyone that was there, we'd love to hear your comments. E-mail us or post a message!

A message from Nick: "Thanks very much to Peter Brkusic and the "Crazy Austrians" for putting on such a fantastic show. Thanks for making us feel so welcome and a special thank you to all of you that came along to watch, and for helping us with our version of "Hush". It was a memorable event!"

Another storming gig at the Angel, Bedford on March 9th. Click here for the photos, taken by our main man Rob Vernon.

There's a couple of minutes of the Good Ol' Boys playing at the Carlo Little 'Night of Honour' on 26th March 2006. It's a Google video of pretty poor quality, but worth a look....

The Good Ol' Boys at the Horns, Watford
25th November 2006

The Boys were back in action at the Horns on 25.09.06 in front of a packed house, including some overseas fans, and welcomed Jeff Bennett who guested on drums for one number, nearly demolishing Hud's kit in the process! Another fantastic set, which was captured for posterity by John Seymour. Click here to see his photos, a selection of which you can see below.

Jeff also took some pics, which you can see here.

The Good Ol' Boys at Esquires, Bedford,
30th September

It was the webmaster's great pleasure to invite Nick and the boys to play at his local venue in Bedford. The boys were in fantastic form and it was great to see Nick back on two feet again! We took lots of pictures of the event, which you can see here.