Back in the 80s Blackmore lived about 15 minutes from me and would pop into a club we played on occasion. I didn't realize he liked our band until we were looking for a new guitarist at one point and Richie sent over his roadie (some Brit whose name I can't recall.) But what was especially cool was that Richie loaned him one of his Strats and a small Pignose-sized black amp to use for the audition. The amp had lots of melted purple candle wax on the top that was dripped down it. I asked the guitarist what sort of amp it was and he said Richie told him it was the amp that he used to record Machine Head with. I thought that was pretty damn cool. Somewhere I still have an old cassette tape of that audition. We used to tape everyone in our recording studio to listen back later, to decide who we wanted.
