Tracing undiscovered stars
Edel has posted another video from the Düsseldorf 2005 gig — title track from the just about going to be released Rapture of the Deep.
We’ll forgive the less than stellar camerawork…
Thanks to BraveWords for the info.
![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/glover5.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/airey3.jpg)
Edel has posted another video from the Düsseldorf 2005 gig — title track from the just about going to be released Rapture of the Deep.
We’ll forgive the less than stellar camerawork…
Thanks to BraveWords for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
It feels so great listening to this record. I was in the crowd at this particular show. Out of the twenty Purple shows I have experienced I remember this one to be the greatest. The other people seemed to have fun as well because we kept on cheering for another encore even after the lights went on and taped music started to play. Thank you so much for sharing this.
September 2nd, 2022 at 18:27Still trying to work out what the hell he is talking about but it’s one of the top songs of the Steve Morse DP Era
And here is my top 10 Steve Morse DP era
Sometimes I feel like screaming.
Ted the Mechanic
I got your number
Contact lost
Rapture of the deep
Watching the sky
69
The surprising
Birds of prey
All I got is you.
Sorry if I offended anyone with my selection but I could not even think of any song from Whoosh album that is good enough to compete with the songs above.
September 2nd, 2022 at 19:42Peace ✌️
I’ve just played the album a couple of days ago and boy it has some great song like this one and (in Japan) Things I Never said, which was fantastic in the setlists.
Still what a pity they’ve never tried Clearly Quite Absurd on stage. Just like Walk On from Bananas.
September 2nd, 2022 at 20:06Enjoyed that. Scary how long ago it was though.
September 3rd, 2022 at 10:20Ah yes…Great tune, well played by all, & very much enjoyed this way !!!
September 3rd, 2022 at 10:28There’s no doubt the lads are enjoying themselves, & Don is really delivering the goods on this one imo !
What a great song this is! Also serves as a vehicle for Mr. Morse soloing. It certainly is worth taking back to the current set list as well.
September 3rd, 2022 at 11:54Now would be a good time for a Best of MkMorse compilation. 2 discs with a coupla tunes from each album, along with the tracks that only showed up after the initial releases. ( Things I Never Said, Paradise Bar, etc ).
September 3rd, 2022 at 12:03@ 3
Again I must mention my own favorite of BANANAS : Sun goes down……
September 5th, 2022 at 10:37Bananas sounded fresher and livelier to me than Rapture, but both have noteworthy songs. I didn’t think the Michael Bradford productions were bad at all, just different to what we had grown accustomed to from Roger Glover, variety is the spice of life. The later Bob Ezrin productions are more vibrant though and have greater depth & warmth – he created an atmosphere for Purple. He’s good at that, it’s what he gave Alice Cooper, Kiss, Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel on the albums he produced for them. As diverse as his customers haven been, he’s always given them that “aura”.
September 5th, 2022 at 15:45@9 Bob Ezrin “is” one of the greatest producers ever imo…So many classic albums that really defined the sound of the mid-late 1970’s for sure. He will be remembered, in time, for sure, if people consider a producers role in their thoughts. ( He’s also human too, & has had a dud here & there with his name on the album, such as KISS’s “The Elder”… But no doubt it was not all his doing, as it seemed that all concerned were pulling in different directions on that one ).
I really love how his “sound” transferred-over from Alice Cooper “Goes to hell”, KISS’s “Destroyer”, & Pink Floyd “The Wall”…Each album has a lot of his arrangements, instrumentation, & keyboard inputs plus recording techniques.
Peace.
September 5th, 2022 at 23:39@ 10- while I am not familiar with those Alice Cooper & Kiss albums, I am familiar with the Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ album. From my memory of reading credits & articles over the decades, I thought it was Michael Kamen who was involved on that recording regarding orchestration & possibly some keyboards also. Bob Ezrin was also involved in arrangements & keyboards & was one of the producers along with David Gilmour & Roger Waters. I may need to refresh my memory on some of that information. Cheers.
September 6th, 2022 at 09:22Bob Ezrin even came up with the tell-tale bass lines to those two classics here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNADrrjTysk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrxX9TBj2zY
Both Simmons and Waters have admitted/confirmed that. His ideas are also behind these tracks here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfZyxu5UMCU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx51eegLTY8
He was always one of the strongest producers to me (along with people like George Martin and Trevor Horn), long before he joined forces with DP which at the time I registered with glee, it was like a dream come true. Martin Birch was pivotal for Purple, but the production of Purple’s 80ies, 90ies, Noughties and 10ies output was never more than serviceable to good, never excellent ot stellar. Ironically, Roger’s best production work was outside of DP, I’d count the Nazareth albums, Gallagher’s Calling Card and Priest’s Sin After Sin among those. I didn’t even think that his production of the later Rainbow albums was remarkable.
September 6th, 2022 at 12:11Martin Birch wasn’t a musician from what I can remember of reading different articles over the years. Trevor Horn, George Martin & Bob Ezrin are musicians, which I can imagine would help greatly in ‘knowing’ what something may need to embellish the original song idea. In regards to Ezrin with Floyd & The Wall recordings he was also a mediator between Gilmour & Waters, which a good producer should be, to an extent.
September 6th, 2022 at 21:54I could imagine it does depend on how much as songwriter allows an outsider to ‘interfere’ with their songs etc. Waters being who he is had a difficult time stepping aside at times, but that is who he is so anyone involved will probably not enjoy that at the time. Ezrin & Gilmour certainly didn’t from what we have read. A similar scenario occurred with Gilmour apparently having to ‘fight’ to keep Comfortably Numb from being changed too much from his original melody etc. We can only imagine what Waters original ideas & that album would have turned out like without Ezrin, Gilmour, Michael Kamen & James Guthrie. Martin Birch was a rocker in a true sense of the word, he seemed to just love that dry rock ‘n roll approach to engineering & production & he did very well I thought. As for Roger Glover in Purple & Rainbow he has always stated that it is difficult being in the band & also producing. I can imagine it would be & how do you step ‘outside’ of it & keep a level head, so to speak. George Martin would have been a mediator as well as a ‘songwriter’ in a sense & we can only imagine what so many Beatles songs would have sounded like without his involvement. It has all turned out well for us listeners though. Cheers.
@13 Yo, you will almost instantly recognize the contributions made by Mr.Ezrin on the above mentioned albums…In fact they’re well worth grabbing & listening to, even today…Think of them as the “1”-at-least album you “have” to have in your collection, though opinions will vary greatly here, but the point being Mr.Ezrin’s contributions are very-much apparent, & similar between them.
The Wasp, for myself at least, still to this day, hasn’t been bettered in what he captured in the live arena with our “Made in Japan” album…No doubt the dodgy looking 8-track recorder contributed immensely here…I have a massive amount of live albums from lots of different bands, & nothing sounds as sweet as what he delivered us to my ears…The only close runner-up that I have that’s comparable, would be Little Feat’s “Down upon the Suwannee” from 2003, it’s quite good too.
Roger Glover is not only blessed with a vision ( Butterfly Ball ), & production skills, but is one of the most rock-solid bass-guitarists ever imo. His lines, whether jazzy, chromatic, or just thumping along are as near a perfect-fit for a tune that you’ll ever hear. You can always tell that the bass part is near perfect, because it’s not / hardly noticed by anyone…
Peace !
September 7th, 2022 at 10:23I‘ve never seen a picture of Martin Birch playing an instrument, but on Glover‘s Elements he‘s credited with „acoustic guitar“ and „backing vocals“ as well as „co-production“. But I‘he always perceived him more as the „producer-engineer“- rather than the „producer-artist“-type.
September 7th, 2022 at 19:04And I raise my hand for liking Kiss‘ The Elder!
https://youtu.be/niEHsY3EiFw
https://youtu.be/WG1WSFQEDu4
https://youtu.be/mtFpgF0cU5g
It was über-operatic, cringy in places and out of step with what people expected from Kiss, but I‘m a sucker for valiant failures!
September 8th, 2022 at 01:12Bob Ezrin apparently was the one who thought of the ‘disco’ beat & rhythm guitar thing for what became the ABITW part 2 song. Much to the shock of Gilmour when Ezrin allegedly said, go to a few night clubs & get an idea of that feel & rhythm etc. Ha, Ha, Ha, if only you could be the proverbial fly on the wall & seeing & hearing that conversation. I think Ezrin also suggested extending that original Waters very short narrative into a proper length song & then add Gilmour’s vocals & superb guitar solo & there you have it, a number one single. Not forgetting the school children singing along also. Apparently the Floyd members sternly said before it became a hit ‘we don’t do singles’. There must have been a lot of stress & tension etc during those recording sessions, but as we have heard before with certain artists, sometimes that gets the best results. Cheers.
September 8th, 2022 at 01:29Not just Floyd got Ezrin’s “kiddie treatment”. There is a running joke about Bob’s production work whenever he takes on a new artist, the burning question being: “Will there be yet another children’s choir?” : – )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBEcLxnXVAc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB7v35-pWyU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scdZEL1xySc
I’m still waiting for Purple to receive the “treatment”. I was really expecting it already on Now What?!, we definitely need another Bob Ezrin production for him to make amends.
And sending band mates to private tutoring lessons in discos to get a sense of comtemporary dance culture is nothing new either: Poor Bill Wyman was made to sit through three disco nights in Paris to find inspiration for his iconic bass runs on this here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hic-dnps6MU
Adding insult to injury, when the track came out in 1978, no one initially wanted to believe he had played the bass on it! He’s also a seriously underrated bass player. Since he left the Stones, they sound a lot more conventional behind the guitars though Darryl Jones can play circles around Bill as regards chops. Wyman had an uncanny talent of playing where other bassists wouldn’t have and not doing so where they would have.
September 8th, 2022 at 10:59Uwe @18:
> I’m still waiting for Purple to receive the “treatment”. I was really expecting it already on Now What?!
Hell to Pay should qualify
September 8th, 2022 at 12:09That sounded more like football fan chants on loan from Slade to me!
Not that there is anything wrong with that. Wolverhampton’s Finest!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mKjx2oL_fI
September 8th, 2022 at 12:32Shame on me, how could I have forgotten this classic ‘Ezrinization’ and its wonderfully descriptive education coda?
‘A, B, C, D, E, F, G,
How I love anatomy,
2+2 and 3+3,
Students have a ball with me …’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adVdgcG4b7w
September 8th, 2022 at 12:41https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7znFa3vcg0
Fantastic gig from the same year 🙂
September 8th, 2022 at 20:50Maybe Bob Ezrin is really good at bringing the ‘old school’ musicians up to date. And talking of ‘old school’ & I know I keep mentioning that saying at times, however Bill Wyman is definitely that. A groovy bass player indeed & he & Charlie Watts were great. Cheers.
September 8th, 2022 at 22:14@23 & others…Oh for sure with Bob Ezrin there’s the school-choir thing going-on with the albums mentioned, but the orchestrations & unusual instrument choices can’t be overlooked either…And to my ears, there was / is a whole heap of natural ambience to the overall sound in the recordings, giving massive space, air & definition between the instruments, & overall sound. The drums in particular sound incredible, as played by Allen Schwarzberg ( spell check ) on Alice Cooper “Goes to Hell”…And you can always crank the volume up a little further than with other records too with his productions…No brick-walling here lol, just good ears & knowing what sounds good…
Bill Wyman is a very talented musician. You only need to listen to the album “Black & Blue” to discover how versatile & tasteful his lines are…And he’s got an exquisite sense-of-time, that allows him to phrase his lines very uniquely…This means that he’s very hard to copy, & his lines are part of the song in such a way, that it makes the tune “authentic”.
Charlie Watts never, ever overplayed…He was perhaps more productive than say Ringo Star, & yet could make someone like Nick Mason seem like a busy player…He had a great sense-of-time, & could play around with the beat ( which I love ) to trick you, such as the beginning of “Start me up”, & lots of other tunes. No doubt Charlie & Bill worked hard at delivering the Stones groove.
September 11th, 2022 at 07:42“No doubt Charlie & Bill worked hard at delivering the Stones groove.”
Yet they both say they never worked their parts out or even coordinated them with each other. Charlie would follow Keith’s guitar and Bill Wyman slipped in where he found space to do so.
September 18th, 2022 at 20:35