No, not swimming
Another classic Gillan video has been restored and posted.
No Laughing In Heaven:
Big Ian these days talks about what’s behind the song:
Thanks to steve4422 for the heads-up.
![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/mcbride2.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/mcbride5.jpg)
Another classic Gillan video has been restored and posted.
No Laughing In Heaven:
Big Ian these days talks about what’s behind the song:
Thanks to steve4422 for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
That is the single version of the song in the video, not the alternative take/mix as on Glory Road
https://youtu.be/ZAQjMScGw_E
which is 01:30 longer, has a different intro and more pronounced harmony vocals in the louder mixed chorus. It always sounded a bit to me like Bernie was singing along too.
I remember buying the single on a record fair for silly money just to have that version! It wasn’t available on CD for a long time until the GILlAN Singles Box came out.
January 25th, 2025 at 03:47Love the humour in most of the tunes 😃
January 25th, 2025 at 09:09Makes me giggle, and that’s really not bad 😉
Amazing song I love this one so much. It’s has all the elements, Amazing lyrics, Great screams, riff and keyboard.
January 25th, 2025 at 10:58No other band in the world has a family tree so rich with amazing songs like DP has.
That’s why DP is the greatest band of all time not because of their catalogue but all the branching out from that band.
Peace ✌️
Uwe
January 25th, 2025 at 11:36Hate to do this to you …but, it’s actually from Future Shock …not Glory Road !
But, go on then …you can have the last word .. for a change !
@3
Yes Purple has everything!
So had Gillan… 😉
January 25th, 2025 at 13:10Steve, may I have the last word, admitting that – as nearly always – you’re so right?!
https://youtu.be/zBZPzGPC-j0
January 25th, 2025 at 14:29It was not his commercial best period (1979-1982) but his voice and performance were at their peak songs (“She Tears Me Down”, .”Fighting Man”, “If You Believe Me”, “If I Sing Softly”, “Nightmare”, “Born to Kill”.of course and”No Laughing In Heaven:..) yes he is not only a pioneer founder of falsetto singing in hard and heavy tracks, but also showed that he is a great singer and an excellent lyricist…
January 25th, 2025 at 16:23“No Laughing in Heaven'”, “The rap-hard rock ” vocal-song continuation of “No One Came”….in both cases Ian Gillan is a passionate performer-storyteller, simply a fantastic frontman,..he has a ….story, voice and stature.
@ 3 Adel
January 25th, 2025 at 19:04Wonderful post!
Uwe
@6
MAGIC
Thanks
January 26th, 2025 at 08:58https://youtu.be/a1XZO10S-9s?si=UEtX9Saw5FKk2k5o
If anyone is interested, here is the bands actual performance on TOTP WITHOUT Bernie …which resulted in he’s sacking from the band .
January 26th, 2025 at 10:08They are miming of course, but John McCoy could have actually played more than some guitar on the double-neck he used because he was initially a guitarist. He only switched to bass in the late 60s when ahead of an engagement in – you guessed it – Hamburg he broke his wrist in an accident and had to wear a cast making playing guitar impossible, “but I could just about still play bass with it”. So switch to bass he did to take part in the overseas gigs – and then stuck with it because bassists were rarer than guitarists and found jobs easier.
At that point in time he was still a long- and curly-haired young man wearing fetching white trousers.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg40-PtHDaqbBLt-uO0HZKmj3b99ouKyHECj_NGsHuBbFDhUjGfopW_AbYPvjNEjlK2V09FUw4hBhM8zeuHg3LMTg9ZbzbR6r162wr-A59EdBXqaPXca_S8dpR2ZphjZHovgZdsdmWfsGZK/s1600/Scan10004.JPG
https://dmme.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/mccoy5-300×257.jpg
More about the man here:
https://dmme.net/interviews/mccoy
He was always the GILLAN member I found most interesting and not just because he played bass. Though the way he did that very much defined the GILLAN sound. His bass playing – with a pick, relentlessly ostinato and precise plus rhythmically accentuated, root note oriented, but incredibly fast when asked to do a synchronized run – would have endeared him to Ritchie and made him an ideal partner for Cozy Powell. Of course, a bald bassist with a physique as towering as John’s was conceptually impossible for Blackmore.
January 26th, 2025 at 15:29@10
January 26th, 2025 at 17:27Thanks Steve 🙌🏼
But why didn’t the cute punk-guitarist show up?
As far as I remember he was pretty angry of being sacked.
I just found this old live version of Loosen My Strings from the Paris Olympia, 18 November 2007.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-bmeQ-OrS4
My oh my, how times have changed! Lucille ’81:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QQ0YUxEqws
January 26th, 2025 at 22:17Karin, the cute punk guitarist, who btw suffered from a severe stammer, didn‘t show up because he was in Germany at the time, having a few days off from the tour there when the offer to play TOTP came in. And Bernie said, “I ain‘t going unless I get paid for miming there.” and your crush Ian countered: “If you’re not on the plane, you’re out of the band.” And Bernie being Irish … well you know how Irishmen are.
All a little silly in hindsight if you ask me, typically male rubbish.
January 26th, 2025 at 23:18I can relate to Bernie not wanting to do a miming TOTP facade. Many musicians refused to do that & good on them. I suppose when it isn’t your band the chance of being disciplined or dismissed could increase somewhat. Remember when Dave Brock didn’t show for the Hawkwind song, Quark, Strangeness & Charm on TOTP. However when it is ‘your’ band, it is easier to say eff off isn’t it. Cheers.
January 27th, 2025 at 02:18I never heard that Ritchie actually minded Ian’s screaming – after all that was what he was hired for and Glenn Hughes could scream too as Ritchie had heard at the Trapeze gigs he witnessed to check him out. I was under the impression that Ritchie disliked Ian’s loss of high range which he attributed to his drinking and smoking (+ “messin’ around with wimmen, not swimmin’…”). With the exception of DC and RJD who were low tenors/baritones, Ritchie liked tenor voices in rock: Gillan, Bonnet and Turner all were. In fact he let RJD go because he thought his falsetto was not piercing enough, mocking it as “that little girlie voice with which he sang Rainbow Eyes”. And it was Blackmore who was adamant in the last phase of Mk II that they continue performing Child In Time which by its very nature required Ian to scream.
I think he simply grew tired of Ian’s tone and/or fell in love with Paul Rodgers’ voice (which was/is of course great, but could have never realized something such as In Rock or Machine Head). He blamed Ian for not being a blues singer which quite rightly he never was nor professed to be.
January 27th, 2025 at 05:11@14
Ok sweetie, you’re always an enigma to me!
Bernie didn’t sing so what could him being a severe stammer have anything to do with not playing Top of the Pops?
Uwe please explain why Bernie felt the need to trash Ian & co when it indeed was his own actions (or lack of) that caused him to be fired!
( I really never get the male way of thinking 😉)
January 27th, 2025 at 07:23@11
Thank you so much Uwe for the info regarding the 6xB John McC 😃
“A lot of fans felt alienated by IAN GILLAN BAND” – well I was among the alienated! That marvellous voice shouldn’t be misused like it was in IGB!
“I think I suggested the name shortening to GILLAN“ – brilliant 😃
“Being on stage is the best place to enjoy these moments” – well not if you’re shy and timid ☺️ (personally I prefer to hide behind my coffee mug)
“John leads a quiet life with his wife and best friend Bob, he loves peace, animals, all kinds of music, and is a nice chap to have a beer with.” – awwww 🥰
“a medical condition called aloepetia nervosa” – I could help with that!
“There was/is no treatment for this condition which is caused by stress” – so wrong! There is a treatment!
“By the time I found a homeopathic remedy and cure for the aloepetia it was too late” – he did not find the right homeopath! (😉)
“are you still with me? “ – yes!
“GILLAN without Ian? About as ridiculous as Ian joining BLACK SABBATH. “ 🤣🤣🤣
“but true friendship? I don’t know.” – this is beyond sad 😢
This interview is from 2008, I wonder how he is doing these days?
January 27th, 2025 at 11:29John, Lucille by GILLAN was even a little 🤣 frantic for me when I heard it first as a 20-year old. I know they were having a laugh and also wanted to show how they can execute high speed songs with ultra-precision, but I failed to see how the hilariously fast tempo benefited the song.
I stand by my word: Music played at a faster tempo than Highway Star is wholly unnecessary (ok, Fireball excepted …) and speed metal a stylistic aberration. ☝️🥸
If you can’t move your butt to music, there is something missing!
https://youtu.be/wiYjQr22meY
January 27th, 2025 at 12:17I prefer the the version they did on the Young Ones British comedy show from the 1980’s better.
January 27th, 2025 at 13:19