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Then we started to get restless
Release of restored Gillan promo videos continues on what looks like a weekly schedule. This week, it is Restless:
On a slightly related note, here is a playlist of Bernie Tormé demonstrating how to play various Gillan tracks and the gear he used. These videos were released to his fans in November 2016, while making his Dublin Cowboy album.
Thanks to steve4422 for the heads-up on both counts, and to Boleslaw’s Deep Purple Family Fan Channel for posting Tormé clips.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
My favorite GILLAN song ever, love the intro where keyboards and guitar change chords but John McCoy holds the root note ostinato like forever, the then rhythmically robust verse before the chorus arrives with those classic John McCoy songwriting-style descending arpeggios (he does that a lot in his writing) – a beautiful song. When I first heard it, I thought this must be the number that finally breaks them …
Of course it didn‘t! 😑
February 8th, 2025 at 02:40Thanks for the Bernie guitar clip. Is that the most ‘used’ Fender Stratocaster I have ever noticed from a well known rock musician. Rory Gallagher’s is another one. Listed here for sale approximately 12 months ago. The Fender logo obviously touched up since Bernie had it. 30,000 pounds. Doesn’t look like it has sold as yet. Those two Irish guitarists eh? Seems they liked to keep things all natural as much as possible. Cheers.
https://reverb.com/uk/item/75203102-fender-stratocaster-1963-white-ex-ozzy-osbourne-gillan-bernie-torme
February 8th, 2025 at 03:39It’s a very nice song 🤩
So nice those songs are restored 😊
February 8th, 2025 at 06:23I always loved Janick Gers’ guitar playing in Gillan. But I also loved what Bernie Torme brought to the band. Had I wrongly assumed that this song is about Bernie – that “Jimmy” is Bernie??
February 8th, 2025 at 13:03I can remember this song entering the UK charts in about 1981 …then bombing straight out ….and then the following week re entering at no 20 …..and my dear old Mum shouting up the stairs at me to turn the radio on as they were just playing it ! …ah, the good old days !
As one good old chap on here posted, there does seem to be an excellent Gillan Box set imminently due with all the albums and B Sides and Rarities on it …and it seems terrific value at around 35 quid ( considering I’ve seen copies of Glory Road alone , going for 50 quid !)….so, that’s what all this Gillan revival and interest is about ….I for one will definitely be buying it and can’t wait to hear them all again
February 8th, 2025 at 13:09I liked Gers’ neo-Blackmoreisms of course and he had the neater technique on recordings, but Bernie had animal magnetism on stage and was more original. He of course didn‘t have the 80s guitar hero chops to replace someone like Randy Rhoads as he himself has admitted. Bernie was very much a 70s player, somewhere between Ariel Bender/Luther Grosvenor (Spooky Tooth/Mott the Hoople/Widowmaker), Rory Gallagher and Steve Jones (Sex Pistols).
https://youtu.be/zvFpX98EOPo
February 8th, 2025 at 17:13Great song, one of their best even if Bluesy blue sea is my favourite.
February 8th, 2025 at 17:50Coronarias, I doubt that Bernie Tormé is addressed in Restless: As his career post-GILLAN showed, he was anything BUT the ruthless social climber
(otherwise he would have hardly left the US hastily after his sojourn with Ozzy, but rather bought a ticket for the Sunset Strip, bands there would have gobbled someone like him – Brit, punky-romantic good-looking and a great showman with flashy guitar playing – up in a second!)
who is criticized in the song. I see the song more as a diatribe against people who have forgotten where they came from, something that has always rubbed IG the wrong way.
If anything, the song might be about James ‘Jim’ Callaghan, the Brit Prime Minister from 1976-79 who came from a working class background but was by the end of his tenure perceived as someone largely out of touch with the problems of his former constituency (he expected wage restraint from trade unions during the UK’s “Winter of Discontent” and Supertramp’s album title “Crisis? What Crisis?!” is falsely attributed to him) –> enter Margaret Thatcher in 1979 as the new Prime Minister (though she never reached Callaghan’s personal popularity in polls – we all know how Maggie was a difficult person to really be endeared by).
February 8th, 2025 at 19:38More examples of John’s songwriting style with (often arpeggiated) moving chords over an ostinato root note bass line, it really became his recipe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC-QisiYFSY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEGIWEZSsiQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G30Bjn3_c_8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MMXQgMz4l4
‘Because You Lied’ was of course written immediately after the GILLAN breakup and its lyrics are full of bitterness (“but you must have hated me”) and even despair. It’s easy to smirk about that now, but I believe at the time the hurt and rejection felt by John was real, his looks belie the sensitive core of the man.
Never knew that McCoy (the band) featured a female singer in one of the line-ups! Her name was apparently Nikki Brooks and she had a nice (contr)alto voice (think Grace Slick, but not as steely), rather unusual for a female singer in a metal outfit in fact.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhMeU5PliaQ&t=60s
February 8th, 2025 at 22:29Anybody remember the GILLAN live boxed set ‘Back In The Game – Live 1978-82’ that was grandly announced in the summer of 2023?
https://www.thehighwaystar.com/news/2023/07/28/unchain-your-brain-before-listening/
To this day it hasn’t come out anywhere and my hunch is that it was probably deferred to not interfere with this now upcoming box of the studio CDs.
If the studio releases box does some brisk business now, we will probably see the live box released some time later. For the completists among us – they do exist one hears.
February 8th, 2025 at 22:42A Gillan interview from the GILLAN era, published by Kerrang! in August 1982, I found it on the pages of some obscure online fanzine dealing with, wait for it, Deep Purple:
https://www.thehighwaystar.com/interviews/gillan/ig19820812_1.html
https://www.thehighwaystar.com/interviews/gillan/ig19820812_2.html
Ian is all over the place in the interview and you get a distinct feeling that things weren’t organized and managed properly in the GILLAN camp (also that Ian was pretty much resistant to good advice) and that the ship was sinking at the time (as it was). Interestingly, he derides the production of Double Trouble by Bob Marley-, Robert Palmer- + Supertramp-producer Steve Smith …
https://www.discogs.com/artist/252098-Steve-Smith-3
(Ian’s accusation that Steve didn’t know how to produce hard rock is nonsense, the man – a house producer for Island Records – had produced albums by Trapeze, Rough Diamond, Back Street Crawler and Detective before he twiddled knobs for GILLAN)
… yet these days he says it’s the best one of all GILLAN albums! (But then DC didn’t like the Keith Olsen remix of Slide It In either before he radically changed his mind after hearing it on US radio.)
Karin will no doubt be … looking for a word here … RELIEVED to discover the trigger to Ian’s creative process:
“I go and have a dump and ideas usually come.”
He then elucidates
“… I start with noises, percussive sounds; I start singing gibberish. Then, when I’ve got some kind of phrase structure and the meter of the verse worked out, I do a lot of notation and start on the subject matter. When that’s decided I just write about a page of a story to get the ideas out, the color and the pictures, then go back to my notes on the meter and the phrasing and start looking for musical words because you can’t take poetry and short stories and put them to music. It doesn’t work.”
February 9th, 2025 at 01:44@11
February 9th, 2025 at 09:44Dearest Uwe, excuse me for asking, but who is Lucy now?!
‘Restless.'” excellent song as well as the studio version of the album “Double Trouble”. Good production by student Martin Birch, Paula Watkins studio tracks engineer, mixing at Abbey Road Studios and producer Steve Smith
But on the studio album, I miss guitars, more guitars ..in some songs, especially those written by Colin Towns, instrumentalized as if there were none (Life Goes On, Born to Kill, Nightmare). I hear Janick Gers more in “Sunbeam” which is the closing track of the first side, excellent riff, beautiful melodic solo perfect for the song. I simply miss Bernie and his dirty sound of “punk Hendrix” to muddy the instrumental idyll of Mick, Colin and John …
The second part “Double Trouble, live from Reading 1981 is my big disappointment. I expected Ian to respond adequately with a concert album to his friends and competitors, Ritchie (On Stage) and Whitesnake (Live…in the Heart of the City) expecting a living monument to Gillan … the set list turned out to be invalid (without Gillan classics “Unchain Your Brain”, Mr. Universe”, “On The Rocks”, “Vengeance”, “Dead of Night”, “Sleeping On The Job”, Smoke On The Water) the production is disastrous … the intro field of the opening Second Sight, the lost killer open song “Unchain Your Brain”, inserted No Laughing in Heaven !!!?..unbelievable !!!!
And there is no Bernie who left (only in B2 blues If You Believe Me which was recorded at the Rainbow Theatre)
I know box live sets came out later…but at the right moment in 1981 they didn’t
1979 -1982 the time of great live albums – Judas Priest Unleashed in the East, Saxon The Eagle Has Landed, UFO” Strangers in the Night”, Motorhead “No Sleep ’til Hammersmith”, Wishbone Ash “Live Dates 2”, The Kinks “One for the Road”, Ian Hunter “Welcome to the Club “..unfortunately Gillan didn’t have such a live album…and they were a hell of a garage band
This is real Gillan in concert .. always so exciting live and so flat production and missing the dirty raw sound of Bernie Torme.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9ZAeTvrBlU
Does this beginning resemble …………
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzc0MhZXXzg&list=RDDfjIOL5MxLY&index=6
Unchain Your Brain”, from Reading 1980 ?
February 9th, 2025 at 10:39Uwe!
Are you sure?? Read the lyrics again in the context of IG getting fed up with someone who he “found”, arguing about money and “dragging their feet”, and therefore IG getting restless and wanting to move on with someone else?
“Hid your pain as you smiled in the rain”….didn’t Bernie cause himself a serious and painful eye injury smashing a Strat? I don’t think the Pirate Patch was a fashion accesory…
Or maybe “Smooth Dancer” was about Ted Heath. Maybe!!
February 9th, 2025 at 19:00Kerrang magazine, now there is memory or three. My ‘lifeblood’ to the outside rock world in the UK and Europe, all the way to out here even if it was weeks old by the time I could read it, it was vital news. Well some of it was vital it seemed at the time. Not surprised if Ian Gillan is all over the place, he looks smashed on many of these ‘promo’ videos. Not just booze either me thinks. Saint Ian we should re name him perhaps. NOT. Cheers.
February 9th, 2025 at 21:27Coronarias, I’ll be your confidante of course and can’t rule out your interpretation, especially with Ian’s lyrics often working in more ways than one. What I don’t see is GILLAN opening Bernie a new world (as we all know by now, GILLAN struggled as a commercial entity throughout its existence), that would have been Ozzy Osbourne more like, but Bernie wasn’t the right guitarist and did not have the US stadium/arena experience to employ that opportunity to its fullest.
Ivica, I get the excitement and raw energy of the GILLAN live sound in the Bernie years, but for US FM radio that was as unplayable as Motörhead – and about as popular too.
February 9th, 2025 at 22:13It sure is great to read some of the comments on here, really brings back some great memories and I cant wait to get the boxed set and hear classics like Born to Kill , Sunbeam , life on Mars , Are you Sure , Nervous…I could be hear all night !
Ivica, totally agree with everything you say …its a pity we didn’t get a proper Gillan live album with the classics on it …Dead of Night was always a concert classic for me .
The Bernie v Janick thing ?…I just think we were so lucky he had 2 fantastic guitarists !
I think some of his lyrics and double entendres come from his love of the Telegraph cryptic crossword ( apparently he does it every day …and believe me , it’s tough …but very rewarding)
I’m sure there will be a clip of Gillan soon , talking about what Restless is about …I personally, have no idea !
February 9th, 2025 at 22:31I can’t fault Steve Smith’s previous productions:
https://youtu.be/liu2berUnL4
https://youtu.be/WsB3KKCD9z4
https://youtu.be/RL9iZceY-9I
https://youtu.be/B2665MFFbdY
A bit more US FM radio compatibility would have done GILLAN band finances no harm if I may say so!
February 10th, 2025 at 00:58@13
February 10th, 2025 at 11:35So true, Ivica! When I heard the live set of Double Trouble for the first time I thought I had a bad pressing copy and thought about returning it… until I found out my mate’s copy didn’t sound any better. It’s a real shame and I wonder who suggested to release that …
@10 Uwe, if you recall the previous thread about the live box set all the individual cds had been previously released so sticking them all in a box makes little sense- which is probably why it didn’t appear.
February 10th, 2025 at 21:20I remember GILLAN concerts not having the most pristine hifi sounds either – I mean they weren’t exactly the Dire Straits or Pink Floyd live! 😁
They were always a bit rough and ragtag on stage and there are limits to how much you can polish a performance like that sonically.
David, wasn’t the Live Boxed Set to be remastered? Most boxed sets don’t contain too much new stuff, especially not stuff you will listen to more than once. What will be new in the new Studio Box everyone seems to be wetting their panties about?
February 11th, 2025 at 00:16