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Failed to prove to a robot
Ian Gillan was interviewed by Singapore’s The Straights Times. He spoke about the gig Deep Purple are about to play in the country and the upcoming new album:
We haven’t done a show since before Christmas because we’ve been working flat out on a new record. So everyone is like a caged lion at the moment. We’re going to explode with energy when we hit Singapore. Everyone’s very excited.
We’re going to do one song from the new album. It will also be the world premiere of its live performance, which is very exciting too.
I found myself being asked by a robot to prove that I’m a human being by filling in a matrix of traffic lights. And I tried, but they were all blurry and hard to pin down, and I failed to prove to a robot that I’m a human. The world is going totally insane.
And I suddenly had this desire for simplicity. So I started doodling, and I made a long equation. It was a really long, complex equation, but it equalled one. This is what we do in our lives every day, all these complications.
Read more in The Straights Times.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
IG said…
qt.”I found myself being asked by a robot to prove that I’m a human being by filling in a matrix of traffic lights. And I tried, but they were all blurry and hard to pin down, and I failed to prove to a robot that I’m a human. The world is going totally insane”.
Yes indeed, I’m sure we’ve all come-across that-one by now…The trick is to “tick” every-part of the traffic-light, not just the globes, plus the ones in the background too. The same with the motorcycles too, every part gets a tick, along with the other parked ones !
The world will settle-down in a few more years, the idiots are being dealt with, & will implode on themselves.
Awesome equation btw…
Peace !
April 26th, 2024 at 21:09I was wondering if Australia had possibly just missed out on a live performance of a new song. Not to worry & everybody should get out your phones & get ready, robots indeed. Cheers.
April 26th, 2024 at 22:15Nice story about purchasing stuff on line but…
“While fans at the band’s shows in the United States tend to be older, the average age of their audiences in Europe is 18 years old, and it is even younger in South America, says Gillan.”
And then they complain about Blackmore talking nonsense to gullible reporters.
HOGWASH!
April 26th, 2024 at 22:24Ian the philosopher
April 26th, 2024 at 22:28Great story, Ian is still very sharp and Gillan-esque as ever !
April 26th, 2024 at 23:32RV, most young adults I see at DP gigs are the ones with that slightly concerned look you have when one of your elders with beginning dementia has walked off in a public space! “Now where the hell did Grandpa go again?” 😂
April 27th, 2024 at 00:07@1
“The world will settle-down in a few more years, the idiots are being dealt with, & will implode on themselves.
Gregster, I stand with you on that remark. The idiots will fall.
April 27th, 2024 at 13:23When Deep Purple came to Georgia back in 2013, I couldn’t go, but my nephew and his girlfriend (now his wife) and friends were there, and they were 15-16 years old. This year I will take my 11-year-old daughter to their concert, and my sister will take her 14-year-old son. And I also don’t take tickets to the front rows – in the middle and the music is heard more balanced, and there is less crowding, but the young people climb forward and they are more noticeable from the stage, so there is no need to accuse the musicians of lying, at most they embellish reality a little, but that is what they exist for – so that there is more color and positivity in the world.
April 27th, 2024 at 13:33I dont know why IG insist on saying they got a young 18 years old audience except for in the states.. We all know thats not the case.. What wrong with a faithfull middleage crowd of dedicated fans? When I watch a Bob Dylan or Neil Young show on You tube thers not too many “younger” people in the audience..they wouldt know the first words to “Blowing in the wind” anyway..
April 27th, 2024 at 17:11IG should be proud and happy with all those “old timers fans” that hangs on there year after year waiting for a new album..a new show.. if some teenage kids turn up at the conserts..thats great but dont pretend they are in majority..young kids today dont seem to like Rock&Roll music… at least not if your gonna go by what the radio plays nowdays…
I agree with Chillin’ Gillan about robots already pushing us humans around, whether we realize it or not. I like the =1 album title. Only Gillan could think of something like that. He borrowed my ?! idea for the Now What?! album.
April 27th, 2024 at 18:33Big Ian’s mind is still pencil-sharp, and I’m eager to hear what Simon McBride brings to the studio table when the new frisbee comes out in a couple months.
Yes, Gillan has been peddling this nonsense about the average age of audiences for years, it’s irritating and mildly offensive to the real audience who loyally follow Purple and have done for many years more than the 18 years he claims is the average age. I’m surprised the other band members don’t ask him to desist.
April 27th, 2024 at 19:52There are more adolescents and young(ish) adults at DP gigs (let’s face it: anybody up to 40 years of age is comparatively young at a Purple concert) than you would rightfully expect with a vintage act that is not a quite a household commodity like, say, the Rolling Stones. And Nino is right, of course they flock up front so Big Ian sees more of them.
Interestingly, the age average at the Hughes concert in Cologne I saw was definitely higher than at any Purple gig I’ve been to in the last 20 years or so. They nearly all looked like they could still remember the first vinyl release of Burn and the gig was latish (past 9 pm) on a Wednesday, middle of the week!
https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.5278556688.5702/ra,shortsleeve_one_piece,x840,FFFFFF:97ab1c12de,front-c,120,132,600,600-bg,f8f8f8.jpg
April 27th, 2024 at 21:56Gillan would be joking in regards to the age (barrier) comment. No different in many ways as to Blackmore saying recently that there are no people over the age of 30 living in Berlin. It is all banter. Anyway it should be good to be called young again shouldn’t it? Cheers.
April 28th, 2024 at 00:16Uwe
Funny pic.
I started my journey into Deep Purple and family world end 1977.
At that age, I was 12, it seemed centuries ago having missed out on the real deal.
Still it took me many years to get acqainted plus the money to find my way to related shows.
Early 80 I was still 14 and saw a re scheduled show by Rainbow.
Acoording to some thats young.
Anyway, a year , 5 year now, they flash by , way back playing relatively recently albums but feeling they were kinda old….
Weird.
So I wasnt around when albums before end 77 were released.
I exhanged some great KISS posters for a scratched copy of BURN.
It did sound better though than the really worn out 2nd hand 24 Carat Purple I bought earlier on.
Somewhere in the 80 s a friend threw out all his vinyl and bought everything on cd, of which we know a lot of us did but omg were we being had.Among his collectibles which he sold for peanuts were Japanese Gillan pressings, and a lilac coloured 24 carat.
In recent years they flooded us with coloured vinyl so I dont impress anyone nowadays with my lilac lp. Why lilac, I thought, it aint Deep Purple, still treasured it though, not playing it.
By that time I had loads of DP stuff incl the albums from which 24 carat were lifted.
It was dear to me that BURN lp like other 2nd hand albums, unlike many new albums/cd s later on, being spoiled and more.
During my journey at an early stage I found little treasures like When a blind man cries…..
The times that little things could make you exited.
I think it took me years to appreciate MACHINE HEAD cause most versions sounded tame and lame to after MIJ.
IN ROCK kinda remained my favourite studioalbum.
But it differs, I once tried to create a Who do we think we are fanclub, no kidding.
April 28th, 2024 at 00:21It’s not surprising that a GH gig would draw older people. These are the hardcore fans, whereas a DP show will draw a bigger and more casual/younger crowd. The power of the brand.
April 28th, 2024 at 05:15I am reaching an age where any adult under the age of 30 looks 18 to me. I suppose it will be worse when I am 78.
April 28th, 2024 at 07:24The age at the most recent GH show was over 50, there were no young uns! The last Purple gig was the same, and I don’t expect anything different in August. Unfortunately in the US very few “fans” know anything newer than Perfect Strangers!! That is the fault of Classic Rock Radio, the other day I heard an ad for an interview with Paice and Glover on satellite radio about the remaster of MH and talk of a new LP immediately followed by SOTW! They will play Highway Star, WFT, Hush, KAYBD and Lazy but NEVER anything new, it’s a shame. Oh well it is what it is, at least they still play something and they are touring here this year. On a different note I wish there would be a couple of longer (5 minute +) tunes on =1.
April 28th, 2024 at 10:53Yeah, maybe Big Ian is a litte shortsighted and only sees the younger audience members at the gigs (or perhaps his groupies are on average 18 years old 😉 hehe). Anyway, my guess is that the next Purple album will be titled =18 😄
April 28th, 2024 at 11:45Big Ian is – it comes with age – actually farsighted like hell, he can’t read anything without his reading glasses. If he was short-sighted too, then – like me – his shortsightedness would correct some of his farsightedness. (I don’t need reading glasses if I don’t wear my nearsight-contact lenses, but if I do, then I need reading glasses as well – as an attorney and not a truck driver that comes in handy.) All good things come to those who wait. 🙂
Still, better farsighted as a singer than being Biff Byford of Saxon who has this issue with his “singing teeth”. “Singing teeth”? Yup, he (even as a young man, no idea what pub brawl or motorcycle accident cost him his natural teeth) has a pair of dentures he uses for recording because if he uses his regular dentures all kinds of whistling sounds get recorded. True story!
April 28th, 2024 at 16:19Yo,
@14 said qt.”I think it took me years to appreciate MACHINE HEAD cause most versions sounded tame and lame to after MIJ…IN ROCK kinda remained my favourite studio-album…But it differs, I once tried to create a Who do we think we are fan-club, no kidding”…
*+1 here Rock…”In Rock” is such a whack to your senses, as it’s so exciting & tense, it leaves you almost exhausted after listening to it, (& the same goes with all the live material of that era too)…
I feel the same way about MH too…Why listen to MH when you have MiJ ???
I never went as far as starting a WDWTWA fan club, but would often introduce people to DP with this album, simply to show-off the excitement in the music, & brush-away any so-called “heavy metal” allegory, so as to indicate that there’s much more to the band than that single statement. ( The real heavy-metal likeness came with Mk-III live, but GH would often change the dynamic & ruin a perfectly good show with “shoe-shine” interventions…(Oh the anxt))…
Peace !
April 29th, 2024 at 22:38@ 20
Being crazy I ve this compulsive disorder that I cannot tell a lie.
But sometimes I try . I WAS kidding.
I was actually looking in my brain for the term Appreciation Society.
Of course most of us relate that to DPAS but somehow I once read something a like and that was the Rod Evans Appreciation Society.
Now I wonder. Did it really exist or was it a fantasy dropped on a forum for weirdos like us?
April 30th, 2024 at 23:28@21…
In a crazy world, a crazy-man must appear sane…So no-worries here lol !
Back in the mid-80’s, here in Oz, there was some strange tendency to knock the heavier bands, probably because of the “hair-styles” & make-up used by some of the new-wave of heavy-metal-players, eg “Twisted Sister” & the like…So I’d play WDWTWA as a prelude to Perfect Strangers, & it converted a few people into becoming interested in the band for sure…And then after a few beers & a couple of smokes / pipes, it was lights out, kick back, & Made in Japan would make its debut on some unsuspecting friends who would be blown away, & their life changed forever LOL ! ( “In Rock” would have been too much, if you know what I mean )…
As for Rod Evans…He was surely miss-treated along with Nick Simper, as Mk-I was an excellent band-of-the-time coming along nicely imo. Having your debut in the US-of-A at Heff’s Mansion means you’ve made the big-time imo, & for sure, a night at Heff’s would have been fantasy for countless numbers of young & older men alike, & remains that way to this day at-a-guess, (though it has passed on into legend regretfully)…
Nothing weird about that venture or Heff’s mansion, just a strange way to treat your band-mates back home imo. But that was then, & this is now, & the current Mark is kicking major ass imo.
Long live DP !
Peace !
May 1st, 2024 at 11:29Anybody thinking that Mk I would have sustained their initial US success (based on a freak hit with Hush) or even bettered on it, is delusional – by 1969 the writing was on the wall for the original line-up, I don‘t believe they would have survived the dawning 70ies. Mk I had quaint charm, but hardly a perspective. Both their music and their image was already dated by 1968.
May 1st, 2024 at 11:56Uwe,
please let Nick Simper know that. He’s been bitter about being sacked since 69. Also as he likes to claim he was Purple’s best bass player as well.
Peace.
May 1st, 2024 at 20:08Yo,
Leiber Uwe said…
qt.”Anybody thinking that Mk I would have sustained their initial US success (based on a freak hit with Hush) or even bettered on it, is delusional – by 1969 the writing was on the wall for the original line-up, I don‘t believe they would have survived the dawning 70ies. Mk I had quaint charm, but hardly a perspective. Both their music and their image was already dated by 1968″…
We will never know, & god-bless all the Mk’s & musicians that followed !
But Mk-I got to stay at Heff’s Mansion…Think about that for a minute or two…
Peace !
May 1st, 2024 at 23:53Gregster, I think staying at Heff’s mansion is vastly overrated. And not every bassist walks away from there with a prize. You have to be a real demon to do so.
https://static0.thethingsimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Gene-Simmons-and-Shannon-Tweed.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=740&dpr=1.5
Physical idiosyncrasies seem to play a role too, but let’s not dig too deep on that!
https://media1.giphy.com/media/a2yIrKsHCdpoQ/giphy.webp?cid=790b76117akpbahhhrpeikykp0atbaxytq89nevx5b2kxgyo&ep=v1_gifs_search&rid=giphy.webp&ct=g
May 3rd, 2024 at 20:44“Uwe,
please let Nick Simper know that. He’s been bitter about being sacked since 69. Also as he likes to claim he was Purple’s best bass player as well.”
Sidroman, the way he was sacked undeniably wasn’t pretty and frankly cowardly from the remaining band members.
Best bass player? I know he believes so. I’m not going to say anything bad about him, I learned to play bass from some of his riffs and I only recently traveled more than 1.400 km to see him (and was glad I did, it was worth a sore butt!). But his style was very much patterned in the early 60ies and largely remained there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkjgrYXesWM
I would describe the Warhorse material as stodgy and given the early 70ies release dates of the two albums already quite a bit on the archaic side even back then.
Him not being invited to and inducted at the RRHoF was still a crime. His bass splaying was a key component of how Mk I sounded – whether you liked that sound or not. And if truth be told, when I started to play bass, I could pick out his bass sound on the Mk I recordings better than Roger’s on In Rock, where he is pretty much buried in the mix.
May 3rd, 2024 at 21:20@26 said…
qt.”Gregster, I think staying at Heff’s mansion is vastly overrated. And not every bassist walks away from there with a prize. You have to be a real demon to do so”…
* I’d have to say at the time of its existence, it probably had more security working for it than S4 ( Area 51 ), so it had something going for it lol ! Even Don Adams ( Get Smart, Agent 86 ) retired there until the end-of-his-days…
But yes, as for Shannon, it may have been a case of “out-of-the-frying-pan & into-the-fire”… But they’re still together, with family etc etc, so some lasting things came out-of-the-place, that’s for sure lol.
But when one watches the “Hush” video from Heff’s mansion, one fully appreciates why Rod wanted to stay State-side…
Peace !
May 4th, 2024 at 10:36It’s probably not the easiest thing on earth to stay together with Gene Simmons (and you probably become quite adept at making excuses to your friends for something or other he has just again dropped in one of his many infamous interviews), but Shannon has done an admirable job at it. And she and her daughter did talk him out of playing for the inauguration of a former US President now spending much time in court rooms (Playmates again, we’ve come full circle!). Speaking of his daughter Sophie, the poor thing has suffered lifelong from tongue comparisons to dad (at 13:47)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1cC15UrKi4
by people harboring, uhum, great expectations …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIk41wISV1s
May 4th, 2024 at 23:27@ 26 – you sound disappointed Uwe, he he he. “I think staying at Heff’s mansion is vastly overrated. And not every bassist walks away from there with a prize. You have to be a real demon to do so”. Cheers.
May 5th, 2024 at 00:00And yet Uwe some people would be arrogant enough to say that Simple Simper was a better bass player than your favorite John Glascock!
May 5th, 2024 at 04:06Glascock isn’t really my favorite, Sidroman, but I liked his playing with Carmen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQFq_2OyG60
– with Tull, inevitably, he was too regimented by Anderson’s painstakingly thought-out straight jacket arrangements. The then-members of Tull though seemed to think he was the best of the bunch (his predecessor Jeffrey Hammond had to be told what to play though he was technically proficient in then replicating it). Personally, I prefer Glenn Cornick of all the JT bassists, even to Dave Pegg who is no slouch himself. Cornick had a great sense of harmony and melody.
But Tull and me were never a marriage made in heaven, I found Anderson’s vocals always very mannered (but not like Steve Harley’s or Bill Nelson’s where I like the mannered style) and the music unimprovisational and non-rolling as it was very stiff. That said, I do have all their stuff, they certainly had an individual style, but they wouldn’t have been a band where I would have volunteered to play.
Herr MacGregor, you simply don’t know all of my dark past! I once had the chance (more than once actually) to become the permanent friend of an attractive sex worker without any requirements except to be there for her – technically that would have made me a pimp or as Ritchie once described his first Hamburg marriage: “living off immoral earnings”.
Sex was great, but it didn’t last. It seemed unreal to me.
Back to bassists: The ones that I really like are Bob Daisley, Dennis Dunaway, Roger Glover, John Gustafson, Glenn Hughes, Alan Lancaster, Jim Lea, Paul McCartney, John McCoy, Neil Murray, Gene Simmons (see, my admiration goes beyond Shannon!), Sting (in his Police days), Charlie Tumahai and Martin Turner. And I guess Nick Simper is somewhere in there too as an early influence.
May 5th, 2024 at 21:15I forgot Trevor Bolder!
May 5th, 2024 at 22:31@ 32 – Not sure where to start, the Tull rave or the ‘minder’ story, hmmmmmmm. Well it has taken me a couple of hours to get over the shock. At least that good Catholic upbringing did bear some fruit then Uwe. ?????? Regarding Tull yes the bass guitarist ‘problem’ they seemed to have at times. I like all the bassists as they represent the era they were involved in. Except live in concert of course & that is where it really matters particularly as the band evolves & older songs are played by later day musicians. The one extra element Glascock & Pegg had was that they did sing also, supporting Anderson at times & in regards to Pegg’s era that was crucial after 1984 with Anderson blowing out his voice. Glascock was crucial to Tull’s most flamboyant period, the mid to late 70’s. I noticed the difference when they had the replacement fill in guy playing live when Glascock couldn’t be there, I have forgotten his name. He was much more rigid in his interpretations from my memory, but I suppose as he wasn’t a regular band member that could be a reason. Dave Pegg also played mandolin etc so he added to the acoustic Tull wonderfully. I am still wondering why Anderson hired a bassist after Pegg left who didn’t contribute to live vocal support. At a time when his vocals were deteriorating rapidly. According to the Collin’s dictionary mannered means ‘If you describe someone’s behaviour or a work of art as mannered, you dislike it because it is elaborate or formal, and therefore seems false or artificial.” Is that what you mean? False or Artificial? Elaborate & formal? Anderson is a lyrical genius for want of a better description & his vocal delivery is or was I should say wonderful in all it’s mannerisms, quirkiness & eccentricities. Each to their own again, we hear different things we do. What happened to Chris Squire on that favourite bassist list? Cheers.
May 6th, 2024 at 02:00Squire is a bass god of course, but I never liked YES (those lyrics …) well enough to listen to him a lot. I saw him live though and he impressed me by being so loud on stage even Ted Nugent would have bowed in admiration. He played with aplomb and just the right amount of gung-ho sloppiness. Very Rock’n’Roll. Unlike Steve Howe. 😂
Nobody talks like Ian Anderson sings, not even he. I find it way too theatrical and courtly, like from a bad musketeer movie. For rock, it’s also too unsleazy and unbuesy for me, I do like the JT debut for the Blues influence that at that point still contained Anderson’s wider-reaching aspirations.
And I’m not too crazy about flute playing (and certainly not in the vein of Ian Anderson) in any shape or form either. One or two songs is fine, but whole albums full of it? That is probably why I like Warchild as an album because Anderson blew more sax on it – and while he is just as little a real sax player as Nik Turner or David Bowie, I liked the texture it gave the music. Warchild has a similar dystopian mood to Bowie’s Diamond Dogs.
May 6th, 2024 at 13:28Yes the flute is too much at times in Tull even for me. Especially after the 70’s & even worse post 2000’s. His daughter (who was studying music I think) apparently said to him in the early 90’s that he wasn’t actually playing it correctly, fingering a few notes wrong etc. A most humbling moment for him as he has often said. He then corrected his technique, which required a fair bit of discipline & practice. Warchild was my introduction to Tull, I found the cassette lying on the side of the road walking to school, along with The Moody Blues album On The Threshold of a Dream. I couldn’t get into that at the time, too much DP, Sabbath, Heep, Quo etc. Another Tull album (Aqualung or Thick as a Brick) may not have done that I don’t know. Not ready for progressive music at that time obviously. I didn’t mind Bungle, Only Solitaire, Skating Away & the title track, but not enough to get hooked on. The Moodie’s went over my head big time, I tried with repeated listens as I had heard of both of those bands at that time. Agree with the mood of Warchild, a dark album & a bit like Stormwatch in that way. Cheers.
May 6th, 2024 at 21:50As Gregster says, we’ll never know if MKI could have sustained their success into the 1970s.
Business-wise, if the Tetragrammaton label hadn’t run into trouble, or if the band hadn’t been kicked off the Cream tour, who knows what might have happened?
(Wasn’t MKI supposed to open for the Rolling Stones in spring 69 as well, only to lose the opportunity when the Stones opted to postpone their tour and do further work on “Let It Bleed”?)
Music-wise, there were plenty of groups from across the musical spectrum who retained some 60s-sounding psychedelic elements in their music and sustained careers well into the 70s. Moody Blues… Pink Floyd… Rare Earth… Black Oak Arkansas… Ten Years After…
As did Elvis and Engelbert, singers to whom Rod Evans is often compared.
Even hard rock groups such as Uriah Heep and Grand Funk peaked commercially with material that, like MKI’s, was often more song oriented than the predominantly riff-based repertoire of MKII and Black Sabbath.
Had MKI continued, and kept on being musical chameleons, it seems reasonable to suppose they would have latched onto the new sounds of 1970 and produced a convincing facsimile, giving it their own twist. We’ll never know.
I wonder if this notion of a sharp diving line between MKs 1 & II is more of phenomenon among European fans?
Growing up in North America in the early 70s – “Fireball” was the first record I ever bought – only three Deep Purple songs were heard on AM radio at the time: “Hush”, “Kentucky Woman” and “Smoke on the Water”.
And “Purple Passages” was seen among friends’ record collections almost as often as “Machine Head” or “Made in Japan”. (On which album we, even as children, could tell the extended version of “Space Trucking” was based on “Mandrake Root”.)
In that milieu, it was easy to hear a lot of continuity between the lineups.
May 7th, 2024 at 02:46There was musical continuity no doubt, Skippy, Purple is Purple. But in MK I the core components of The DP were still very diluted.
True, Purple cracked Germany only with In Rock, before they were perceived as that quaint Brit band in frilly shirts with a freak cover hit in the US. In Rock is the album that has outsold all other Purple product by a mile in Germany. In the US OTOH, it barely made a dent because they didn’t have a functioning record company at the time to promote it. Ian Gillan with his Jesus Christ Superstar image was also perceived as a very handsome man – poster material so to say and it is no coincidence that Mk II though not a teeniebopper band was featured heavily in the youth magazines while Mk I was totally ignored. Big Ian fronted DP with natural charm, Rod didn’t, there was always something a bit cabaret act to him.
More key seems to me though that Rod Evan’s had no hard rock falsetto to speak of – if you look at the heavy and hard rock kings of the early 70ies in the US, Rod could have never matched Robert Plant, Ozzy, Mark Farner, Steve Marriott, Leslie West/Felix Pappalardi, David Byron, Jack Bruce, Roger Daltrey, Mick Jagger, Dave Peverett etc. They all had higher ranges than him and a voice that cuts through was deemed de rigueur at the time.
Rod’s voice simply didn’t have the vocal elasticity to make the recording of an In Rock or Fireball possible. Nor was he rhythmically adventurous with his voice, but very much a crooner preferring a more stately approach to singing.
May 7th, 2024 at 14:07@37…
Awesome post, thanks for the insight & sharing !
Peace !
May 10th, 2024 at 03:05Uwe – I respect your strongly-held opinions.
And continue to question the notion that: “Anybody thinking that Mk I would have sustained their initial US success (based on a freak hit with Hush) or even bettered on it, is delusional…”
And to agree that team Gregster’s position, “We will never know”, is the tenable one.
I freely concede that Rod didn’t have a voice built for high-pitched screaming.
And that yes, singers with higher ranges were preponderant in the hard rock music of the early 70s.
However in the hypothetical and unlikely event that DP and Rod had not parted company, surely they would have had enough musical sense not to make an “In Rock”-type record, requiring him to shriek beyond his upper limits. Perhaps something halfway between MKII and Captain Beyond would have eventuated instead.
Since it didn’t happen… There is no way of knowing what their later music – or prospects for continued commercial success – would have been, had they continued.
You have pointed out how huge “In Rock” was in Germany. To reiterate, on the other side of the Atlantic, prior to “Smoke On The Water”, DP was as well or better known for their MKI hits as for any of their pre-“Machine Head” MKII material.
Our various assessments of singers and preferences for band lineups notwithstanding… It is entirely possible that a longer-lived MKI might have gone on flopping in Deutschland but scoring further hits thousands of miles further West.
May 11th, 2024 at 19:30We’ll never know, true, but stylistically I would have lumped MK I together with Iron Butterfly and Vanilla Fudge, both couldn’t transport their 60ies success into the 70ies, Skippy. Gillian’s voice was just more 70ies to me (and his good looks too).
But Rod wasn’t a bad singer, I loved his work on songs like Help, Anthem and Lalena – he was really good at ballads (tellingly, he won the Purple audition in 1968 by breaking into an a capella version of Tonight from Westside Story). And I liked him better with Captain Beyond than Deep Purple, likely because Captain Beyond were PROGish and he fit that bill better.
Gillan’s voice and the direction where DP was going were just a particularly good fit IMHO.
May 11th, 2024 at 22:19