![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan1.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/airey3.jpg)
Multi-dimensional trapeze act
Louder Sound has a article on Machine Head remix, based around an interview with Ian Gillan, with some contributions from Ritchie Blackmore, Dweezil Zappa, and Bruce Dickinson.
Couple of quotes from Big Ian:
I can see why [the record companies] are doing it. They have to make the music reach today’s audiences, I suppose. Everyone has to work their catalogue, so from a business point of view it makes complete sense. I think this new version will reach a lot of people who weren’t there at the time.
Roger and I were at my place in Portugal working on the new Purple album when we were sent the new version of Smoke On The Water, and we went: ‘Oh my God’. It’s hard for me to compare the two versions, because obviously one is ingrained in your mind over a very long period of time. But having said that, there’s also the fact that the Smoke On The Water that I know best is the one that we do on stage. From a subjective perspective, I’m quite happy with all of this.
Read more in Louder Sound.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
A Clydesdale horse – for those of you with perhaps some zoological insecurities, I hope you get the hang of it now.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/28960125@N06/12609496883
So that is where Ritchie’s jealousy came from all these years.
June 11th, 2024 at 23:15Yo,
IG said qt.”Everyone has to work their catalogue, so from a business point of view it makes complete sense. I think this new version will reach a lot of people who weren’t there at the time”.
Fingers crossed this also means releasing the missing “DP (Overseas) Lives Series” albums, of which we’re only a little over 1/2 through the releases, which were originally meant to be released within 12-months back in 2012…
Now that would be very,very,very pleasing.
Peace !
June 12th, 2024 at 10:03Gregster just doesn’t give up, don’t stop believin’ … 😁
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcjzHMhBtf0
Still the finest band of the AOR greats.
June 12th, 2024 at 17:29Of further equestrian interest perhaps:
Devoted to source research as I am, I was not satisfied with the – as it turns out: heavily censored – Louder Sound quote:
QUOTE
In discussing his choice, Mr. Big singer Eric Martin related a tale of being invited into your trailer to discuss a guest appearance on a Rock Meets Classic tour in Germany, only to find you butt-naked. “Apparently, Ian is a nudist,” he told us.
“That’s right,” Gillan says, “I am a nudist. That’s why I live up in the hills.”
Martin also mentioned that you are, as he put it, “hung like aClydesdale horse”.
“I don’t know what Eric had been smoking that day,” Gillan responds with a laugh. “If I am hung like a Clydesdale horse, then it’s only during the warmer weather.”
UNQUOTE
My scientific quest bore fruit, Eric Martin’s full, unaldurated account can be found in the printed Classic Rock magazine (which I received only now even though I am a subscriber, the first one got lost in the mail apparently and they had to resend). And given the fact that we have all been well-aware of the grandeur of Jon Lord’s organ, I feel now as your resident fact checker honor-bound to set the record straight with Eric’s face-to-face experience with the, uhum, true Mr Big:
QUOTE
“I’m not what you call a stalker-collector, but I’m one of a handful of people to sing SOTW with Ian Gillan. We were on the Rock Meets Classic Tour in Germany in 2015. There was John Wetton, me, Rick Parfitt, Mark Storace from Krokus and the Italian singer Gianna Nannini, plus a power metal band [Sinner] and a forty-piece orchestra.
Each night, Ian finished the show with SOTW. I really wanted to sing the second verse, the one with Frank Zappa & The Mothers – I wanted him to say: ‘Eric, you take this one!’ Hey, I have an ego! So I went to his trailer to ask. His pretty blond assistant invited me in but warned Ian was getting changed. Apparently he’s a nudist. She opens the door, and there is Ian Gillan … hung like a Clydesdale horse. I’m thinking: ‘So that’s what elephantitis means.’ We had this great conversation – with Ian completley naked. He didn’t bat an eyelid. (UWE’s EDIT: Nor swing anything, I hasten to add!)
My plan worked perfectly: That night Ian said: ‘Eric, you sing it.’ And boy, SOTW sounded great with an orchestra. It’s out there, check it on YouTube.”
UNQUOTE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5uVK0B2lFs
June 13th, 2024 at 12:58(SAFE FOR WORK: Ian wears clothes!)