Moon Rising
Another single from the upcoming Don Airey’s solo album Pushed To The Edge has been released. Moon Rising:
The album is still due on March 28, 2025, just a couple of weeks after Simon Mcbride’s one.
![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan5.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/mcbride2.jpg)
Another single from the upcoming Don Airey’s solo album Pushed To The Edge has been released. Moon Rising:
The album is still due on March 28, 2025, just a couple of weeks after Simon Mcbride’s one.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
This is brilliant, heard it on the radio the other day too …we needed more of this kind of stuff on the last Purple album …and there was me thinking that all the Purple Prog music was from Don …obviously it’s not !
February 28th, 2025 at 22:34Don getting it on with the keys, very progressive etc. That vocal is, well very ordinary. Not to worry, I listened to the music, a chance for everyone to cut loose for little while. Cheers.
February 28th, 2025 at 22:45It has a bit of a Kansas vibe. Or even early Styx when they were still proggy.
Pleasant.
March 1st, 2025 at 01:56To my ears, Don’s keyboard line could be a keyboard line from any of his Purple songs, so this song doesn’t mean anything to me at all.
nothing different from the purple house.
March 1st, 2025 at 11:10I don’t like this
Flavius LXXVI, it‘s the vocal melody that sets it apart from anything Ian Gillan would allow 🤣 on a DP album. It‘s that AORish/Uriah Heep catchiness-style singing that Big Ian often avoids like the plague, but there are enough people who like this type of vocals and find a lot of what IG does too demanding and not as easy on the ears. I guess Herr MacGregor‘s description of “ordinary” for the vocals is quite apt.
OFF TOPIC: Speaking of the Tasmanian, you mentioned the new Nosferatu a while back, I saw it last night:
– The cinematography is stark and beautiful. The sets marvelous.
– It’s not really a horror movie (no jump scares), more a gothic tale, but not a vampire romance either. Nosferatu is driven in this movie, but there is no longing from his side, just a sense of entitled possession. He’s depicted as a demonic brute and vandal, not a sophisticated nobleman.
– Why you would need to travel over the sea/ocean from Transylvania to reach a German fictitious harbor town by boat to transport a small crate with unholy earth is beyond me, logistically speaking. What’s wrong with the tried and trusted Danube river if you don’t like a coach and horses? ☝️😆
– The film is very literal both to the Bram Stoker book and Murnau’s classic – it’s basically a tribute. No twists, no surprising character development. That the whole vampire dread is a thinly veiled symbol for the female protagonist’s unfulfilled sexual desires in an early 19th century oppressive culture against women and their bodies is given away already in the pre-credits opening scene.
– Lily-Rose Depp plays well. Dafoe’s part as a Van Helsing type figure bordering on the grotesque is slightly underwritten. Bill Skargård, a handsome man unrecognizable under the prosthetics that give him a more disgusting and half-decomposed than scary-alluring look, is not allowed to give Count Orlok any depth. Not his fault, director and writer Eggers didn’t want a sad or sexy vampire, but more something like a human piece of cancer. As a result, the vampire doesn’t really move you in anything he does, that is a far cry from Klaus Kinski’s plaintive monologue in the 1979 Werner Herzog remake about the curse of being unable to die and forced to watch the banalities of the human world over and over.
– It’s so well and with attention to detail made that you can’t call it a bad movie. But I expected more emotional heft. Eggers’ Nosferatu is more an apocalyptic force than a scary and/or seductive threat.
– He sucks from the breast (I’ve told you so in the past, no one believed me here!), close to the heart in loud gulping and slurping noises, bad table manners for a Romanian aristocrat, more like a hyena with a carcass.
March 1st, 2025 at 21:54Thanks for the Nosferatu review Uwe, very much appreciated. I will watch it when it becomes available on an accessible streaming site, hopefully soon. I have read a few conflicting reviews on this new adaptation. Did Murnau’s classic have the biting on the neck? I will have to watch it again as I thought it did and it did that also in Herzog’s take on it from my memory. I do remember the rather comical line from Orlock in Murnau’s original film when he notices his new neighbours pendant of his wife, Ellen. That line “your wife, she has a lovely neck” as creepy as that is in its delivery. Classic. A look below at how this new Nosferatu breaks a tradition of sorts, in regards to the neck and now days going for the chest. Cheers.
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/what-is-exsanguination-nosferatu-change-from-original
March 2nd, 2025 at 05:49It available on all the major movie streaming services in Germany now, shouldn’t that be the case in Australia too?
March 2nd, 2025 at 14:20I have not even had a look as yet Uwe, I am a bit suss on any new take on an older classic. I will have a peak at it sometime, you know me, old school and all. I only have access to Netflix and Prime from a friend of a friend, so I will have to make sure that is still active as things have changed with all that advertisement bullshit in recent times. The friend may have dropped them, time will tell. Cheers.
March 2nd, 2025 at 21:05#5 Uwe:
Mr. Electric Eye Uwe,
I was referring more to the fact that I expected a work different from the usual things he plays, instead the good Don always navigates in his safe waters!
did you mention Ian here too?…Karin will be arriving soon then!
March 4th, 2025 at 14:44Good point, I think we should introduce mandatory IG-free days here! We need to put Karin on gradual detox.
By now, Don has a pretty set style on keyboards, which he indeed doesn’t change for his solo albums. We also all here know his style so well, we’re bound to recognize him immediately. But then, if you look just at the keyboard playing, Jon didn’t really change his keyboard style on his solo albums either.
Don is edgier than Jon, Jon was groovier in the rhythm department. Jon also left more space than Don who sometimes gets carried away and plays quite a bit more. Don has that jazzy influence, Jon was more pastoral in his piano playing, sometimes even bordering on twee, his penchant for English romantic classical music could be a little saccharine – not that it was without charm.
https://youtu.be/F8DYqnu01v0
I mean it’s lovely 💕, but it’s also indisputably schmaltz 🤭, don’t we all dig a spoonful of it now and then.
March 4th, 2025 at 15:25Whole soundtrack album, criminally unreleased on CD to this day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mepnsQL49gQ
That’s another thing: That 13 years after his untimely death no one has yet compiled Jon’s complete compositional and solo work into one boxed set of the man – a disgrace. It’s not such a huge body of work, but it certainly deserves a sensibly curated home. I’ll do the liner notes for free.
And where are the original master tapes of Sarabande for a new stereo mix? Wonderful things could be done with it under today’s technology.
And Pictured Within has been out of print for ages, the brilliant 2004 Cologne concert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9OtipZfk8g
has never even seen a CD release … alles furchtbar. At this rate, Jon’s music will be lost to oblivion in a few years. I would have never believed that following his death this hardly unmanageable task would be left untended.
March 4th, 2025 at 23:48Did someone mention Ian!? 😄
Gradual detox??
WHY?
Am I soon to die?
My very own sweetheart, also known as René, played some lovely music for me yesterday, Nazareth!
Ohh man, I was mesmerised 🥰
https://youtu.be/SU14_6Ekq9g?si=tg8Odezq9ICnnUMm
I hear a combination of Bon Scott, Brian Johnson but imagine how Ian would have sung this 🤩
March 5th, 2025 at 06:57@ 11 You took the words right out of my mouth, Uwe. A bloody shame it is! And thanks for the links, I did not know it’s out there …
March 5th, 2025 at 10:26#12 Karin
Karin, do you know who was the producer of Nazareth?
our legendary Roger Glover!!
all the bands he produced have written a part of hard rock story!
I think the last band Roger produced (before dedicating himself to the MK II Réunion) were your historic Danish band Petty Maids
#10 Uwe
March 5th, 2025 at 14:02I really like the term “pastoral” associated with the Maestro Lord!
you are absolutely right about the fact that there is still no complete work on John’s career and that many of his records have been lost in oblivion without reissues for new potential fans
That’s Jon Lord right there, on guitar (his second instrument) with Nazareth,Karin!
March 5th, 2025 at 14:10Karin, while Jon Lord never played guitar with them (my comment was in jest because of Manny Charlton’s trademark Lord’y mustache),
https://magicpopblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/a-253883-1124898706.jpg
Purple’s and Nazareth’s paths crossed multifold times:
1. Nazareth were openers for DP on lengthy US tours in the first half of the 70ies (and got along with the main act like a house on fire), later on both Ian Gillan Band and Whitesnake would open for Nazareth on their tours in the US and Europe respectively. The Naz also opened for Sabbath when IG was with them.
2. Roger Glover was the producer of Nazareth in their most successful phase (three albums). He also played bass on Dan McCafferty’s first 1975 solo album (all songs).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDtWm84JrT8
3. Dan McCafferty and Nazareth bassist Pete Agnew do their trademark harmony vocals on this Roger Glover track here from his If Life Was Easy solo album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2o-YHKVAjk
4. Jon Lord has guested (on keyboards, not guitar!) on Nazareth’s Rampant album (two songs).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63iua1Ubg4Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpTUOhKWb_Q
5. Ian Gillan and Dan McCafferty were both part of the Rock Meets Classic tour (on the same tour). At 00:24 Dan sings a few lines from a song Ian is also randomly known for:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhoG2RYgrZg
– Ian was a great fan of Dan’s singing style, but also said: “I could never sing like that, I don’t know how he does it.”
Here you hear both of them together romping through a ZZ Top chestnut Ian does not, uhum, seem overly familiar with + also that other dang-dang-daaang song Ian is somewhat identified with:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eypzQTfpn14
March 5th, 2025 at 16:18@14 – 16:
When I read this and showed it to René, he laughed loudly and gave me a kiss (so thank you guys for that ☺️) and then he said:
‘I hoped they would know!’
So yes, he knew, I didn’t! 😃
It’s very interesting that Roger produced Nazareth.
“Ian was a great fan of Dan’s singing style, but also said: “I could never sing like that, I don’t know how he does it.” – well Uwe isn’t it because their voices are so very different, and Dan McC and Ian could never be compared because their styles also are so different.
René told me that he was at a concert with Nazareth and he couldn’t believe that man, looking like a serious bookkeeper could sing like that 😄 (Dan McC was older at that time)
I’m impressed with their ‘southern’ sound, when they are from Scotland!
@15 – cute 😉☺️
Uwe, re Purple and ‘Long time gone’, you call it a ‘stomper’, what is that exactly?
March 6th, 2025 at 07:37stomper: mid-tempoish, riffy simplistic rock song with primal appeal, sort of like these here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcj34XixuYg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coA75uoMF40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSe281UyyRY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae829mFAGGE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLnL1-7lvVE
Basically what AC/DC play all the time! 😂
There are also disco stompers though!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiYjQr22meY
March 6th, 2025 at 15:09@18
Aha, ok, thank you ☺️
So this one is also a stomper?
March 6th, 2025 at 20:56https://youtu.be/z9nkzaOPP6g?si=ZzeiISYvPU50RDKL
https://youtu.be/F00xG7szj2Y?si=3vAgGQ3dz4iOeHJL
No reason to say anything 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩
March 7th, 2025 at 17:19@ 19
I know your question was for Uwe, but I’m gonna give you my 2 cents. No that one is not quite a stomper as far as I’m concerned… but this one sure is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWjhra0kOYE
ELO were great before they musically castrated themselves (sold out) I love 10538 from their first album. They by far gave us the best (IMO) cover of this Chuck Berry classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iehhNUr754I
March 7th, 2025 at 21:28@18
You forgot one… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMGUAZM-qb8
March 7th, 2025 at 22:50Well, in that case we must make honorary mention of the mother of all stompers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUcIDUWZxmA
Especially at 02:32, except that Noddy sings “stamp” rather than “stomp”.
I have also noticed an appalling dearth of bare chested men in way too tight satin trousers with pronounced muscular buttocks + bulges in the right places on the HS pages which I herewith will single-handedly somewhat alleviate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ovSE6Had78
No one took them serious at the time, but they were great. Grand Funk (Railroad) I mean.
March 8th, 2025 at 01:38@21
Russ, I actually wrote a very in depth and interesting (if I may say so myself ☺️) post regarding ELO and their selling out!
Mostly I agreed with you, but I also had some exciting lings to beautiful songs with the Move.
Sadly I can’t remember much about it, but I tell you it was good 😆
I do remember this link though, enjoy everybody
https://youtu.be/8JwVZYa1KSk?si=DEiY0w7lQuQ2FvIL
And notice the well-groomed and ‘clean-socks-everyday’ drummer, Bev Bevan, who later on bashed the drums in BS!
March 11th, 2025 at 17:45Karin, hadn’t heard that one in a long, long time… Thanks!
March 13th, 2025 at 08:07Uwe,
Aw yes… My older brother had both Sladest & Phoenix and I played the shit out of both. Get down & get with it to me as a 12 year-old was the ultimate audience participation song. Foot Stompin’ Music still gets played a lot.
Of course, those are the obvious examples; but I believe you left one out (probably on purpose) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PFmGicOEeY
And of course, deservedly so, this one also deserves an honorable mention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zav-5Lrcusg
March 13th, 2025 at 08:47Oops… I had another brain you know what. I meant E Pluribus Funk, not Phoenix.
March 13th, 2025 at 08:52Russ, this will be a Clint Eastwood epiphany for MacGregor and I will be the punk to make his day,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flt9K8vlJGE ,
but what the hell: That Earls Court performance of Bron-Y-Aur Stomp by you-know-who is effing brilliant and of historical significance. Hats off to Messrs Page, Plant, Jones & Bonham for in 1975 – long before NTV Unplugged was invented – sitting down on bar stools to do a folk number like that within the dramatic trajectory of a stadium rock gig. They had the guts to do that long before others. Bonham is also a very good background singer, I didn’t know! I had always assumed that was Jimmy Page harmonizing with Percy.
Don’t get me started on BÖC, I love that band. Also ample evidence that the traits “cerebral”, “American” and “heavy rock” are not mutually exclusive. 😈
Karin: Yup, that Move number is nice.
March 13th, 2025 at 13:16@ 28- you are not wrong there Uwe, it has not only made my day, but my week, month and this year keeps improving all the time. It appears that my new years resolution is coming along nicely, he he he. At least Bonzo had something on Ian Paice then, his singing. Although we haven’t heard Paice sing at all, so even that is still up for debate. Seriously though, yes that is an early example of ‘unplugged’, I have often thought that myself. Tull also did that sort of little acoustic segment thing at times in concert back then. They didn’t sit down though, so yes that down to earth folkie thing, no doubt influenced by CSN&Y amongst others, although I don’t think they sat down either. Two praises for the mighty Zeppelin in two weeks, I am astonished and very pleased & I am wondering what is going to be praised next? DeeperPurps will be starting to wonder too no doubt, he he he. I like it. Cheers.
March 13th, 2025 at 23:34Uwe,
So nice to see you finally come out of the closet; I’m sure this will bring a smile to MacGregor’s face. Never noticed either that Bonham is sharing in the vocals. Yes, it is effing brilliant. It tops any of the MTV unplugged stuff. The only other acoustic stuff that is in the same league are the 3 “naked” albums by Golden Earring and maybe Isle of View by the Pretenders
I threw in the BÖC cause is is a stomper about a stomper. I have noticed that BÖC seems to attract a more “enlightened” audience.
March 14th, 2025 at 04:40Yeah, BÖC were college nerd hard rock!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pFdkkjGiEs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM-0Kni9dEA
March 14th, 2025 at 09:23Humble Pie also had some precious little acoustic numbers. Home and Away, Take Me Back, Say No More… These coming from the same guys who were belting I Don’t Need no Doctor back in the day. Talk about books and their covers…
March 14th, 2025 at 18:41The early Humble Pie albums were even largely acoustic and folky. The huge venues in the US electrified them in the end. By the time Dave ‘Clem’ Clempson had replaced Peter Frampton, the acoustic thing pretty much had come to an end live.
I still wonder sometimes what would have happened had Clempson (= Glenn Hughes’ recommendation) joined DP rather than Bolin in 1975.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg9hvA_H2bk&t=590s
He didn’t have Tommy’s bird of paradise flamboyance of course, but he would have given the band stability and I believe the new line-up greater longevity. And he certainly was no slouch on guitar, his bluesy style would have gelled nicely (plus you bet he would have learned the Highway Star solo correctly!) with DC + Jon Lord and who knows might have entertained US stadiums for a few years more? They could have gone into a more Bad Company direction, at that point in time still a consistent seller in the States.
March 15th, 2025 at 01:17Thanks Uwe… In Thee is one of my top BÖC tunes. Allen’s songs are some of my favorites… along with the stuff Patti Smith collaborated on. Especially these two:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4buaY1ikkJ8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CCAtAzgCBI
March 15th, 2025 at 08:03Yeah, I like the Patti Stuff too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsE854AilxE
She co-wrote this here as well …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJl3pGuvlX4
Later on to become:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWZy5o9Eq9U
I love the eeriness in Eric Bloom’s voice.
And the contrast of Buck Dharma’s pop pipes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwEACG22FJw
And of course Albert Bouchard’s songs, perhaps I love those the most:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axSESBoHC9A
Great band. Unfortunately too eclectic to ever find broader and lasting appeal.
March 18th, 2025 at 01:49@35
Love that version of Career of Evil… to bad they never got to do it together onstage.
Thanks for the last one; I don’t listen to that one enough (took me almost 20 years to fully appreciate Imaginos). I often play this version (mutation) instead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v35i90DLhd4
Maybe BÖC are bit too eclectic to be appealing to the masses but that’s part of why I like them. I’ve never been one who was concerned with what was trendy or with being a “popular” person. DP were never that popular with my peers when I was young. Most of ’em thought LZ were the epitome of rock music.
I’ve always preferred stuff like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_z5lrSyn1g
and this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRRB-MS7gJY
and this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bozSfqwJ_hE
as well as: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7a9kdsubMM
And for some strange reason I have a penchant for anything by this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBhwcthhWh4 (Carlo, who wrote this tune, was the only other guy from my neighborhood who dug DP as much as I did).
March 21st, 2025 at 02:25Ah, you have a taste for rootsy rock …
March 21st, 2025 at 22:47@36- many thanks for the live Queen tracks, what a band they used to be at that time. Those mid 70’s albums of theirs, brilliant and have I ever known a band to fall away so quickly after their first 3-4 albums. Well I have but best not go there. Loved the way those were filmed, no emphasis on the crowd at all and the crowd noise was nice and low, excellent. Great performances from all members and what a bass guitarist John Deacon was. They were all brilliant musicians. Blew my teenage mind in 1975 when I heard Sheer Heart Attack. Golden Earring too, I had the classic Moontan and a few albums after that one, also the Cut album from the early 80’s. Moontan is their gem though, a sensational album that one. Thanks again. Cheers.
March 22nd, 2025 at 09:48@ 37
RE: “Ah, you have a taste for rootsy rock …” Yeah, I kindasorta do. I like my rock a little dirty and with some balls. For instance, Boston’s studio recordings are just OK for me (too slick, over-polished) but live is a different story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkacEOBLWSA
And man, stuff like this, whoooweee!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ_tUzdJABQ
But there’s also a side of me that really goes for stuff like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozpBg8rKZKg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9c3vWosL1Y
March 25th, 2025 at 06:42@ 38
RE: “a band to fall away so quickly after their first 3-4 albums.” I wouldn’t say they fell away exactly; but I know what you mean. It’s like they lost something as their music became more polished. They were still really good, but…
RE: Golden earring… yeah, Moontan is the crown jewel of their studio albums. But where they really shine (& Queen too) is live. Just like DP; as good as they sound in the studio, when they play live their music is taken to a whole new plane. As a matter of fact, that’s the one thing all of my favorite bands have in common. After I heard Made in Japan for the first time it set a whole new standard for me as far as music is concerned. That’s when Deep Purple became my #1.
March 25th, 2025 at 07:41I thought Queen started to lose it with A Day At The Races. Tie Your Mother Down was a killer riff and song, but Somebody To Love, We Are The Champions, Let Us Cling Together, the number of naff songs started to multiply.
In hindsight that is probably a little unjust, every Queen album, even the much derided Hot Space (a brave, even reckless departure from previous albums at the time), has good songs on it, but the overall quality was sometimes a little uneven. Someone once wrote that Queen were essentially more of a singles than an album band, there is a grain of truth to that. That said, their last album while Freddie was still alive, Innuendo, was a very strong parting shot.
In a way, Queen were a little schizophrenic: Their live gigs throughout their career followed pretty much the hard rock dramatics recipe – with the occasional pop hit or ballad thrown in. On record though they took more of a 10cc approach, versatility for versatility’s sake. Especially Freddie seemed very concerned to avoid being typecast, not an unusual sentiment for a gay artist.
That said, I always appreciated that they had four strong writers, all writing separately from another which made them sound different from hit to hit, yet they always managed to put the Queen stamp on it which is the sign of a truly great band.
I regret that I never got to see them live. These days, I just miss John Deacon (an early DP fan, especially of the Concerto) too much to ever go. The years with Paul Rodgers were a preposterous waste to me. Having him – of all people! – sing a song like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O49vxROja0
was tantamount to having David Coverdale sing this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pXoQ6iYO1w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF7lFHuwi3E
– a mismatch of colossal proportions. Some things just don’t work.
March 25th, 2025 at 13:04@41
I liked Paul Rodgers with Free, Bad Co. & The Firm as well as some of his solo stuff but he was suited for Queen about as much as he would’ve been with Purple.
Unfortunately, I never got to see them live either…
March 27th, 2025 at 06:10