![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/glover2.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/airey2.jpg)
Jon Lord making love to his organ
Straight for our trainspotting department, Louder Sound has a nostalgic piece dealing with the bad old times:
Back when the UK still had weekly music magazines – iconic titles such as Kerrang!, NME, Melody Maker and Sounds – having rock stars visit the editorial offices to review singles by their peers was always an entertaining highlight of the working week.
It goes on to describe one such appearance in 1985 of a punk icon Shane MacGowan, and his pick of the week — reissue of Black Night as a single:
Definitely single of the week. They’re back! The cover’s even got a colour picture of Jon Lord making love to his organ. It’s a no-bullshit song that’s got guts and a Ritchie Blackmore guitar solo. It’s loud, it’s obnoxious, it’s brainless, and it’s got everything that’s missing from most of the other crap that’s out this week. It’s definitely not music for wimps. Here’s evidence that they should have given them £2 million to reform, not just one. I don’t think I’ll ever be going to see them live, but the classic records are still classics.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
MacGowan was probably drunk as usual and got things a little muddled: Shouldn’t that be “Jon Lord making love WITH his organ”?
Deep Purple always had fans among punks, Joey Ramone liked early Mk II, Bob Andrews of Generation X (Billy Idol’s initial band) wasn’t allowed to reveal in interviews that he was a Blackmore fan because it was deemed uncool at the time and Dave Greenfield of The Stranglers had Jon Lord as his keyboard idol. Northern Irish punk icons Stiff Little Fingers’ original name was Highway Star.
And then there was always The Damned, Dave Vanian and his boys were fearless in their inspirations, even in 1979, here @02:08:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyj099nBugI
Post-punk Billy Corgan once said: “All good riffs in rock have already been written. Whenever you think you have come up with a good riff yourself, listen to Deep Purple’s Made In Japan and it’s already been played.”
August 1st, 2024 at 21:54Yo,
I’ll use this quote from the above article & dedicate it to those who claim =1 has too many fillers…
qt.”It’s definitely not music for wimps”…
So, to help clear you thoughts, turn-up the volume yo !!!
Peace !
August 2nd, 2024 at 01:23I loved Lord when he mistreated his Hammond. Airey is too polite🤣
August 2nd, 2024 at 10:08@2
August 2nd, 2024 at 10:47Well said Greg 🍻
IF IT‘S TOO LOUD YOU‘RE TOO OLD !!!
Ted Nugent 1977
August 2nd, 2024 at 13:08Don is the mad professor, Jon was more the romantic artist, but he also had some Vincent Price/The Abominable Dr Phibes theatrics in him!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6fG3fOLAEI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpESeriUZdM
I bet that is also where Rick Wakeman got his glitzy cape idea. 😎
August 2nd, 2024 at 15:30Gerald Minelli, bassist from the legendary brazilian band Sarcofago, has always said that Deep Purple was one of his influences.
August 2nd, 2024 at 16:11Speaking of trainpotting and mustached organists …
I was unaware until now that The Artwoods played behind the Iron Curtain in 1966 !!! Apparently repeatedly so. There is even an audio of it (from a Warsaw gig) in infuriatingly good quality, sounds like a radio show recording to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11dKGNnXZms
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkEcVTXSGOpeQy52JsipLJBwpGubIasE-rUXAHPq0zQDvvC5GszRXqDUhhXAj89nJJlf83hYDP73ia8LtmKLPCczDDeNEj-AHAqMVcMNRHtdckTp6iP6n3VcpNqGBkcU3NNE6crvn_oMLd/s1600/artwoods1.jpg
https://dandyinaspic.blogspot.com/2013/04/sixties-in-poland-part-one.html
Anyone from our Polski Brethren know more about this?
August 2nd, 2024 at 16:20@ 6 – Very amusing movies those two ‘Dr Phibes’ starring Vincent Price. I wouldn’t be surprised if Grumpy Rick did get his idea from that. I might do a little ‘research’ & see if I can find out as I don’t ever recall Wakeman saying anything that I have read or heard about that. Maybe Liberace or someone like that influenced him. Cheers.
August 2nd, 2024 at 22:49Well Rick Wakeman’s cape isn’t inspired from anyone famous etc. A quite humble beginning, although he was influenced to wear one from the chap who was wearing one, for a different reason. Cheers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0grr7k8
August 3rd, 2024 at 01:09I’m not gay..but in my case… it was love at first sight…JL soul of DP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XT4u_Hr0W8
August 3rd, 2024 at 06:57I always liked Jon’s mustache, it went in and out of fshion (and was augmented with a beard in later years), but he always stuck to it (or rather his upper lip perhaps did!).
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/zSGTunyNMjBpSgnrjdfGs3-1200-80.jpg.webp
Vickie obviously didn’t mind either, guess it didn’t tickle then.
Did he ever shave it off in his life completely once he grew it? I don’t think so. It made its first appearance to the larger public in late 1967 when The Artwoods turned mobsters in a short-lived and ill-fated death throe publicity stunt to finally make it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyoAFoq9eM0&t=2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCL3rVoHqhg
He must have kept it for The Flower Pot men period and by the time a nascent DP arrived, it was his trademark look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rYYPYMFM0g
This site here offers the best history of The Artwoods I have yet found:
https://andrewdarlington.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-art-of-artwoods-story-of-cult-mod.html
One of the nicest surprises at Jon’s RAH commemoration was Paul Weller tearing into Artwoods numbers, one of the absolute highlights of that not highlight-sparse evening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Esey6cvWW4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjEdA1rD6rQ
The Artwoods versions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgfAa75QSac
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaInDgVWblU&list=RDqaInDgVWblU&start_radio=1
That was a great choice by the Modfather – oops, is it ok to like Paul Weller here? 😎
I remember buying my first Artwoods vinyl sometime in 1976/77, it was in a bargain bin and I was absolutely overjoyed at stumbling over it accidentally! I liked the music too, it reminded me of Dr Feelgood who were popular at the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp2DvPKh118
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4jRbiXZ6KI
Needless to say, Dr Feelgood covered Things Get Better too! 😃
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0oth7OViRo
August 3rd, 2024 at 22:08Paul Weller is an ‘old’ rocker at heart & is often guesting at concerts from the artists of previous era. The Who for one. He is only one decade behind those 60’s artists. Hugely influenced by them & then he himself becoming a influence for others in many ways. A thinker indeed is Mr Weller & man for the people. Diversity is his motto, well one of them it seems. To die a Mod is another apparently. I don’t know most of his music, however I have always admired him from afar. Some of his Australian tours have been a big success years gone by. I suppose some might say that is a rub over from the colonial past. British to the core indeed. Cheers.
August 3rd, 2024 at 23:42I just knew Weller from The Jam and from some Style Council hits,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5HfOipwvts
also from his perceptive and deep interviews, but I got finally hooked when MTV powerplayed this number in the 90ies where he was channeling his inner George Harrison:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uma0WjecyKE
And then I played for a while with a Brit Pop cover band in the Noughties (suitably named ‘Downing Beat’) and they of course all worshipped at his Mod altar. Eventually, I started buying all his solo stuff.
He always sounds a touch flat to my ears (most heavy rock/metal singers are a touch sharp), but I love his voice.
BTW, he and Jon first met when commemorating Jim Capaldi, they share the stage at 01:50:40 here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpTBR8ZNFuQ
But then Jon was no stranger to Brit Pop/shoegazer music. You can hear him here quite prominently at 01:50 …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpFROtvPi3g
… and Ride’s lead guitarist Andy Bell would after all become – shock, gasp, horror! – Oasis’ bassist in their final line-up. Never mind the derision Oasis would trigger on this site of sites when they imploded and DP played instead of them in 2009 in Konstanz and Milano …
https://www.thehighwaystar.com/news/2009/08/29/calm-in-the-oasis/
… which had closet Brit Popper Svante valiantly exclaim:
“I have to say I’m surprised at all the nasty comments we get about Oasis here. What’s so evil about them? Ok, the Gallaghers are pricks but so are couple of guys from the Purple family too. I’m not a big fan but they sure know how to write songs and they play for real as a real band. I find it hard to imagine them using too much pre-recorded vocals or stuff like that.
An honest rock band with a bunch of weird people involved. Sounds like Purple in some of it’s incarnations.”
I wasn’t there yet to help poor Svante and elucidate to y’all that some of you were berating someone who had played with Jon! The culprits should be hung, drawn and quartered for their heresy. 😆
That’s Jon with Ride as well, again quite prominently throughout (also soloing), track is even co-written, dare I say it, by the later Oasis bassist Andy Bell …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9IUlnrvMAA
If you squint your eyes hard, you can catch a glimpse of Jon in the CD booklet on the bottom left (with Ride lead singer and guitarist Mark Gardener + acoustic guitar in the background).
https://media.karousell.com/media/photos/products/2022/9/9/ride__carnival_of_light_cd_1662686024_9d4cba75_progressive.jpg
Trainspotting session over!!! 😁
August 4th, 2024 at 02:02@ 14 – Svante may have said that at comment 24 Uwe, but at 22 he sent this link. Absolutely hilarious too, loved it. Mind you I have no idea what Hitler is really saying, as I don’t understand the German language but those subtitles are classic indeed. Cheers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6IyGAvbOs4
August 4th, 2024 at 09:55That was a nice concert for Jim Capaldi you posted Uwe, many thanks as I enjoyed that immensely. A lot of Joe Walsh appearances, good to see & Pete Townshend too. Have to enjoy Ray Cooper on percussion, he is everywhere back in the day, so many performances from him. Jon Lord was wonderful as always & Steve Winwwod was always going to be there. All the musicians were grand. A big influence Capaldi & not only musically. A staunch environmentalist & avid charity advocate for children’s poverty. RIP. Cheers.
August 4th, 2024 at 23:25That scene from Der Untergang is of course iconic and likely the most frequently satirized (for all kinds of modern day events) cinema passage ever. Bruno Ganz, a Swiss actor (who initially didn’t even want to play Hitler), outdid himself there and set an impossibly high acting benchmark for any later Führer depictions.
The original is essentially a petty- and grudge-filled rant of Hitler to his generals for being inept and defeatist when they reveal to him that all his hopes for last ditch Wehrmacht and SS counter-offensives against the Red Army encircling Berlin are pie in the skies, the respective military units having long been wiped out. Something like that actually did take place though more recent historical research indicates that Hitler had deemed the war irrevocably lost already much earlier. But he wanted neither Germany nor himself to survive, seeing himself as an instrument of divine providence that was entitled to take everyone with him if his mission failed through no fault of his own (as he saw it).
August 5th, 2024 at 04:52Bruno Ganz is a fine actor indeed, Nosferatu (Werner Herzog movie) Night Train to Lisbon & there would be more that I cannot remember at the moment. That Downfall movie I wouldn’t be able to watch, too dark & negative etc. All fine actors from that part of the world though. Thanks for the information. Cheers
August 5th, 2024 at 06:09Spoiler about Downfall/Der Untergang, the villain \ : – = ( dies luckily for good in the end and there are no post-credits scenes reviving him either! 😂
August 5th, 2024 at 13:11@ 19. No “Der Untergang zwei, die Auferstehung”?
August 5th, 2024 at 14:49@ 19. No “Der Untergang zwei, die Auferstehung”?
Thanks, lieber janbl, but definitely no, thanks, we’re (still) full. Immigration of failed artists from Austria needs to be carefully surveilled, never get in the way of what people want to do with their life!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUZi67BmY_M
August 5th, 2024 at 16:46The Right Honorable Herr MacGregor @16: A lot of these tributes are well-intentioned, but musically so-so. But what they did for Capaldi really stood out and Jon is featured on nine tracks playing with such co-luminaries as Joe Walsh (Jon was an Eagles fan), Dennis Loccoriere (Dr Hook), Paul Weller (The Jam, Style Council) and Bill Wyman (I forgot the band he was in). And the wonderful Stevie Lange, ex-wife of Mutt Lange and a great singer, I really liked that band Night she had together with ex-Manfred Mann’s Earth Band lead vocalist Chris Thompson in the early 80s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbsA3VLlA8o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvN4T2rCPt0
And of course that duet with Sweet’s Brian Connolly! Not cheesy at all, I swear … 😏
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8g5brGJaIg
August 6th, 2024 at 05:25Well, I’m happy it stopped there or we might sit and write in german about “TiefViolette” at “Die(?) Autobahnstern”.
August 6th, 2024 at 06:19😆 Janbl, even the friggin’ Autobahn construction thing is a myth (so many of them abound about the Third Reich). Those Autobahns were planned and budgeted by the Social Democratic Weimar Republic governments, they were a long term infrastructure measure the Nazis simply continued as they found it when taking power – but sure enough they sold it as their own economic policy.
And the Führer didn’t even have a ‘Führerschein’, i.e. a driver’s license. 🙄
But you’re right, had the Third Reich won, rock music would have never developed in Europe and no Deep Purple too. That’s another thing that really speaks against \ : – = ( . 😎
August 6th, 2024 at 15:04BTW, janbl, my cunning linguist: It would have been ‘der Autobahnstern’; “das Auto”, “die Autobahn”, but “der Stern”.
Don’t ask me why an Autobahn is female and a star is masculine and a girl watching the star and driving on he Autobahn – das Mädchen – is neuter. IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO MAKE SENSE, HIMMEL, already Mark Twain knew that:
https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html
– QUOTE –
Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum-book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print–I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books:
Gretchen: “Wilhelm, where is the turnip?”
Wilhelm: “She has gone to the kitchen.”
Gretchen: “Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?”
Wilhelm: “It has gone to the opera.”
To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female–tomcats included (UWE’S EDIT: nope, der Kater is male!), of course; a person’s mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and NOT according to the sex of the individual who wears it–for in Germany all the women have either male heads or sexless ones; a person’s nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven’t any sex at all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay.
– UNQUOTE –
😁😂🤣
German is one of the most user-unfriendly languages imaginable, after Klingon of course.
https://media.tenor.com/uWo1HEJ2bLcAAAAM/reject-star-trek.gif
Probably one of the many reasons why we lost two World Wars in a row. 😎
August 6th, 2024 at 18:43Baldrick had a ‘thing’ for turnips, so much so that he paid 400,000 pounds for one. Blackadder was not impressed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD2iYSKHHzo&t=49s
August 6th, 2024 at 23:21Herr Atkinson ist brillant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGxG7QmPQ44
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YDrBCNutmM
August 7th, 2024 at 14:23I have now exhausted all my knowledge of the German language, since I suspect that you guys probably don’t understand Danish, I will post in English from now on.
August 7th, 2024 at 14:32Det er træls!
August 11th, 2024 at 20:19