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Passion, energy, fire, and just enough flamboyance
Harp playing Amy had a very purple weekend with listening to Highway Star and Smoke on the Water:
Family tree bonus: on the instigation of lovely Elizabeth, Amy listens to Stargazer:
[Update Dec 13]: Here’s another bonus. It is rather incidental to our site, does not quite deserve a separate post, so we’ll tuck it in here. Amy and Elizabeth held a virtual meeting of the mutual admiration society, and in between oooh’s and aaah’s an interesting idea was brought in: classic rock in the 21st century kind of finds itself in roughly the same position as classical music found itself by the mid-20th century. In other words, pretty much everything has been already said, done, composed, and performed. Now what?!
For the impatient: that question was raised starting at around 27’40” into the conversation.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
I have watched Amy’s take on Rainbow’s Stargazer & it was a good one. I noticed she commented on the ascending & then descending music at the end of the solo. That is also in the lyrics that she was most probably not aware of, the wizard climbing the tower of stone & then falling. Excellent songwriting of course and this is a fine example of writing together & complimenting each other. Blackmore & Dio, say no more. All that blood on the sand and then we see a Rainbow on the horizon. Good compliments for all the band from Amy & she particularly liked Cozy’s input. Cheers.
December 13th, 2024 at 05:37OMG, Boy MacGregor, forever stunted in his development regarding his fantasy obsessions,
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5940a58315d5db433b61226e/1514662439172-WAK9EMJN4WZ7GXFYT2Y3/1y9208-admin.jpg?format=2500w
writes about the Stargazer lyrics as if they were actually about something! 🤣 Wizards, clueless about even the most basic principles of aeronautics, cracking their skull on desert gravel … and then the music elegantly descends … Legions of construction slaves blissfully unaware of the benefits of labor union organisation obviously laid off (“now where do we go …”).
Can’t you guys listen to somewhat age-adequate music?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSNSTerj2Kc
December 13th, 2024 at 15:50Didn’t they have Deep Purple at her boarding school for musically talented girls?
December 13th, 2024 at 15:56Didn’t they have Deep Purple at her boarding school for musically gifted girls where she spent her youth secluded from the world? 😎
She says that her “first exposure to DP has been quite a good while back” when she heard CIT – that was scarcely two years ago, yet she makes it sound like she was harkening (or harpening?) back to the 70s. 😆
Oh well, if she’s friends with – cue in cute nose wrinkle here –
https://media.tenor.com/yO4XKnkwqSYAAAAM/nose-wrinkle-judy-garland.gif
Lovely Liz, then she’ll find some rapt attention here. 🙄
Curmudgeonly regards
Uwe
December 13th, 2024 at 16:09@4
December 13th, 2024 at 17:25“ then she’ll find some rapt attention here” – please translate 😃
There is a Rainbow rising Uwe. You know what one good thing about Amy & her listening to ‘rock’ music, a genre she was blissfully unaware of according to what she originally stated. She doesn’t have any hangups or negative regressive comments to make. In her world it is what it is at that moment. Not a bad way to be & while she will more than likely never become obsessed with popular music & good on her for doing that, that keeps her grounded in that sense. No fawning over certain ‘stars’ or ‘celebrities’ etc. Good isn’t it & while I am not a follower of all these ‘youtube’ reactors at all, I have watched a few from her & Doug the ‘herbal enhancer’ & I have enjoyed them for their honesty, naivety & no prejudice opinion at the time that they record it. I have never watched Liz just for the record. That Rainbow Uwe, it is on the horizon. Have a look next time. Cheers.
December 13th, 2024 at 20:59I should say the reason I watched Amy’s Rainbow clip was because I had just finished watching some of the Sydney 1984 Deep Purple concerts online, 40 years ago today it was. So I needed to listen to something else. The Louder classic rock site is repeating the George Harrison story again from that second Sydney gig. I watched some of the next nights performance of December 14 that has been filmed, not too bad all things considered. Thanks to all here at THS for posting the Amy clips by the way & I will get to the DP ones shortly. Then Uwe will be in for it with some harsh, brutal criticism of all things DP. Cheers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMFZcUTSzEo
December 13th, 2024 at 21:15Such extraordinary bullshit.
December 13th, 2024 at 22:34I’ve never fawned over any rock or pop star, they’re people, they all have to take a dump at least once a day (with Big Ian then writing a song about it 😆), constipation phases aside. I don’t think anyone in Purple has deity status, you can have severe flaws in character and still be a remarkable musician and you can be a wonderful person and still not contribute anything musically meaningful. Even bad people can do great art, ask Leni Riefenstahl.
I understand the entertainment-, validation- and appreciation-value of what Liz and Amy do (though I find their podcasts extremely drawn out, I think you can meaningfully comment on Stargazer in five minutes and don’t need thirty …), they come from a different musical world. And many rock fans feel that the band they root for is somehow elevated if an opera singer or a harp player says something nice about it. But these podcasts are manufactured to create feel good vibes with the core audiences of the subject band, you can tell by the mere fact that they never ever criticize anything and never really uncover anything as banal either. Those ascending notes that Blackmore plays at the end of Stargazer before he culminates in what I call the “squealing seals” at the very end? That is nothing more than a Mixolydian scale played front to back note for note, it’s what you learn in early piano lessons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixolydian_mode
If Liz and Amy were sincere about what they are doing, they should have been cracking up laughing at that part, it might sound nice, but it is banal to naïve, “Alle meine Entchen”-entry level really.
Decades ago, I once heard a radio program where a classical trained singer took Nena’s and Bruce Springsteen’s vocal styles apart, with Nena finding more grace than the Boss who from a classical singing viewpoint does everything wrong there is to do wrong. That was good fun, she called Springsteen’s singing affected and mannered, very unnatural. The Boss’ disciples were up in arms. Good fun. 🤣
I also wonder if rock musicians with no classical background discussing classical music would trigger the amount of likes these ladies do. Would classical musical fans flock around them and gasp in elation if, say, Kerry King of Slayer said he liked Béla Bartók or would they say: What the hell does he know about it? 😝
There still seems to be an inbuilt inferiority complex with rock fans regarding their music that they clamor for validation from outside sources. Me, I have played with classically trained musicians often enough to say that they are mostly utterly hap- and helpless when asked to play anything in a rock environment, it’s like asking a ballet dancer to join a football team. Even the most basic principles of blues, funk and rock are remote to them. Most of them can’t even play in time to a drummer as they are not used to a steady beat holding it down.
But if you guys and girls find Liz’ and Amy’s scripted and enacted re-appreciations of ole Purple Family chestnuts enlightening, who am I to ruin it for you, you have my blessings, not that you need them.
Personally, I’d be more gratified if Billy Cobham and Simon Phillips did a 10 minute discussion on what makes Ian Paice’s and John Bonham’s drumming stand out (not in a sense of who is better, but what they are respectively trying to achieve) in their respective bands, but that’s just me!
Back to Liz & Amy, enjoy whatever it is that they do!
PS: Oh, and that string arrangement at the end of Stargazer is for any professional string arranger laughably simplistic, stiff and monotonous. If you want to hear a proper string arrangement for a rock song, listen to the coda here, that is in a different world:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09oKxyAcdQs&list=PLz6cAheObZcgvtx2MN5k1b4caxn02UeQm&index=8&pp=iAQB8AUB
December 14th, 2024 at 13:34#2 Uwe
The lyrics are about something: Simon Magus, as depicted by Jack Palance
December 14th, 2024 at 15:49Who needs this crap?
December 14th, 2024 at 22:13@ 9 – “But if you guys and girls find Liz’ and Amy’s scripted and enacted re-appreciations of ole Purple Family chestnuts enlightening, who am I to ruin it for you, you have my blessings, not that you need them.” Enlightening??????? you have to joking there Uwe, surely. Scripted entertainment it may be in certain aspects & we only have to remember how naive & out of place Amy was at the very beginning and to now see how she acts it out these days. I always fast forward through the drawn out talking bits, even with Doug and even if he is enhancing himself on the famous herb or not. We also are very familiar with how many people act when there is a camera in front of them, especially if they know they have an audience. It is what it is & I actually deleted a line from my original post, it said “and now we wait for Uwe’s put down Rainbow comment”. Predictable old son, so predictable. By the way, the ascending & descending effect is to mimic the wizard climbing & then falling, what is wrong with that. They are telling a story & you put effects and or music to it. Don’t you watch movies? Seriously though it is the old Rainbow loathing thing again with Uwe, stuck in his side like a rusty old nail, it keeps annoying the hell out of him big time & it looks like it will continue to do so. “If Liz and Amy were sincere about what they are doing, they should have been cracking up laughing at that part, it might sound nice, but it is banal to naïve, “Alle meine Entchen”-entry level really.” Oh we get it Uwe, they are supposed to be negative like you about something, and just to please you. “Personally, I’d be more gratified if Billy Cobham and Simon Phillips did a 10 minute discussion on what makes Ian Paice’s and John Bonham’s drumming stand out (not in a sense of who is better, but what they are respectively trying to achieve) in their respective bands, but that’s just me!” What and you wouldn’t be negative about Bonham’s drumming, pull the other one Uwe, it has bells on it. Anyway all this reminds me of the Kansas song : Carry on my wayward son, there will be peace when you are done, lay your weary head to rest, don’t you cry no more. Cheers.
December 15th, 2024 at 08:33Ah, the Tasmanian Rainbow Warrior is in “The time has come, Uwe must be undone by the morning!”-mode again. To lend a phrase from Little Ian’s WDWTWA inner gatefold sleeve interview quote, lieber Herr MacGregor: “I bought and buy all their stuff, so I’m bloody well allowed to boot it!” 😂
I’m not a DP “fan”, “fans” is something football teams have, they wear scarves and get drunk and have a general inability to appreciate the qualities of an opposing team, that type of tribalism isn’t for me, I’m a friggin’ Deep Purple Family ant hill entomologist! ☝️🧐 As such anything and everything gets dissected and there is no advance reverence just because something is from a Rainbow album many people treasure (I never did, I found Rising disappointing as the songwriting wasn’t up to scratch of the debut), I’m merciless in that way and only devoted to scientific truth. 😇
“Negative like you about something just to please you” – are we now in Church where only worship is allowed, Father MacGregor? 🙏😇 🙏 And if pleasure ain’t allowed either anymore, then I’m outta here faster than a light in the black! 🤣
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Lieber Robin, great thanks for the finger pointer, I was hitherto unaware of this sword & sandal CinemaScope goody “The Silver Chalice” from 1954 whose scene at 06:20
https://youtu.be/oAaRyWgStGg
may have inspired a then 12 year old army brat wop kid in Cortland by the name of Ronald James Padavona to write a lyric in a wintery Munich twenty two years later! 😎 In my anthropological-cultural-sociological quests regarding all things Purple, I find a piece of info like that much more gratifying than the musings of a harpist.
December 15th, 2024 at 12:55@9
December 15th, 2024 at 17:05“with Big Ian then writing a song about it 😆”
It’s not the first time you’re mentioning this specific event, so which song are you referring to? 😃
I’ll let you in on a secret. Because of my age, I never found Deep Purple an interesting band, I only knew 3 songs and considered Led Zeppelin to be a hard rock icon. But a few years ago, I came across a video of a vocal coach on YouTube who was analyzing Child in Time. This coach was analyzing all of Gillan’s technical flaws in detail and praising the Belarusian singer Elfimov. It was at that moment that I realized how cool Gillan was and became more interested in the band, to the point that I became an ardent fan at such a mature age. So these reactions have their purpose. And the function of reactors is to look for strengths, not weaknesses, because each song they analyze has its own fans.
December 15th, 2024 at 20:04At9: very wise words, Uwe. Indeed Slayer and Bartók should stay apart. Anyway the whole purpose is different, and it may be a good thing.
December 16th, 2024 at 09:18@15
I’ll let you in on another secret: I had no idea Ian G was so well trained, I just thought he opened his mouth and was equally happy and surprised of the wonderful tunes there came out of his mouth 😄
He is a BRILLIANT singer, and the vocalist from Zep can pack up his stuff and go home 😄😄😄 (sorry, wasn’t meant to offend anyone 😇)
December 16th, 2024 at 10:24@11….. 100% agree!!
December 16th, 2024 at 11:14Nino, that is a valid point, Liz & Amy of course reach an audience (namely THEIR audience) otherwise unexposed to DP (like they profess to be) and that kind of amplification to ready-to-be-converted heathens is of course a huge benefit of their wordy excesses. I guess it too keeps DP‘s music alive.
Wot, you did not already in a virgin state devote your innocence to DP? How dare you be here?! Dread Schleppelin?! From Georgia of all places and not knowing DP? The Caucasus is mother earth to DP!!!
😂 No worries, even the most immaculate women may err sometimes. We’ll simply hush that Led Zep affair of yours up from now on, ok? Ab-so-lu-tion! 😇
Hey, it‘s not like my entry in to the DP world was guided by profound musical realizations: In the summer of 1975, during our annual vacation in Germany (the family lived in Kinshasa, Zaïre/Congo, at the time because my dad worked there as a construction engineer) my grandmother gave 40 Deutschmarks to me the day before we left back to Kinshasa. I knew I had to spend it quick, there was little to buy that interested me as an adolescent in Kinshasa. Dieburg had just one – overpriced – record store, so I went there. They had two DP albums – In Rock and Stormbringer. In Rock caught my eye because my nine years older brother (who never joined us in Zaïre, he was 21 years old when we left Germany in 1972) had owned a copy of it, that Popart cover had left a lasting impression with me, I knew nothing of the music contained on that record. And Stormbringer I just took because it was the other Purple album they had and the cover looked kinda cool too. I actually listened to Stormbringer a little in the record shop, only the first track, but to an adolescent Alice Cooper fan it didn’t sound too alien. So those two albums I bought that day and took with me to Kinshasa and they were the key to a vault of lifelong Purple delights!
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Karin, I‘m unaware of Ian Gillan ever having written a song about him taking a dump, but in another forum the phrase was once coined for Ian‘s lovable tendency to write about the fallacies of everyday life rather than luv‘ ‘n’ babes (Coverdale), juice running down his legs and Viking longboats (Plant) or damsels & dragons (Dio). We all agreed that Ian‘s bowel movements were the most interesting and pertinent of the named subjects! 😝
December 16th, 2024 at 13:24“By the way, the ascending & descending effect is to mimic the wizard climbing & then falling, what is wrong with that?”
From an aeronautical viewpoint? Pretty much everything. Even wizards shouldn’t mess with gravity. 🤣
Look, Stargazer as a number had potential. It could have been so much more had they devoted more time to it. It has good ideas, but the execution is demo tape’ish and sketchy in places.
For once thing, I miss a chorus in that song to meet the attempted grandeur of the Babylonian wizard story. The Stargazer chorus as recorded is more of a bridge to me that should have led to a proper chorus and frankly, Ronnie, most likely for lack of time, wasn’t at his most creative developing a melody over the chords. Compare it to what Gillan did on Unwritten Law where Ritchie obviously tried to emulate a string arrangement with his guitar synthesizer or whatever he was using.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAUo7aGrO-k
In comparison to that Stargazer’s “in the heat and the rain, with whips and chains”-melody line is banal. But how should poor Ritchie have known that, coming from DP he wasn’t used to proper chorus parts much. 😂
Ritchie’s solo is fine.
The string arrangement towards the end sounds like it was written in five minutes and recorded in ten (in fact it took ages to get it down properly and it didn’t quite work out as planned). Perhaps Ritchie should have called his old friend Jon L to lend him a hand. As is, it is basically the orchestra playing a minimalist riff over and over that doesn’t carry much of a melody and – unlike, say, Kashmir – does’t really add much to the harmonic structure of the song. You would have hoped for the orchestra TO ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING CREATIVE over that ad lib repetition of the chorus at the end.
And for the life of me I cannot imagine that Liz or Amy as singers/musicians coming from a stringed classical instruments background could have been impressed by that drawing-by-numbers string arrangement at the end of Stargazer, certainly Mozart would have laughed about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PWbjUvRbS4
Or George Martin for that matter. Eleanor Rigby it ain’t.
BTW, Amy doesn’t seem overly impressed either, other than “I hear the strings in the background …” she says nothing about it it and just listens to the song coming to its conclusion after several chorus repetitions, probably waiting and wondering for something to happen. 😁
But as I said, the original ideas for the song had potential and Rainbow showed its ability as a band to properly and inspiredly develop a similar song with Gates of Babylon not too much later.
December 16th, 2024 at 17:17“He (Gillan) is a BRILLIANT singer, and the vocalist from Zep can pack up his stuff and go home 😄😄😄 (sorry, wasn’t meant to offend anyone 😇).”
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/c7/b3/ef/c7b3efd78c2c71428cb4b990e8a3ed3d.jpg
YOU HAVE NO IDEA how absolutely un-offended I am, Karin, don’t hold back, let it all out!
December 16th, 2024 at 17:49@19
“ We all agreed that Ian‘s bowel movements were the most interesting and pertinent of the named subjects! 😝”
Well well well, I’m not the least surprised here, I have to state that as a fact!
But – my Nordic chillness bids me to completely overlook your comment 😎
(Too late I guess 🤣)
I do have to make another statement, a little more innocent and clean, so to speak! and that is that the lyrics of Mr Gillan and Mr Glover is among my favourites! I love the poetry and the intelligent pictures they draw for us listeners 😍
December 16th, 2024 at 18:13@ 14, 19
Well I was lucky enough to discuss the pro and cons of german toilets with the man on Caramba. Ian had marvelled about why they had a platform. I seem to remember he thought it to be for anal…sorry…lytical purposes but I had the chance to put things straight. The platforms save you from Poseidon’s kiss of course. We agreed it was good we had talked about it.
December 16th, 2024 at 18:43I like “Stargazer”.
The vocal melody in the chorus isn’t particularly strong, but in conjunction with the riff it creates a rather rousing call and response effect.
And throughout the song, the entire band plays like they mean it. Making for a record that jumps out of the speakers, mundane string arrangement and all.
Always found “Unwritten Law” pretty hard going, though.
The record is hindered by the sterile 80s production, especially the cheesy electronic percussion. By contrast, Gillan’s 1987 voice sounds a little rough even compared to “Perfect Strangers”, let alone his 1969-72 peak.
The song doesn’t seem to have been honed to perfection, either. The recurring “I’ve got the evidence” line feels like too many syllables crammed into too little space.
And as far as one can deduce from the rather vague lyric, it’s yet another rock song about venereal disease? Yuck. Not sure it adds much even to that particular canon, other than subtracting the humor that “Poison Ivy”, “Cat Scratch Fever” and “The Jack” had previously brought to the topic.
All of which tends to detract from whatever the tune’s melodic strengths may be.
Chacun à son goût, though.
Would certainly concede that the intro and guitar solo are nice!
December 17th, 2024 at 04:21Max @23: Max, I think it’s great you taught that clueless Brit some German engineering standards! Yes, no Poseidon’s Kiss. That said, the “platform” does of course offer the possibility of inspection of what was delivered and that ties in with our anally-retentively inquisitive national nature, why deny it? 🧐
That said, the Poseidon’s Kiss effect has also lent itself to developments in other directions and once again German engineering brilliance took a lead on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AFMPEwMN-8
I’m an endorser. When we built our house I said to Edith I just had one requirement (and everything else could be decided by her): shower toilets. It’s one of those things that once you have it you never want to go back on.
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Moving on from toilet netherworlds to stars to be gazed at:
“And throughout the song, the entire band plays like they mean it. Making for a record that jumps out of the speakers, mundane string arrangement and all.”
Absolutely no contest, Skippy, on Rainbow Rising the whole band plays with utter conviction, as dedicated to the cause as a Ramones or Sex Pistols record (maybe the fact that Rising hit the shelves at the beginning of the punk craze in 1976 indicated a broader cultural movement?). I actually think that is a great part of the record’s enduring appeal with a lot of people, it’s relentlessness.
THOBL was of course a troubled album though it is my favorite one from the Blackmore reunion era. I’m not saying that The Unwritten Law is a piece of flawless conception and execution. I just pulled the example of its verse for a more creative vocal line over a string riff – I do remember Big Ian saying in an interview around the time of the release that he worked extremely hard to come up with it and wondered initially what the hell he was supposed to sing over Ritchie’s idea.
Yes, it’s a VD song or rather a song lambasting the (bad, but all too human) habit of passing it on. Herr Gillan should know! 😂 That bout of hepatitis B/jaundice he caught on a US tour (just like Ritchie) didn’t come from sharing a drinking glass with someone I think. 🙄 Add to that Roger’s little painful fling with the clap and only Jon and Little Ian seem to have gotten away unscathed from the punishments for promiscuous behavior. Though Jon’s A 200 instrumental on the Burn album does of course raise questions of inadvertent pubic lice transmission …
https://images.medshopexpress.com/spree/images/116775/large/s3_image.?1552134092
https://content.healthwise.net/resources/14.3/en-us/media/medical/hw/h9992606_001_460x300.jpg
https://dbclinic.com.sg/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/magnifying-glass-1024×853.webp
OMG, this one is even deep purple!
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2013/1/15/1358247295664/Pthirus-pubis—at-risk-f-010.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none
Alas!, how did we get here? The Highway Star as a site dedicated to general hygiene and health matters, always a most commendable cause.
December 17th, 2024 at 14:18Oops, if you want to see an A-200 package, just copy this link in full and then search it:
https://images.medshopexpress.com/spree/images/116775/large/s3_image.?1552134092
I’m kinda disappointed that there is no A-200 (the song)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e16o2PvSNyM
vid yet on YouTube working with an animation of armies of lice infesting pubic areas!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rZ6Et6L6D8
People just aren’t creative anymore. Sad.
December 17th, 2024 at 23:53So far for german engineering, Uwe. Thanks for sharing. If there ever was a bathroom in Star Treck this must be the one! That tune accompanying the facilities on display sure remindes me of something but I can’t track it down. So my day is almost ruined unless someone could tell me.
December 18th, 2024 at 09:49It sounds a bit The Who’ish or like something Robbie Williams/Elton John would have done as an intro. Not a bad tune actually as jingles go.
Re bathrooms on the USS Enterprise: I think getting the artificial gravitation generation aspect right is really key, you don’t want all that antimatter up in the air.
December 18th, 2024 at 16:18Yes Uwe it does … but I feel it doesn’t just sound like … I think it’s plain nicked of some song that I just can’t name. Well it’s the season so there is plenty of time to spend restless night with wondering …
The USS Enterprise … 😀 You are right here of course. When it comes to antimatter I immidiatley think of this guy wondering “what the frecking hell they’re all on about this antimatter when I got more than enough troubles here with matter!”
December 19th, 2024 at 15:35