She’s anarchy and treason
A newly restored video for Gillan track Sleeping on the Job off the Glory Road album has been posted on YouTube:
Thanks to steve4422 for the heads-up.
![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/morse10.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/morse.jpg)
A newly restored video for Gillan track Sleeping on the Job off the Glory Road album has been posted on YouTube:
Thanks to steve4422 for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Gillian pulled the plug on momentum that was going somewhere and he chose the money root. He always claimed that he bankrupt only he himself knows if that was truthful or not. I value his contribution to this period and commercially he sold a lot of records but I don’t think his heart was fully in it.
January 18th, 2025 at 03:36Peace ✌️
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard this and I’m pretty sure the solo is a little different to the album version .
January 18th, 2025 at 14:53Gillan also talks very positively and with happy memories about the late great Bernie T …and a few comparisons to Hendrix !
I’ve had a yearning for a bit of Gillan lately, they were a fantastic and prolific band .
Anyone remember the ” For Gillian fans only ” album that you got free with Glory Road ? Abbey of Thelema etc ? …I’m pretty sure there was a version of Shape of Things on that ( I’ll have to dig mine out from the attic )
Oh yes …just remembered…Post fade brain Damage !…I.G always used to give you your moneys worth !
Hello,
January 18th, 2025 at 18:51I haven’t commented here in a decade possibly. But hey, what a song!
Very cool single? Version.
I really loved Gillan. So much energy. I know most talk about Rainbow at that time but the inclusion of that punk energy really was great. Ritchie’s stuff increasingly felt too safe. Gillan liked to push the envelope, in my opinion. And included one of Irelands great guitar players.
@1 The money route? Gillan was never about the money. He resisted many more lucrative opportunities.
January 18th, 2025 at 19:58Gillan and the Glory Road album in particular were, in my opinion, the best thing to come out of the ashes of DP. Pushing at the boundaries of rock, It was never going to be a huge commercial success and therein lay the problem. The touring was too intense, audiences a bit thin on the ground and Gillian’s voice suffering. Nevertheless they left behind some great music and memories. For me, seeing Gillan live on consecutive nights at Poole Wessex Hall and Southampton Gaumont will stay with me forever. Janice Gers on guitar by then with bags of energy and musicianship to complement Colin Towns on keyboards. The late Mick Underwood powering things along at the back on the drums, McCoy on bass. fantastic!!
January 18th, 2025 at 20:10Gillan has always been my hero and seeing him on Top of the Pops doing ” Trouble ” when I was 13 was how I found myself with this never ending love affair with Purple ( and most things related ) …but, I have learnt over the years to take a lot of what he says with a large pinch of salt ! All this bollocks about never being a millionaire for example ! What a load of tosh !
January 18th, 2025 at 22:38Who knows what happened with the Gillan band ? There’s stories about debt collectors chasing after them after their last shows at Wembley in 1982 !?
I guess you’ve just got to read between the lines and the truth is in there somewhere.
What I do know is , from 79 till 82 they were massive in the UK…an album or 2 a year , regulars at Reading festival always on UK tv ( especially TOTP) and lots of hit singles and sell out UK tours ( and Europe and the far east ) …
I’m gonna dig out my old Gillan albums and listen to them in the Dead of night with a vengeance! Are you sure ? Well, I’m a bit ” Nervous” about it 😬 ( see what I did there !? )
Your sisters in my list !
The audio is a longer version than the Gillan album song I believe. One punter commenting years ago on the ‘tube’ said it was off the Japanese ‘Mr Universe’ issue. I only ever owned the original studio album, Glory Road.
Ian Gillan commenting on Bernie Tormé recently. Cheers.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yjC7BAuZ6Gs
January 19th, 2025 at 00:19Thanks MacGregor …that was the ci I wanted to upload…but didn’t know how !
In the meantime!…this is the kinda suff we would get on UK tv all the tie ( look out for a very young Sandi Toskvig)
January 19th, 2025 at 01:24https://youtu.be/IimJVGDAEM0?si=kMuBlBYWEoAEj2MS
I remember hearing that song live first in early 1980 – before the single or the Glory Road album were released in Germany. I saw them in a club in Wiesbaden, set list was the same as here, with notably Ian playing rhythm guitar on a Strat for the encore:
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/gillan/1980/kant-kino-berlin-germany-3bc7405c.html
Sleeping On The Job is one of the very purplish songs of Gillan, right down to the fact that it doesn’t really have a chorus to speak of, an old Purple malady! 😂
GILLAN had good success in the UK, but pretty much nowhere else except in – Karin tells us this – the Kingdom of Denmark which must have accounted for at least 100 additional records sold. 🙄 It’s difficult to support a band just with the UK market, you need to have the UK success of, say, the Manic Street Preachers to do that – a band that to this day plays clubs in Germany, if they play here at all. And GILLAN were never the Manics even in their home country.
Why one asks? For the US, their ragtag image (which I found appealing) was certainly a problem, Americans like their rock bands to look a certain way and the 80s were more image-conscious than the decades before. The production of the GILLAN albums was not really attuned to FM radio either. In Germany, I think GILLAN suffered for not sounding as professionally sleek as the altogether stiffer Rainbow or as bluesy-warm as Whitesnake, that abrasive sound put quite a few people off.
Ian speaks fondly of Bernie Torme these days, yes,
https://youtube.com/shorts/22xWAUPZF2E?si=vIG_lhBXAeG46KAF
but it wasn’t always so, in hindsight firing him just because he skipped a TOTP TV appearance in the UK (relations in the band at this point had soured because of money issues and Bernie was especially inquisitive with the management wanting to see accounts)
https://youtu.be/pRPCgRXul4s
was perhaps a bit rash (it’s something a miffed and fickle Alan Lancaster did more than once with Status Quo – without any repercussions for him, they would just do the performances without him, having him sometimes replaced by a puppet or Jim Lea from befriended band Slade).
https://youtu.be/Yw_sJifUYgM
https://youtu.be/XkuJTIFDGPk
https://youtu.be/rtm2HOTNC6Y
Of course, Alan was a founder member of Quo and Bernie with GILLAN just a hired hand. That can make a difference.
Janick Gers was certainly the cleaner and more proficient guitarist, also more in a Blackmore vein, but he didn’t have Bernie’s persona which made you want to watch him. Yet Janick made something of his start with GILlAN, moving on to Bruce Dickinson and eventually Iron Maiden while Bernie’s career following his departure from GILLAN never found back on its feet again.
January 19th, 2025 at 09:05@9
“GILLAN had good success in the UK, but pretty much nowhere else except in – Karin tells us this – the Kingdom of Denmark which must have accounted for at least 100 additional records sold. 🙄” 🤣🤣🤣
You have such a neat way of bringing the Danes down! Like we really don’t matter….. well maybe we don’t, but if it wasn’t for us, then you wouldn’t have…..(🤔) …….(😐)……(🫤)……(wait a minute, still scratching my head)……😑 well you wouldn’t have anyone to taunt mercilessly 😄
“but it wasn’t always so, in hindsight firing him just because he skipped a TOTP TV appearance in the UK (relations in the band at this point had soured because of money issues and Bernie was especially inquisitive with the management wanting to see accounts)” – yeah I was also listening twice about that, but maybe it was the young banjo-axeman who later on demonstrated quite loudly his dissatisfactions. I seem to remember he toured around and complained loudly about the way he was sacked.
Well, who knows what REALLY happened?
January 19th, 2025 at 10:36@7 Not sure about the Japanese version of ‘Mr. Universe’, but the Japanese ‘Gillan’ album has a version of ‘Sleeping on the Job’ on it with Steve Byrd on guitar. I like that version better. It is heavier and more powerful.
@9 In commercial term, Bernie’s career never recovered, indeed, but there wasn’t much to recover, then. Gillan the band never made money (maybe they did but the management wasted it royally, then) and Bernie left exactly because of that. In creative terms, though, Bernie played a lot of good music later. I like the stuff he did with John McCoy in GMT power trio.
January 19th, 2025 at 16:41All former GILLAN members (with the exception of Janick Gers) have said that the finances around the band were murky and dodgily handled by Ian and Phil Banfield (who was inexperienced at the time, having been a tour promoter before not a manager).
I don’t think that this was due to any ill intent from Ian’s or Phil’s side, but they were in over their head. It’s no secret that Big Ian – unlike Little Ian or Ritchie – is not very good at handling numbers and money. He needs a large scale organisation to take care of matters for him (a look at the careers of IGB, GILLAN and all his subsequent solo recording & touring bands confirms that, it was always only on a cottage industry level compared to the big business of DP or Black Sabbath).
At a certain point in time, Ian’s hand was forced because the band was running out of money to keep it afloat. It is no surprise that this left the others bitter as they had perceived Ian as this post-Deep Purple millionaire. Which he may have or may not have been – perception is everything here. I believe at the end of GILLAN he was no longer in control of the situation, so he simply left (he had done the same thing with IGB).
Add to that how Virgin became unruly to impatient watching Rainbow and Whitesnake climb in sales and popularity from album to album while GILLAN made little progress. Around the time Rainbow was playing large halls in Germany (the generally safe market for anything ex-DP) and Whitesnake was selling out medium-sized halls in Germany (and gradually becoming too popular for them), GILLAN – in their fourth year as a band – were still playing clubs, small halls at the most, and daylight slots at German rock festivals. For the singer of DP’s most popular line-up, widely adored in Germany, that wasn’t really all that great.
PS: Liebe Karin 💕, Denmark is a lovely (and brave) country with even lovelier people speaking a cute language that must warm anyone’s heart. (Even the food has improved over the decades – if from very humble beginnings …) I just like to pull your ben a little!
January 19th, 2025 at 16:52I just watched the original video. The picture quality and audio-visual sync is improved but the audio quality sounded the same to me.
January 19th, 2025 at 19:32This is a second attempt at a comment as the other one when sent appeared to disappear into, well somewhere never to be seen again perhaps. Anyway just in case, regarding Gillan & what happened with Bernie and the other members a little later. Did big Ian do a Ritchie, seems so in certain aspects & also a little bit of Ozzy & Sharon. Don’t put up with band members rocking the boat. The Deep Purple reunion couldn’t come around quickly enough it seems although Gillan himself possibly did ok with the Sabbath fiasco, but not as good as what followed, if talking finances & moving forward musically. Regarding Gillan the band & its lack of USA recognition, well could it have simply been that the songs were not appealing enough to the masses, if the masses ever heard them. Was there any determined effort to ‘conquer’ the States, most probably not as we have read over the years. I could never see Ian Gillan doing the ‘hair metal’ charade, that’s for sure. In fact he went the opposite, cutting his hair shorter. Cheers.
January 20th, 2025 at 00:23Georgivs, you mean this version here, right?
https://youtu.be/3-ROzv9ru6s
That was indeed released with the ‘Japanese Album’ as a bonus track of the rpm CD release, but it wasn’t on the original vinyl and stems from a later time. But it is unclear whether it still features Steve Byrd or already Bernie Torme, albeit in a very subdued and controlled form with none of Bernie’s otherwise evident trademark raucousness.
It DOES sound like it could be Steve Byrd. Which could mean that he was still around when GILLAN went into the studio to record Mr Universe, their European debut, but that is probably unlikely, Steve left GILLAN before those recordings I believe.
Simon Robinson’s liner notes say that the origins of this version are murky and that the version was perhaps slated as a single. Maybe one to come out post the Japanese Album, yet prior to the Mr Universe album? As I have written, when I saw GlILLAN in early 1980, it was already in the set though recordings for Glory Road were still about a half-year away. The Steve Byrd incarnation of GILLAN existed for about a year from summer 1978 to summer 1979, it might very well be that they recorded additional tracks to the Japanese Album during that time.
I always thought that Steve Byrd left GILLAN by his own volition because it wasn’t his type of music and he didn’t see the band go anywhere – turns out he was sacked for not subscribing to the axe hero image (very much like what Big Ian did with Steve Morris when he replaced him with Dean Howard or, if you like, having Steve Morse make room for Simon McBride … 😈)
https://www.metaltalk.net/2016580.php
Don’t think Steve regretted the (admittedly forced) move, from 1982 to 1995 he found work with a commercially slightly more successful entity, (love) blondes just have more fun!
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFJK5SkyeYMHhYfqTvUp6UR59nv7H6rCQRabU47ZN6uaSNMI9Cy2dTpiVacQO5X9LhDKI72PWJRgfIaW8zryCdXe8grDaMljEyh30qrwKr4fOURdcX-GbboH9T6aihqaR4QVcGGEFAjPA/s1600/descarga.jpg
https://youtu.be/9gt_PBPGri0
https://youtu.be/Gb_DZjg2TPE
So while Big Ian spent much of 1983 standing between two mustached blokes from Birmingham disturbing priests and zeroing heroes, Steve enjoyed the less facial hair-plagued company of the fabulous Ms Wilde!
https://youtu.be/y43TvoGOh6Y
https://youtu.be/SiEWuvWnpGw
January 20th, 2025 at 14:29@2 Steve
January 20th, 2025 at 17:33yes it’s true, this guitar solo is longer than what we’ve ever heard. I have the 45° vinyl of this song taken in London in the early 80s in carnaby street. Its image you see in the 2cd version with OnlyForFans..
It was clear that Gillan was not interested in money, relatively speaking, since the early 70s when he gave up the theatre tour of Jesus Christ Superstar to dedicate himself only to DP instead.
January 20th, 2025 at 18:20“Regarding Gillan the band & its lack of USA recognition, well could it have simply been
(I) that the songs were not appealing enough to the masses, if the masses ever heard them.
(II) Was there any determined effort to ‘conquer’ the States, most probably not as we have read over the years. I could never see Ian Gillan doing the ‘hair metal’ charade, that’s for sure.”
(I) I don’t think that the Gillan/Towns or Gillan/McCoy songwriting output was any worse than Blackmore/Dio, Blackmore/Glover/Turner or Coverdale/Moody/Marsden, in fact it was often times more daring/fresher, varied and less safe. Both Rainbow and Whitesnake were inherently conservative bands with a like-minded audience. GILLAN had hard rock/heavy metal elements at its core, plus Punk energy and raucousness, power pop (McCoy, defying his looks, was a relatively poppy writer, always including melodic hooks),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urCuSWwEty0
prog (both Towns and McCoy came from prog/fusion bands, namely IGB and ZZebra), off-the-wall jazz (Towns always sounded jazzy and avant-garde) and even a bit of blues (less than Whitesnake or Rainbow though) as additional influences.
[Besides, GILLAN had of course something unique, a floating bass player, here at 01:55!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGlKuREFUwo ]
Among the three major post-Purple Split bands, I actually think GILLAN were closest to Mk II’s unbridled creativity as audible on, say, Fireball and WDWTWA. Unafraid to leave well-trodden paths at least once in a while. In contrast, WS and Rainbow essentially never wanted to rock the boat of expectations from DP, especially Mk III fans. If you liked Burn, Rainbow’s Rising and WS’ Ready an’ Willing did not test your listening habits, you got more or less what you hoped/craved for.
(II) You have a point with the lack of a determined effort to crack the States though. I think that would have needed (i) a strong US management, something like Leber-Krebs, (ii) a more streamlined sound for FM airplay and (iii) a lengthy tour with an established act/concert draw in the US. Never forget how DP Mk II broke America not via the release of In Rock, but by opening for The Faces who were in the early 70s already a major draw there (and how Dio era Rainbow failed trying to do the same thing with REO Speedwagon in 1978). Whether Big Ian was up to doing that kind of groundwork in the early 80s anymore I dunno, in any case it would have likely cost money to get on a tour like that and that is where also the motley crew (as opposed to Mötley Crüe!) image of GILLAN played a role, would you bet your money on an outfit with as ramshackle a look as GILLAN,
– a 70s hero approaching his fifth decade,
– a punky Adam Ant reject,
– a nerdy little keyboarder,
– a huge bald bassist you cannot hide on stage,
– and a drummer so weathered he looked like he was part of the road crew? 😂
All very charming, but the arena rock business in the US was inherently conservative and experimentation-averse too. Can you blame someone like Leber-Krebs for rather putting their money on a bunch of youths, all in their early 20s from Sheffield?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhSdljm909Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4dHr8evt6k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SnxBvH-0Mc
January 20th, 2025 at 19:55@18
“Among the three major post-Purple Split bands, I actually think GILLAN were closest to Mk II’s unbridled creativity as audible on, say, Fireball and WDWTWA.” <- completely right there Uwe! 😊
But I do have a question, you say: “(I) that the songs were not appealing enough to the masses, if the masses ever heard them.” <- who was responsible for that? I don’t think it was any member of the band, so where was the admin/manager and what did they he do?☺️
January 20th, 2025 at 20:42@ 18 – it isn’t that the Gillan band songs are better or worse Uwe, it is the style of the songs, melody wise etc. At that time the AOR bands were getting into gear big time, we know that. We also know how Ritchie & young Cov’s wanted a slice of that pie, each to their own. The Gillan delivery of songs wasn’t exactly as pretty in melodies in that sense. I like most of it & purchased it for the harder rock style it had, but at that time in the USA? As you also say it probably was the image thing too, not that I put any emphasis on that. “If you liked Burn, Rainbow’s Rising and WS’ Ready an’ Willing did not test your listening habits, you got more or less what you hoped/craved for.” I didn’t expect anything from those bands, other than good rock music of course. I knew nothing about what was coming before those albums arrived in my collection. No perceived wants or desires at anything that resembled Deep Purple in song format at all. I purchased those albums with open ears & enjoyed them immensely. Of course I was craving Blackmore’s guitar playing, most fans would have been. The Ready an’ Willing album I knew nothing about at all, no Jon Lord or Ian Paice in a band with David Coverdale. I bought that album picking it up in store and looking at it and curiously wondering who it was. Luckily the album wasn’t sealed so I could sneak a look at the vinyl itself & I noticed Lord & Paice mentioned on a few song credits. That was enough to purchase it, but I wasn’t hoping it would sound like DP. I had no idea who Moody & Murray were, Marsden only because of PAL and because I didn’t go for the PAL album as such it was a chance to hear Bernie Marsden rocking ‘n rolling. Funny how things change over time though as these days I prefer the PAL album to any Whitesnake. As that saying goes, it is all rock ‘n roll. Cheers.
January 20th, 2025 at 21:10I didn’t say that, liebe Karin, the Tasmanian did! Bernie Torme once stated in an interview that Phil Banfield was a horrible manager with his tour promoter background and that Ian just chose him because he basically didn’t want to be managed at all. However, that was more than 40 years ago, Phil might have learned something of the trade in the meantime.
I think it was always difficult to sell either Big Ian and GILLAN or Ritchie and Rainbow in the early 80s as ‘new’ artists in the US, they were both a bit long in the tooth by then in a business that worships youth, fashion and the most recent trend. DC was successful in having himself repackaged as ‘new’ for the US market, but he was younger than the other two; still age was a concern for him too when 1987 (the album) came out and he was already in his mid 30s. In the promotion of the album, A&R Svengali John Kalodner had both David’s true age and his former tenure with DP (which might have led people to do the math) hushed over. In contrast, when Big Ian and Ritchie reconquered America upon the DP reunion in 1984 they were firmly – whether they liked it or not – placed in the ‘classic rock’ bracket, elder statesmen returning to their pastures. No one tried to sell DP as ‘new’ in 1984.
January 20th, 2025 at 21:50@18 Uwe Hornung
January 20th, 2025 at 21:50when Glory Road was released, Gillan was only 35, not 50..
AndreA
Lovely to hear from you again..how is life with you ? Still enjoying the new album ?
So, you have a copy of the ” For Gillan fans only ” album, given out as a freebie with so many issues of Glory road !? I’ve got it too ( though mine is in the attic with all my other vinyl ) I actually got mine from a friend who was massively into Whitesnake ( this was near the time of Come and get it ..around 1980 ish ) …I think I paid around 5 quid for it and I can remember him telling me it was rare …and it seems he was right ( it’s hard to find now ) so we may have something valuable there !
With regards to Jesus Christ Superstar …there is a very recent interview with Gillan where he talks about being offered the gig and Tim Rice and ALW telling him he would be on around a hundred quid a week …to which he replies …he was already on a thousand a week ( possibly more ) with Purple..so , I guess money had something to do with it ( but you certainly can’t blame him )
I wonder how many others had the Gillan fans only album …it was great …really happy memories.
January 20th, 2025 at 21:50Do you remember all the B sides you used to get with the singles ?…he certainly looked after his fans !
I remember buying ” Trouble” and getting ” Your sisters on my list ” on the B side …and a bonus single with Mr Universe , Vengeance and SOTW all live from the Reading festival! Brilliant stuff …and I’ve still got them
@ 19 -Karin that second comment was from me in regards to ‘the masses not listening or wanting etc” Who was responsible, well one would think Ian himself would be but who knows what was going down at that time. He obviously most probably wasn’t possessed with that USA stardom thing that others were. Finances possibly too. Coverdale was in debt wasn’t he around that early to mid 80’s period. But he had backers as such & was ‘possessed’ by all that stardom and prepared to throw it all on the line, a totally different outlook indeed. Gillan was looking at getting out of debt and not falling further into that abyss. One way to look at something we all know nothing about, ha ha ha. Oh the drama of it all. Someone should do a movie or something. Oh hang on, they did didn’t they, Spinal Tap. Cheers.
January 20th, 2025 at 22:10I have to admit that my purchases of Rising and Read an’ Willing were all Purple legacy-guided and that I spent from 1976 to 1984 waiting for the reunion to happen. I wasn’t sure of it, but I never ruled it out.
No post-split band ever eclipsed Purple for me, Rainbow was too stern and stiff, GILLAN too abrasive and sometimes outright shrill, Whitesnake too safe and Bad Company’ish. Of all the post-split albums, I thought the Hughes Thrall debut was the one that welded hard rock legacy of an ex-Purple and new AOR and New Wave influences coupled with a then very contemporary production together best and most promisingly. I really thought that hell of an album would go somewhere.
https://youtu.be/-z_OkiSPzPI
January 20th, 2025 at 22:12I always thought that the Fire In The Basement main guitar riff was Blackmore’s take on the Sleeping On The Job main guitar riff, but set in a Lazy kind of framework.
Fish Out Of Water Series Reaction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTFS80tRyFE
Sleeping On The Job at the BBC in 1979
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnaFfeLfVVk
January 21st, 2025 at 00:13@21 yes I remember Bernie T was a bitter man sometimes.
But why did he blame Ian? Was Ian really ‘the leader of the pack’. Or was it merely a collective like Purple seems to be, you know each member has 1 wote and no one is the big chief ?(even though I know this is a naive question because as a lot of you in here has said several times: Ian took over the chairman role after Ritchie was gone 😉) but still he and the rest of Purple states that each one are equal to each other and no one is the big chief 😉
The age thing amuses me very much actually, because now they are not quite young anymore 😉 and everybody seems to think it’s not a problem at all! Even the critics (except Thomas Treo in Denmark who couldn’t say one positive word regarding Purple as a band or Ian as the vocalist! And it is not only last year he was angry and bitter towards them, when Jon was gone, here’s what he said after ‘Now what’ was released:
“The rock legends are reduced to an undignified self-parody on their first album in eight years.
The group seems rubber-heavy and uninspired in a clunky plastic production by Bob Ezrin, which contributes to the veterans stumbling around like a clumsy dinosaur with no sense of direction.
The sad remains of Deep Purple today resemble Spinal Tap more than the band that shook up the rock world in the early 1970s.
‘Now What?!’ they ask. ‘Stop’ is the answer.“
😳😝 if I seem a bit bitter regarding Thomas Treo it’s not completely wrong!
Well I was led astray, but the topic was their age, today most honest and impartial critics (did you get that Thomas?!😜) do actually acknowledge their great work and achievements and are impressed with their work ethics and professionalism!
@24
January 21st, 2025 at 08:02“He obviously most probably wasn’t possessed with that USA stardom thing that others were. Finances possibly too. “ yes I guess you’re right there MacGregor ☺️
@23 Steve
January 21st, 2025 at 11:06I don’t play the last DP since last november..
So I think I am going to it this afternoon and then I will tell you..😅
@15 Yep, this is the version I’m talking about. It may be Steve Byrd or it may be not, but there is no way this is Bernie playing.
“very much like what Big Ian did with Steve Morris when he replaced him with Dean Howard” – in his autobiography Ian put a good face on this story and said that it was the management who insisted on replacing Steve. It’s was encouraging to see Steve play on Ian’s later records (and do a fine job) and therefore hold no grudges against Ian.
January 21st, 2025 at 13:50AndreA, when you’re 35, you’re living in your fourth decade and approaching your fifth. The minute you’re born, you’re already in your first decade. 35 = approaching your fifth decade and once you’re in your 50s, you’re well into your sixth decade, I can’t help it, but if you have found a way to avoid this saddening sequence, then please share it with me! 🤗
Karin, Bernie Torme was actually less bitter than most former GILLAN band members, he simply disagreed with Gillan and Banfield in business matters, but didn’t feel deceived like the others later did. Yes, GILLAN was a democratic band, but Ian was even there a first among equals, add to that the wealth gulf between him and his fellow musicians, not one of them had been in a money generating, arena touring, gold and platinum record sales machine like DP. But unlike Blackmore (and also DC at least in his later years) Big Ian isn’t a heavy-handed leader, much less a dictator, but a leader he still is/has become.
This Thomas Treo felllow by the way couldn’t have been further off the mark with his critique/panning of Now What?! Have him exiled to Jylland and dig up land mines there or something … 😎
Steve, I’m not sure whether Big Ian didn’t mix up numbers and memories in that interview. £ 1.000 a week from Purple when he was approached to be part of the musical cast of JCSS which must have been in 1970? I doubt it. In late 1971/72 perhaps yes. A thousand quid per week was an inordinate amount of money in the early 70s, the GILLAN musicians earned less than £ 100 per week ten years later! In 1970, £ 100 a week for a musical engagement was very well-paid.
January 21st, 2025 at 15:16@ Steve 23
I just listened to the album again =1 and I still like it! yes!
At times there are melodies that almost move me 😪💜.
To be a top album I would have removed these songs:
I’m Saying Nothin
Now You’re Talkin
As I said some time ago I hope for the next album with a harmonica
ciaooo
🍷
January 21st, 2025 at 16:57@30
“This Thomas Treo felllow by the way couldn’t have been further off the mark with his critique/panning of Now What?! Have him exiled to Jylland and dig up land mines there or something … 😎”
NO NO NO! NO! I won’t have him anywhere near me my sweetheart and me and our little dog Anton!
He is abandoned to Sjælland where he can grow old and even more bitter 😝😆
‘Now what?!’ is a lovely record, and as far as I’m concerned he is of course allowed to his own opinion but when it’s so wrong regarding Purple, he ought to be examined. (Have heard from a friend that he really is kind and friendly, but then it’s a even bigger mystery why he dislikes Purple so much 🥺)
January 21st, 2025 at 17:40@ 30 Uwe
January 21st, 2025 at 17:48no, at 35 I’m a decade and a half away from 50. Maybe to learn to count you should watch more Formula 1
😅
Ciaoo 🍷
@30
“Karin, Bernie Torme was actually less bitter than most former GILLAN band members, he simply disagreed with Gillan and Banfield in business matters.”
Ok Uwe, but I can remember Bernie gossiping about him being fired for no good reason. (Sorry can’t find anything in writing about it, so you just have to believe me ☺️) and he seemed pretty angry about it all.
“Big Ian isn’t a heavy-handed leader, much less a dictator, but a leader he still is/has become.”
Well according to his lifelong ‘best friend’ Ritchie, Ian is an alpha male, (and here I have evidence 😉):
https://youtu.be/Sp_jdaMpwVA?si=BZj1e5dJY8qqfDri
And it doesn’t seem like Ritchie was very impressed of his former mate (but being a female, I am very good to hear between the lines (yeah yeah so are the rest of you, I know 😌) and it’s clear as daylight how envious Ritchie is).
Sometimes in le Royaume du Danemark it’s said (maybe also in other countries) that women are hateful and spiteful towards each other, but should any females need inspiration, Ritchie is a very good example in being exactly that!
I dislike it very much because he is (was) such an eminent guitar player, so poetic and romantic, so in my head it’s difficult, almost impossible, to understand why all this animosity is happening 😥
(I need a handkerchief , or maybe a bit of this):
https://youtu.be/FshU58nI0Ts?si=WNpTq2Gvrrv3ftB_
😃😍 yeah, that helped ☺️
January 21st, 2025 at 18:11Uwe ” I MUST HAVE THE LAST WORD!” Hornung ….I’m only going from a very recent interview I saw with Gillan on UK tv ( I’m sure it will be available on You Tube ) ..but , I do understand that you are the supreme and definitive Oracle of all things Purple, having been omnipotent at every moment of their lives !
I’ll let you go now as I imagine you’re on a conference call with Blackmore and Gillan….telling them exactly what they had for dinner 50 years ago ! 🤣🤣🤣
Hi AndreA
January 21st, 2025 at 19:24That’s funny because I actually like the 2 songs you don’t like ! ( I guess that’s what makes an album )
I’ve been listening to Purpendicular lately ( what an album that was !) …can you believe it was 29 years ago , this month that it was released!
Bring back Steve ! Plleeasee
@ 27- “But why did he blame Ian? Was Ian really ‘the leader of the pack’. Or was it merely a collective like Purple seems to be, you know each member has 1 wote and no one is the big chief ?” It was Ian Gillan’s band, Rainbow was Ritchie’s, Whitesnake was Coverdale’s. The buck stops there, well it should but sometimes not necessarily. It is their vision, for better or worse. In regards to the journalist or critic in Denmark regarding Now What” ““The rock legends are reduced to an undignified self-parody on their first album in eight years.
January 21st, 2025 at 21:00The group seems rubber-heavy and uninspired in a clunky plastic production by Bob Ezrin, which contributes to the veterans stumbling around like a clumsy dinosaur with no sense of direction.
The sad remains of Deep Purple today resemble Spinal Tap more than the band that shook up the rock world in the early 1970s.
‘Now What?!’ they ask. ‘Stop’ is the answer.“ Ouch & ouch again Karin. Still, everybody is entitled to their opinion, if he hears & sees it like that, that is what it is to him. Many people could say worse than that. Thanks for the early morning humour along with my coffee, I enjoyed both. Cheers.
Uwe
January 21st, 2025 at 22:17so if I die tomorrow at 56 years old on the tomb they will write instead of the date “† in the decade of 70”. I understand now, mumble mumble: I hope to get to 110 years old then, I’m more optimistic now 🤣👍
@ Steve 35
but do you miss Morse? I don’t know, if I do. I’m definitely looking forward to Mc Bride’s second album more than Morse’s return. Although Morse is great, I’m certainly not the one who discovered him, I think that Mc Bride is more enjoyable when he plays the rhythm guitar.
January 21st, 2025 at 22:28Ciaoo
@ Steve 35
However, it seems that it was Morse who wanted to leave rather than the DPs who abandoned him. He could no longer stand the long life on the road.
January 21st, 2025 at 23:01Lieber Steve, I don’t profess to know everything nor do I question that you heard what you heard nor that Ian said what he said. But I also remember Ian moaning for years how Tony Edwards kept him on a tight budget, not giving advance allowances of even small amounts when begged. And Ian’s perception of things sometimes changes over time. On IGB’s CAT there is the scathing, character-assassinating song Money Lender about his then financial manager John Reid – in his bio years later, Ian regrets the accusations he made in that song and says he misunderstood things at the time and that he had himself had been irresponsible with his finances.
Ian’s recollections sometimes need a grain of salt – I don’t remember the “half-empty halls” that were allegedly commonplace on the last tours with Ritchie, but they have become a staple of Gillan lore just like the hordes of teenagers that nowadays seem to frequent DP gigs according to him. (I guess once you’re almost 80, most people must look young to you! 😂)
Re the love/hate relationship between Ritchie and Ian, Karin, I believe that a younger Ritchie was obsessively competitive and a younger Ian unable to ever back down even in small things, at least as regards Ritchie. That is why they were at loggerheads so often. Add to that how Ritchie had a tendency to scheme to get his way while Ian would be more blunt “in your face”, but burdened with a very long memory (whereas Ritchie tends to be more playful about what happened in the past, he doesn’t seem to dwell on it as much as Ian).
But I don’t want to have the last word again! 😂
January 22nd, 2025 at 00:02AndreA, I fear a mathematical schism between the two of us approaching! 🤗 Yes, when you’re 35, you still have 15 years to go until you turn 50, but you are just the same already in your fourth life decade and approaching the fifth. And the second you turn 50, your sixth decade begins, not your fifth, because you already have spent five of them on Earth:
0 to 9 years = 1st decade
10 to 19 years = 2nd decade
20 to 29 years = 3rd decade
30 to 39 years = 4th decade
40 to 49 years = 5th decade
50 to 59 years = 6th decade
I can’t help it! 😎
January 22nd, 2025 at 00:27Uwe,
January 22nd, 2025 at 08:18you’re funny,
Because they belong to the same decade, one of 1 year and one of 10, for you they are the same. 🙃
Ok, I won’t insist anymore..
you’re convinced..
@36
“Ouch & ouch again Karin. Still, everybody is entitled to their opinion, if he hears & sees it like that, that is what it is to him. “
Well MacGregor, yes and no!
Of course he is entitled to his own opinion! But – he has never said anything fair regarding Purple in the last 20 years!
He was at the concert with Purple in ‘24 at “Smuk fest” in Skanderborg (Denmark) and he was hateful and downright nasty (ouch 🥴 dislike that word because a certain orange gentleman from the west is using that all the time 😝☺️) and even though everybody was enjoying themselves immensely, he took no notice of the crowds reaction.
And of course a critic must say how he sees and hears, but sometimes it seems like he is in opposition just for the fun of it!
When =1 was launched Thomas Treo was veeeery silent!
“Thanks for the early morning humour along with my coffee, I enjoyed both. Cheers” <- oh thank you 🤗 I wasn’t aware I was funny at all (well good for me 😂)
January 22nd, 2025 at 08:53May wonderful coffee fill your day ☕️☺️
@37 & 41:
AndreA I have to say Uwe is right (on this one 😉) (well he often outsmarts us 😄)
January 22nd, 2025 at 08:56@41- I am so glad you stopped there Uwe, at the 6th decade. Sheesh, I cannot bear it, the realisation that I could be in my 7th decade. You will notice I did say ‘could’, I am still actually in my 3rd decade, he he he, oh well, such is life! Cheers.
January 22nd, 2025 at 09:18Hi Andre
January 22nd, 2025 at 13:02Yes, I do miss Morse …I listen back to Purpendicular and Whoosh and think how good they were …and innovative.
Simon is a brilliant player but let’s face it , he only got the gig cus he was convenient and available…and sadly , DP are nearing the end now , so he was an easy option to get them over the line .
We’ll see what the next album brings, I’m prepared to be amazed …but, I doubt it ….unless Steve comes back of course !
@40
“Re the love/hate relationship between Ritchie and Ian,..”
Ø
In Denmark there is this ongoing rumour that the main reason to the animosity between the two alpha-males should be that Ian had an affair with one of Ritchie’s women, but then I read this:
“ This is the old question and you have probably heard this many times. It’s about Blackmore. I vaguely remember that I read in a magazine many years ago that the reason that you dislike (or disliked) each other was that the one of you had an affair with the others wife/girlfriend. Please clear out this 30 years old thought in my head.”(asked by Gert from Denmark)
January 22nd, 2025 at 17:53And then Ian G answered like this:
“I do love Ritchie’s taste in women; they are all delightful. But no, I didn’t have an affair with any of them – yet!“ (got this from a Google search about the song Fiji actually)
So even that one juicy rumour we had here in Denmark are now dead, shot down! 😄
@ 44 Dear Karin Verndal
I’ve always known what a decade is and how to count it but from the way he writes it seems that when Glory Road came out, Gillan could have been 35 or 49 even though it was almost the same thing.. I wanted to be more precise about the story, Gillan was 35, actually I’ll be even more specific given how they reason here and I write this: Gillan was born in August 45, Glory Road in October 80. So? So it means that when the album came out, Gillan was even closer to the third decade than the fifth as Mr. Uwe claims according to his reasoning 😅 I hope you agree now peace ☮ and love ♡ 🙂
January 23rd, 2025 at 07:51AndreA, stating that someone is ‘approaching’ her/his such-and-such life ‘decade’ is of course a linguistic/journalistic trick to make that person seem older. Most 37-year-old actresses would likely be horrified if they were qualified as “approaching their fifth decade”, yet that’s what they are. It’s not my invention!
Karin and her saucy gossip all the time, tsk, tsk, tsk! Don’t you know that this is a forum dedicated to a somber male view of musical facts and nothing but the facts, I mean it’s not like we suddenly go off on, say, WW II fighter planes or anything … 🤣
Alas!, it figures how a Viking descendant like you would raise the subject of inter-band wife sharing on these holy pages, essentially of course a pagan practice of Nordic tribes.
But since we’re now at it and I try to be inclusive with your gossip preferences (takes deep breath …):
Girlfriend sharing (if in sequence rather than simultaneously, at least that I know of) did of course happen with DP more than once. Glenn Hughes Mk III era squeeze Vickie Gibbs was handed down (poor choice of words here!) to Jon Lord in Mk IV – she subsequently became (and stayed) Vickie Lord (identical twin sister to Little Ian’s wife Jacky, née Gibbs).
https://64.media.tumblr.com/8718efc30bbfc690d794a05f5b1f877a/tumblr_od0b9p4If01ucq8mqo1_1280.jpg
(The picture description is inaccurate, it’s Vickie you see, not Jacky, but hey they were identical twins, so you never really knew in any case and could be forgiven …)
And Tommy Bolin’s DP audition companion (besides his Strat and amps of course), Karen Ulibarri (the one Jon Lord famously drooled about “in her stunning crotchet dress with nothing underneath”),
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRiO0beKQHVj2OHi4o9VX2CCmePlT5WI6wUPBgjt3_XUxXWwNO3
https://media.gettyimages.com/id/96542145/photo/tommy-bolin-posed-in-new-york.jpg?s=1024×1024&w=gi&k=20&c=NnlFbtFbrMCPVyTcykEjExHzrkteSxKh_gRVUJE-5Bc=
became (with the blessings of Tommy) the first Mrs Hughes in 1977, even though Glenn generally had a penchant for blondes sitting on his lap.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTtDL2MET2ly-XDcDpOoML_6A3eKyXDR5y77Q&s
Finally, did Big Ian and Ritchie have a similar taste in women?
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/73/0c/db/730cdbf92152098b05611b39697ef0f5.jpg
(That is Ritchie’s third wife Amy Rothman in the middle.)
Let’s see, Ian’s girlfriend throughout the 70s was Zoe Dean
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRnCjfUDrJLAormStw4eopzAYaI7o_t0N6qZZ2rolwZhOdiOWeajg3OMDBGGqxR94qdfVc&usqp=CAU ,
while Ritchie was married to Babs (wife no. 2) for the first half of the decade (Ritchie is somewhat bipolar, of his four wives, two are German and two Jewish-American Princesses)
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/99/ec/56/99ec56bd0a76ba92dad14139c5b98c60.jpg ,
you decide if they are the same type!
Now let’s get back to WW II fighter planes please!
January 23rd, 2025 at 17:01@49
“Karin and her saucy gossip all the time, tsk, tsk, tsk! “
Well, according to you I’m a which, a Viking, a gossiper, can’t you say anything a tiny bit more nice?🥺
“Don’t you know that this is a forum dedicated to a somber male view of musical facts and nothing but the facts, “ – well ok, now I’ll let you in on a little secret: before I entered this amazing place of “facts and nothing but the facts” I was reading in here, in disguise 🥸, and I saw gossip of the most intriguing kind!
“Alas!, it figures how a Viking descendant like you would raise the subject of inter-band wife sharing on these holy pages,” 😂😂 well it wasn’t me who raised that particular question, it was someone named Gert from Denmark!
“takes deep breath …” – let me know my dear southerner if you are in dire straits and need oxygen 😁
“the one Jon Lord famously drooled about “in her stunning crotchet dress with nothing underneath” – now I’m blushing,☺️☺️☺️☺️
“Zoe Dean” oh boy she was beautiful 🤩 even my very own squeeze (also known as René) thinks she is adorable!
“you decide if they are the same type!” – me?! I’m completely confused and baffled (isn’t that the same) so I will make myself another delicious cup of coffee and think thoroughly about my life, decisions, preferences, taste in music and whether I should get a German Shepherd and name him Greif ☺️
January 24th, 2025 at 10:44@48
Look, now I’m completely crazy, wait while I get my calculator.
Oh no, I don’t have any 😁
Sweetie, I will from now on agree with everybody in here! ☺️😄
January 24th, 2025 at 12:03Karin, will AndreA be offended if we explain to him that as an international standard, five is always rounded up to the full ten, not rounded down to zero? ☝️😂
But it is commendable how he twists and turns to retain a younger image for Big Ian. When I’m 80, I want fans like that too!😇 Yet in 1980, after the Punk and New Wave explosion, anybody older than 30 was regarded as a BOF – boring old fart. 😎
I was 19 when I first saw Big Ian live. He looked great, but not for a second did I see him as youngish. He was a grown man to me – on his way to middle age. Bernie Torme (born ‘52) and strangely John McCoy (born ‘50) still looked kinda young though. Colin Towns (born ‘48) looked younger than his age and Mick Underwood (born ‘45, same as Ian) absolutely ancient! 😂
January 25th, 2025 at 03:30@52
AndreA is Italian isn’t he? If he is, I think he will be stylishly assaulted but not holding the grudges for very long, since we, after all, are a charming bunch in here!
AndreA sweetie – you simply have to agree with Uwe on this one!
I know I know, I KNOW, he loves having the last word and will never bend down in discussions, and that’s a pain I know, BUT, fair has to be fair and in this he is right.
Let me tell you this Uwe: when I first saw Ian I was, ahem, quite young, and I didn’t think of him being young or middle-aged or old, he was IAN!
January 25th, 2025 at 12:31How do I explain it so your lawyer-brain comprehend what I’m hitting at?
🤔(thinking…..)
Oh yeah here it is: (a very tiny 💡 flashed over my head, like Georg Geerless). When the Danish handball-boys are making the German ditto looking completely helpless, I don’t think about their age either! That’s pretty much the same with mr Gillan!
(🤣🤣🤣)
🙂👍
January 25th, 2025 at 19:01#43 Karin:
I understand why Mr. Thomas Treo doesn’t like Deep Purple: he’s a Zep fanboy!
January 26th, 2025 at 00:28Zep fans are a real pest.
January 26th, 2025 at 04:50@55
January 26th, 2025 at 05:24He is? Ohh well, that explains everything 😟
All Danes are, they “come from the lands of the ice and snow” after all and think Immigrant Song is their second national anthem! 😆
“Valhalla, I’m coming …” – I always wondered, is Valhalla a popular female first name in the Kingdom of Denmark? With Led Zep’s penchant for more carnal lyrics you just can’t take anything at face value. 😂
January 26th, 2025 at 16:02@58
WHAT??
I don’t know anyone named Valhalla 🤣🤣
Face value? Ohh I don’t know, but then I also like to wear makeup ☺️😉
January 27th, 2025 at 07:13Didn’t Deep Purple choose Denmark in 1968 to commence their touring etc?
There must be something up that way. However according to what we read they wanted a more sedate location to begin with, just in case it all went pear shaped. So they were there before Percy & company, in that ‘land of ice & snow’ searching for Valhalla. Maybe it was the Holy Grail they were looking for or that pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow, who can tell.. I still don’t know why they didn’t choose Tasmania. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere would have suited them if it all went downhill and no-one would have been the wiser. Maybe it was the intelligence of the Danes compared to us Australians. I don’t know, something lured them north instead of south. Cheers.
https://www.loudersound.com/news/watch-deep-purple-play-a-solemn-beatles-cover-during-their-first-ever-tv-performance
January 27th, 2025 at 17:12@60
Aww MacGregor I for sure don’t know either why they didn’t choose Tasmania!
January 27th, 2025 at 20:21But I’m thrilled they granted us a visit! Even though I was too young to have been appreciating it at all!
@ 61 – I will have to leave that option open Karin. Whether even at a very young age, you ‘unknowingly’ had some sort of influence on DP changing their lead vocalist after performing in Denmark. Was Rod Evans too ‘Elvis’ like or something, was it his hairstyle, his attire too psychedelic. Anyway, your possible influence seemed to get things in order, well at least for a couple of years & let’s face it, Elvis never did hit that falsetto like Ian Gillan did. Cheers.
January 27th, 2025 at 21:35Also: Most people don’t know this, but Denmark is one of the most important and largest music markets in the world, GILLAN was very popular there too.
As were The Artwoods. The Kingdom of Denmark had been a happy hunting ground for them and that is why Jon guided fledgling DP to tour their first, perhaps The Artwoods still even had commitments there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rYYPYMFM0g
I assume that before the interview this was broadcast (Jon wears the same ethno shirt), supposedly DP’s first TV appearance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsBYen4qXQo
Surely, Karin will help us in determining in which Danish city the brutalist architecture in the background is situated? (For once, it’s NOT German WW II bunkers and gun emplacements!) Given that there doesn’t seem to be much going on street life-wise (still curfew?), there is a good chance it is Denmark, not all of it is densely populated. 😈
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/lonely-house-coast-small-village-qeqertarsuaq-greenland-denmark-qeqertarsuaq-danish-godhavn-town-258988489.jpg
***************************************************************************
“Aww MacGregor I for sure don’t know either why they didn’t choose Tasmania!”
I would not wish to speculum on that either, Karin, it’s a hairy subject.
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Bv1n0yWwEj8/TBc5l4cLXWI/AAAAAAAAHQM/c_UbleJ6i8g/s400/IMGP2238.JPG
January 27th, 2025 at 22:54@62
Dear MacGregor, I was born in ‘67, so any influence there would be nonexistent!
But I thank you with all my heart for your kind assumptions 🥰
Elvis!? Falsetto!!? 🤣🤣
January 27th, 2025 at 23:22I’ve heard he was better at doing household chores than singing 😄😄😄 (oh sorry ❤️🩹 didn’t mean to sound rude)
Yes that clip of DP in Denmark (which is mentioned in that Louder link I sent @ 60) looks rather dystopian doesn’t it. A real JG Ballard ‘High Rise’ look about it. “They follow this with two more performances at the Nimb Hotel in Copenhagen, and then on April 27, the band find themselves in a parking lot at Høje Gladsaxe, an enormous housing development built on the outskirts of the city, ready to film their first ever TV slot, for the music show Toppop. Quite why this location was chosen by Danish broadcaster is lost to the passing of time, but local pride probably played a part: with construction completed just two years earlier, Høje Gladsaxe was a modern, self-contained community, with a church, a school, a library, and medical and shopping facilities all contained within a series of high- and low-rise blocks.”
DP did a very good version of Help, Rod Evans vocal is sublime. Have a really fond spot for MK I Purple. This High Rise movie below, while not for everybody, is a good one for that sort of scenario. Spoiler alert for anyone who may be offended by certain scenes, probably better not to watch it. Cheers.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/03/jg-ballards-high-rise-takes-dystopian-science-fiction-to-a-new-level
January 28th, 2025 at 11:05@63
“Most people don’t know this, but Denmark is one of the most important and largest music markets in the world, GILLAN was very popular there too.” <- 😆🤣😆🤣 you simply can’t forget this one!
I don’t know why, but I assure you, Gillan was pretty popular in Denmark!
Btw: did you live here at the time? Had you discovered Ringkøbing yet? Well, how would you then know anything about Gillan’s massive influence on the youth of Denmark? 😄 I was young and pretty influenced by the very interesting and happening music scene.
“Surely, Karin will help us in determining in which Danish city the brutalist architecture in the background is situated?” – yes Sir I can help you there actually! It’s in Copenhagen, Gladsaxe I believe.
Why are Purple butchering “Help”? That tune was better with Beatles and Lennon’s soft voice! (And see! I didn’t mention Ian Gillan would have been way better at “Help” than that other guy 😉)
Here it is:
https://youtu.be/2Q_ZzBGPdqE?si=ksQ8XU0XyBBrUIfS
And this one makes everyone smile 😃
https://youtu.be/jenWdylTtzs?si=V4SALgIPjX7MyuJr
“I would not wish to speculum on that either, Karin, it’s a hairy subject” ok, then I won’t!
I’ll end this, well, taunting of me and my little country with this:
https://youtu.be/kBYHwH1Vb-c?si=2TeQZ6TkOKF124fm
January 28th, 2025 at 12:52Enjoy 😊☺️ (John McV is brilliant here 🥰)
“Why are Purple butchering “Help”?”
😑 Alas!, further proof how the North Jyllander is only here to celebrate and worship Ian Gillan, line-ups of DP (for Karin DP is defined as: first and foremost IG and then whatever musicians he chooses to surround himself with as long as they aren’t those fusion creeps from IGB!) without him don’t count, she doesn’t give a Jylland otter’s wet furry ass about Mk I, III, IV or V. Am I right, Frau Verndal? 🤣
The Beatles original of Help is great – a cry for help indeed -, but the Mk I version has merits too, it’s more of a soft plaintive lament. John Lennon btw, liebe Karin, liked the Purple version EVEN THOUGH it was not sung by Ian Whatshisname! 😎
Thanks to both of you, Karin & Tassie Boy, for clearing up the location of the broadcast, for some reason I had always thought that was somewhere on the East or West Coast of America, not lovely Copenhagen (which it indeed is, lovely I mean).
And to answer your question, Karin, no I’ve never really lived in Denmark other than assorted stays of a few weeks in whatever sommerhus Edith has dug out via ESMARK (she picks a different one for each prolonged stay). And I’ve been to Copenhagen a couple of times – on business or to see bands that were touring Scandinavia only or for plain sightseeing. Now that you mention it, I do remember the many statues of Iån Gillån there, that massive influencer of Danish youth! To this day, he has female devotees there so I’ve heard … 😎
https://img-new.cgtrader.com/items/4516992/94af3e34c9/large/ian-gillan-3d-model-94af3e34c9.jpg
January 29th, 2025 at 15:25@67
Well first of all, René is on my side and he also thinks that Purple mk l was destroying Help! (And he really isn’t very fond of Ian Gillan 😉)
(And yes, we’re still married!)
“for Karin DP is defined as: first and foremost IG” – well I can’t help that he is by far the best singer there is! It’s not my fault that any of the other singers haven’t been up to his level! Right? Right!
“Now that you mention it, I do remember the many statues of Iån Gillån there, that massive influencer of Danish youth!” – 🤣🤣🤣
You’re not the easiest man! He was in Denmark when I was a toddler, and I know how much people loved him at that time! They still do, not anything to do with my propaganda!
“Am I right, Frau Verndal? 🤣” – 😆 well most of the times you are indeed right but not in this one! I would never touch a wet otter’s tiny behind!
“first and foremost IG and then whatever musicians he chooses to surround himself with” – so very wrong! I adore all the current musicians in Purple! I simply love Ian P’s drumming, am thrilled with Roger’s bass bashing, am amazed over Simon’s guitar-work, and Don is a worthy heir of the Hammond! So don’t show me of as an ignorant (well I am, but don’t 😉)
And I do believe that the music of Beatles are in safe hands of the Fab Four! I really don’t like when anyone ruins their legacy 😊
January 29th, 2025 at 17:30I was wondering though how well Jeff Lynne tackled the production of “Free as a Bird”, but that was an exception!
The Mk I stuff didn’t sound modern or even contemporary for even 1968/69 to begin with and on top of it hasn’t aged very well, I’ll readily admit that.
To me, The Beatles‘ Abbey Road and even their flawed Let It Be sound much more modern and timeless than anything Mk I ever committed to vinyl. Early Purple was charming, but quaint to the point of archaic. In Rock proved to be a huge Zeitgeist leap taken by Mk II – belatedly, but enormously successful.
Rod Evans had a nice voice but his style of crooning dated the band immensely. For Purple to become relevant, he had to go. To a lesser extent that was also true for Nick‘s bass style. Ritchie had the right nous.
January 29th, 2025 at 19:20@69
Exactly Sir, EXACTLY!
See you agree with me anyhow!
“Rod Evans had a nice voice but his style of crooning dated the band immensely. For Purple to become relevant, he had to go. To a lesser extent that was also true for Nick‘s bass style. Ritchie had the right nous.”
(Do you mean sound?)
Rod and Nick was outdated, or maybe not that, but they were in the wrong band, because the second Glover and Gillan joined, magic happened! And for me it seemed that Lord, Paice and Blackmore relaxed and played more freely.
“even their flawed Let It Be sound” – excuse me? Flawed? They only flaw was that they ought to have made that song twice as long! Paul McC’s singing here is completely heartbreaking! In the good sense!
“In Rock proved to be a huge Zeitgeist leap taken by Mk II – belatedly, but enormously successful.” – 😍😍😍 In Rock is my favourite album ever! (Until I heard =1, then I’m Rock shares first place with =1!)
Honestly I had never heard anything like that before! Not only Mr Gillan’s voice, but the ‘everything’!
January 29th, 2025 at 19:47I fell in love, hard and completely, with Purple! They were so amazing and so provocative in a very decent sense.
Their lyrics were/are amazing and of course the way they played (yes, and sang) (and still do) was never heard before, at least not in my tiny universe.
I fell on my bottom, literally, first time I heard them. Couldn’t believe they hadn’t emerged sooner 😅 even though being way too young to appreciate that kind of ‘hard’ rock, I took it to heart and let it stay there 🥰
See, that is true love! True love lasts and lasts – and I don’t know if I would have taken another band in, hadn’t they existed, but I don’t think so.
@ 69 – “To me, The Beatles‘ Abbey Road and even their flawed Let It Be sound much more modern and timeless than anything Mk I ever committed to vinyl. Early Purple was charming, but quaint to the point of archaic. In Rock proved to be a huge Zeitgeist leap taken by Mk II – belatedly, but enormously successful.” Well the Beatles should have sounded much more ‘modern’ and contemporary as they had been treading the boards for a little while & let’s face it, George Martin, Geoff Emerick. etc helped out just a little in their studio only existence. All that experience & all the connections etc. A bit harsh there Uwe, however as artists have to start somewhere (even The Beatles sounded corny at the beginning) the Purple unit shifting & searching was at least a live playing band. All good fun though, well for some of the band members at least, from both camps for a little while longer. The mighty 1970’s homed into view of course and then everything was very different, as it should be. Cheers.
January 29th, 2025 at 21:13@71
“ (even The Beatles sounded corny at the beginning)” – really?!
Well ok MacGregor, but they hadn’t anyone to take after (besides that butter-tenor ‘everybody’ or almost everybody determined was the big influence! ☺️)
The Beatles was a product of their time, exactly like Purple was! Purple just proved to be made of more solid material since they’re still here 🥰
I remember The Fab Four claimed to be interrupted in their development by their massive herd of fans, they couldn’t hear themselves play at concerts! They were not allowed to be better (😆)
But as the (other) Fab Four from Sweet commented: we played at a higher volume! Beatles may have had the same opportunity! (Or maybe they just grew tired of each other)
Sometimes I get a bit tired of bad excuses!
If people don’t want to be together anymore, then say it like it is!
Well, where was I? (Don’t you just hate it when bad things happen to good sentences 😄)
Beatles was a terrific band, their overwhelming success shouldn’t have limited them, but what do I know 🤓 it apparently did, and they quit.
Purple, on the other hand, was an amazing band right from the start (and by this I’m thinking of Mk II, not the first misguided tryout 🙃)
The sun is about to shine, Denmark bashed Brazil yesterday in handball, the coffee is about to be consumed, so now the day can begin 🤩
January 30th, 2025 at 08:07Dear Svante, Nick (more people from admin?) and the rest of you terrific people:
I have a question (yes, it’s off topic, but I can never find the right thread for this particular question an I have indeed waited patiently):
In the official video for ‘Pictures of you’, at 2:40, mr Gillan is laughing, well semi-evil!
In my hood I’m the “expert” on Purple (you see how low standards we keep here 😝) and several people have asked me why Ian is laughing there. Do you know why?
I know, it’s not a big deal, nor a life-changing moment, but I would really like to be able to give a proper answer, and while I don’t have anything I hope sincerely for your help 😊
With deepest regards
January 30th, 2025 at 10:26Yours truly
Karin
Frau Verndal:
“(Do you mean sound?)”
Nope, nous (pronounced as in “house” or “mouse”), I guess the Danish equivalent should be ‘fornemmelse’:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/nous
And I meant “Let It Be”, the album, not the song. Some of the song material on it isn’t bad, but the shabby production by Phil Spector lets it down, the album is The Beatles’ most uneven one.
***************************************************************************
I accept that Mk I’s budget and recording experience wasn’t the Fab Four’s, Herr MacGregor, but Shades of, Book of Taliesyn and the third album sound old-fashioned to me, music that would have perhaps raised an eyelid in 1965/66, but by 1968/69 wasn’t fresh anymore but hearkening back to the past. It pains me to say, but Led Zep I & II were of a different caliber, forging a future sound.
January 30th, 2025 at 14:40@74
“Nope, nous (pronounced as in “house” or “mouse”), I guess the Danish equivalent should be ‘fornemmelse’:” – thank you ☺️ I am grateful for your kind help.
“And I meant “Let It Be”, the album, not the song. “ – oh I see 🙂
January 30th, 2025 at 20:59Gillan’s demonic laughs
https://youtu.be/y4hovRZx3lk
are a trademark of his since In Rock, he did them with GILLAN and Black Sabbath too
https://youtu.be/3N2LNl6V2OU
And why not, what to DC is heavy, audible breathing while singing are for IG his madcap laughs and screams, a mannerism.
Why is he laughing at that particular spot in the song? Well, maybe because he just sang:
“Ahh-ah, look at you now
Ooh-oh-ohh, stand out in a crowd
The real you showing up on your face
Your hair is blowing all over the place“,
letting out a bit of Schadenfreude about people who style their public appearances a bit too much.
Don’t overthink it, Karin! The “butter tenor” laughed a lot in his performances too.
January 30th, 2025 at 23:14@76
Schadenfreude, or skadefryd in danish ☺️, well ok, but have you read his own comments on gillan.com for this particular song?
There doesn’t seem to be any Schadenfreude anywhere, merely a concerned person’s thoughts of how ladies (I guess especially ladies) are treating themselves these days, with ‘nip and tuck’-procedures, Botox etc. and never feel ok with ourselves anyhow!
He prefer the real looks, and end his comment with something like: you are beautiful as you are!
So I can’t match any semi-evil laughter in anywhere…
And re the butter-tenor! Ohh no, I don’t want to go down that road again 😉
Yesterday I accidentally saw a video with Whitesnake ☺️ I remember you once had an ‘innocent’ question: had I ever heard Burn, (something about had committed myself completely to mr Gillan (😆) (it’s because of his great talent, why is this so difficult to understand! As I’ve said over and over again: the man could look like a goblet and I would still be amazed every single time he opens his mouth and let out a sound!)and yes I have heard it, and no I am really not impressed with DC! (Ok let the stoning begin, I’m ready for it! 🥴😮💨)
No doubt DC can carry a tune, but he is missing so much compared to you-know-who!
For me to see, he is very absorbed of DC, and he is lacking the basic responsibility for the rest of Deep Purple! (Or later on Whitesnake)
When Mr Gillan has been in front of Purple, he has been carrying Purple, with his voice and on stage with his persona, DC’s just lacking that. Can’t explain how really, but the people I saw that particular video with agreed.
And it was before we saw the handball-match between Denmark and Portugal, which Denmark won by the way 🤩 (Final Sunday at 6 pm between Denmark and Croatia ☺️), so we were calm and collected 😉
But I guess I now have started an avalanche with discussions of how wrong I am, and how lovely DC is (or was), and that wasn’t my intention, I’m just answering a question from the first days in January, made by you 😊
February 1st, 2025 at 05:28David Coverdale as the frontman of DP was quite something different to the Whitesnake showman he became. Young DC had a cool, unassuming demeanor:
https://youtu.be/P9VDUNDhTJY
https://youtu.be/GSXhqLaWaq0
He didn‘t mimic IG, he had his own style.
And I never liked that peroxide look he had with WS either. If you were with DP, you darn well had dark blond to brown to dark hair and nothing silly unless you were handicapped by nature like Steve or Simon.
February 4th, 2025 at 21:01@78
February 5th, 2025 at 17:16“Young DC had a cool, unassuming demeanor:”
Well in this woman’s eyes and ears he was nothing more than complete irritating!
Love Blackmore’ guitar though 🤩