Deep Purple will release Time for Bedlam in February, a new four-track EP featuring the lead single from their forthcoming album Infinite.
I have just brought my singles collection down from the attic and am currently overdosing on the joy of 45rpm discs. They are, er, the future.
Love the Purps.
Possibly not coincidentally Ritchie Blackmore has resurrected the Rainbow brand ‘Playing classics from both Rainbow and Deep Purple’s anthemic catalogue’, playing the O2 among other dates this summer – http://stonefreefestival.com/bands/rainbow-for-stone-free/
Blimey. Sounds like an 80s Iron Maiden B side. Once a great band. Just hired the wrong guitarist (Morse) and seem to have no understanding of what once made them great.
I like his playing but I always thought Steve Morse was vastly over-qualified for the job. Last time I saw Purple live Morse did his usual mammoth solo spot, alone onstage. This went on for around 15 and featured every widdly, widdly trick in the book – you know, the kind of stuff hated by most Afterworders.
It was all great and hugely impressive, don’t get me wrong, but the seven notes that ended this extravaganza elicited a cheer so massive it almost tore the roof off the arena. Yes, it was the intro to Smoke on the Water a riff so simple it can be mastered by any guitar beginner in about 5 minutes.
It just goes to show etc
Quite. It’s like they don’t even know their own strengths. Simplicity, cunning, overdrive, surprise, big tone shifts, diatonic exploration. Never widdly widdly distortion and bombast. I’d lock them in a room with Fireball, Machine Gun and an acoustic guitar, tambourine and melodica and tell them to start again.
Nort sure generally.
Certainly by Bob aka Dis’ Bob but not so much generally
I was being sarky, but it’s important not to let that kind of uninformed drivel go unremarked
The one and only time I saw them live was in the Morse era. He’s clearly got all the chops and some to spare, but there was something missing. Too smooth maybe. I wonder how many people go hoping they will play some deep cuts from “Rapture Of The Deep”?
Bootlegs I’ve heard suggest Joe Satriani was a better replacement – more edgy but also prone to the widdly stuff (not that Blackmore wasn’t from time to time). Makes you wonder who would have been a better suited replacement? Eddie Van Halen? Mick Box? Nuno Bettencourt? (I’ll stop now)
Mel Galley, Zal Cleminson, Hal Lindes, Hugh Burns, Bernie Marsden. I could go on…
Instead they went down the Vai/Satriani/widdly/Randy Rhoads/Eddie Van Halen wake route. Big mistake.
Only time I saw them live Morse’s guitar solo intro to Smoke was the best thing in the show. He made his guitar sound like the static between radio stations as though going through the channels, and each channel produced a different riff (Ticket To Ride, You Really Got Me etc. etc.) until alighting on the Smoke riff. I thought it was a snazzy way to liven up what has become a cliche intro.
Never had the right vocalist (OOAA). All that screaming and shrieking – embarrassing. I’m happy with their riffage and axe-Hammond interplay, masel’.
I am in a minority in preferring the Coverdale era, and “Come taste the band” is a masterpiece! OOAA
I’ll join you in that minority regarding “Come Taste”. Quite different from what went before, and all the better for it. I’m not sure having Glenn Hughes and Dave Coverdale in the same band was going to work long term, but it really paid off here.
I love it too, but it sounds more like Trapeze than Purple. They probably should have just drafted Mel Galley in.
As someone who was already a fan of Tommy Bolin before he joined DP I suppose I was predisposed to attribute what I liked the album – the funkier, more soulful sound – to Tommy but I’m short changing Glenn. Thing is, I’ve never got on with Trapeze’s stuff – maybe I should give them another go.
I loved Tommy’s non Purple stuff too. Teaser and the Whips and Roses compilation are both strong, if patchy.
Medusa is a good place to start with Trapeze. Wasn’t on Spotify last time I looked sadly, but Youtube has a couple of tracks:
Genuine Question
Where should a Purple Virgin start in the back catalogue?
In Rock for Gillen era, Burn for Coverdale era will get you stated. Or Made in Japan for live.
Wot he said
24 Carat Purple, as any fule kno.
There are so few classic era, get them all! Machine Head or Made in Japan first ideally – lots of In Rock a bit dated.
That opening to Fireball is one of the great rock single intros. Ian Paice. IAN PAICE as DC would have put it. The”Classic Albums” episode on “Machine Head ” is brilliant.
I used to know a drummer who was obsessed with Paice’s double bass drumming on that. Claimed it was almost impossible.
As far as I know, Ian Paice has always used a single bass drum? He must have one of those funny pedal things.
I used to play cricket with his nephew, you know. Tall fast bowler, splendid chap. Shame we lost touch.
Pretty sure Fireball is double bass drum. Even more impossible if not.
No he used a double on this but never on anything else. Apparently at gigs a roadie would no on with a second drum just for this one.
Correct Twang
And here’s the proof!
Excellent. Ian P making an extended lot of noise at the start, while Richie flounces around… 🙂
But why doesn’t he just start with 2 bass drums?!
I would go with Deepest Purple as unlike 24 Carat Purple it has a couple of Coverdale tracks (Burn & Stormbringer), which 24 Carat Purple lacks. Although 24 Carat Purple does score points for having the live versions of Black Night, Smoke on the Water and Child in Time, which are better than the studios. Especially Black Night, which is mental.
I think Machine Head and Burn are the best albums to start with.
“Burn” and “Speed King” are the finest ‘Purp, IMHO. “Child In Time” without the singing works, too.
Child in Time without the singing!!! Couldn’t have defined the whole paradox of the Deeps better.
Ditto Child in time without the singing ????
Oh dear, you can’t do that! If you don’t like Ian Gillan on Child In Time, you don’t really like Deep Purple. It’s no coincidence that when he and Roger Glover joined the band, they became a massively more powerful and direct heavy rock band, and once they’d set out their stall with Speed King, Child In Time and the rest of In Rock, they showed they could also play with a little swing on Fireball and Machine Head.
With Mk 3 they showed some funk, but lost their soul. Burn is a great album. The band sound re-energised (compare the lacklustre Smoke live in 73 with the adrenalised – and coked up! – Burn at the California Jam in 74). Stormbringer is a stinker and it’s no surprise Blackmore bailed at that point.
No doubt Tommy Bolin was a great player
and some of Come Taste The Band is really good, but he was a misfit in Purple. I had the misfortune to see them in March 76, one of the last shows before they broke up, and it remains probably the worst concert I have ever been too. They were dire; lumpen, bloated, not playing as a band, and Bolin was invisible, hiding in the shadows and only stepping forward to solo, badly.
Fast forward to 93 and I saw the reformed Mk 2 at one of their final shows (Purple must have set a record for the number of times they have split) and they were great. The DVD shows the old tensions between Gillan and Blackmore were still there, but this was Deep Purple – Blackmore, Gillan, Glover Lord & Paice.
yeah, I’ve seen them with Steve Morse too. It’s OK, but it’s not DP for me.
Agree almost completely. I’ve barely listened to the 4th Gillan Purple studio album. Lacklustre indeed. And Blackmore vetoed one of the best tracks (Painted Horse). Burn was as much of a shot in the arm as Heaven and Hell after Never Say Die for Sabbath.
Pitching for the unpopular vote again but I think Stormbringer is excellent!
I love Stormbringer!
Ahh… the intro to Highway Star when those Blackmore chords come in. Any younger guitarists reading this…. THAT is what a good guitar tone sounds like.
Perhaps someone could get Steve Morse to listen…
Absolutely Askwith….re Highway Star. Those chords….crunch! Or should that be kerrunch?
Deep Purple will only be back, Back, BACK when the Man in Black is back.
The Man in Black is back for more! He has reformed Rainbow for four arena gigs in June.
I quite like the band Blackmore’s Night, especially their Christmas CDs.
https://youtu.be/gzbzbF6z_Pw
I LOVE Purple, but this…. sounds like Spinal Tap to me.
It needs Blackmore (unlikely) and it needs Lord (sadly not possible).
I like Steve Morse (i still listen to Dixie Dregs), i have more of a problem with Don Airey (and i still listen to Colloseum II). Plus, when they were last in sydney, gillan’s voice was shot.
For some reason I ordered the big box 6 disc set with added crap version of the new album, Don`t ask me why, it seemed to be a `Bargain` for £50! After listening to that pile of Yeti Shite I cancelled the order. If you like it fine, the `Yeti Shitr` is my opinion. Let`s face it DP burned themselves out (pardon the intentional crap pun) after `Burn`.
Is the correct analysis.
I found the “In Rock” and “Fireball” albums on the back seat of a bus back in 1971. Being an honest young man I handed them in at the lost property office in the bus station. I was handed a receipt and told that if the LP’s weren’t claimed in 3 months I could have them. I could barely count the days down to the due date but nobody claimed them and they became mine.
Needless to say I played those albums to death and they became firm favourites of mine. They are still given an airing from time to time at my house. So I can definitely say that this era of the Purple was the best in my opinion.
You were lucky that No One Came…
You couldn’t go far wrong with this – all the albums from Concerto to Come Taste The Band (including the 2 live albums, Tokyo and Europe) for 40 nicker:
Bargain! I was just drooling over a vinyl version of that in a supermarket in France.
Reviews say American versions of albums , truncated Speed king etc