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Michael Bagford – joining at the $5.99 “Nice Price” Tier – NEW PATRON ALERT!
Hi Nathan, John, and all the podcast listeners out there. I’m Michael Bagford, and I have been binging on this show for the last couple of months. Currently, I’m up to episode #46. I discovered this show after another podcast I listen to, Rock Solid, who did an episode on Deep Purple recently. It reignited a passion to listen to the band again. I saw this podcast and was happy to know that you covered all the many bands and artists that are all part of the Purple Family Tree. I’m so happy that there are detailed episodes on the Captain Beyond discography! Anyway, keep up the great work, and I’m enjoying the podcast a lot so far.
Jon Kines – joining at the $3 “Nobody’s Perfect” tier
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Disclaimer: The video used on YouTube is a byproduct of producing our audio podcast. We post it merely as a convenience to those who prefer the YouTube format. Please subscribe using one of the links below if you’d prefer a superior audio experience.
Scott Price (became patron starting on episode #156):
@DeepPurplePod currently going through your podcasts. On the butterfly ball episode. Never listened to it before but your love for it has become infectious! How have I left it so long to listen to it?? So impressed I’ve become a patron of your show! Keep up the good work x
Brendan Ashbrook – Logo Designer
Welcome Our Newest Patron:
Blackmore’s Tights! Joined last episode at the $1 Silly Made Up Name tier but here he gets his official welcome. BT writes:
Hi, I’m replying to your message on Twitter. I’m @starscreenbass, I can’t seem to find a way of messaging you on there haha
If you need a funny name instead of my actual name for the $1 tier please refer to me as “Blackmores Tights” as you’ve gotta love a man in his 70s who can still wear tights.
In purple relatedness, I’m from a town outside of nottingham (where Ian Paice was born) but I’m currently in a pub in Chiswick which I’ve just remembered is where Ian Gillan was born……how’s that for some none interesting trivia.
Currently on the butterfly ball episodes so got lots of catching up to do. Keep up the good work. Scott x
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Patron Updates:
Zwopper The Electric Alchemist:
I had a car accident a few days ago when skid the car of the road and rolled down a slope into a tree and totaled it completely. I got a severe concussion and fractured a vertibra. When I got to the hospital they found some bleedings in my brain and later today, unrelated, a shadow on the images of the brain, so I’m in for more x-ray.
Anyhoooo…
During all this time while I was under surveillance, I listened back to 40 or so episodes of your pod and it kept me in a good spirit.
Thank you so much for what you do!
Say hi to John for me!
(I’m guessing that it’s Nate who reads this.)
I will attach a photo from when I was brought in to hospital.
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This week Nate joins Scott Haskin on his podcast for a deep dive review of Busta Rhymes’s 1998 album “Extinction Level Event: The Final World Front.” This is part 2.
Disclaimer: The video used on YouTube is a byproduct of producing our audio podcast. We post it merely as a convenience to those who prefer the YouTube format. Please subscribe using one of the links below if you’d prefer a superior audio experience.
This recording is approximately two weeks before the final show the band would play which lead to the breakup. For 8 years there would be no (official, anyway) Deep Purple.
Coverdale met with management after Blackmore’s departure and suggested they change their name. His ideas: Good Company, Purple, The Deeps.
The show we are about to hear was originally broadcast on the King Biscuit Flower Hour, the American radio show. It appeared in numerous forms over the years and explains why the audio quality is so good.
The King Biscuit Flower Hour was a weekly show which had also featured pefromahnces by Black Sabbath, Genesis, Jhon Lenon, The Who, The Stones, Elton John, etc.
Fans of the show called it “The Biscuit.” It had debuted in February of 1973 and was named after a radio show from the 1920s which was sponsored by the King Buiscuit Flour Co.
The runners of the show recorded things a little differently. A lot of other live radio shows would just take the mix off the sound board. The King Biscuit Flower Hour multitrakced the cecordeing and let the artists take the tapes to mix any way they’d like.
They even used to have Quadrophonic recordings as they were sponsored by Pioneer who was trying to make that the standard int he industry.
The bootleg surfaced in America in 1977. The bootleg became highly sought after due to its audio quality and the fine performance turned in by the band. It soon became a legendary release.
In 1994 Deep Purple’s management acquired the tapes and put them out the following year as an official release.
Many people familiar with the many bootlegs feel this was one of the best shows on the US tour. This is quite possibly Mark 4 in their finest form.
Album Art & Booklet Review
First version – bootleg in the 70s
“On The Wings of a Russian Foxbat” – Great Britain – 1995 Double CD
“King Biscuit Flower Hour” – US – 1995 2CD
“King Biscuit Flower Hour” – US – 1995 version 2 “In Concert” 2CD
“Live in California, Long Beach Arena, 1976” – Japan – 2003 release
“Live at Long Beach” – Remastered Great Britain – 2009
“Live at Long Beach” – Great Britain – 2009 Remastered limited edition digi-pak with bootleg art
“Long Beach 1976” – International – 2016 release
Photography used by Fin Costello in most releases.
And what about the name? “On the Wings of a Russian Foxbat.” Simon Robinson writes:
So go on then uncle simon [sic], why ‘On The Wings Of A Russian Foxbat’? Well, when that bootleg first came out, the Cold War was still raging. The U.S. military had just got wind of a new Rooskie MIG jet fighter which was said to knock the socks off anything they currently flew at the time. One day a Russian pilot defected, flying into a Japanese airport in one of the planes – codenamed “Foxbat.” ‘Of course you can have it back” came the cry, just as soon as we measure every damn nut and bolt on it! Well, that’s roughly the story. It was nearly twenty years ago, so don’t quote me.
Setlist:
Burn
Lady Luck
Gettin’ Tighter
Love Child
Smoke on the Water/Georgia On My Mind
Lazy/Homeward Strut
Many version incorrectly label this as “The Grind”
Features Organ and Drum Solos
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This Time Around
It ends with “Owed to G” but never seems to be listed as such
Tommy Bolin (Guitar Solo)
My copy says “Tomy Bolin”
Stormbringer
Highway Star/ Not Fade Away
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The “Wings of Leaky Foxbat” Leaky Mausoleum
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Spike, The Rock Cat
JJ Stannard
Hank the Tank
Private Eyes
Ashen Lionel
Sugar Tits
Scott Price
Reception and Charts:
They would only play four more shows on their US tour (San Bernadino, CA, Tempe, AZ [listed as ‘Tempe, CA’ in the liner notes’], Salt Lake City, UT, and Denver, CO) before a brief UK tour of five shows ending with the show in Liverpool which would be their last.
The original plan was to leave them time off to work on various solo projects after the US tour but that didn’t happen.
Official releases featured additional tracks from a partially recorded show in Springfield, Massachusetts a month earlier on January 26, 1976.
Coverdale: “
Lord:” What you had here was an astonishingly good bass player, even stoned; one of the world’s great rock drummers; and a Hammon next to the name of Mr. Hammond. I know what I was doing, I was feeling very strong with my abilities at that time. Just those three – it couldn’t have been bad. But then you get Coverdale, who was really finding himself by this time. And Tommy, playing smashing stuff. It’s not surprising that it sounds good. The only thing that held it back was that it was called Deep Purple. If it had been a new band . . . my God, it would’ve set the world on fire.”
Comments about the show? Things you’d like us to cover? We’d love to hear from you. Send us an email at info@deeppurplepodcast.com or @ us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
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Between albums we had the incident in 1980 where Ritchie joined Gillan on stage after Ritchie had refused an offer to join Gillan and Gillan had refused an offer join Rainbow.
Shortly after this Ian got a call from Tim Rice asking him if he’d like to play the part of General Peron in his new musical Evita. Gillan would refuse the offer to focus on Gillan.
The band changed to the Virgin label.
They had previously been with the label Acrobat and had to front all of the money for Mr. Universe themselves. Proceeds for the new album were going to have to go to paying off their old debt.
Previously designed Ian Gillan Band’s “Scarabus” album.
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Album Tracks (UK Version):
Side One:
Unchain Your Brain (Gillan, Torme, McCoy)
Are You Sure? (Gillan, Torme, McCoy)
Time and Again (Gillan, Torme, McCoy)
No Easy Way (Gillan, Torme, McCoy)
Sleeping on the Job (Gillan, Towns)
Side Two:
On the Rocks (Gillan, Towns)
If You Believe Me (Gillan, McCoy, Torme, Underwood)
Running, White Face, City Boy (Towns)
Nervous (Gillan, Towns)
Album Tracks (US Versions):
Manufactured and Marketed by RSO Records, Inc.
This is the USA version of Glory Road that comes in embossed/raised Gillan Logo and where two of the tracks “Unchain your brain” and “Running, White Face, City boy” were switched. A5 is different from other releases. Running times as given on the label. Those slightly differ from the running times given on the European and other countries versions.
Side One:
Running, White Face, City Boy (Towns)
Are You Sure (Gillan, Torme, McCoy)
Time And Again (Gillan, Torme, McCoy)
No Easy Way (Gillan, Torme, McCoy)
Your Mother Was Right (Gillan, Town)
Sleeping on the Job (Gillan, Towns) was on the UK Version which was previously on UK version of “Mr. Universe.”
US version saw a track called “Your Mother Was Right.”
This track was included on the UK double album version’s bonus LP “For Gillan Fans Only.”
Side Two:
On The Rocks (Gillan, Towns)
In an interview with DJ Phil Easton: “It’s basically one of my little hobby horses. It’s about how I think people have generally become de-animalised in modern society, and are conditioned to do certain things from a very early age. It’s summed up in “Once you were a flying thing, now you’re on the rocks with broken wings” which sums up mankind for me at the moment. It’s a sad song, but as always, there is a bit of optimism later on.”
If You Believe Me (Gillan, McCoy, Torme, Underwood)
Unchain Your Brain (Gillan, Torme, McCoy)
Album opener on UK version.
Nervous (Gillan, Towns)
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The “Nervous” Leaky Mausoleum
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Hank the Tank
Private Eyes
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Sugar Tits
Reception and Charts:
The album reached No. 3 in the UK album charts.
In UK it was also released as a double album with the additional “For Gillan Fans Only.”
In 1989 the album was released on CD by Virgin with some tracks from For Gillan Fans Only.
In 2007 a 19-track double album version was rereleased by Edsel. The For Gillan Fans Only CD had two bonus tracks.
Gillan says that “Glory Road” was his best work since “Machine Head.”
The second part of the double album “For Gillan Fans Only” was given away as a freebie with the first 15,000 copies.
After the album came out the press was still hounding Gillan about a Deep Purple reunion. Gillan told them they should ask David Coverdale the same thing.
After this a rumor circulated on Tommy Vance’s show (where they would later announced the official Deep Purple reunion) that reunion dates were being booked in America. This would have been a mention of Rod Evans’s failed Deep Purple revival act.
Very workmanlike, somewhat unadventurous too, with many cuts taking a similar style and level. ‘Unchain Your Brain’ is a case in point, nothing too brilliant, but enjoyable. ‘Are You Sure’ is great. The track is less cluttered than many on the album, and Ian really seems to be enjoying it. ‘Running White Face City Boy’ is another which I like, very similar to many Gillan band tracks, but has as a little more drive to it than most. ‘Nervous’ seems quite adventurous, and Ian’s throaty scream suits the track.
The extra ‘For Gillan Fans Only’ album is a rag-bag collection of items mostly unavailable before. ‘Your Mother Was Right’ is a lengthy out-take which seems a bit unfinished, but interesting ideas abound all the way through. ‘Abbey Of Thelema’ includes the flute solo which was done live, while ‘Trying To Get To You’ is an oldie from Ian’s shelved 1974-75 solo album. It has the intro edited off for some reason. Colin Towns’ ‘Dragon’s Tongue’ is great, he’ll never be out of work with stuff like this! On the whole, Glory Road and ‘son of’ have things to pick up on, but still lack the sheer impact of the Japanese Gillan album.
Darker Than Blue ran a series of fan responses for the album:
Marcus Paisley: “Not keen on the cover. Why do they keep changing the logo?”
Andrew Ellesden: “. . . side one didn’t impress me much, but side two is brilliant . . . I’d rate it higher than all Gillan’s post Purple stuff except for the Jap LP and some of Clear Air. My fave overall is “On The Rocks,” then “Nervous” . . . Ian’s singing is particularly effective.
Comments about the show? Things you’d like us to cover? We’d love to hear from you. Send us an email at info@deeppurplepodcast.com or @ us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
