Posted on by Nathan Beaudry

Episode #220 – Deep Purple – Abandon (Part 1)

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Lead up to the Album:

  • Øyvind Fjeldbu turned us on to the tour book and sent us a scan. I immediately purchased my own copy.

First Studio report from Roger Glover

We have completed a brief stay in Orlando, at the same location where _|_ was recorded. No title has yet been decided, although there are several on the table, one or two under the table, a few beneath the cushion of a cheap chair, one caught on the horn of a suspicious looking ram on a remote ranch in New Zealand (no idea how it got there!), four were inadvertently washed in some jeans, and US Customs seized seven. That leaves several.

We have some brilliant ideas for songs, I can’t tell you how many but let’s just say it is between 7 and 9, roughly. They are all really bad. However, with a little improvement they could be worse. (Excuse my difficulty with this sarcasm thing).

JL has been tied up making an [sic] solo album and although he was planning on herring, decided that it would be in everyone’s best interest to finnish [sic – humor] his danish first. When asked if he was going to, he mysteriously replied, Norway, man!” and left it at that.

I must apologize for that last paragraph, JL had nothing whatsoever to do with it, and as far as anyone can tell has not been seen anywhere near Scandinavia recently. Actually, JL is finishing work already in progress and so therefore we are all meeting up again alarmingly soonish after the Summer gig things to complete the writing and recording, not to mention the strudel.

SM ve continues es to play ay with th his is echo ho unit.

IanPaiceisveryverytogether.

Aye yam learning knew thyngs very day.

Ian Gillan likes to dance all over the place.

Confused? Quite rightly.

Good luck and look good, RG

  • The band plays a few shows in the summer including as the tour book states:”Layr, Beirut, Zurich” and “Calgury, Canada.”  Not sure about the seemingly intentionally misspelling here.
  • In September they return to work on the album, arriving back in Orlando on September 9.
  • On September 15th Dawk (John Stillwell) and his son, John, are in the studio where they have to work repairing Jon’s organ that had been damaged when too much power was sent through them at their show in Calgary.
  • On september 16, the band get together for some UK radio interviews, talking about the 25th anniversary of Machine Head.  Dawk continues some work on Roger’s basses.
  • September 18, Ian Paice and Steve Morse jam on an idea for a song with an acoustic and they put down a rough guide on tape.
  • September 19th was the first day they were all in the studio together.

They play in Atlanta, Orlando, Pompano Beach, Myrtle Beach, New Orleans, and Chicago to round out the year.

Band plays shows in LA, Phoenix, Mexico City, Monterrey, Costa Rica.

Core Band:

Technical:

  • Engineer – Darren Schneider
    • Started working with Deep Purple on The Battle Rages on. Also worked on Purpendicular as well as doing the mixing for Live at the Olympia ‘96.
    • Additionally worked with Steve Morse Band and Vixen. Also worked with Living Loud, Hoochie Coochie Men, and Porcupine Tree.
  • Engineer [Additional] – Keith Andrews
    • Had some credits before this but not many after.
  • Engineer [Assistant] – Kent Huffnagle
    • Worked with Mandy Moore, Destiny’s Child, Mike Kenneally
  • Engineer [Assistant] – Shannon Brady
    • Not many other credits. Worked with a band called Pissing Razors.
  • Mastered By – Greg Calbi
  • Mixed By – Darren Schneider
  • Producer – Deep Purple, Roger Glover
  • Production Manager – Charlie Lewis (4)
    • Worked with Roger Glover solo, Rainbow, Dream Theater.

Album Art & Booklet Review

Management & Crew:

Recorded at Greg Rike Studios, Altamonte Springs, Florida, 1997/98.

Mixed at Platinum Post Studios, Orlando.

Mastered at Masterdisk, New York.

Made in Holland

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Album Tracks:

All songs written by Gillan, Glover, Lord, Morse, Paice except where listed below.

  1. Any Fule Kno That
    • Through Glover’s Journal this is probably the song that gets talked about the most. It seems to have given them the most trouble through re-writing and re-recording but also seems to be one of the songs they seemed to like the most.
    • After deciding he didn’t like a song they were working on called “Talk Radio,” Glover returns to his apartment and starts work on a song called “Any Fule Kno That.”
    • They seem to have done this twice live before the album came out. One of two tracks done prior to the album release.
    • December 5, 1997 – House of Blues in Atlanta, GA
    • December 6, 1997 – House of Blues, Buena Vista, FL
    • Glover got the phrase he got form a Mojo magazine article about Radiohead.
      • https://citizeninsane.eu/media/uk/mojo/03/pt_1997-09_mojo.htm
      • Thom E. Yorke (as he was billed early on) was born October 7, 1968. By the time he arrived at Abingdon public school he was already the veteran of a pre-pubescent art-pop duo (Thom on guitar, friend demolishing televisions). At a sagely 14, Yorke, who says he spent most of his free time secreted in the school’s soundproofed music rooms, began singing (“because no-one else would”) in the school punk band TNT, where his contemporary Colin Greenwood also threw a few shapes.
      • When TNT imploded, Thom offered Colin the chance to play bass in a band he was forming with the tall, handsome chap in the year above who looked a bit like Morrissey: Ed O’Brien. A sixth-former, who looked nothing like Morrissey but had a drum kit, was also asked to join. Thom’s first words to Phil Selway were momentous: “Can’t you play a bit faster?”
      • Colin’s brother Jonny wanted in too. The kind of musical genius who can get a tune out of a cheese roll, he was still only a third year. And an oik from the third can crimp a fourth-former’s cool, as any fule kno. So it was a four and a half man line-up of On A Friday which debuted at Oxford’s Jericho Tavern as early as 1987. (Jonny hanging about with his harmonica just in case.) But any serious tilt at stardom was to be forestalled by largely unenthusiastic parents and the call of further education.
    • The band acknowledges that the song does not quite work live so they do some more work on the song before completing it for the album.
    • Glover shows Talk Radio and Any Fule Kno That to Gillan. Gillan also does not like “Talk Radio” but does like “Any Fule Kno That.”
  2. Almost Human
    • Working title of “Last Jam.”
    • January 26, Jon Lord does the solo for the end of Almost Human. Glover says, “Typical of him it is a first take.” Glover feels the session is over and relaxes with some TV following the news story about the Presidential crisis being reported that Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton allegedly had an affair in the White House.
  3. Don’t Make Me Happy
    • Originally titled “Oh Darlin’ Blues.”
    • “Don’t make me happy,” was a quote from one of their crew members, Ton.
    • November 13, Glover says that Gillan does a great job on Don’t Make Me Happy and writes: “He is like a dog with two dicks.”
  4. Seventh Heaven
    • Glover writed that Lord did the solo for this song on Glover’s birthday, November 30, 1997, Glover is exhausted. He is thankful many don’t know it’s his birthday.  “So I don’t enlighten them.” Lord works on Seventh Heaven but can’t complete because Morse had made some subtle changes to his part.  Glover says he gets a much better idea of what they album is going to look and feel like and says that’s the best birthday present.
    • The other track they attempted live in advance of the album being finished.
  5. Watching the Sky
  6. Fingers to the Bone
    • When recording this song they had to build a booth around Gillan’s microphone to shield it from picking up ambient noises echoing through the studio due to the power of his singing.
    • Piano solo by Lord was done on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1997.

THE OCTOBER STUDIO REPORT

IG arrived in Orlando first, on 7th September 1997, and the rest of us arrived in dribs and drabs. I dribbed in a few days later on the 9th Sept to write with IG, IP drabbed in a few days after that, and JL dribbed and SM drabbed in about a week later. Anyway, the upshot of all this dribbing and drabbing is that the actual recording session started on the 19th September 1997 (at noon, for all you punctualists).

Our loyal and hard working recording engineer, computer operator, counselor, and fashion consultant is Darrewn Schneider, who has had the good fortune, or otherwise, to still be there since the last album.

We have taken a break in the proceedings for a week. Therefore we have been ‘hard at it’, as they say in musical scircles, for the best part of five weeks. HEads down again next week.

During that time there have been successes, failures (hardly any), jokes, laughter, practice, a lot of fiddling with wires, tuning up, listening, writing, driving, gossiping, tripping up, brain surgery, focusing, making tea, brewing coffee, thinking, looking, recording, rewinding, fast forwarding, unpacking, learning, arguing (nicely, thank you), darts, sleeping, smoking, flying, drinking, saying ‘oops’, cooking, concentrating, dialing, reading, an enormous amount of pushing buttons, filing, searching, eating, correcting, uncorking, mending, programming, looking at the sky and muttering about the price of potatoes, planning,pluggin in, complaining, sorting out, complimenting, watching, and playing tennis (IG and Clarlie narrowly beat RG and Collin 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 yesterday).

There are twelve items (so far…) on the agendum, not all of which will make the album methinks, but who knows? The general tone of the album is tough, being the result of a direct manipulation of the outermost sensory organs by means of careful voltage control, high decibel regeneration, and the redistribution of particles of human madness and logic interwoven into the subdivisions of connected sections of powerful riffage placed cunningly between the start and finish of each piece.

Of those twelve songs, five have so far been adorned with lyrics (the rest play themselves in mute abandon on the DAT player while IG and I wrestle – I know what you’re thinking and the answer is no, not yet).

Solos have been attacked on about half the tunes but are fighting back.

There is a strange dichotomy at work here: we know what we’re about but we don’t know what we’re doing. Or the other way around.

At least one live performance has been salvaged from the May writing session.

An idea born in 1987 at a rehearsal has found a new life.

One song, The STallion, didn’t make it to the last album but has made it to this, and has been, thankfully, butchered in the process. It will be called something else. No not Something Else, that was by Eddie Cochran in 19 fifty something, and in my humble onion was a very, very early example of hard rock, long before hard rock was an item, and I love it ……… but I digress.

The atmosphere in the studio is very happy, confident, and relaxed – must be the cleaning alcohol, toothpaste, and palm trees.

Working titles will not be divulged at the present time due to mostly governmental pressure. All in good time, as some unforgettable character in a famous book probably once said. Probably.

Good luck.

RG 😉

Some of the ideas that come out in the first group of sessions include: Wah Wah, Seventh Heaven, Oh Darlin’ Blues, Evil Louie, Talk Radio, Last Jam, and a few others.

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For Further Information:

Extra Thanks To:

  • Øyvind Fjeldbu for kindly sending over scans of his Abandon tour booklet!
  • Thanks to Jeff Breis for sending over items from his collection.
  • Thank you to Steve Clowes for sharing bootleg recordings of early versions of “Any Fule Kno That” and “Seventh Heaven.”
  • Rich Shailor for sending over some Abandon swag!

Listener Mail/Comments

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