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As an avid Purple fan and connoisseur of their extended family, this podcast is a treat for looking in depth about things I know about and introducing me to new wild bands and meeting of minds that I never would’ve even thought about. (Thought I could wait as long as it takes for the Hughes Turner Project episode to come around because I have no clue how that band was even conceived to be a good idea) But ramblings aside, the hosts are perfect in encapsulating that feeling of listening to a record you heard about for a while but could never find in your stores or just buying a new record and listening to it for the first time and I love that. On top of that THEY’RE HILARIOUS!!! My highlights are Nate’s story about the dog that had muffins fall on it and the James Gang song about being Norwegian. Keep up the god’s work you two are putting in, it’s so dearly appreciated.
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The Gibson ES-335 was the world’s first commercially available semi-hollowbody guitar.
Selmer London began distributing Gibson in the UK. The list of prices for tohe Gibsons were listed in guineas. Converted to pounds the ES-355’s list price was £306.60 ($420.93). That would convert £9.924.71 (or $) in today’s money.
From: (https://meandguitar.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/hush-money/): When Blackmore bought the guitar used in 1962 , its stock stop tailpiece had already been replaced by a Bigsby B5 tremolo, which is actually designed for solidbody guitars. It also still had a short pickguard typical of early Sixties Dot neck ES-335 guitars, although Blackmore remove it a later date, as well as its original black metal-top control knobs, which were swapped for gold knobs sometime after he stopped playing the guitar.
Blackmore used this guitar to record everything from Screaming Lord Sutch’s 1965 cover of “Train Kept A-Rollin” to “Child In Time.
History of Ritchie’s Gibson ES-335:
Ritchie bought the guitar used at Jim Marshal’s music shop in London in 1962. Gibsons had only become available in England in 1960 when they lifted a ban on importing American guitars.
Right from the start of the Deep Purple Mk1 era in 1968, Ritchie Blackmore used his trusty 1961 cherry red Gibson ES-335 TD as main guitar alongside his Vox AC30 and a Hornby Skewes germanium fitted treblebooster. Midway sixties Ritchie modified this guitar with a Bigsby-Vibrato. The Gibson guitar was usually fitted with 2 Gibson PAF Humbucker pickups. In one of the Humbucker’s coils there are 6 adjustable screws installed, one can balance the volume of strings among each other via varying the height. Ritchie now turned the screws uncommonly high so as to get a more P90-like sound. The coil with the screws picks up more voltage than the other. Ritchie will use this guitar on stage until midway 1970. In the studio the guitar stayed with him even longer, at least until the December 1971 “TOTP” TV session.
At the end of 1968, Deep Purple Mk1 was the opening act on the “Cream” tour in the USA. At this time Deep Purple was well known in the USA, but not in their home country England. It was the last tour for “Cream”, before the band felt apart. For Eric Clapton the situation was hard to handle, after Ritchie opened the concerts with his aggressive guitar show, the guitar orientated audience wanted to hear more Blackmore. So after only a few shows, Deep Purple were paid out to leave the tour. During these days, a retired Fender Stratocaster from Eric Clapton was given to Ritchie, and he soon fell in love with the sound. Especially the tremolo caught his eye, Compared to the Bigsby on his Gibson ES-335, this was a real enhancement. Not that Ritchie wasn’t satisfied with his ES-335, even Dave Edmunds (Love Sculpture) the shooting star of the upcoming Hardrock scene played an ES-335 with a Vox AC30. Edmunds by the way left behind most English Hardrock-guitar players with his ultra fast and enormous fluidly played version of “Sabre dance” in 1968.
The combination of ES-335 and Vox AC30 was a “top act”. But since Hendrix arrived on the scene, everyone knew what could be done with a vibrato-system. In spring 1969 Ritchie bought a stock 1968 black maple neck Stratocaster. The 68 Strats still had the two-piece old tremolo construction with the steel inertia bar and the stamped vintage steel saddles. For this tremolo, Ritchie used a special custom-made ¼” (6.3mm) heavy weighted steel arm, to attack the tremolo real hard. The value of the tonecap was stock 0.1uF.
With the entrance of new members Ian Gillan & Roger Glover (better known as the Mk2 formation) as replacements for Evans & Simper Deep Purple’s rise to stardom began. Approximately for a year ES-335 and Strat were sharing equal rights. Typical live songs for the ES-335 were for instance the new “Child in Time” or the old “Wring that neck”. Midway 1970 the ES-335 disappeared from stage. The legendary “Child in time” was recorded in the studio using the ES-335.
At the end of 1970, early 1971 the worn-out frets of his Strat were replaced with the higher Gibson jumbo frets. The maple fretboard was not lacquered afterwards, so it became noticeably darker with time.
2:00 solo trading off with Jon and sweep arpeggios
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Where is the guitar now?
After attending a Hednrix concert in 1970 Ritchie made the decision to try using a Fender Stratocaster, purchasing one from a former roadie for Eric Clapton.
Live Ritchie continued to play the guitar live when they performed “Wring That Neck” until the summer of 1971 when that song was replaced in the set with “Lazy.”
According to Jerry Bloom he did use it once last time to perform “Fireball” on Top of the Pops in December of 1971.
Ritchie claims that his ex-wife Babs stole the guitar from him.
Barbel sold it at an auction at Christie’s in 2004 to a vintage guitar dealer named Laurence Wexer.
Ilhan Akbil purchased the guitar from FrettedAmericana (David Brass) in Calabassas, California. They may have purchased the guitar from Wexer at some point previously.
Huge appreciation to Ilhan for joining us on the show to tell his story of his passion for Deep Purple, Ritchie, and about the guitar.
Blackmore: “The 355 was a good guitar, but it didn’t have the same sound: it was warmer, fuzzier. It would gloss up the notes a bit. With the Strat, if you played a wrong note, everybody heard it. Ultimately, it was a beast well worth taming.”
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I found out about this excellent podcast by accident and I absolutely love it. It’s a great fun listen. I’ve only played a few episodes so have loads to catch up! The House of Blue Light review was interesting. I saw Purple on this tour at Wembley London UK. On that eve Blackmore refused to do an encore! So Lord and Glover played lead. It was definitely an interesting version of Smoke on the water! Having seen Gillan in mind blowing vocal form (the band) live in 81, it was noticeable Ian had sadly lost some of his range/power by 87/88. Overall he was still great. Keep up the great work, thank you!
Lead up to the Album:
This album saw the departure of Ged Peck on guitar with Pete Parks joining the band. Peck left to pursue classical guitar playing.
We talked on our last Warhorse episode about how Rick Wakeman was very briefly in the band but did not make it to any of the recordings. Rick left in April of 1970 to join the Strawbs.
The Warhorse Story Volume 2 liner notes states that the album was released (or as Nick Simper puts it “escaped”) in 1972. There were no singles from this album.
The head of A&R for Vertigo gave the band a 1,500 budget and said “Take your time, do what you want.”
At the end of 1971 they headed to De Lane Lea to record the album.
Part way through the recording Robbie Beck came into the studio to tell them they only had 500 worth of time left. It turns out that the head of A&R had left and not told anybody the budget he’d promised the band.They were able to get a little more money to finish the recording.
The label wanted the album finished head of Christmas so they had to rush to get it done.
Nick apparently went into a tirade about the budgeting issue with some of the “big wigs” at Phonogram and were soon dropped after the album came out in June of 1972.
From The Warhorse Story liner notes: “Red Sea, as the second album was titled, also sported a Vertigo sleeve that was as poorly executed as the first one had been brilliant. The original concept of an ironclad warship had sounded great but the less than professional results look amateurish today.
Ashley Holt’s performance on “Back in Time” was criticized as having been the “unconscious model for the kind of singing” that they parodied in Spinal Tap according to Richie Unterberger on AllMusic.
WARHORSE: “Red Sea” (Vertigo). “. . . this second album cannot fail to establish them in the hierarchy of Europe’s greatest groups” pompously declare the liner notes. That’s a very hard tag to live up to — and Warhorse don’t quite make it, I’m afraid. “Red Sea” is like the curate’s egg: good in parts. But when they’re good, Warhorse are as good, if not better, than most of the bands working in the hard ‘nd heavy rock field. Their greatest asset is lead guitarist Peter Parks who works hard all the time to lift the ordinariness. He’s really missed on tracks like “Feeling Better” where he has to takes backseat. But his long solo in “Back In Time” is a treat; inventive and exciting, sounding at times like Richie [sic] Blackmore’s work on “wring That Neck” on Deep Purple’s “Book Of The Taliesyn” [sic] album. In fact, “Red Sea” does bear comparison with early Purple albums; hardly surprising, as bassist Nick Simper was on of the founder members of that band. Both he and organist Frank Wilson are content to provide backings which gives the other members of the band something to work on. Vocalist Ashley Holt has a hard, gravelly voice which sometimes doesn’t have sufficient punch to carry some numbers — like “Feeling Better” — on its own. Nevertheless, he can do it if he tries: just listen to “Confident But Wrong” and “Sybilla” — the stand out track, with everybody boogieing along like there was not tomorrow, Drummer Mac Poole provides a solid beat throughout, coming into his own on “Mouthpiece,” an extended solo which is just a little too extended for my liking. But that’s the only bit of self-indulgence on “Red Sea.” — M.O.
Soon after this Mac Poole left Warhorse to join a band called Gong. They recruited drummer Barney James and began work on a third album that was never completed. There are bonus tracks on “The Warhorse Story” that were destined for this third album.
This group played their last show in 1974 though original members would take the stage together a few more times over the years for one off reunion gigs.
Rick Wakeman would recruit Ashley Holt and Barney James for his solo albums “Journey to the Centre of the Earth” and “The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.”
Nick tried to get them to stay with Warhorse, telling them that Rick Wakeman’s projects didn’t last too long, they left.
Two months later Ashley called back about getting back together and he didn’ty have the energy to pick up where they left off. Additionally it was the first time he’d been off the road since the age of 18.
Nick then (with Parks) started up Nick Simper’s Dynamite.
Nick said it was a little galling to sit and watch bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, UFO, and others who had all been opening for Warhorse go on to achieve success as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal really took off.
Simper: “I used to say tot he guys if we sick together long enough, we’ve got a stage act that wipes them out. We had some great times, which is why the band survived for four years, but there were always [problems with managers, publishers. Lots of support bands borrowed from us, both musically and some of our stage act. Judas Priest, all that leather studded arm band stuff, he took that straight of Ashley Holt. He borrowed the bull whip prop too which is fair enough, we nicked if off Dave Dee, they used one for Legend of Xanadu! That guy from Queen, Brian May, he saw us at the Marquee, was a great fan. He borrowed Pete’s solo from the track Back in Time for one of their albums.”
Simon Robinson writes: “Indeed dedicated Queen fans who have heard the Warhorse track agree that the solo on Queen’s Brighton Rock is uncannily similar!”
Robinson concludes: “It’s perhaps all too easy to day to forget just how important the live circuit was back int the ‘70s, both for the bands who played it and the audiences who came to watch and in some cases be influenced by what they saw. Warhorse can be proud of their part in it all.
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April 7 was Ritchie’s last show with the band until they reformed in 1984.
Ritchie’s last show with Mark 3 was on
The Graz and Paris concerts have both been released in full since but the drum solo from the Graz concert is missing.
It’s said that there was a lot of editing and overdubbing of crowd noise for this album. There’s a noticeable tape loop of applause which you can notice based on the whistling of a fan.
The album was not released until after the band broke up in October of 1976.
Much like Made in Japan the shows were recorded to be able to be released post breakup so they’d have something to be able to sell afterward in case there were no more studio albums.
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“Came across this podcast months ago and never got a chance to listen to the podcast until the summer and anyone interested interested in music history, or if you came across it by accident… you’ve come to the right place! Love listening to the podcasts from Moorhead, MN.”
Another package from Peter Gardow!
John’s Drizzly gift arrives!
Lead up to the Album:
Lineup change: Bernie Torme comes in to replace Steve Byrd who returned to session work.
Phil Banfield comes onto the scene to work as Ian’s manager.
Ian and Phil went to the south coast to get the picture for the front of the UK album.
Gillan says: “He wanted a picture of me with only water behind, and, t o achieve the effect, he said I had to jump. So there I was, with my manager shoultin, ‘Jump,’ and I’d jump. Again and again. From that moment we agreed that when Phil says jump, I jump!”
In 1979 Phil got the band in front of audiences, booking the National Jazz Blues and Rock Festival which became known as the Reading Rock Festival. Gillan were on the same bill as Steve Hcket, Think Lizzy, and Rory Gallagher.
ON September 20, 1979 the original version of this album was released in Japan by Toshiba-EMI. This album was billed as Ian Gillan. Australia and New Zealand got it later in the year.
That version of the album had a different track list.
*Tracks that does not appear on the Japanese version.
**Track that does not appear on the UK version but does appear on the 1993 “Gillan – The Japanese Album” compilation.
***Track unique to the Japanese version.
In 1993 RPM released a compilation called “Gillan – The Japanese Album” which combined the tracks from the Japanese “Mr. Universe” (except “Your Sister’s On My List”) album with the original Gillan “Japanese” album. 14 tracks in total.
Since we’ve already covered 4 of the tracks on the UK version we will focus on the Japanese release of Mr. Universe.
When you look at it the UK version is really more of a sort of compilation featuring 4 tracks previously released, one with a different lineup. The Japanese version, however, is a brand new album.
Stargazer – Issue #20 from December of 1979 also breaks down the differences between the versions.
Simon Robinson states that he doesn’t detect any real difference between the duplicated tracks.
Cover is a pic from Ian Gillan at the Reading Festival in 1978 playing with the brand new Gillan
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Album Tracks:
Side One:
Vengeance (Gillan, Towns)
Mr. Universe (Gillan, Towns)
She Tears Me Down (Towns)
Your Sister’s On My List (Gillan, Towns)
Robinson: “… has lyrics which you would expect from a title like that! Musically it starts off sounding a little Zeppelin like (early stuff), just the way the riff is constructed and churned out.”
Robinson compares the ending of the track to an imitation of “Hard Lovin’ Man.”
“The story first hit the headlines on 12 November 1979 when it was revealed that 14 night shift workers had been caught sleeping at a British Leyland plant. The men were found tucked up in sleeping bags when management swooped on the priming shop at the Range Rover plant in Solihull, near Birmingham.
“After two days of disciplinary hearings and appeals, BL dismissed 13 Land Rover car workers, who had been caught sleeping on the night shift. A Supervisor who was sleeping was also dismissed, along with a Foreman. The company refused to comment while a hearing was still continuing into charges against a Superintendent.”
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Reception and Review
The album reached No. 11 in the UK, selling over 2 million copies worldwide.
With all the craziness surrounding the track listing and versions of this album there is also another song from the Mr. Universe sessions that is considered lost. The song is called “Parliament Square.”
Reviews from Simon Robinson in Stargazer Issue #20, December of 1979:
Mr.Universe (UK)– Album Review
I recently rated the last studio album, issued only in Japan, as the best ex-purple disc to date. This comprises five tracks from it (three of which have been re-recorded), plus five new tracks. So how could they go wrong? Well they have. How they can honestly turn this out after that Jap. LP is beyond me. The material I can take, what I can’t take is the abysmal mix. It is just bloody terrible. Gillan’s vocals are buried, and though the drummer is presumably playing a whole kit, only the cymbals can be heard.
Mr.Universe (Japan)– Album Review
This contains five tracks from the UK edition (which sound the same to me), plus four new ones. Of those, ‘Your Sister’s On My List’ is quite catchy, and has lyrics which you would expect with a title like that! ‘Move With The Times’ is kept going by bass, drums and piano (sort of Pot Black style!). ‘Sleeping OnThe Job’ is very catchy, but not as good as the live version, because Gillan is mixed down too far. ‘Street Theatre’ is a short Towns instrumental, probably destined for a stage opener some day. Overall, that spark which made Gillan ‘Gillan’ outstanding is absent.
Robinson in Stargazer #20 says that the Japanese version is the best ex-purple disc to date.
Robinson speaks very unfavorably about the UK version, mostly having issues with the mix.
In the UK they promoted the album touring with Randy California. Samson with Bruce Dickinson were also there.
Gillan: “I loved the band; Bernie and John galvanized audiences with their electrifying stage act, and, in John’s case he was described in one review as a ‘walking absurdity’ with a presence that oozed rock ‘n’ roll.”
Gillan’s story about meeting back up with Ritchie from “Child in Time” pages 139-140.
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Worked with UFO, Motorhead, Y&T, Gary Moore, Deep Purple (Perfect Strangers)
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Album Tracks:
Side One:
Come On
Sweet Talker
Walking In The Shadow Of The Blues
Love Hunter
Side Two:
Fool For Your Loving
Ain’t Conna Cry No More
Ready An’ Willing
Take Me With You
Side Three:
Come On
Might Just Take Your Life
Lie Down
Ain’t No Love In The HEart Of The City
Side Four:
Trouble
Mistreated
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Spacey Noodles
The “Drop Drop From The Last Stop” Leaky Mausoleum
Stephen Sommerville The Concerto 1999 Fanatic
Raphael Choury (Raff Kaff)
Spike, The Rock Cat
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Hank the Tank
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Reception and Review
Charted at number 5 on the UK charts and number 146 on the Billboard 200.
From Jorg: “There is a clipping that says “release on Oct 20”. I’m not sure if that happened, I think it was postponed to November 3.”
Jorg: “Japanese release was Dec 5th, I don’t have a date for the US.”
Jorg: “The release caused some negative reactions from people who bought the Japanese “Live At Hammersmith” as import some monthes earlier and now they had to buy that 1978 part again. The Japanese release only had the 1980 part as single album, I think the North American releases were the same.”
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Jon Lord is said to have worked on composing and scoring this album between January and August of 1975.
It was recorded between September 3-6 at Stadthalle Oer-Erkenschwick, near Düsseldorf, Germany.
Remixed at Musicland Studios, Munich.
This is the next in the progression of his “classical” works from The Concerto For Group and Orchestra, Gemini Suite, and Windows, to this.
The backdrop for the composition of this work is at the end of Deep Purple’s original run. Blackmore had left the band in early 1975, playing their last few shows in the spring. By summer of 1975 Jon Lord was scoring this album.
Immediately after they would have Tommy Bolin join the band and record their final album until the 1984 reunion.
Jon moved near Dusseldorf and recorded Sarabande between September 3-6 of 1975. Eberhard Schoener would join him again, this time conducting the Philharmonia Hungarica. Other rock musicians were invited to join for this recording. Unlike with Window this time none would be from Deep Purple.
Composed By, Producer, Organ [Hammond], Piano [Rmi, Steinway], Grand Piano [Yamaha], Synthesizer [Arp Odyssey, String Ensemble], Clavinet, Score, Soloist [Pro] – Jon Lord
Worked with John Lennon and Yoko Ono on “Shaved Fish,” B.B. King, Marvin Gaye, etc.
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Album Tracks:
Side One:
Fantasia
This functions as a 3.5 minute overture in three sections.
Sarabande
The Sarabande is a Spanish dance from the 16th century which originated in the East.
Sarabandes are often in triple time
Aria
Scored for piano and synthesizer.
Gigue
Side Two:
Bouree
Pavane
This is a courtly dance often associated with a Galliard in the early BAroque period. It fell out of favor in the seventeenth century.
Caprice
Finale
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Reception and Review
The turbulent final days of Deep Purple pushed off the release of Sarabande until October off 1976.
The album got a good amount of promotion. The album sleeve was given a lot of care as they needed to catch the eye of Jon’s largely rock audience.
Sarabande is often mentioned as Jon Lord’s finest individual piece of work outside of Deep Purple.
A couple of years after this Shoener would join Summers in recording the debut album for The Police named “Outlands d’Amour” which Jon Lord says was one of his favourite albums.
Vinyl liner notes by Simon Robinson with musical appreciation from Vince Budd.
Listener Mail/Comments
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Says Glover liked the sound of Dio’s bass so much he asked STerling to make the same modification to his Rickenbacker. I believe they’re referencing the diagonal pickup.
He went on to work with Rainbow and Deep Purple when they reunited.
Sadly he passed away in December of 2015.
Album Art & Booklet Review
From Darker Than Blue (#33, January 1987)
Posters for the LP went up around town early January, with press ads about the same time. The “mystic symbols” which appeared in the ads (and again on the front sleeve) may have puzzled some of you, but we & others assumed them to relate to the name of the band. Two are astrological signs – the bow & arrows are Sagittarius the archer, for Roger Glover, the two masks are Gemini, the twins — Jon Lord’s sign. Ritche has been having owls about him since the first Rainbow LP. The rocket may relate to Garth, the crossed hands for Paicey, but we ain’t sure why. The sleeve itself didn’t look very promising, and we were right! A real K-Tel special — obviously they ran out of the right letraset doing the name and had to finish with something off another sheet . . .
Album Tracks:
Side Two:
Hard Lovin’ Woman (Gillan, Blackmore, Glover)
Gillan: “Well, we had a song called ‘Hard Lovin’ Man’ in the early days, so we thought ‘Hard Lovin’ Woman’ would be a laugh. Roger and I wrote a whole list of potential titles up on the wall of this little room in Stowe where we recorded the album, and that was one of them. We wanted to do a hard rock’n’roll song with tight harmonies and that kinda thing…and that title fitted the bill.”
The Spanish Archer (Gillan, Blackmore, Glover)
Song is 35 seconds longer on the 1987 CD release.
Gillan: “‘Spanish Archer’ is the next, isn’t it? Well, if you give someone the ‘Spanish Archer’, you give them the ‘elbow’ as you probably know, and so that song is about giving some lump the heave-ho. I don’t actually think this song should’ve been included. I mean, it isn’t properly arranged – it’s just a series of verses with jamming in between (and Ritchie takes about four solos!) – and it wears on me. But everyone else disagrees with me – which is par for the course anyway, ha! -so it’s been included.”
Strangeways (Gillan, Blackmore, Glover)
Song is 1 minute, 40 seconds longer on the 1987 CD release.
Gillan: “In contrast, ‘Strangeways’ is my favourite song on the album at the moment. I like the vocal harmonies on the intro…have you heard this one yet? You should, I’m very pleased with it.”
Mitzi Dupree (Gillan, Blackmore, Glover)
Gillan and Glover made a demo of the song to bring to the band to flesh it out. Blackmore didn’t like the song so he added a rough guitar track to the demo and refused to explore the song further with a proper studio recording.
The version they used on the album was the demo.
As Gillan relates the saga of trying to get Ritchie to approve the song “Painted Horse” for inclusion on “Who Do We Think We Are” to the saga of Mitzi Dupree.
Gillan: “And ‘Mitzi Dupree’ is a good one, too. Actually, it’s a true story. I was on a plane going to Salt Lake City when I was in Black Sabbath and I saw this most amazing boiler – oh, a sensational lump! – so I went over to talk to her and she said, ‘Hi, I’m Mitzi, Mitzi Dupree…’ and I thought, ‘Wow, what a great name!’ I was in love.
“Anyway, it turned out she was going up north to a mining town in Canada to do a show. So I asked her what she did and she told me that she did a show with ping-pong balls… Now, I’ve actually seen women do this before – in a small room behind a kitchen in Bangkok – and it’s absolutely amazing. There was this Siamese girl onstage, and there were five Italians in the front row, all with a glass of wine each. She bent over backwards and – pop-pop-pop-pop-pop – these five ping-pong balls were fired out of you-know-where and each one landed in a glass – I swear to you! This bird also pulled out 50 double-edged razor blades from the same place all attached to bit of cotton, she signed autographs, she did paintings … it was unbelievable! ANd this was what Mitzi did.
“‘Mitzi Dupree’ is a dead live song. It came out of a jam and we just recorded it for reference. I played it afterwards and thought it was great – I couldn’t stop singing it – so I said to Roger, ‘We’ve _got_ to do something with it.’ And he said, ‘Well, we can write on it, but we don’t have to play it again because everyone else hates it’. So we wrote the lyric and I sang it to the jam tape, and Roger and I decided to leave it like that, because it sounded so natural and spontaneous. It’s a great track.
Dead or Alive (Gillan, Blackmore, Glover)
Song is 18 seconds longer on the 1987 CD release.
Gillan: “The last track on the album, however, ‘Dead or Alive’, is a pile of s**t.”
When asked what he doesn’t like about it: “It’s just not any good,” the singer laughs, shrugging his shoulders.”
Answering why it’s on the album: “Exactly. Don’t ask me. No, it’s going to be good onstage…maybe _that’s_ why it’s on there. I _did_ write it,but under protest I might add. I think everyone else likes it, but I don’t.”
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Reception and Review
Gillan: “So that’s it; ten tracks on the album, and that’s more than you usually get on a Purple album, so… I’m pretty pleased with it. I would say ‘delighted’ but I won’t because I feel there should only be eight tracks on it. Still, it is a good album overall.”
The album hit number 10 on the UK charts and number 34 on the Billboard 200 in the US. It was also top 10 in six other countries including #1 in Germany, Sweden, and Norway; number 3 in Switzerland, Number 5 in Australia, and Number 9 in Japan.
Overall the 1987 CD release is 4 minutes, 32 seconds longer than the LP, cassette, or 1990 CD release.
The LP and cassette version are shorter featuring shorter versions of some of the songs.
CD released in 1987 though some version have a copyright of 1986 but may be because it was released on January 12, 1987. Not sure if an earlier release was done in any other countries.
In 1999 they released a CD version using the master tapes which matched the track length from the original LP and cassette version.
Promo materials:
Lord: “We decided from the start we weren’t going to do just one album and tour. This is keeping our promise.”
Gillan said this was a long and difficult album to produce comparing it to the “Who Do We Think We Are” session in Rome.
Gillan: “I look back at House Of Blue Light, there are some good songs on that record, but there’s something missing in the overall album. I can’t feel the spirit of this band. I can see or hear five professionals doing their best, but it’s like a football team, it’s not functioning. It’s like 11 superstars that are playing on the same field but are not connected by the heart or by the spirit.”
Blackmore: “I think I played like shit on it, and I don’t think anyone else really got that into it.”
Blackmore also says that many parts and songs were rerecorded.
Gillan: “…so long as Ritchie was happy with the guitar parts the lads were happy. I wasn’t and said so. But let’s not blame everything on Ritchie . . . I was a wanker too.”
Lord: “House of Blue Light was a weird album and hard to put together. We made the massive mistake of trying to make our music current. We discovered that people didn’t want us to do that.”
Glover: “Perfect Strangers, we kind of knew what the album was going to be called, very early on in the album, it was one of the hot contenders. But The House of Blue Light — we finished the album and we didn’t have a title. I was producing, so I was, ‘Okay, what are we going to call it? And there were lots of suggestions, but no one could agree. In the end, we were getting really desperate — we needed a title, so I came up with The House of Blue Light, which of course is a line from ‘Speed King.’ Everyone kinda went, ‘Oooer, yeah, it’s okay’; and because everyone went, ‘It’s okay,’ that was the one. It wasn’t the best one, it wasn’t the most appropriate. It was simply the only one everyone seemed to agree on, and that’s not a pleasant thing to do. If you have a title at the beginning, it gives you a landscape for what you’re doing.”
The album seemed to be Gillan, Glover, and Ritchie bringing in ideas on their own rather than working together. Of this Lord said, quoting Winston Churchill: “A camel is a horse, designed by a committee. Deep Puprle seems to make a better horse by committee!”
Lord also compared House of Blue Light to Fireball: “We always do one good album, a confused one, and then another good one.”
Many numbers just don’t have the extra spark to lift them onto my play-list. Let’s face it, there are only so many hours in a day, and I don’t feel inclined to waste too many listening opportunities putting on stuff which I really wanted to like but can’t. To me, as an album it doesn’t scale the heights which Purple have scaled before.
BAD ATTITUDE knocks me out, I’ve been playing it over and over, it’s probably the most powerful cut on the LP, with a no nonsense feel and edge to it which is often lacking elsewhere. Gillan does a great vocal, and the backing does him justice. Nowhere else on the LP does the production sound balance out quite as well as here either, with the right amount of everybody present all of the time. THE UNWRITTEN LAW by contrast is weak. and the efforts to introduce “current technology” only serve to water things down even further. MAD DOG contains the most truly godwaful keyboard noise in Jon’s solo. Whatever it is, destroy it or wipe it from the computer discs AT ONCE! STRANGEWAYS is a great track and shows what they can still do. I suppose it’s the fact that they keep coming up with goodies like this which makes it all the more frustrating with the lesser cuts. The overall balance is back too – somehow this does seem vital in keeping the Purple feel alive. I like DEAD OR ALIVE, not least for the proper organ and guitar solos – and about bleedin’ time! There is something special about the vocal though which I can’t really put my finger on, it just has a weird haunting quality. All the more curious that lan should write it off in the recent Kerrang feature.
It’s a long album, something around 46 minutes or so. Originally they’d been going to ditch a couple of the numbers, (MITZI DUPREE was one they couldn’t all agree on including), or save them for the CD. The CD is in fact a few minutes longer than the vinyl. The single b-side will be STRANGEWAYS with the CD length cut on the 12″, so this is a help for non-CDers like myself. The sound quality on the LP does suffer as a result of getting so much on (as well as the usual thin vinyl.), and it does need to be cranked up for full effect. I do feel they’d benefit from someone from outside coming in to handle production or something, someone who isn’t bothered about any outside pressures and who is also capable of capturing the essence of Purple on disc. That would entail a greater effort from the band too, the disc is very patchy. I personally will be surprised if people take to it unreservedly, the people I’ve heard from or spoken with so far haven’t (some have been down right damning!). After two years I had hoped for rather more.
Gillan says that Glover looked so drained after returning from mixing the album that he said, “I tell you what . . . I’ve got an idea. Let’s go and make a record.
Gillan Glover and Blagona departed for George Marin’s AIR Studios in Montserrat where they relaxed and made Accidentally on Purpose to unwind before the House of Blue Light tour.
The tour for House of Blue Light ended up being a difficult one with personality conflicts reigniting.
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