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[We continue to celebrate the release of Deep Purples new album with some vintage reviews from the print editions of Live! Music Review, All written by our in-house expert on all things Purple related, Stephen Wunrow, Available on the Internet for the first time.]
Deep Purple: Oldenburg ’71 (Black Suede BS-11, Japanese release)
Venue: Oldenburg, Germany 4/11/71
Sound Quality: Supposed to be a soundboard but most likely a very good audience recording, vocals on the thin side but guitar is nice and loud.
Cover: Rare photo of the Mk II lineup in a cemetery. (Chopin’s grave? Paris?)
Tracklist: Speed Ling Strange Kind of Woman/ Child In Time/ Into The Fire/ Mandrake Root
Review: Here’s a show of a previously uncirculated tape from the halcyon days of the Purps. Deep Purple’s live show was reaching a peak that would shortly be eroded by constant touring and increasing internal fighting within the group.
Oldenburg was a part of a quick four day German tour that the band undertook in the middle of the recording of the Fireball album. “Strange Kind of Woman” had just been released as a single and they had already incorporated it into their stage act.
The band takes awhile to tune up and then start with a furiously paced “Speed King” that has Jon Lord and Richie Blackmore playing off each other beautifully. :Strange Kind of Woman maintains the energy, with three melodically blistering solos from Blackmore, before settling down for the opening verses of “Child In Time.” “Into The Fire” is pure heavy blues, which Gillan introduces as “rock ‘n’ roll with it’s trousers down…,” precisely. “Mandrake Root,” as usual, showcases the instrumental prowess of Lord, Blackmore, and Paice while injecting an occasional sense of humor along with the musical anarchy. The tune never ceases to amaze me and is, to me, what Purple is (was) all about.
Not only is this a great document os the band but a great show as well from a period of the band where not much of good sound quality survives.
[November 1996 issue of L!MR]
Deep Purple: White Nights (Crystal Sound CS 21/22, Japanese Release)
Venue: Gothenburg, Sweden 12/11/73
Sound Quality: Not a bad audience recording taken from a vinyl boot release, Truckin’
Cover: Good live photo from that period of the band and graphics are up to the usual Crystal Sounds standards – much better than the original vinyl release design.
Tracklist: (disc 1) Burn/ Might Just Take Your Life/ Lay Down, Stay Down/ Mistreated/ Smoke On The Water/ You Fool No One (disc 2) Space Truckin’/ What’s Going On Here?
Review: This is a fun one. It showcases the newly revamped Mk III version of the band as they were breaking in the two new guys, Glenn Hughes (from Trapeze) and a nervous nobody, David Coverdale on vocals.
DP did a few warm-up dates in Scandinavia, and this performance is perhaps the second or third time that the new band had played together. What the band loses in the way of a tight performance is more than made up for by the sheer terror the guys must have felt to “make good.” The adrenaline is almost palpable and makes for an interesting show.
Another added bonus is the inclusion of “What’s Going On Here” from the Burn album, which was released the following month. It didn’t really work too well as a live number, however, and was soon replaced by the old rock standard, “Going Down.”
This CD is scarce but worth tracking down, as the vinyl edition is long out of print.
[November 1996 issue of L!MR]
Deep Purple: More Tastes (Show Co. SC-9447-1819, Japanese release)
Venue: Tokyo, Japan 12/15/75
Sound Quality: Varies, but generally a very good audience recording
Cover: Good use of obscure rehearsal photos of the Tommy Bolin version of the band
Tracklist: (disc 1) Burn/ Getting Tighter/ Smoke On The Water/ Wild Deogs/ I Need Love (Soldier of Fortune) (disc 2) Owed To G/ Drifter/ You Keep on Moving/ Stormbringer/ Highway Star/ (bonus tracks) Fireball/ You Fool No One/ Hush
Review: Here is an important document of the band that is probably only of interest to Bolin or Deep Purple fanatics as it shows just how far the band had fallen.
Dee Purple was not operating on all cylinders here with Bolin’s drug habit increasingly getting in the way of his brilliance. This is one of the four Japanese shows the band performed.
As for the bonus tracks, “Fireball” is from Sheffield 1971 and “Hush” is from their live appearance on the Playboy After Dark TV show in 1968. The next track is interesting because it shows exactly how far the band had fallen in just eight short months. It’s a performance of “You Fool No One” from their Spring 1975 European tour, probably Paris (Blackmore’s last show with the band in the ‘70s).
[November 1996 issue of L!MR]
Deep Purple: Locked in a Paper Cage (no label, Japanese release)
Venue: Irvine, CA 5/23/87
Sound Quality: A few gens down from a soundboard tape
Tracklist: (side 1) Highway Star/ Strange Kind of Woman/ Unwritten Law/ Dead or Alive/ Perfect Strangers/ Hard Loving Woman/ Bad Attitude/ Child in Time (disc 2) Difficult to Cure/ Knocking at Your Backdoor/ Space Trucking/ Black Night/ Folk Songs/ Smoke on the Water
Not much on CD has been released from this era of the band. This is the whole show(a single CD was previously released called Dead or Alive) and of generally good soundboard quality. In fact, it’s perhaps a better overall performance than their official live release of this tour called Nobody’s Perfect, it’s certainly more honest!
Good luck finding this CD though. It was originally only available as a bonus if you bought a ten CD box set of Japanese Deep Purple releases.
[November 1996 issue of L!MR]
Deep Purple: Live in Tel Aviv 1991 (DP-23-5, Japanese release)
Venue: Tel Aviv, Israel 9/28/91
Sound Quality: Excellent, from radio broadcast, DJ introduces and talks over each song (which might be a plus if you don’t enjoy Joe Lynn Turner’s between song blather!)
Cover: Live shot of Blackmore, graphically treated with Hebrew lettering
Tracklist: (disc 1) Black Night/ Truth Hurts/ Cut Runs Deep/ Perfect Strangers/ Fire In The Basement/ Hey Joe/ Love Conquers All (disc 2) Ritchie’s Blues/ Knocking at Your Back Door/ Lazy/ Space Trucking/ Highway Star/ Smoke On The Water
Review: This is “alternative” version of DP (with ex-Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner usurping Gillan’s role) doing an “alternative” world tour. The band performed in countries they never had before (Israel, Greece, South America, Eastern Europe) to make up for the relative lack of interest in America and Europe!
This is one of the two dates they played in Israel that were set up on fairly short notice. The band was playing very well, though Turner’s vocals and between-song schlepping border on cabaret.
Recommended for those into the more commercial sounding era of the band. Blackmore does deliver the stuff, however, especially during the “Ritchie’s Blues” segment. It’s five minutes of pure magic as he jams, doing his middle eastern scales and tones, which is very appropriate here!
[November 1996 issue of L!MR]
Deep Purple: Ritchie Last Gig (no label, Japanese release)
Venue: Oslo, Norway 11/1593, bonus tracks from Helsinki, Finland 11/17/93
Sound Quality: good sounding audience tape, bonus tracks not so good
Cover: Nothing special, cardboard sleeve
Tracklist: (disc 1) Highway Star/ Black Night/ Talk About Love/ A Twist in the Tale/ Perfect Strangers/ Difficult to Cure/ Knocking at Your Back Door/ Anyne’s Daughter/ Child In Time/ Anya (side 2) The Battle Rages On/ Lazy/ Space Trucking (w/ Woman From Tokyo and Paint It Black)/ Hush/ Speed King/ Smoke On The Water/ (bonus tracks) Anya/ Hush/ Speed King/ Smoke On The Water
Review: This comes from the second to last performance that Blackmore (to date!) performed with the bans, the four bonus tracks are in fact from “Ritchie’s last performance in Helsinki two days later.
It’s a great show and the band really takes off during “Child In Time,” with Gillan’s voice in fine form. Ritchie then gets even more inspired as they charge into “Anya” and treats us to a long, beautiful guitar passage. Another long quiet solo starts “Smoke,” in fact he can’t stop soloing throughout and after the song. Rich knows the end is near and chooses to go out in style.
This is another release that was originally only available if you bought a ten CD set. It’s well worth the effort to track down, however.
Blackmore and band were playing together at a higher level here than during any of the previous reunion tours, a bitter sweet end to a band at the height of its powers.
[November 1996 issue of L!MR]
Deep Purple : Fireball Over Madrid (DPCD 09/10, European release)
Venue: Madrid, Spain, bonus tracks from BBC sessions
Sound Quality: good audience tape
Cover: Poor quality rip off of the official CD release, Come Hell or High Water
Tracklist: (disc 1) Highway Star/ Ramshackle Man (listed as “Real Gentlemen”)/ Maybe I’m a Leo/ Fireball/ Perfect Strangers/ Pictures of Haome/ Knocking at Your Back Door/ Anyone’s Daughter/ Anya (listed as “Gipsy Heart”) (disc 2) The Battle Rages On/ When a Blind Man Cries/ Lazy/ Space Trucking/ Speed King/ Smoke on the Water/ (bonus tracks) Speed King/ Bird Has Flown
Review: The band gets a good reception partly because of Joe Satriani being such a star there however the overall performance is flat. Gillan sings well but there weren’t many sparks flying from Satriani’s guitar.
Part of the problem Satriani had in DP is that he never quite got the hang of playing with them and did quite a bit of over-the-top soloing. Satch jams in the notes with very fast licks and tries to say something that ir would take Blackmore three or four notes to do.
On the other hand, no one an be expected to have instant raport on stage with guys who’ve been playing together for 25 years or more.
To their credit, they do perform some never-played-before classics but Satriani still can’t muster up enough emotion to make me care very much. The battle had more or less stopped raging within Deep Purple.
Currently, however, all is not lost. Purple have a new album and guitarist, Steve Morse, who seems to be a much better fit with the band.
[November 1996 issue of L!MR]
Deep Purple: Smoke on my Mega-Mix (Nitelife N-042)
Review: This is a release that the average Deep Purple fan should consider passing up, unless you can find it relatively cheap (yes, it’s another Japanese pressing and probably goes for about $40 or so).
It’s another release of various odds & ends by the world’s most dysfunctional (and best) hard rock band.
The first two tracks from the BBC Top of the Pops radio show has DP Mk. I (the original with vocalist Rod Evans and bass Nick Simper) playing live in the BBC studios. These performances are already available on at least three other compilations, however, the difference here is that the tracks are direct from the master and of excellent quality, much better than on the versions previously released.
The first track is “Painter,” from their third album released in 1969. Here it’s performed much more energetically. Blackmore is the catalyst with his psychedelic/hard rock riffing and his Hendrix-inspired wah-wah peddling.
Track two is Purple’s version of Donovan’s “Lalena” (also from their third album). DP’s version manages to turn it into a great rhythm and blues shuffle, highlighting Lord’s impressive Hammond playing with Blackmore doing some tastefully restrained finger work on the guitar. They instill a passion and power in this cover version that was lacking in Donovan’s hippy/trippy original. Heck, Rod Evans even sounds good.
The next three tracks (“Might Just Take Your Life,” “Lay Down Stay Down,” & “You Fool No One”) are also from the same BBC Top of the Pops radio show but aren’t live performances. They’re simply the studio versions with DJ voice-overs.
The score so far: Two keepers and three wastes of space.
Th next three tracks are also taken from UK radio; “Smoke on my Mega-Mix,” “Mixed Alive,” & “Smoke on the Water (Mega Mix).” The first two were issued as a promo, mail order only, 7” single (obtainable only if you bought four 12” DP singles, issued in 1985 to promote the newly reformed DP. If you clipped the coupon from each single and mailed it into EMI, they presented you with this obnoxious thing).
The third mega-mix track is previously unavailable (I think) and it’s merelt two minutes of annoying edits and hiccups of the famous “Smoke” riff. All three may be remotely interesting for one play through, but they get irritating awfully fast. Chalk up three more dubious wastes of space.
The next track is an “outtake” from the 1985 Perfect Strangers sessions not included on the vinyl release. It was, however, included on the CD and cassette versions. It’s a good number and gives the feeling of the old “In Rock” days of the band, which was sorely lacking on much of the rest of the album.
It’s billed here as the “censored” version, which means that it simply has the lyric “fuckin’” edited out. Big deal. Another wasted track.
The last two songs can be placed in the keeper column. Both are from the 1991 Joe Lynn Turner era of the band. They were commercially available briefly, but in limited quantities and it’s worthwhile getting them back into circulation.
The first one is “Slow Down Sister,” only available in Europe as a bonus track on the 12” and CD of the “King of Dreams” single. It has a nice “Stormbringer” riff and feel to it. If you’re going to steal, you might as well steal from the best and from yourself.
The next trackis pretty difficult to find now. It’s titled “Fire, Ice and Dynamite” and is from the European-only release film soundtrack of the same name. There was a CD and vinyl soundtrack released but the bombed, literally, and they were soon deleted. It’s a bit more commercial sounding than “Slow Down” but has a good groove to it and Blackmore puts in an above-average performance.
Next are two bonus, surprise tracks, not listed on the CD, two brief, unreleased sessions from the “Smoke on the Water” all-star jam (Rock Aid Armenia). The resulting single had various rock/heavy metal musicians performing the old classic to benefit earthquake victims in Armenia in 1990. These two unreleased sessions may possibly appear on the Japanese commercially released video, The Making of Smoke On The Water, Rock Aid Armenia , which was a behind-the-scenes documentary of the project – worth picking up if you can find it.
The first has Lord blazing away on his Hammond, with Gillan doing the refrain. It ends with some nice guitar work, possibly by Alex Lifeson of Rush.
The next session has Blackmore blistering away doing some very inspired jamming over, around, above, and beneath the famous riff. If you listen closely you can hear Paul Rogers giving him some words of encouragement. Nearly worth the price alone to hear this!
So, all in all, over half the disc is fairly worthless but if you tale in consideration the cool cover, taken from the impossibly rare Japanese original edition of Shades of Deep Purple and color inside photo (the last DP Mk. II photo taken) and you’ve got some extra cash lying around, you might as well go for it.
[December 1995 issue of L!MR]
Deep Purple: Worth The Wait Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 (Kiwi Records KR-007/8)
Venue: Providence Civic Center 3/5/85
Sound Quality: Very good to excellent audience recording
Cover: Same graphics as the original double album release from the mid-‘80s that was boring and unimaginative. Packaged in two separate single CD slipcases
Tracklist: (disc 1) Highway Star/ Nobody’s Home/ Strange Kind of Woman/ Gypsy’s Kiss/ Perfect Strangers/ Under The Gun/ Lazy (disc 2) Child in Time/ Knocking at Your Back Door/ Difficult To Cure/ Space Trucking/ Woman From Tokyo/ Speed King/ Smoke On The Water
Review: This is an interesting document of the then recently reformed classic line-up of the band. It’s also a show that I was able to attend!
The Providence performance was nearly half way through their USA ’85 tour and shows that the band is still hungry and eager to impress, an attitude that they started to lose during the latter part of this tour and most of their subsequent tours.
Another reason that this show has more of an edge to it is that it was filmed for a documentary on the band, as was the previous night – also in Providence. The footage still sits in the DP archives somewhere and would have been a much better live release than their official live album, Nobody’s Perfect. Only a small portion of the documentary was ever broadcast and that was on French TV.
This is one of the better releases from their ’85 tour. It’s reasonably priced and of European origin.
[September 1996 issue of L!MR]
Rainbow: Black Shadows (Oxygen OXY 26)
Venue: Dusseldorf 10/9/95
Tracklist: Too Late For Tears/ Long Live Rock And Roll (w/Black Night/ Hunting Humans/ Wolf To The Moon (keyboard and drum solos)/ Black Masquerade/ Ariel/ Since You’ve Been Gone/ Perfect Strangers/ Hall o The Mountain King/ Burn/ Smoke On The Water
Review: Having been pretty disappointed with Rainow’s recent studio release, Stranger In Us All, (currently available only in Europe and Japan), I wasn’t too eager to hear what the band was doing in a live environment.
Curiosity won however, so I started checking out some of the latest live CDs from their tour at the end of last year.
This is one of the better releases available. The source is from a German TV broadcast and the computer generated artwork is good. The guitar playing is superb at times but these momentary flashes of brilliance aren’t enough to carry the tired, old Rainbow formula anywhere too exciting. In fact, Blackmore’s got the old Rainbow sound down so well that the past 12 years with Deep Purple see never to have happened at all.
What really makes me grumpy about all of this is that Blackmore is undoubtedly at the height of his powers and playing ability (as apposed to Page, Clapton and most of his other contemporaries) but he chooses to squander it all by rehashing old Rainbow riffs, which weren’t that original to begin with.
Case in point is the first track on the CD, “Too Late For Tears,” which is simply a reworked version of “Can’t Happen Here” from a 1981 Rainbow release. The new singer, Dougie White, even manages to sound exactly like Joe Lynn Turner, one of Rainbow’s previous vocalists.
“Hunting Humans” has a bit more atmosphere and at least tries to break some new ground musically, but is mostly ruined by fairly trite and banal lyrics.
“Black Masquerade” is another early ‘80s type Rainbow rocker but has some great and energetic guitar work going for it. This, as I see it, is Rainbow’s main problem. When Blackmore decides to have a good night, he will blow everyone away and overcome the constrictions of the Rainbow format and mediocre musicians he’s surrounded himself with.
The problem is that in the old Deep Purple days when Blackmore had an off night or wasn’t into it, you could always watch and enjoy Gillan, Lord or Paicey. With the current line-up, there’s nowhere else to go.
That being said, the next track, “Ariel,” is almost brilliant and the highlight of this CD. It’s passionate, intense, and full of beautiful “middle eastern” guitar passages.
The rest of the CD is up and down with cooking versions of “Perfect Strangers” and “Burn” from the old DP glory days but a lame “Since You’ve Been Gone” and pointless “Hall of the Mountain King.” Ritchie did it much better in 1965 on a solo single where he retitled it “Satan’s Holiday” under the group name of The Lancasters, a USA only release and well worth tracking down. Rumor has it that Keith Richards also guested on the sessions.
There’s another European release of this same show called Prince of Darkness that includes “Spotlight Kid” and “Greensleeves-Scottish Drinking Songs,” both of which are marginally more interesting than the keyboard/drum solos (yawn) that were deleted. The cover is daft, though, so stick with Black Shadows. It’s a good document f the 1995 version of Rainbow.
[July 1996 edition of L!MR]
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