Tag Archives: Deep Purple

85. child in time

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“Deep Purple‘s Child In Time is one of the first times I ever really connected with a lyric, the one about the blind man shooting at the world. I guess thirteen year old me had enough of a grasp on randomness and karma and the overall crumbling state of the post-60s zeitgeist to have no problem buying in. Because there were blind men out there, figurative and otherwise. They did have guns and they were just letting rip. Of course, Ian Gillan’s vocals helped in this regard, always one more octave to be nailed with all due terror and glory, this being the guy who played the title role in the original Jesus Christ Superstar. So heaven really was the limit.

“And then there’s the band itself, jamming through the extended middle section like the world was ending (and it probably was), particularly the live Made In Japan version, Made In Japan being what one might call the definitive 1970s double live album. It was certainly required listening in every big brothers’ beater of a car, always on 8-Track tape, soundtrack for bombing recklessly around suburbia as if there was actually a reason to. And maybe there was. I do remember one rather psychedelically enhanced conversation with old friend Motron wherein it was decided that maybe the entire reason for our particular suburbia to have existed was to give us young folk (boys mostly) something to tear around in at absurd speed, thus justifying Deep Purple at the peak of their attainments. If that makes sense. And even if it doesn’t, what do you expect from men who spent their childhoods ducking blind men with guns? Figuratively and otherwise.” (Philip Random)

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226. stratus

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“I first heard the groove from Stratus via the main sample from Massive Attack’s rather brilliant Safe From Harm. But Billy Cobham‘s original track roars off in a whole other direction, and blisteringly so. The lead guitar comes care of a guy named Tommy Bolin who was supposed to be the saviour of the instrument in the early-mid-70s … until he hooked up with Deep Purple and eventually OD’ed on heroin. As for Mr. Cobham, I figure if he was a good enough for Miles Davis, he was good enough for all humanity.” (Philip Random)

306. the temple

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In which Jesus loses his cool when he discovers the sacred temple of Jerusalem has been taken over by the moneychangers, goes all punk rock on things. But seriously, when this Original London Cast recording gets to humming (not to be confused with the okay-but-just-not-as-good movie soundtrack), it’s as cool as funky as rockin as any dozen satanic offerings. Of course, it helps having Deep Purple’s soon-to-be front man Ian Gillan playing the title role, leaving no sonic scenery un-chewed.

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493. lazy

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“Memories of John Masterson, the older guy who lived next door, and definitely a wild one. He had a souped up Datsun 510 that he loved to bomb around in, so he’d give me rides places just to have an excuse to open it up, burn rubber, go FAST. And I swear he always had the same 8-Track playing, which was Deep Purple Made In Japan, and it always seemed to be the same song. Not the obvious one, Highway Star. Nah, John Masterson was hooked on Lazy, from its lazy indeed beginning onward through the riffing and rocking and erupting. The All Time Heavy, he called them, and I wasn’t going to argue, not at 90 mph down a back road near the docks.” (Philip Random)

DeepPurple-1972-live

 

42. The Solid Time Of Change

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Installment #42 of the Solid Time of Change aired on Saturday June-24-2017 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

Podcast (Solid Time begins a few minutes in). Youtube playlist (not entirely accurate).

The Solid Time of Change is our overlong yet incomplete history of the so-called Prog Rock era – 661 selections from 1965 through 1979 with which we hope to do justice to a strange and ambitious time indeed, musically speaking.

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Part Forty-Two of the journey went as follows:

  1. Mason Williams – classical gas
  2. Van Morrison – you don’t pull no punches but you don’t push the river
  3. Genesis – the musical box
  4. Rainbow – stargazer
  5. Deep Purple – sweet child [space truckin] in time
  6. Rolling Stones – you can’t always get what you want
  7. Beatles – strawberry fields forever
  8. Beatles – revolution 9
  9. Pink Floyd – echoes

Fresh episodes air pretty much every Saturday night, starting 11 pm (Pacific time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9, with streaming and download options available within twenty-four hours via our Facebook page.

812. as the moon speaks

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“True, the cover of Captain Beyond‘s self-titled first (and most necessary) album is at least a little silly (featuring as it does some mystical rock GOD entity standing on asteroid out in space), but everything else is pretty much rock solid, with an emphasis on the rawk (which makes sense given the Iron Butterfly and Deep Purple blood deep in the band’s veins) even as the songs have the audacity to shift tempo and time signature, and lyrically wax poetic upon the speaking of the moon. You really must listen when the moon speaks. What was it about 1972?” (Philip Random)