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Enjoyable!

The documentary DVD came out this week in the US and I picked it up yesterday. Wasn't sure exactly what to expect, the DPAS comments about not many rare clips and RB refusing to play stuff on electric guitar came across quite negative.

But it's very cool!

The coolest thing is that everyone is nice and complimentary about each other and the album. Almost no bitchiness, and the little that there is, is tongue in cheek (Ritchie channeling shortwave Bulgarian radio through his hat). Everyone praises the genius of Blackmore, and in turn RB is on his self-deprecating humour best behaviour - everything he says about Gillan is positive, and he gives credit to everyone as well as the album itself.

It's mainly individual interviews except the two Ian's are together. Both Roger and Martin Birch are in front of mixing desks, some very interesting parts where they play a song but then fade out all but one track (instrument) so you can hear what someone is doing individually.

Jon demonstrates some stuff on a Hammond, how he gets his sound etc - nice part where he plays bits of the Space Truckin' live improv. Ritchie plays stuff on acoustic but it sounds cool - talks about how he thought his chorus riff in Space Truckin' was too simple, but then Gillan took it and made it sound good with the right lyrics. They also interview a few other people, some guy from a guitar mag, plus Chris Welch and Chris Charlesworth.

One weird thing, as far as I can remember, Lazy is not mentioned or played one single time, even in the bonus material section. Smoke On The Water of course gets the most airtime with the Casino fire story which I'm sure none of us ever heard before(!).

Highway Star has the "written on the way to Portsmouth" story, Space Truckin' has Jon's bit as well as some goofing on the lyrics, Pictures Of Home gets a fair amount of time with Paice's drum intro and RB telling IG that "eagles" was OK to put in the words. Never Before was the "failed single", and there's a promo for it in the bonus section which is pretty obviously the band playing something completely different on video and the track put on the audio. Maybe I'm A Leo is only (I think) mentioned in the bonus material where Roger talks about how he came up with the riff.

Oh yeah, there's one part where they all talk about getting from the studio to the playback room at the hotel. Very funny with each member doing a line and then splicing the video together.

Definitely worth getting hold of. I guess it's on UK TV in the next week or so. Much more enjoyable to watch than say... Perihelion

Jonathan Cornick

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