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Made in dire circumstances

Roger Glover live at the Budweiser Stage, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, September 2, 2017; photo © Nick Soveiko cc-by-nc-sa

Roger continues promoting the 52nd anniversary Machine Head remix in Indian press:

“It’s all going according to the plan- we sat down and said ‘let’s write an iconic song’… of course things don’t happen that way!,” laughs Roger Glover, one part of the legendary rock band Deep Purple over a video call.

The band’s most famous piece of work, Machine Head, is celebrating it’s belated 50th anniversary and set to release a new edition with remastered versions. “We are a very unplanned band. One high led to another, it’s only when you look back you can see what the journey was like. When you write an album, you don’t know what’s going to happen to the songs, it is up to the record buying public,” quips the bassist-songwriter.

Continue reading in Hindustan Times.



9 Comments to “Made in dire circumstances”:

  1. 1
    Gregster says:

    Yo,

    That was short & sweet, & no real new material discussed, & RG knows it since there’s a lot of laughter going-on too ! Perhaps made more obvious is the Frank Zappa reference, & thus the Dweezil remix this time around. All good !

    Happy Birthday MH !

    There’s also a few nice looking ladies further down, should one keep scrolling….

    Peace !

  2. 2
    Uwe Hornung says:

    Ok, so they had Highway Star prepared and wrote SOTW at the initial session, but everything else was done within two weeks?! Marvelous, they were truly inspired then. Machine Head thus stands out with its recording period: In Rock (which even employed various studios), Fireball and Who Do We Think We Are all gestated longer and were recorded via various “stops and starts” sessions.

    So that is why Machine Head sounds like it was cut from one piece – more so than any other 70ies Mk II album.

    BTW, I never thought SOTW a dumb or simplistic number. It’s arrangement is well thought out and defies convention and the lyrics tell an autobiographic story. The key changes are nifty, the riff isn’t rhythmically static at all and Blackmore’s solo is great. The song can’t help it that it has been played to death, but at every DP gig it still brings a broad idiot grin to my face. And I don’t really like hearing it played by anyone else, elitist bastard I am! ✌😎

  3. 3
    Max says:

    Uwe, yes it isn’t as dumb as the overplayin’ and the “No SOTW”-sign-jokes could almost make you believe. In fact it is ace. But when it comes to live performances – don’t you think they lost it in 1974? It suffered from Hugfhes and Coverdale then, later from Bolin and don’t get me started about Steve Morse’s take on it the other night. (Satriani did quite well, I think.) And what makes me wonder most: Even Ritchie butchered it in the reunion years. Live in Stuttgart is one of my all time faves (and I’m on it, what more could I ask for?!) but after that very nice intro Ritchie tears into the riff too fast, too loud too anything.

  4. 4
    Rajaseudun Rampe says:

    Speaking of MH remix, what I am looking forward to hearing is Never Before. It is actually a great song, but it is one that really needs remixing — if not even remaking. They have remade Bloodsucker and And the Address, but Never Before is the song that would deserve a new treatment. The band themselves thought it was a great song and put it out as the single from MH. They must have been satisfied with the song as a composition, but the execution and production should have been better.

  5. 5
    David Black says:

    Lazy had been in the live set before the recorded machine head

  6. 6
    James Steven Gemmell says:

    @3 It’s never the same without the same ingredients. There is a band going around calling itself ‘Three Dog Night’ and playing concerts. But two of the three singers have been dead for years and Chuck Negron is on oxygen, although he can still sing a bit. It’s glorified karaoke, if it’s not the recording artists who made it famous.

  7. 7
    Uwe Hornung says:

    No introduction necessary, James, I grew up with them: They were the band on which the DP fans (boys) and the Cat Stevens fans (girls) could agree on! 😁 Great group that has been largely (and unjustly) forgotten and was never recognized as a “serious band” because all their hits were written by outside writers, a cardinal sin for most rock journos unless you are/were Tina Turner.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CuNBengxaQ

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9uoq9gfeL0

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtTGfWDamVE (many of you will know this from Graham Bonnet, but TDN ‘discovered’ the Russ Ballard number first)

    In the early 70ies they had hit after hit after hit in the US charts and chalked up 40 million album sales. And here is my pet theory: Mk II touring in the US around that time must have been drenched with Three Dog Night airplay. Maybe, just maybe, hearing that band with three lead vocalists sometimes solo and sometimes in unison/harmony spawned the idea that having two lead lead voices in DP might not be such a bad idea …

  8. 8
    Kidpurple says:

    Eli’s Coming-Hide your Heart!

  9. 9
    Uwe Hornung says:

    To Kidpurple & alcohol consuming amphibians everywhere: Jeremiah was a bullfrog!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9uoq9gfeL0

    Jon Lord aside, never was a mustache worn with greater grace than by Chuck Negron.

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