Hard Rock mark II : Full Throttle

Don’t you think that this blog is turning into a punk/new wave arty joke?

Where is the good old rock and roll and stuff? The one which hurts, and fears no danger?
Jeeze, it’s a definition that suits perfectly to a legend, the first creators of Metal ever.

The magnificent Deep Purple.

A UFO among all the stoners of the 70’s, the kind of hippies didn’t really like, and the young first skaters used to adore.

They didn’t learn much of The Jimi Hendrix’s lessons, but they understood one only simple thing, turning on their amps, and playing fast,0 one level over hell, the hard rock outer space.

Put the CD in the machine, listen the very first track of the album, the intro and the devil multi voice gently coming out of the grave and exploding in a cymbal wreck, a hundred miles per second.
This guy really loves his car, the best of the entire motorised world, the “Highway Star”.
That rock and roll anthem will be nothing without some hard but classical keyboards cathedrals.

At the drums, Ian Paice, a fatso but one of the fastest and heaviest drummers of the century, (listen to the fists second on “Pictures of Home”), a job magnificently done without any overdub takes.
Nowadays, some drummers like him would never make surface, at the time, some sonic space was fully accorded and left to the drummer, most of the fans loved a rock band only because of a drummer, now, out of the drumming intelligentsia, you’ll never heard two kids at recess arguing about which band has the best drummer, Avril lavigne or Good Charlotte?

I don’t even have to mention that this album was recorded live, showing a demoniac coherence and unity of this band, all set and fastly jamming on the same tempo!
Speaking about the recording of this hard rock masterpiece, did you know that the recording of this album was pretty unusual?
When hard rocker used to rent a mansion or a Scottish manor to record an album all winter long, the Deep had their scene at the Montreux casino burned to the ground, they borrowed the Rolling Stones mobile record plant and theirs engineers and recorded the entire album in one week in their hotel room.

Saying that the Deep was only a band of hard rock metal workers, is untrue or half false.

When the warriors are tired, the rhythm calms down and a poppier song tone appears “Never Before”, a hurt young man, totally knock down by a woman for the first time, it is in a certain way, their own version of “Help”.

I told you guys, so familiar and so special at the time, one of my “it’s a pretty good band” main criteria.

And you known, I won’t even insult your rock knowledge speaking about “Smoke on the Water”, heard in too many commercials and awful movies.
Try to listen it completely, like if it was the very first time…kicks ass, I’m really sorry to use such a poor vocabulary, but sometimes, things have to be said clearly.
Did some of you guys have ever heard about rock and roll science fiction, Bowie in his Diamond Dogs period, Hawkwind and its idea of future?
Well, the Deep’ are giving us their very special idea of it, a very common and realistic one, where some average space truckers drive around the solar system, stopping at each planet obsessed with booze and party.
Being a nasty trucker cruising around Mars and Venus never seemed so cool.

Did you know that before giving in the pure hard rock’ n’ roll madness, Deep Purle was a weird medieval folk combo, writings love songs and odes to brave knights?
One of this kind of old school remains is “When a Blind Man Cries”, a cool Hendrix’s style slow rock piece, featuring cloudy keyboards solos and some laid back solos (try to imagine a mix Between Hey Joe and one of their main hit, a cover of “Hush”).

Anyway who cares about that?

Just turn the volume up and bang your hairy head.