Where Worlds Collide

What do Deep Purple albums have in common with Star Trek movies? As any trekkie will tell you, Trek movies follow an odd/even rule, where films alternate between good and bad. So it is with Purple albums. They followed the classic Machine Head with the going-through-the-motions Who Do We Think We Are, the revitalised Burn with the patchy Stormbringer. After their excellent 1984 reunion album Perfect Strangers came the lacklustre House of Blue Light. The followup to the fresh and adventurous Purpendicular was the tired-sounding Abandon. On this reckoning, Bananas should be one of the good ones.

Bananas is also the first album not to feature founder member Jon Lord, who decided he was simply too old for the band’s endless touring. His replacement on the keyboards is longtime member of the hard rock session mafia, Don Airey, veteran of many, many bands, including Rainbow, Blizzard of Ozz and The Gary Moore band. For the benefit of those that haven’t been following the band in recent years, they retain long time members Ian Gillan, Roger Glover and Ian Paice, plus on guitar Steve Morse, who replaced Richie Blackmore three albums ago after the mercurial Man in Black threw one strop too many and quit the band.

So does the album follow the odd/even rule?

Yes, I would say it does. My initial impression on first listening was that the feel was closer to Ian Gillan’s recent solo material that to recent Purple albums. Perhaps this was to be expected in a band now without both Jon Lord and Richie Blackmore. However, repeated listens throw up a lot of parellels with Purpendicular, the first album with Steve Morse, indicating that he had a big input in the writing.

The album has a loose and relaxed feel, much more so than recent releases. It opens with a classic rocker “House of Pain”, one of those songs that invites you to turn the volume up as loud as your neighbours will permit. The best numbers are saved for the end of the album, the title track, featuring some very ELP-like keyboard work from Don Airey, and the energetic closer “Doing it Tonight”, which deserves to be released as a single. Of course, Gillan’s lyrics are as sexist as ever, but what did you expect?

Overall, a good solid album. While it’s no Machine Head or Burn, it’s still one of the better post-reunion albums, and a big improvement on it’s predecessor, Abandon. I hope they play songs like “Doing it Tonight” and “House of Pain” on the forthcoming tour, rather than play “Black Night” for the zillionth time.

The Purps aren’t done yet.

Just when you thought a meme had run it’s course, something like this comes along. It will probably only make sense to those that read Making Light and witness the way trolling Freepi are dealt with in the comments section.

When the Freeperati praise things like this piece of vicious hate-filled drivel, why on earth should anyone take them seriously? Apparently the War Party now believe that if Bush doesn’t win in 2004, the terrorists will have won.

Somebody had to do this, of course. It’s been done for film reviews and death metal lyrics, now we have a PERL warblogger in R. Robot: The first self-writing weblog.

There you have it: the bloviating insouciance, the absurd treachery of the weaseling Left.

George Orwell has observed, “libs corrupt everything and create nothing.” The wildly permissive bigots want it both ways. After the nuclear holy warriors obliterates the United States, they’ll say, “See, we told you so. It’s all Prime Minister Blair’s fault.”

(Link from Atrios)

BBC NEWS | Health | Urban sprawl piles on the pounds

It may be possible to predict the average weight of people in a particular district - simply by looking at an aerial photo.

US scientists have suggested that people who live in a “sprawling” district - where shops and services are widely spaced - tend to weigh more

Indeed. And it’s not exactly rocket science to explain, either. When I hear people say things like “Walking is not a means of transportation” and mean it, it’s hardly surprising to me that they become roughly spherical in shape.

I managed avoid spending any more money on N-gauge rolling stock to clutter up my already overfull layout, but unfortunately for my bank balance I did make it as far as HMV in Stockport and binge on CDs instead, and ended up with the new album “Bananas” from veteran rockers Deep Purple, “Dream Harder” by The Waterboys (I’ll blame that on HH), and “Damnation” by Opeth (to be blamed on Marty Dodge) I’ll try and post reviews once I’ve had a chance to listen to them all; I’m quite impressed with the Deep Purple one.

In response to this rather silly Worst of All Time list, here are five artists I think belong in rock’s hall of shame. And I haven’t started on annoying novelty acts like Joe Dolce.

Phil Collins
He was okay when he was merely the drummer of the best of the 70s crop of prog-rock bands. But then he spent the next decade dismissing the music he himself had made the decade before, while releasing turgid albums of maudlin ballads and dreadful watered-down soul covers that sold in lorry-loads to people with no taste called Kevin. And he took the ‘credit’ for turning that same sublime prog-rock bands from the 70s into one of the worst examples of bland, corporate stadium rock, sold to those same Kevins.

Sledgehammer
The New Wave of British Heavy Metal gave the world Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, and, er, Saxon. There were a vast number of other bands in the ‘scene’, including this lot from my home town, Slough. I felt I had to support them as our local heroes, and for a while I was in denial over just how bad this talentless ‘power trio’ were. I even endured them live three times. The last time I saw them play, in the Student Union of what was then Slough College of Further Education, the venue burned down a few hours later in the middle of the night, presumably to stop them ever coming back.

Boney M
Rah Rah Rasputin! Russia’s greatest Sex Machine! Brought to you by the same people that were later to give us Milli Vanilli. Do they represent the grimmest barrel-scrapings of 70s disco, or the primordial ancestors of Euro-Cheese? Not exactly Germany’s finest contribution to global culture.

The Smiths
The English music press, so long the enemies of all that’s good in music, have an official policy that the sun shines out of Morrisey’s backside. If I read one more hagiographical article declaring that pop music is dead because no-one can beat the ‘perfection’ of The Smiths, I’m going to throw up.

Rod Stewart
Rumour has it there was once, in ancient days when men were men and beer was one-and-six a pint, a time when Rod Stewart was a significant rock artist rather than a horrible cheesy self-parody. If there was such a time, it was before mine. There is a special circle of hell dedicated to anyone that can release a record quite as awful as his “D’ya think I’m sexy”. During the 70s he was a tax exile in America, and stated that he would return to Britain if the Tories won the election and lowered taxes. This gave rise to the election slogan “Vote Labour to keep Rod Stewart out!”. An argument for why we should never have allowed Hadrian’s Wall to fall into disrepair.

At Creative Slips this weeks. And no bad train puns this week.

Not the final death of that dinosaur, sadly. But this is now it’s proper colour again.

You’re Vietnam!
After years of muddling through on your own, you’ve finally repaired yourself to a point of respectability.  You would have been much better off had people you didn’t like not kept insisting on spending so much time with you.  But those times are fading quickly and these days you’re pretty sure you won’t get burned.  Star power!

Take the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid

(Link from Dodgeblogium)