Archives for August 2015

Certain Songs #298: Deep Purple – “Space Truckin’ (Osaka, Japan 08-16-1972)”

August 31, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: Made in Japan
Year: 1972

So of course, there’s a bit of a problem with “Space Truckin'”. The studio version on Machine Head is good, but it feels unfinished, while the version on Made in Japan is far more powerful, but goes on for over 20 minutes.

And I’ve got to be somewhere in 20 minutes!

That said, even if you have warp drive, travel in space takes a very long time, so you need a song with a lot of long guitar and organ solos to accompany you. So the live version it is!!

Certain Songs #297: Deep Purple – “Smoke on The Water (Osaka, Japan 08-15-1972)”

August 30, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: Made in Japan
Year: 1972

Where even to begin with this iconic piece of history? The fact that it was based upon a true story, and so wasn’t just another chick song or road song? The fact that writing a song about something that happened while you’re recording the album the song is on felt cool and fresh?

The fact that the studio version of this song was a #4 hit single right here in the U.S.A.? And this live version was a hit itself? And in fact, the single edit (of course) of the Made in Japan version the one I remember being played on KYNO-AM, not the studio version, which I’ve always felt was significantly weaker.

Nah, of course you gotta start with THE RIFF!!

Certain Songs #296: Deep Purple – “Highway Star (Osaka, Japan 08-16-1972)”

August 29, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: Made in Japan
Year: 1972

So, after the utter triumph of Deep Purple in Rock, Deep Purple followed with two pretty good records — Fireball and Machine Head — that didn’t even come close. The former showed them stretching out a bit while losing some of their edge, and the latter had some edge, but its best songs were all eclipsed by their live versions.

Because Made in Japan.

Certain Songs #295: Deep Purple – “Flight of The Rat”

August 28, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: Deep Purple in Rock
Year: 1970

One of the things that Deep Purple had that a lot of their metal contemporaries lacked was escape velocity: the ability to play their songs at a ferocious speed for an extended period of time.

Led by their multifaceted (and eternally underrated) drummer Ian Paice, they could lock into an uptempo groove and just keep going and going.

Certain Songs #294: Deep Purple – “Child in Time”

August 27, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: Deep Purple in Rock
Year: 1970

It’s probably just me, but I feel like these days Deep Purple doesn’t get the same love and respect that their metal-pioneer peers Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath get.

I understand why: Zeppelin is Zeppelin, and their reputation has grown to the point where they’re in the conversation as the greatest band of all time. (Or at least my conversation.)

And Black Sabbath has always benefited by the contrast between the outsized darkness of their music and the outsized outlandishness of Ozzy Osbourne. In contrast, Deep Purple really didn’t have an overarching mythology: they were just a bunch of great musicians who happened to play hard rock.

Certain Songs #293: Deep Purple – “Hush”

August 26, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: Shades of Deep Purple
Year: 1968

I think that over the years, I always tended to discount “Hush” as inferior Deep Purple, not so much because it was a Top Ten single (after all, so was “Smoke on The Water,” and you’re damn straight I’m gonna write about that), but because it was made by the wrong Deep Purple.

After all, everybody knows that Deep Purple Mark I was decidedly inferior to Deep Purple Mark II.

Certain Songs #292: The Decemberists – “16 Military Wives”

August 25, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: Picaresque
Year: 2005

Like a few others of their Pacific Northwest contemporaries that started around the turn of the century — Modest Mouse, Long Winters, Death Cab For Cutie, etc — I missed the very early Decemberists albums, not discovering them until they made an album that one way or another cut through the static.

In this case, that album was Picaresque, which started the pattern that I would love a couple of songs on every Decemberists album, but never an entire album from start to finish, with the exception was 2011’s R.E.M.-influenced The King is Dead.

Certain Songs #291: Death Cab For Cutie – “Transatlanticism”

August 24, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: Transatlanticism
Year: 2003

Like a few others of their Pacific Northwest contemporaries that started around the turn of the century — Modest Mouse, Long Winters, The Decemberists, etc — I missed the very early Death Cab For Cutie albums, not discovering them until they made an album that one way or another cut through the static.

In the case of Death Cab For Cutie, that album was Transatanticism, though how it came into my life, whether via the radio or album reviews or even on one of those TV shows aimed at millennials, I have no idea. I’m just glad it did, if for no other reason that the epic title track.

Certain Songs #290: Dead Kennedys – “Moon Over Marin”

August 23, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: Plastic Surgery Disasters
Year: 1982

While I missed the Dead Kennedys legendary performance at the Belmont Ballroom on our nation’s 205th birthday, I was lucky enough to see the Dead Kennedys a couple of times in the mid-1980s.

The second time was in 1985 at the Wilson Theater, and all I remember about it was Jello Biafra going off on a long rant about Safeway, and it seeming a bit weird to see them in a theater setting as opposed to a club setting.

The first time? Ahhhhh, therein lies a bit of a story . . .

Certain Songs #289: Dead Kennedys – “We’ve Got a Bigger Problem Now”

August 22, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: In God We Trust, Inc EP
Year: 1981

“California Über Alles” is a helluva song and a hardcore landmark, but as satire, it felt a bit off. Like there was any chance of Jerry Brown becoming President in 1980 (or 1992) (or any year, really), as the ill post-malaise winds were already beginning to blow.

Which I why I’ve always preferred the sequel/update, 1981’s “We’ve Got a Bigger Problem Now.” It was all very well and good (and funny) to attack Jerry Brown from the Left for being a fascist hippie, but when the Gipper was elected, it was all hands on deck.