2014 Hall of Fame Nominees - KISS, Yes, Nirvana, Deep Purple, Peter Gabriel

Just saw the 2014 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees and it's a doozy of a list: Nirvana, Kiss, the Replacements, Hall and Oates, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Chic, Deep Purple, Peter Gabriel, LL Cool J, N.W.A., Link Wray, the Meters, Linda Ronstadt, Cat Stevens, Yes and the Zombies.

Yeah I know, there are plenty of acts listed that are arguably not 'rock and roll' but I set that all aside when I attended the induction ceremony for Rush (and others) this year and it was a blast. If even a few of those 'more rock than not' acts get in, it will be a hell of a show.

My faves:

Yes: - I have been down on Yes, pretty much done with them, the last few years as a live act. But if they were to really induct Yes and include most if not all of the 19 or 20 players in that band over the 40 years of its existence, it would be a hell of a thing. And this is just the kind of event that forces reunions that ought to happen - i.e. Jon Anderson rejoining the band. I might have to travel to the event again this year if Yes gets in. They deserve inclusion, no doubt. Highly influential band, lots of success in the 70s and again in the 80s but re-born. No question.

Kiss: Kiss needs to retire. I am done with these guys, Paul Stanley's voice is gone and they are just too old to pull it off. The magic of the reunion, seeing all four original guys together, has long worn off. An induction to the hall might force the original four back together one last time. If not, it would be a shame.

But at the same time, how does KISS perform at an awards show? Watching Rush sit in their seats for five hours, then get up and rock, was one thing. How do you get the makeup on? How do they set up a KISS stage? Would be interesting. And they'd have to play. You can't be KISS and not play if you get in. So, interesting to be sure. Do they deserve to get in? Hell yes. Sure they suck but they have influenced too many bands that don't, and they have sold more records than anyone but the Stones and Beatles, so enough already. They get in.

Peter Gabriel: Oh hell yeah. He'd be great. Witty speech, dry humor and then he'd rock the shit out of everyone. Shock the Monkey and Sledgehammer. That's my prediction. Maybe he doesn't get in this time, but he will eventually if not for the music then for his humanitarian work, which I think plays well with the judges.

Deep Purple: Should have been in last year. Would be interesting to see if they'd get Richie Blackmore off the bench but I doubt it. He's too busy playing lute at the Renaissance Fair. Totally deserve to be in.

Lots of great other artists. Paul Butterfield, Hall and Oats, Linda Ronstadt, the Meters, Cat Stevens. Any of them would be cool.

Oh shit and Nirvana! I almost forgot. I'd be shocked if they did not make it in their first year. Would be great to see what musicians they would put together to do Nirvana songs with Grohl and Co.

Yeah this is a pretty good year for the Hall. Better start saving my frequent flyer miles.

Happy Birthday Ian Gillan

Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan turns 65 today - wow, 65! I have loved Purple since I first heard them back in high school. I recall heading to the used record store (Streetlight Records in San Jose, California), coming home with In Rock, Fireball, Machine Head and of course Live In Japan.

I was ultra fired up when the Mark IV version reunited in the 80s and put out the fantastic Perfect Strangers album and the pretty good House of the Blue Light follow up. I saw both supporting tours and was blown away each time.

Back in the 80s, Gillan had just wrapped up his short stint with Sabbath on the Born Again album and tour. I did not see that tour but that crazy album still holds a place in my metal heart. It's when the band started to jump the shark but Gillan's screech went over pretty well and who can argue the intensity of Zero the Hero, Trashed and the title track?

On those Purple tours, I could tell Gillan's voice was starting to give him problems. After Child In Time, he'd take a break while the guys did an instrumental, and he coughed a fair amount onstage. I am pretty sure he has not sung that song in years.

I was also stoked to learn Gillan played the role of Jesus on the studio LP of Jesus Christ Superstar prior to the movie and Ted Neeley's still-chugging-along-as-a-65-year-old-Jesus run at the role.

Anyway, what a great career and it's still going! Gillan just told VH1 Radio: “I think time, obviously, catches up with everyone, but it’s certainly not something we’re planning at the moment, everyone’s in pretty good shape. I don’t think we specifically try hard. We all had a pretty healthy life.”

Here's a nugget from back in the day. Happy Birthday Ian!

Child In Time:

Classic Album Series - Deep Purple Machine Head

Last night on VH1 Classic, I caught the Classic Album Series episode on the making of Deep Purple's Machine Head album. It was their breakthrough release that had Smoke on the Water, Space Truckin' and Highway Star - all Purple staples - as well as the lesser known but very killer Pictures of Home, Maybe I'm A Leo and Lazy.

The recording of the album is laid out well in the song Smoke on the Water, but is re-told in much more detail in the hour long episode. The band was looking for a place to record its next release, and they wound up in Switzerland to record at a casino, using the Rolling Stones mobile studio truck to capture the sound.

One of the really cool things the Stones did in the 70s was to embrace this idea of the mobile recording studio - a truck that had all of the recording equipment (board, tape decks, associated gear) - that could be set up literally anywhere, effectively turning that spot into a recording studio. Want to record in a field? Roll the truck up and you're set.

So Purple just had to find the right location. But the casino that they booked burnt down during a Frank Zappa show the night before they were supposed to record (check the lyrics in Smoke on the Water for the details).

They wound up in the Grand Hotel in Montreux, which was shut down for a few weeks and they took it because it was the only thing available. It was gray and dingy inside, and they wound up setting up in basically a hallway. To get back to the truck to hear playbacks, they had to go all the way to the other side of the hotel, including walking on parts of the roof outside, over scaffolding, through the snow etc., so they tended to trust their producer Martin Birch's ear and not bother.

They had three and a half weeks to finish the album so they were under the gun. All the songs were recorded live with no overdubs. If they made a mistake, they did the song over from scratch.

All five of the Purple members are interviewed in the show, which is interesting because guitarist Ritchie Blackmore has been on the outs for more than ten years, replaced by Steve Morse, who apparently is much easier to get along with.

The stories behind how some of the songs were written is the key to the whole episode. People brought in bits and pieces and they were all built upon. Keyboardist Jon Lord shows how he gets his MEAN Hammond tone - instead of running the Hammond through the rotating Leslie speaker that everyone uses, he fed it into a Marshall amplifier. When you hear those keyboard parts isolated, they sound like heavy guitar parts.

In fact I realized that Jon Lord is the key to that band's sound. The editor of Guitar Player Magazine is interviewed in the show and he notes that the difference between Purple and other heavy bands of the era like Sabbath and Zeppelin was that Purple had a heavy full-time keyboard player. He's right! Outside of Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman (and maybe The Band's Garth Hudson), who else was playing keyboards like this back in the late 60s/early 70s?

The album (and this episode) also highlight that Deep Purple was primarily a live band. They excelled at jamming and playing off of each other - sadly a lost art today.

In fact, when I saw the reunited version of this Purple lineup in the 80s, I noticed that they did more jamming onstage than I had ever seen.

One funny personal story comes to mind. My friend Bill and I saw the band at the Shoreline on the House of the Blue Light tour (where Bad Company opened). During one of the jams, Blackmore was messing with the tuning on his guitar. He then worked something out with bassist Roger Glover where they traded instruments in a jam (in front of about 20,000 people).

He handed his guitar to Glover and started playing Glover's bass over by Jon Lord while the two watched Glover move to center stage to take a solo. After noodling for a minute, Glover looked at Blackmore with a "what the hell" look and Lord and Blackmore started laughing. Basically Blackmore had thrown his guitar totally out of tune and then handed it to Glover, who had no idea. Nice practical joke in front of a sold out crowd!

Anyway, I am not sure if VH1 cut any parts out of the episode to fit it into an hour slot, but what I saw was very enlightening. To give an example of how killer the band was in the 70s, check this out: