Descendents: Milo Goes to College/I Don't Want to Grow Up/ Enjoy!/All/Livage!/Hallraker:Live!/Somery/Everything Sucks

The Descendents are one of my favorite bands...And we're going to celebrate them today by checking out a pile of their albums...



Descendents: Milo Goes to College

1982

SST Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Myage  2. I Wanna Be a Bear  3. I'm Not a Loser  4. Parents  5. Tonyage  6. M 16  7. I'm Not a Punk  8. Catalina  9. Suburban Home  10. Statue of Liberty  11. Kabuki Girl  12. Marriage  13. Hope  14. Bikeage  15. Jean Is Dead


This is it. The greatest pop-punk album ever made...If you were to make a completely honest list of the 10 greatest pop-punk songs of all time, at least 8 of them would come from this album...I'm telling you, the finest melodicists of the 1980's were a scruffy hardcore band...

I should probably clarify when I say "pop-punk" that I'm not talking about sanitized mall-punk that sounds like N-Sync with some highly-polished, processed guitar in the background..

(ahem...These guys...)

This is the real stuff...Buzzsaw guitars, surf beats, and raw emotional singing....The only thing polished here are the hooks, and boy, are there a lot of them...The run of tracks from "Marriage" through "Jean is Dead" is one of the most phenomenal sequences I can think of...Is Jean the girl Milo was singing about in "Bikeage"? Does she die at the end? Did they sell their souls to the devil to get all these catchy choruses?

 This album also functions as a warts and all glimpse into the maladjusted jungles of the teenage mind, complete with "You'll be sorry then..." fantasies ("Hope"), homophobic slurs ("I'm Not a Loser") and rampant misogyny ("I Wanna Be a Bear," "Catalina"). They seem to split their time disparaging women and idealizing them...Like they don't know what to feel and yet they're feeling it very intensely..

I feel like going on and on about this album is a huge waste of time...Everybody already knows how great it is and describing perfection is pretty futile...You pretty much have to hear it to understand it...If you have any interest whatsoever in punk, just pick it up if you don't have it...

Here's "Bikeage" by the Descendents...Enjoy...

Descendents: I Don't Want to Grow Up

 1985

SST Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl and Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Descendents  2. I Don't Want to Grow Up  3. Pervert  4. Rockstar  5. No FB  6. Can't Go Back  7. GCF  8. My World  9. Theme  10. Silly Girl  11.  In Love This Way  12. Christmas Vacation  13. Good Good Things  14. Ace

Frank Navetta is out, replaced by new guitarist Ray Cooper, who has a more Heavy Metal style...

This is a pretty interesting album, featuring two distinct sides...Side one is Heavier, faster, and nastier...It kicks off with their theme song, which appears to be a parody of Heavy Metal, complete with an Ian Gillan banshee wail...

"We're the proud the few

Descendents pickin' our butts tonight..."

I believe that says it all...

We also have the micro-hardcore blasts "No FB" and "Rockstar," a couple of lusting hard rock tracks ("Pervert" and "GCF") upbeat pop-punk (the title track, "Can't Go Back" and the instrumental "Theme") and one dark take on their normal pop-punk sound on "My World."

I can still remember my first listen to this...Lifting the needle from side one and wondering, "Wait? Where are all the great melodies? The "Milo Goes to College" level songwriting?" Well, they're all on Side Two...Every single track on the album's latter half is a winner...From the shockingly ebullient "In Love This Way," to "Silly Girl" and "Good Good Things" which are slightly more metallic than their usual pop songs....My personal favorite is the beautiful "Christmas Vacation," which lyrically is very similar to "Bikeage" or "Jean is Dead"...It appears to be a retelling of that story...Kind of an update of all those old "Dead Boyfriend" songs from the early 60's...All sugary melodies and teenage tragedy...

Of course it's not as good as "Milo Goes to College," they lucked out that first go-around, but I'd say Side Two is damn close...If you value hardcore punk and sweet hooks, I think you'll find a lot to like here...

Here's "Christmas Vacation" by the Descendents...

  

 

Descendents: Enjoy!

1986

SST Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Enjoy  2. Wendy   3. Kids  4. Hürtin' Crüe  5. Sour Grapes  6. Get the Time  7.Orgofart  8. Cheer  9. 80's Girl  10. Green  11. Days Are Blood  12. Orgo 51

Remember that scene in "Idiocracy" where they go to the theater to watch a movie that's nothing but a picture of an ass farting? 

 Well, "Enjoy" could be considered the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to that film...This album has more farts than a CGI kids movie...

 

There are literally two tracks that are dedicated to recorded farts...The title track is at least kind enough to give us some background music, but "Orgofart" is nothing but two minutes of unaccompanied flatulence...For this track I suggest dropping the six grand on a set of Abyss AB-1266 headphones to capture every nuance of the farts...

 It almost sounds as if the band is actually farting in the same room as you...

Although if you cut out everything fart-related, this is actually a pretty good album full of fantastic pop-punk...Their cover of "Wendy"  by the Beach Boys is a major high point.  "Cheer" and "Get the Time" displays their mastery of catchy pop. To vary things up there's a few tracks ("Days of Blood" "Green") that show that Bill Stevenson's time in Black Flag was beginning to rub off on the Descendents and they toss in "Kids" which is a fun throwback to the "Fat" EP days...We also have the thrash metaller "Hürtin' Crüe," which I've always loved...I used to wonder what the whole "1420" section was all about...I pondered it and pondered it and couldn't come up with nothin', until one day somebody invented Google and I ran across this explanation on the Descendents website...

"In high school, Milo's friend Roger scored 1420 on the SAT, which meant that he got in to West Point. So, he walked around school all day, gloating and singing this song that he made up that went something like:"1420 - I am better than you - You are a piece of poo - I am better than you - You are a piece of poo - 1420" Milo later inserted this song into "Hürtin Crüe"

 I think the band's misogynist lyrics reach their disgusting peak on this album with "80's Girl" and "Sour Grapes." God help me for loving this song so much,  but it's true...It's an amazing track, but those lyrics are something else...Basically Milo  heaps verbal abuse on some poor girl because she won't fuck him...

"I wanted her cherry,
I got...SOUR GWAPES!!!"

I can't help it...This song cracks me up...For some reason I hear the "r" in grapes as a "W." I may or may not be imagining this...It's hard to tell...

(Oh yea, side note...Don't get too excited about all the fake song titles on the back cover and think, "Woah! A bunch of songs not on 'Somery'!" They're fake titles...)

Excise all the farting and you have another solid addition to the Descendents discography....Oh, did you know the band made a video for "Kids"? I didn't! You even get to see the Nuclear Tits that Milo sings about...

Check out "Kids" by the Descendents...I queefed...Enjoy....

 Descendents: All

1987

SST Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. All  2. Coolidge  3. No, All!  4. Van  5. Cameage  6. Impressions  7. Iceman  8. Jealous of the World 9. Clean Sheets  10. Pep Talk  11. All-O-Gistics  12. Schizophrenia  13. Uranus


With the addition of guitarist Stephen Egerton and bassist Karl Alvarez, the long-running ALL line-up is in place...This is also the album where the band unleashes the new-age concept of "ALL" (the basic tenants of this new religion are outlined on the track "All-O-Gistics).  The band fully embraces the late-era Black Flag jazz-punk sound, so fans of "Loose Nut" and "In My Head" will feel right at home...My favorite song in this particular category would have to be the cool thrash of "Iceman," which I think is based on the 1984 caveman film...



No, wait...I think it's about Eugene O' Neill's famous play "The Iceman Cometh" which outlines the origin of the titular Marvel Superhero...

Of course, there's still plenty of pop-inspired punk like "Coolidge," "Cameage,""Clean Sheets" and my personal favorite, "Pep Talk." This new line-up gives the pop material a much smoother, polished sheen, although the production is still a little sparse and rough. 

In the WTF category we have the Milo-penned "Impressions" where the band tries their hand at...medieval acoustic balladry?!?!?!  To call it "turgid" would be an understatement, but you can't fault their ambition...Definitely the band's weirdest moment...

Milo left the group shortly after this album...The band renamed themselves ALL and replaced Milo with various other vocalists over the years...At one point in time I owned every single ALL album, but nowadays I only have one ("Percolator" which I wrote a post on back in the early days of the blog)...ALL will always stand in the long shadow of the Descendents, but I think the band put out some great albums...Especially the Dave Smalley and Chad Price stuff....

Let's check out "Pep Talk" by the Descendents...Enjoy...

 

Descendents:Liveage!

1987

SST Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. All  2. I'm Not a Loser  3. Silly Girl  4. I Wanna Be a Bear  5. Coolidge  6. Weinerschnitzel  7. I Don't Want to Grow Up  8. Kids  9. Wendy  10.  Get the Time  11. Descendents  12. All-O-Gistics  13. Myage  14. My Dad Sucks  15. Van  16. Suburban Home  17. Hope  18. Clean Sheets

Before Milo left the Descendents, the band did a farewell tour and released a couple of live albums compiled from these shows...For a live punk record, this sounds great, so no complaints here...The set list is pretty stellar too, touching on nearly all of the band's "greatest hits" (compare this set-list to the tracks featured on the 1991 compilation "Somery." It's nearly identical)...

The band plays everything in the exact same style they used on the studio versions, so there's no big surprises here...Just stellar pop-punk tune after stellar pop-punk tune, with "All-O-Gistics" and "Van" the only oddball selections...The only thing differentiating these takes are Milo's deadpan delivery which I'd categorize as "affected boredom."

Highpoint: Milo's angst-filled impromptu rant during "Van" where he shouts, "IT STINKS! IT STINKS! IT' DIRTY! IT'S SMELLY! I HATE IT! I HATE IT! IT'S MY....(wistfully) home...."

The vinyl version I now own varies from the CD I grew up with...It's lacking two tracks...I can live without "Pervert" but the album really loses something without "Sour Grapes"! I don't understand why these two tracks weren't included, since the albums short running time (33 minutes) would have easily allowed for the 6 minutes those tracks would have added...

Oh well, this is a classic live punk album...They play it a bit safe, but they would remedy that a little later...

Descendents: Hallraker: Live!

1989

SST Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Global Probing  2. My World  3. Hürtin' Crüe  4. Hey Hey  5. Kabuki Girl / All  6. Pep Talk  7. Jealous of the World  8. Christmas Vacation  9. I Like Food  10. Iceman  11. Good Good Things  12. Cheer  13. Rockstar  14. No FB  15. Cameage


Yes! Now this is the great Descendents live album, in my opinion...Recorded during the same farewell shows that "Liveage!" was drawn from, but this digs much deeper into the band's catalog for a surprising set-list...

A lot of my favorites pop tunes are here, like "Christmas Vacation," "Pep Talk,""Cameage" and "Cheer." Plus the band delves into their more odd-angled metal material ("Iceman," "Jealous of the World," "Hurtin' Crüe"). Highpoint:Milo getting all PC on us and reminding the audience that the Iceman isn't necessarily an Iceman, but could just as easily be an Icewoman...In some odd way, this feels like progress...

The liner notes by Bill Stevenson are also entertaining and informative...We finally get the recipe for the Bonus Cup, which turns out to be:

 1/3 cup instant coffee grounds
hot water
5 spoons of sugar

I was thinking of maybe trying out the recipe, but I don't think it's wise to court diabetes at this advanced age...

Anyway, the perfect live  album for us die-hard Descendents fans but I can picture this alienating newcomers, so don't start here but don't overlook it either....

Let's check out "Cameage" by the Descendents...

 

Descendents:Somery

1991

SST Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. All  2. My Dad Sucks  3. Suburban Home  4. Silly Girl  5. Kids  6. Clean Sheets  7. Sour Grapes  8. Weinerschnitzel  9. Myage  10. Good Good Things  11. Van  12. Bikeage  13. Enjoy  14. Theme  15. Coolidge  16. I Like Food  17. I Wanna Be a Bear  18. I Don't Want to Grow Up  19. Cheer  20. Pervert  21. Hope  22. All-O-Gistics  23. I'm Not a Loser  24. Get the Time  25. Hürtin' Crüe  26. Cameage  27. Descendents  28. No, All!

 A near-perfect greatest hits compilation...When you put all these great tracks in one place it really hits home how amazing these guys were...I would have dropped off "Enjoy" and added either "Wendy," "Christmas Vacation," "Marriage," "Jean is Dead," "I'm Not a Punk," "In Love This Way" or "Pep Talk" instead... Honestly, with the addition of these tracks I could easily have recommended this in place of the band's entire discography....So I can understand why they didn't quite give away the farm on this one...Still, I think most folks would be just fine owning "Somery" and "Milo Goes to College"...

Here's "Hope" by the Descendents...

Descendents: Everything Sucks

1996

Epitaph Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1.  Everything Sux  2. I'm the One  3. Coffee Mug  4. Rotting Out  5. Sick-O-Me  6. Caught  7. When I Get Old  8.  Doghouse  9. She Loves Me  10. Hateful Notebook  11. We  12. Eunuch Boy  13. This Place  14. I Won't Let Me  15. Thank You  16. Grand Theme (Hidden Track)


It was 1996 and punk had finally hit it big in the US, and lots of previously dead and buried punk bands suddenly started to come out of the woodwork...One of the most welcome of these resurrections was the triumphant return of Milo Aukerman and a new Descendents album, since they were one of the biggest influences on all these young new bands residing at the top of the charts...

"Everything Sucks" didn't exactly shoot up to #1 (although I'm betting #132 was probably their highest entry at this point), but us punk kids couldn't have been more psyched...And the album was actually pretty good! I'd go as far as to say this is probably their most consistent album, since there's zero jazz-metal, no hair metal parodies, no medieval acoustic music...They focused squarely on the pop-punk for once and if there's no song on here that reaches the heights of past glories like "Hope" or "Suburban Home," there's also nothing that approaches the depths of "Orgofart" or "Impressions"...

Not surprisingly, this sounds exactly like an ALL album, with Milo sounding almost indistinguishable from Chad Price (who provides the album's backing vocals) at times...Although this shouldn't come as a big surprise, since this is only ALL with Milo on vocals, so you get the same mid-tempo pop-rock with that spongy double-timed bass guitar...Although there are a few tracks where other former Descendents members, Tony Lombardo and Frank Navetta do make an appearance...

Highlights include "Coffee Mug" which is the most Descendents-like track on here...A 30 second hardcore rant covering one of the band's favorite subjects, this feels like the lost half-minute from "Kids." And who could forget  "I'm the One," which I remember as being the pop-punk jam of '96...Sure, it's a rewrite of "Hope" (which everybody had managed to agree upon as being the band's definitive moment during their long absence)  but I think it manages to be a great song in its own right...

Another popular single from the album was "When I Get Old" which is a punk version of the Beach Boys "When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)." This song has lots of great imagery of an elderly Milo hating cops and grabbing his girlfriend's wrinkled ass...

Sure, there's a few duds like the lyrically retarded "Doghouse," and the just plain forgettable "Caught," or "This Place"...I'm giving "Eunuch Boy" a pass since it was an old pre-"Milo Goes to College" track that the band recorded for nostalgia's sake...

Overall this is an enjoyable record, especially for fans of ALL...Punkers with their heads stuck in the 80's might find it a little soft, but fuck those guys...The band put out an EP and another album after this, but I don't own those, so if I run across copies of them, I'll write up a post for a future date...Right now I'm tired of writing about the Descendents...Let's watch the video for "I'm the One"...Enjoy...

Descendents: Bonus Fat EP

Descendents: Bonus Fat EP

1985

SST Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. My Dad Sucks  2. Mr. Bass  3. I Like Food  4. Hey Hey  5. Weinerschnitzel  6. Global Probing  7. Ride the Wild  8. It's a Hectic World



Welcome to the Friday Night Good Health Roundtable...

It's Friday and it's a good 105 degrees out there, so make sure to nourish your body and spirit with STRAIGHT VODKA IN A WATER BOTTLE!

Give your liver a healthy workout....

 "BAAAARRRFFFFF!!!!!"

"Zzzz....Nooo, I'm not passing out...Juss lyin' down, the music sounds sooooo goooodddd....zzzz....."

The right music can enhance any workout...Something uptempo and motivational to keep your pulse rate high and the adrenalin pumping...The editors here at the Friday Night Good Health Roundtable Magazine recommend "Bonus Fat," which is a compilation of the Descendents' earliest recordings, made up of the following releases...


The band's 1979 debut single, "Ride the Wild/It's a Hectic World"...This recording was done before the arrival of Milo, so the vocals are handled by guitarist Frank Navetta  and bassist Tony Lombardo...Tony gives us "Ride the Wild," which is an invigorating blend of post-punk, pop melodies and unbridled amateurism...Meanwhile Frank provides robotic vocals for "It's a Hectic World" that suggests that the Descendents could have easily ended up a herky-jerk Devo rip-off rather than the progenitors of caffeinated Cali Pop-Punk...


Then there's the 1981 "Fat" EP, which introduces vocalist Milo Aukerman...Milo is a huge step up, with a vocal style that often reminds me of a very melodic Henry Rollins (if you can imagine such a thing)...This is where the band really clicks into place...It's brevity was unprecedented...5 songs in 4 minutes, with the epic, 2-minute  rockabilly/hardcore hybrid "Mr. Bass" (which introduces the topic of  fishing, which would become a running theme) taking up half of the EP...

But "Mr. Bass" isn't as impressive as brief outbursts like "My Dad Sucks," "I Like Food," and "Weinerschnitzel"; each one packing loads of personality and entertainment value in their ridiculously brief running times (which are measured in seconds, not minutes)... The band's preoccupation with food and girls begins with those tracks, too..."Hey Hey" foretells the pop-punk style that would characterize their next album (the classic "Milo Goes to College" but we'll get to that later)...

Finishing things off, we have the song, "Global Probing" from the 1981 compilation "Chunks." This is probably my favorite song on this album...It's an even better pop song than "Hey Hey" and it shifts into some righteous, motivational hardcore to top it all off...

Lots of good stuff here and the whole thing clocks in at a lean ten minutes to boot! We love efficiency here! I was going to also do the "Milo Goes to College" post today, but I feel like hitting the beers early...Maybe I'll put up another post this weekend...Oh yea, wasn't I going for some confusing (and weak) Workout/drinking theme today? Well, let's do a few 12 oz. Curls and work on those rock-hard beer guts...

Cos we're gonna stay up all night, listening to the Descendents...Here's "Global Probing"...Enjoy....

Deep Purple: Who Do We Think We Are?/Burn

Alright, let's finish up this Deep Purple section today...I'm just gonna bust through them really quick...Deep Purple had a million more albums after these two, but I don't have them, so I'm not covering them...I have owned a few of them in the past, though ("Perfect Strangers," "The Battle Rages On..." and maybe a live album or greatest hits release here and there)...But I've enjoyed this week spent spinning Purp, so I might dig in a little deeper at a later time...





Deep Purple: Who Do We Think We Are?

1973

Warner Bros Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Woman from Tokayo  2.Mary Long  3.Super Trouper  4. Smooth Dancer  5. Rat Bat Blue  6. Place in Line  7. Our Lady



This is often remembered as being the disappointing follow-up to "Machine Head," which I can understand how someone could walk away with that impression...It rarely ever hits that previous album's many high-points, but I find this album's "I don't give a damn-ness" much more interesting...

Album opener "Woman From Tokayo" (their spelling,. not mine...Although, I guess it's exactly how Ian Gillan sings it...) is probably a good indication of what they should have done. A perfectly crunchy pop-rock single that sounds like "Machine Head's" most accessible moments sweetened for extra radio sheen...Despite it being a classic rock radio staple, I actually hadn't heard this song in a long time...Anyway, here it is, if you haven't heard it lately....

 

So far, so good, right? But things turn weird on track two, "Mary Long"...A fairly standard DP rocker, but check out these lyrics:

"Mary Long is a hypocrite
She does all the things that she tells us not to do
Selling filth from a corner shop
And knitting patterns to the high street queue
She paints roses, even makes them smell good
And then she draws titties on the khazy wall
Drowns kittens just to get a thrill
And writes sermons in the Sunday Chronicle
How did you lose your virginity, Mary Long ?
When will you lose your stupidity, Mary Long ?"

Drawing titties?! Drowning kittens?! What the hell? Who could this Mary Long possibly be? Is she me? I draw titties sometimes, but on the other hand, I love kittens, so...

Turns out it's not any specific person, but a couple of people combined...

 Mary Whitehouse, whom I actually suspected it might be about when I first heard it...I only know who that is through the extra features on old Doctor Who DVD's...She was some old prude who was offended by everything...I think she might have also been one of the Golden Girls, but I'm not sure...

..and Lord Longford, whom I have never heard of...Apparently he was some sort of anti-porn crusader who tried to free convicted murderers in his free time...So yea, these guys probably deserve the verbal abuse...

And then after "Mary Long" we get "Super Trouper" which sounds like a psychedelic boogie getting sucked into a vacuum cleaner..."Smooth Dancer" finishes off side one with more boogie, this time with rollicking piano, a funkier feel and more bizarre lyrics, this time about black suede and false pregnancies...Who knows...This track flew right by on first listen, but I like it more every time I play it....

Side two begins with the album's runner-up for best track, "Rat Bat Blue." It's a cool heavy blues, similar to something Led Zeppelin would have done around the same time, but the song really hits its stride during the keyboard solo which is truly head-spinning and the nonsense lyrics work in a "scat-singing" way for Gillan... "Place in Line" is this album's "Lazy." The overlong blues that is usually pointed out as the weak-link, but I really like this one...Gillan's vocals are interesting and inventive...He starts out sounding like some 80 year old blues guy, mumbling in a low register, then he takes a kind of Bob Dylanesque approach for the chorus, and then onto his usual power-wailing...The band's approach varies too...Beginning as slow-blues before subtly morphing into hard rock...The extended solos by Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore might test the attention-span of some folks, but it wasn't nothing I couldn't handle...

 

Hey! I sat through the 16 minute drum solos on Cream's "Wheels of Fire Live!" Three minutes of guitar and organ solos are a walk in the park at this point....

The album ends with "Our Lady" which is psychedelicized gospel rock?! You could almost picture Joe Cocker or somebody singing this...Not my favorite track or anything, but it's surprising that they can pull all this stuff off at this point...I remember a few days ago, listening to "Fireball" where every detour seemed to end in Nowheres-ville, but all of this works...

Ultimately, I don't know how this ended up with the reputation it has...Some of it might be a bit adventurous for your average Deep Purple fan, and it's probably too macho and Camaro-y for fans of "out-there" music...But it hits just the right balance for me, and at this moment it probably follows "In Rock" as my personal favorite album by the band right now...It's definitely one of those albums you'll have to give a couple of spins before it sinks in, though...

 

Deep Purple: Burn

1974

Warner Bros. Records

Format I own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Burn  2. Might Just Take Your Life  3. Lay Down, Stay Down  4. Sail Away  5. You Fool No One  6. What's Goin' On Here  7. Mistreated  8. A' 200


WHITESNAKE ALERT!! This album is the start of Mark III Deep Purple, where Glenn Hughes replaces Roger Glover on bass and David Coverdale replaces Ian Gillan on vocals...Come to think of it 3/5ths of this line-up would end up in the Whitesnake...

 But don't worry! There's no Tawny Kitaen or Jaguars here (which may or may not be a good thing based on your tolerance for Aqua-Net)...

David Coverdale sounds just fine, falling somewhere between Robert Plant and a gust of wind...Glenn Hughes also acts as a co-vocalist, with a much more plain, white-bluesman style that's an occasional respite from David's vocals, although I don't think the album would have suffered in any way from just having David do them all...Anyway, any reservations you may have get washed away as soon as the title-track comes on...This band has always had a knack for opening tracks....The fastest, meanest, most-rocking song on any Deep Purple album is invariably the first one, and this one holds its own against "Speed King" and "Highway Star"....Jon and Ritchie's classically-influenced solos on this song are the greatest moments in the band's discography, in my opinion, and my God, that drummer is a muzzafuzza...Great song....

I don't think anything else on the album comes close to matching the title track, however it's all fine slightly-funky, heavy-blues rock...Maybe a bit more bluesy/soulful and a little less heavy than Mark II. Jon Lord's use of the Moog sets it apart from the previous albums also...Listen to all those boinging sounds on the instrumental "A' 200"...And then those 70's sci-fi tones that come in over that marching beat....I can see how people could hate this song and the cheesy sounds, but damn, I love it...

I have to be really honest here...The track that usually gets singled out as the album's finest moment, "Mistreated," doesn't do anything for me...It's not bad or anything, but it's fairly dull...I can see how someone who's more attuned to slow, smouldering blues jams might get something out of this, but I usually find myself nodding off...Maybe if they cut it down to three minutes it might hold my interest more...I will say it comes off as something that would kill at a live show, though...I can imagine the whole house coming down when Ritchie does the faster, heavier solo at the song's climax...But I'm not at a bad-ass stadium show, I'm sitting on the floor at home listening to a record, so Zzzzzzz....

But that's a minor hiccup...Like I said the rest of the album is good, 70's fun...Aside from a few choice moments, this line-up didn't have the appeal of the Mark II albums (although, I probably like it more than "Fireball"), but it's a good listen when you feel like digging a little deeper into the depths of 70's hard rock...If you have any affection for the era, I can't imagine not digging this a little....

Here's "Burn" by Deep Purple...Enjoy...

Deep Purple: Machine Head

Deep Purple: Machine Head

1972

Warner Bros Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Highway Star  2. Maybe I'm a Leo  3.  Pictures of Home   4. Never Before  5. Smoke on the Water  6. Lazy  7. Space Truckin'


I think I need to pick up some new strings...Might as well go to Guitar Center...

 (Hop into my car...)

Might as well listen to some radio...

 ♫ "SMOOO-O-O-O-OKE ON THE WAAAATER..." ♫

Ugh...Tired of this song...

(switches station to 92.1 FM)...

♫ "FIRE IN THE SKIE-IE..." ♫

 No!

(switches station to 104.2 FM)

♫"HUMO-O-O-O  EN EL AGUAAA...FUEGO  EN EL CIELO... ♫" (Tejano version of "Smoke on the Water"...)

 (pulls into Guitar Center parking lot...Walks Inside...)

The sound of a hundred inept guitarists simultaneously  bungling the "Smoke on the Water riff:  DAHHH DAHHH DAHHHHH...DAHHH DAHHH DAH DAHHHHH...DAHHH DAHHH DAHHH DAH NAHHHHH....

This is how I feel about "Smoke on the Water." I've heard it 10,000,000 times and at this point I am completely incapable of enjoying it...If I never hear it again it'll be too soon...I'm beyond sick of it...I'm "Stairway to Heaven" sick of it...Whenever I hear it (always against my will) my mind and soul melts away, my jaw goes slack, and an all-encompassing boredom sinks in...But oddly enough I can remember back when it wasn't that way...

I believe I originally got this album from my Brother Troy...He was getting rid of his vinyl, which was a pretty common practice back in the day...CD's were still new and shiny and people were purging their homes of their dusty old records, which was great for me!  I loved records! The covers were so much bigger, the sound seemed to have more dimension, it was fun to watch them spin around, and best of all everybody was getting rid of them, so records were ridiculously cheap (if not free)! Anyway, I scored a huge collection...

 I remember getting some Twisted Sister records...



...various albums by the Nuge...



Black Sabbath...



Emerson, Lake and Powell?...

 

...and Deep Purple's "Machine Head"...

I was probably age 12 or so, and boy did I love this album...I loved everything about it, from the blurry cover photo...

...to the huge  poster with the sweet purple trim that functioned as the lyric sheet (I remember every panel of this eventually tore away and I ended up with about three or four standard sized sheets of paper)...

...to that photo-filled inside gatefold...In particular I was intrigued how every photo of Ian Paice was taken about an inch from his face and the picture of Claude Nobs (third from the right on the top row) that looked like 70's Dan Aykroyd...I remember being so fascinated by Claude's photo...This was the late 80's/early 90's and I couldn't process someone actually looking like that...He was such a distinctly 70's-looking person...I couldn't imagine what he would look like in real life....

...and I especially loved "Smoke on the Water"...It sounded like the riff was discovered from some ancient tablet or something...It had such power...It was the perfect riff...So I played it, and played it, and played it, until one day I had heard it enough and moved onto other things...

But shortly after that, classic rock playlists started to settle into place and one of the songs that every  station on Planet Earth (or maybe Clear Channel had something to do with it...) played "Smoke on the Water," "Iron Man," "Stairway to Heaven" and "You Shook Me All Night Long" every ten minutes for all eternity... Then you'd always have the one friend or family member who would come over with their guitar and butcher the "Smoke on the Water" riff for hours on end ...Then Guitar Centers popped up on every corner, and everybody's 'one friend or family member who butchered the "Smoke on the Water" riff for hours on end'  all convened in one place and bungled their way through the riff...And my resentment for the song just grew and grew....

Now I guess I can kind of see it as the modern version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" or "Mary Had a Little Lamb." The simple little ditty for beginners to learn and drive everybody nuts with...And then those people get all nostalgic and crank it up on the radio, telling their spouse, "See, Honey? This is the song that started it all for me..."  So I guess I can make peace with it in that light...On the other hand, I'm never in the mood to hear "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" or "Mary Had a Little Lamb" either...

Bet let's pretend for a moment that the record flopped. Nobody noticed it and "Smoke on the Water," "Highway Star" and "Space Truckin'" were never played on the radio (however hard that is to imagine)...I think one would still deduce that this was a special Deep Purple record. I think you would still get the impression that everything fell into place for them...Although I've heard it a hundred times too many, I still have to acknowledge that "Highway Star" is the pinnacle of the hard charging Deep Purple opening track...Compare it to "Speed King" or "Fireball" and you realize what they've achieved...As it chugs along you can clearly see the lines on the highway and marvel when they finally become a blur somewhere during the dual keyboard/guitar solo section...

(Remember when you could release a 9 minute single and radio was alright with it? In a way I'm glad that's over...Can you imagine a 9 minute Justin Beiber single? (shudders)).

Of the three overplayed songs on the radio, I think "Space Truckin"holds up the best for me...First off I love that spiraling riff...And additionally, I think it's the only Deep Purple radio track to convey how weird Ian Gillan's lyrics are...They're usually either misogynistic "WOMAN!!" lyrics or they're the most oddball shit ever, but you usually only pick that up from checking out the full albums...

As for the tracks that rarely (if ever) make it to radio, they're all just as good..."Lazy" has a stomping riff that served as the template for a billion Clutch songs..."Pictures of Home" has the same soaring. melodic power that heavy metal bands would start picking up on at the tail end of the late 70's and early 80's..."Never Before" has always been my favorite track on the album. It's a great catchy hard-rock/pop single that would sound great on the radio...."Lazy" always gets a bad rap for being the worst song on the album, but I don't think it's that bad...It certainly slows things down with its extended atmospheric keyboards and epic length, but I've always enjoyed revisiting its bluesy haziness...

I highly recommend taking the approach I did...Stop listening to the album for a good 10 years, avoid radio and Guitar Centers the best you can, and then give "Machine Head" another spin...I think it deserves its place as one of the sacred texts of the Hard Rock/Heavy Metal era...

Here's "Never Before" by Deep Purple...Enjoy...

Deep Purple: In Rock/Fireball

Deep Purple: In Rock

1970

Warner Bros

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Speed King  2. Bloodsucker  3. Child in Time  4. Flight of the Rat  5. Into the Fire  6. Living Wreck  7. Hard Lovin' Man


Alright, throw this one on the top of the pile...One of my all-time favorite album covers! When you're thumbing through the used records bin, you can't not buy it... It's so awe-inspiring and majestic...I think my favorite thing about it is the supremely stoned and serene look on Roger Glover's face...

 I'm pretty confident in saying that if you only pick one Deep Purple album, this is a pretty solid pick....I know "Machine Head" is the obvious choice, but I think classic rock radio has already beaten that particular horse, and I also feel that "In Rock" is more pure...This is the point where Deep Purple really comes together...Technically,  "Concerto for Blah Blah Blah" was the premier of Mark II Purple, but that album was a lark...This is where they get down to business...

I wasn't around then, but I'm betting that when this came out, this was just the most hard-rocking shit out there...When "Speed King" peels out at the start of this record, with its heavy hot-rod guitar and souped-up rhythm section it's hard not to get caught up in the rush...

And it never really lets up (except for one exception, which we'll get to later)...I don't know if I talked about Ritchie's guitar style on the last post, so I'll do it here....He's much less bluesy than the other players of his era...He had a more composed, classical soloing style that eventually became synonymous with heavy metal guitar playing, but as far as I know he invented this style...I'm having a hard time thinking of someone else who did it first (send me a comment if you can think of one)...The only time it feels like he's cutting loose is on the guitar meltdown at the end of "Hard Lovin' Man" (oh my god, they have a song called "Hard Lovin' Man...)...

Now for the big exception...There is exactly one song on that album that does not do everything in its power to rock your ugly face off...Taking up half of side one, we have the 10-minute monster "Child in Time" (and I can totally picture them stretching this out for a good half hour in a live setting, although there's no historical data to back up that suspicion)...It's a long, atmospheric, organ driven mood-piece that periodically erupts into a towering mountain of rock...Two points of interest here...

1. The slow guitar solo that eventually builds into a frenzy and then eventually joins forces with Jon Lord's organ to lay down a glorious harmonized lead...

2.  Ian Gillam's "ahhh ahh ahhh's" that gradually get a little louder and more wailing until you're convinced that his full-lunged screaming is going to destroy your cheapo Best Buy speakers...It's simultaneously  ridiculous and  mind-blowing...

So next time you're thumbing through the bargain bins and you inevitably run across a copy of "In Rock," I say give it a try if you're into hairy-chested, 70's proto-metal...

Here's "Speed King" by Deep Purple...Enjoy...

 

 

Deep Purple:Fireball

1971

Warner Bros Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Fireball  2. No No No  3. Strange Kind of Woman  4. Anyone's Daughter  5. The Mule  6. Fools  7. No One Came

Another great album cover!  My favorite thing about this particular cover is how big and bulging they had to make Ritchie's neck in order to give the fireball a rounded appearance...

I like "Fireball" alright...No doubt about it, it's a step down from "In Rock," but I get what they were trying to do....They were trying to diversify, stretch out their sound, making sure no two songs sounded the same, but Deep Purple is one of those bands that are at their best when they stick to their signature sound...

The title track is the perfect example of this...It's possibly their coolest, most ass-kicking song they'd ever recorded...Faster, heavier and more fire-breathing than anything on "In Rock," sporting the coolest organ solo I've ever heard...They basically took the standard Deep Purple sound and shined it up and put a cape on it and that approach suits them perfectly...

"No No No" slows things down, taking a more anthemic Who-like approach, and it rules too, despite being a bit repetitive...But the blues vamp "Strange Kind of Woman" comes on with its chest-pounding "woman" lyrics and it's just kind of bleh...But even that song is a masterpiece compared to "Anyone's Daughter" which is a...gulp...country song?! And trust me, Deep Purple doing a country song is just as bizarre as you're imagining it...It's kind of like one of those weird galloping western things where a ghost cowboy is riding his invisible horse across a lone prairie or whatever...

...and maybe if the lyrics dealt with that theme I'd have a different opinion of it, but instead they go for the macho "laying the farmer's daughter" trope that makes the whole thing embarrassing...You can't skip this song fast enough...Don't even put yourself through it...When you see track four coming on, just lift the needle, flip over the record and dig into side two...There's some cool stuff there...

Now, "The Mule" is where they get the whole experimental thing down cold...They go for a sort of middle Eastern psychedelia thing but add their trademark 70's heaviness to it and it works like crazy...Haters of studio drum solos might have a bone to pick, however, but no bone-picking here! I like studio drum solos! 

Ba-dum, ba-dum...siss..siss...siss..Boom boom ba-boom ba-boom ba=boom boom boom...siss..siss...siss...

(that was my onomatopoeia solo....)

"Fools" is a good heavy number too, but again, it's a case where their experimental streak works against them somewhat...The song is pretty bangin' up until the violin comes in and then it just kind of drones on forever...However, I think a non-masterpiece or two is a necessity in any great band's discography...It keeps you interested, and I can tell you, when I got to the Deep Purple section of the blog, I was more excited to revisit this than, say, "Machine Head" which I could basically recite in my sleep...

So here's to Deep Purple, who as soon as they figured out what they were good at, took a sharp left turn into the unknown before reaching their highest height (which we'll get to in a day or so)...Wait, what do you drink when you're listening to Deep Purple? 

I know!...

...Purple Drank!!

So let's sip on some sizzurp and listnen to "Fireball" by Deep Purple...I think I'm gonna be sick...