Rod's Ramblings
A podcast reminiscing about cultural events and how they affected this sixty something. Join me as we travel on a nostalgic journey through the cultural events that have shaped our lives. From classical composers, iconic music moments, rock stars and unforgettable TV shows. Let’s reminisce about how these events have influenced us all. Whether you’re a fellow baby boomer or just love a good story, Rod’s Ramblings offers a heartfelt, informative and entertaining look at the stories behind these great events. Cheers, Rod.
Rod's Ramblings
The Rewind Series - Unwrapping Fireball: A Musical Journey with Deep Purple
Exciting News! 🎧 I've uncovered the original audio files from the very first series of "Rod’s Ramblings" which was broadcast in 2022 and am thrilled to share them with you. Thus, I proudly present "The Rewind Series." Imagine the thrill of unwrapping a vinyl album on your birthday, its grooves holding the promise of a lifelong journey. That's precisely what happened when I received Deep Purple's "Fireball" as a gift from my brother, sparking my musical odyssey in the vibrant city of Birmingham during the early '70s. Join me as we explore the unique sounds of "Fireball," including the quirky story of how an air conditioning unit contributed to its iconic whooshing effect, courtesy of the talented Mike Thorne. We'll weave through tales of the band's improvisational sessions, Ritchie Blackmore's mischievous antics, and the serendipitous connection to Don Airey, who would later join Deep Purple's ranks.
The story doesn't end there. From attending electrifying concerts at Birmingham's iconic venues to building an eclectic music collection, my passion for music only grew with time and independence. Remember the days of Virgin Records and humorous family moments, like the time my rock music met with my mother's disapproval? These anecdotes, filled with humor and nostalgia, highlight how music has been the soundtrack to my life, shaping my tastes and memories. So, grab a comfortable seat and join me on this nostalgic journey through the tunes and tales that have defined my musical evolution, all part of this installment of Rod's Ramblings. Cheers to the power of music and the memories it creates!
Hello there and welcome to Rod's Ramblings, a podcast reminiscing about social events and how they affected a 60-something year old. I'd like to talk to you today about my vinyl collection, specifically Fireball by Deep Purple. It was the first album I owned and would lay the foundations for all my future music tastes. So come with me, if you will, to Birmingham in the early 1970s. Spaghetti Junction was just being built, the road tunnels underneath Great Charles Street were opened by Queen Elizabeth, and C&A and Lewis's were the big department stores. I was 13 at the time and remember spending my time learning the lyrics to Hot Love by T-Rex and wondering if I could sit next to Julie Hilton in Sunday School. It was coming up to my 14th birthday and my brother asked me what I wanted. My record collection at the time consisted of novelty records. I specifically remember the Fireball XL5 theme tune, hand Me Downs from my brother and Chirpy, chirpy, cheep, cheep by Middle Of the Road. My music taste desperately needed upgrading.
Speaker 1:I first saw the album in the window of a record shop on the Dudley Road in Broughton Park, just outside Birmingham. I was attracted by the artwork a rocket orbiting around the earth and bursting onto the front cover with the image of five members of the band, all with long hair and sideburns. For an up-and-coming 14 year old who had had to have short back and sides, this was Manor From Heaven. I asked my brother for the album and good on him. He bought it me for my birthday. Now we've established how I came by the LP. Let's get into the album itself. The opening track, fire, fireball, starts with a whooshing sound, which was actually an air conditioning unit being switched on. Mike Thorne was the assistant sound engineer on the job and in the following clip you'll hear him recalling the incident.
Speaker 2:You always remember your first hit record with great pleasure, and it comes in strange ways. Sometimes it was Christmas Eve in 1970 and I was just sitting, bored, witless, at the studio where I was assistant engineer, waiting for the boss to call up and say you're on Christmas holidays now. And so I remembered always enjoying the noise that the air conditioning made in the violin mics when I started it up after a take because it had to be turned down, otherwise we'd record more air conditioning than violin. It would make a sort of noise, and so I thought it's a good idea so I recorded it with about five or six expensive Neumann mics probably, probably about £10,000 worth, in the air conditioning cupboard and I recorded it. It was very nice.
Speaker 2:It went and then it stayed up for a bit and then I hit the remote stop which put a huge click on the tape, as usual, and it faded all the way down and I heard church bells fading up as it was fading down. Of course it was Christmas. And I heard church bells fading up as it was fading down. Of course it was Christmas and it was coming down the air shaft. So I labelled it the West Uzbekistan Percussion Ensemble, put it away in the tape, closet and thought no more about it until mixing Fireball, which Martin Birch did and Roger Glover was really the person in charge for directing, and he said to Martin what we need is the sound of a machine starting up at the beginning of Fireball. And Martin took a very big gulp and didn't quite know what to say. So I nudged him a little bit and said here, I've got something nice here. And so my first hit record was actually Fireball, and my recording of the air conditioning starting up is the very first sound you hear on that Deep Purple album.
Speaker 1:As it transpired, Mike would not only play a part in the making of the Fireball album, but he would also have an effect on the future line-up of the band. Mike continues the story.
Speaker 2:So then, fast forward, away from Fireball and the arrival of a very talented musician and pianist that I grew up with. We went to the same piano teacher, don Airy, who took over from John Lord, and so impossibly small world arrives because, of course, he has to load up all his sounds at the beginning of every set, or by the beginning of every set, and so it went completely full circle. So now my friend from school, don Airy, is loading up my recording of the air conditioning ahead of any Deep Purple gig that he plays in.
Speaker 1:The members of the band performing on the album have always been known as Deep Purple Mark II Ritchie Blackmore, john Lord, ian Pace, roger Glover and Ian Gillan. They were probably the most famous line-up, even though Steve Morse has now been with the band for longer than Ritchie Blackmore was. Glover and Gillan had replaced the previous bass player Nick Simper and vocalist Rod Evans in 1969 and had a great deal of success with the album Deep Purple in Rock. I actually remember buying the In Rock album from a school friend following some serious negotiation during a chemistry lesson. If only my GCSEs had been in rock music of the 1970s, results might have turned out differently. Ah well, that's a different story.
Speaker 1:The success of the In Rock album and the recording of John Lord's solo album, the Gemini Suite, meant that the making of Fireball would be interrupted by the demand for live performances and would be recorded over many intervals between September 1970 and June 1971, eventually being released in September of that year. The rehearsals and recording of the album took place in three locations Delane Lee Studios and Olympic Studios in London and an old farmhouse called the Hermitage in Welcome Devon. The Hermitage was where the band used their improvisational style to develop material for the album. Unfortunately, it also became the scene for many of Ritchie's practical jokes and liking for seances, one of which could have ended the band's career very prematurely.
Speaker 3:Roger Glover explains Ritchie was going to have a seance in sort of fairly close to the room where I was sleeping, and he came and knocked on my door after about half an hour it must have been, I suppose, one in the morning now and he said can we borrow your crucifix? I used to wear a crucifix then, for no reason particularly, it's just someone had given to me. I liked it and I said actually no, I don't want anything to do with what you're doing. Good night. There's the door, went back to my book and there's a almighty crash and I saw the head of an axe disappearing. It had come through my door and it was being jammied back out again a couple of seconds later and the whole panel came out the door and this axe was there, leapt out of bed in my underwear, went to what was left of the door and opened it and saw ritchie running away and in my anger I didn't really know what I was doing.
Speaker 3:And I came to and I had my one hand around r Richie's throat and the other holding his chair leg and I was just, I was going to brain him. And then I sort of suddenly and he's going, rog, it's me, rog. And I said something really weak like don't ever do that again and stalked off to my room.
Speaker 1:I really liked Fireball and over the coming coming years I'd go on to buy most of Purple's albums. However, the reaction amongst the band members was very mixed. Richie has always stated that he prefers in rock and was disappointed with Fireball, only really liking three tracks no, no, no Fools and the title track. In the following clip you'll hear John Lord giving his thoughts on the album.
Speaker 4:Fireball is a troublesome album because to me you couldn't have had Fireball without in rock but you couldn't have Machine Head without Fireball. So it sits very nicely as part of those three really good rock albums and I think the fact that it wanders slightly from its original, from the, say, the remit that we'd set up within rock, the fact that it wanders slightly from that, doesn't worry me at all. I mean, I love Fireball. I think it does good things. I think it goes to places that the band wasn't expected to go to. The title track is a brahma. I love that thing. Richie loved playing fast. He loved challenging the rest of the band to play fast. Pacey's drumming is dramatically good on that track. The over-ampl amplified sound of an air conditioner unit being switched on at the beginning to replicate the sound of I don't know of a spaceship taking off. I'm not quite sure what it was meant to be, but it's pretty cool, very fond of the organ solo on that. It was bloody difficult to play and I was very happy with it.
Speaker 4:You know, I just think it's a great idea for a rock song. Good words and a wonderful turnaround in the middle. Lovely chord changes in the middle.
Speaker 1:Ian Gillan had become the main contributor of lyrics since joining the band from episode 6, along with Roger Glover. He had previously played the part of Jesus in Andrew Lloyd Webber's recording of Jesus Christ Superstar. Legend has it that when he was invited to appear in the 1973 film version, he demanded £250,000 for himself and payment to the other band members in lieu of disruption to the tour that would have taken place during filming. Here is Ian Gillan talking about the album.
Speaker 5:With Fireball we brought in the other elements the funk, the blues, the soul, the jazz and some of the sort of psychedelic hangovers from our earlier days. The reason that Fireball was my favourite album of that period was because without Fireball we would never have been able to make Machine Head.
Speaker 1:Track three on the album is Demon's Eye, which provides an example of the guitar and vocal interplay that was common during their live performances. In fact, for many months the track was played out on stage until it was eventually replaced with an extended version of Strange Kind of Woman. Strange Kind of Woman wasn't included in my version, the UK version, but was released as a single which reached number 8 in the UK charts. In the US version of the album it replaced Demon's Eye. Any album released in the 1970s had to have a track containing a drum solo, and Fireball was no exception. Ian Pace's opportunity to shine and demonstrate his skill came on the track the Mule, and would become a mainstay in their live performances, replacing the band's version of the Stones classic Paint it Black. The recording of the Mule, however, almost ended in disaster. According to the sleeve notes of the 25th anniversary issue of the album, it tells the story of how the tapes of the track were accidentally corrupted whilst being recorded at Olympic Studios in Barnes, london. The studios had a 16-track machine and the band tried to get a flanging effect by playing the tape in reverse. It was only when the tape was half way through that the sound engineer realised that it was in record mode and he ran across to hit the stop button Because the tape was playing in reverse. The end of the drums were deleted from approximately half way. This wouldn't have been such a problem if it hadn't been for the fact that Ian Pacey's drums had been packed away for a forthcoming tour. A replacement set of drums had to be shipped in for Pacey to re-record the lost elements. Apparently, if you have the right type of ear, you can tell where one drum kit ends and the new one starts. For the record I can't tell. The Fireball album planted a seed in my musical interests that would give me pleasure for many years to come. The following year I would go to see Purple at Birmingham Town Hall and would see many great bands either there or at the Odeon in New Street. Then, once I started work and got some spending power, I'd go to Virgin Records where you could choose an album and listen to it in one of the booths. My vinyl collection would grow, be accompanied by CDs and, more recently, be joined by downloads of some great albums.
Speaker 1:So as we come to the end of this ramble, I'd like to share a story with you regarding my listening habits. Like many fans of rock music, I used to turn the volume up as high as possible. One day mum asked me to pop down to the corner shop for her and on my way back, which was probably still 100 metres or so away from home, I could hear the record blasting out from our front room window. I got in, walked into the kitchen, gave Mum her stuff and sat down. Why don't you listen to your record in the front room? Mum asked oh, I can't. I replied it's too loud in there. I hope you've enjoyed listening to my reminiscing about the album that would lay the foundation for my future musical enjoyment and look forward to speaking to you again on the next instalment of Rod's Ramblings. So until then, cheers and take care.
