![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/fembots.jpg\" "\\"fembots\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nI’m sure lots of you know Deep purple from their international hit “Slow Walking Walter”.\u00a0 You know the one.\u00a0 The song goes “Slow… walking Walter… fire engine guy.”\u00a0 That was from 1972.\u00a0 This song<\/a> is from 1968.\u00a0 Two different band members, one of whom you might have noticed doesn’t sound like Ian Gillan singing.<\/p>\n That there on the microphone is Rod Evans.\u00a0 He was Purple’s first singer, and he did a fine job.\u00a0 A fine job he did.\u00a0 He never got around to the screeching vocal acrobatics that Gillan did, but he certainly could carry a tune.\u00a0 Him and the original bass player, Nick Simper, got kicked out because Ritchie Blackmore is a fucking jerk.<\/p>\n Seriously, all the personnel changes that purple went through, with the exception of the most recent one, were because of Mr. Blackmore.\u00a0 Excellent guitarist he is.\u00a0 In his own words, he could “pretty much mop the floor with any guitarist out there”.\u00a0 He said that in 1969.\u00a0 Not a modest man, he.<\/p>\n Looked pretty weird too.\u00a0 Especially in a pilgrim hat, complete with big rectangular buckle on the front.<\/p>\n Since I NEVER talk about the actual song in these here Song of the Day posts, lets talk some about Deep Purple’s lineup changes.<\/p>\n Back in 1973 when the “MKII” lineup of the band was recording a mediocre album, the band would write and record the music, and because Blackmore and Gillan couldn’t fucking stand the site of each other, Gillan would come in at night and record vocals.\u00a0 The song “Smooth Dancer” got lyrics about what a primadonna prick Blackmore is.\u00a0 So it’s not just me saying this.<\/p>\n The bad blood carried on between the two for years, decades even.\u00a0 Some choice insults were hurled in separate interviews just before Blackmore left for the last time.<\/p>\n To paraphrase:<\/p>\n Blackmore: “I’m gonna corner Gillan in a dark alley with some friends of mine and we gon’ beat him up some.”<\/p>\n Gillan: “He’s a mental midget.”<\/p>\n That’s not EXACTLY what they said, but it’s pretty close.\u00a0 You can look it up on the interwebs if you want<\/p>\n So back to 1968 and this song.\u00a0 This was off their second album, and Blackmore hadn’t yet busted out the amazing guitar chops he had.\u00a0 I know I slam the guy for being a supreme fucking dick, but he REALLY could play.\u00a0 And his improvisations and solos on D.P. live recordings are fucking amazing too.\u00a0 They’re very enjoyable for me to listen to.<\/p>\n Their first 3 albums weren’t in the hard-rock style that they would later be so dominant in.\u00a0\u00a0 They have hints of it, but they’re mainly 60s psychedelic rock.\u00a0 One can not rock hard while wearing tight velvet pants.<\/p>\n And speaking of Rod Evans, he has an interesting story too.\u00a0 After getting booted from D.P., he followed his lover to America where he joined the nascent Captain Beyond.\u00a0 He sang on their first two albums.\u00a0 The first one is an incredible album, and every fan of 70s hard rock should stop reading, get away from your computer and rush out and buy it.\u00a0 Or download it.<\/p>\n DO IT NOW!!!<\/p>\n Okay, I’m assuming that everyone still reading this (estimate = 0) either has the first Captain Beyond album already, or has just returned from the store with it and is listening to it right now.<\/p>\n The second Captain Beyond album is good.\u00a0 I don’t know about any albums after that, because apparently they started to:<\/p>\n And I really like Rod Evans’s voice.\u00a0 A weird, sad footnote to all of this Rod Evans business is that after Deep Purple had broken up in the 70s, some scab musicians who specialized in taking over the name of dormant bands and touring as them, claiming that they were said band because of the inclusion in their ranks of one former member of said band, had formed anew as Deep Purple<\/a>.\u00a0 Rod Evans was the singer, and the other scabs had to learn Purple songs so they could go on a tour.<\/p>\n This was in 1980.\u00a0 Apparently, they started in Mexico and nearly got killed in the riot they almost started.\u00a0 And that wasn’t from the feeling of love from the audience.\u00a0 Those music fans in Mexico knew when they were being swindled.<\/p>\n The remaining real D.P. band members had to sue Rod Evans and co. so they would stop using the name.\u00a0 As a result of the lawsuit, Rod Evans no longer gets ANY royalties from any D.P. recordings on which he appeared.<\/p>\n I think by now he sees the 1980 “reunion” as a bad move.\u00a0 There have been rumors that he worked as a paramedic in L.A. after that.<\/p>\n Well, this is quite an accomplishment.\u00a0 I’ve written lots and lots and lots of stuff and I haven’t talked about the song much at all.\u00a0 Ha!<\/p>\n Wow… GROOVY man! Time to dress like Austin Powers and summon the Fembots, because it’s SWINGING TIME!!! I’m sure lots of you know Deep purple from their international hit “Slow Walking Walter”.\u00a0 You know the one.\u00a0 The song goes “Slow… walking Walter… fire engine guy.”\u00a0 That was from 1972.\u00a0 This song is from 1968.\u00a0 Two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[69,65,558,67,66,68],"class_list":["post-93","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-song-of-the-day","tag-60s","tag-deep-purple","tag-fembots","tag-ian-gillan","tag-ritchie-blackmore","tag-rod-evans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1620,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions\/1620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
\nIn this pic, he appears to be balancing a stick with his eyebrow.\u00a0 Good on you, Ritchie.\u00a0 You show the world your talents.<\/p>\n\n
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