By Joe Viglione
http://www.joeviglione.com
This week’s review DEEP PURPLE, WHOOSH, plus the Joe Vig Top 10
Top 10
1)”Add the Address” Deep Purple This track from the new Whoosh album is a remake of a track from 1968’s Shades of Deep Purple album.
A real study hearing producer Bob Ezrin work with this outrageously popular group 52 years after the first impression Truly great stuff, the album is solid, every track has the magic. See my review below.
2)”The Weather” Gaviiformes …I love this track. My colleague at ClubBohemia.club, Nicole Anzuoni, turned me onto this track. It’s fantastic. Rolling Stones from the Beggars Banquet era meets R.E.M., a delightful, sustaining five minutes and seven seconds. This is such a keeper. The song takes subtle twists and turns with a chanting hook that adds the frosting on the cake. The YouTube page says “98° and sunny on the Richmond Street roof, North End Boston” – cryptic from a band with lots of potential
3)”Today is Gone” from Medium
Thick guitars and a mesmerizing chant from Neeto Blue (Tony Porfirio,) Matt Smith on rhythm guitar, Jacob Porfirio on lead guitar, Floyed on bass, Glenn Landon on drums. The under three minutes (2:57) directly from the Velvet Underground third album school of rock.
4)”Enchanted Glasses” Steve Keith
Intricate and poppy with a psychedelic video. Contemporary music with 1960s vocals. This is an amazing track from the Private Lightning bassist. Reminiscent of Jeff Hudson’s work with Greg Hawkes of the Cars. I could play these songs all in a row on the air and it would be great radio.
5)”Tears” Kenny Selcer and Steve Gilligan …the two minstrels of the Concord/Boston folk music scene come up with a precise, fine-drawn introspective look at the 2020 pandemic. Kenny Selcer – vocals, guitar Steve Gilligan – vocals, bass The photos on the video run through climate change, a deranged president and more. Tears ©Kenny Selcer, BMI Recorded 2019-2020 by Billy Mason and Kenny Selcer Mixed by Kenny Selcer Video Editing by Kenny Selcer http://www.kennyselcer.com http://www.kennyselcer.bandcamp.com
6)Greg Walsh’s June Gloom video is really fun https://youtu.be/lOwR24pl0sE – follow ups to his “Mr. Fix It” and Counting Down to Zero (From 1) – a very cool ballad, Velvet Underground if they were on mainstream pop radio in the 1960’s
7)”An Elephant Never Forgets” Peter Calo from his Time Machine album. Reviewing the live track on YouTube February 6, 2017. This is a tremendous statement on what is going on in the world with this amazing species. https://youtu.be/Qv04tXVnFK0
8)”Too Many Cooks”(Spoil the Soup) Mick Jagger, Produced by John Lennon with Lennon on guitar. It’s Willie Dixon’s song recorded in 1973 with Jim Keltner (drums), Danny Kortchmar and Jesse Ed Davis (guitars), and Somerville’s own Al Kooper on keyboards. December 1973 from the Record Plant. On the Top 10, of course, for Lennon’s 80th birthday (born October 9, 1940.)
9)”Siren’s Call” from Brian Walker Modern Pop on Spotify. As with Steve Keith (above on this list,) Walker takes Roxy Music’s “Edition’s of You” and its “sirens sweetly singing” and brings the tempo down fifty years on. Unique and highly listenable. The song builds to a crescendo to conclude this ten song playlist I’d be proud to put on the air. Facebook.com/BrianWalkerMusic
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/19vvtr094M8GaBPGwBqCEW?si=tbxUTtaqTpWprIwHUXk3Jw
10)”Stay the Night” Sam Kaiser A beautiful folk/pop love tune up on YouTube https://youtu.be/g7bmDqhZ8c4 Don’t always like to compare to other musicians, but this would fit perfectly on Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water album.
ALBUM REVIEW
Deep Purple
WHOOSH
Produced by Bob Ezrin
Deep Purple as the full album up on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBzBwYhHpqLLuCjQ2WZ3Pkz2p7qE3fGPj
Review by JV http://www.joeviglione.com
“Throw My Bones,” the first single off of Deep Purple’s 21st album, Whoosh, is classic DP and as you dig deep into Whoosh you’ll find the band delivering an amazingly consistent set of material. Song after song you feel a youthful energy from the classic rockers, and a polish that gives the album the feel of a major onstage production. Had this been released at the end of the ’70s it would have been a multi-platinum monster.
Take a random track, the still-photo images of “Man Alive” (which can serve as a title track with the word “whoosh” instilled in the grooves at around the five minute mark.) 1,544,262 views since May 1, 2020 – let me spell that out for you – One Million Five Hundred and Forty Four Thousand, Two Hundred and Sixty Two views from 5/1 to 10/14, when I’m finally finishing up this review, five months later. The album impressed me the moment I started the hearing process, but months later it is truly majestic and masterful.
“And the Address” is sublime with a big Don Airey organ sound coming out of my right speaker, rugged Steve Morse guitar in the left…which is interesting because this update from Shades of Deep Purple, their first sojourn, gives a taste of life after Richie Blackmore and the late Jon Lord on guitar and keys, respectively. For those hardcore fans, of which there are many, who are about to throw exclamation marks at me for having the nerve to explain instrumentation keep in mind, many of our readers don’t follow the groups like the rest of us obsessive/compulsive collectors do. The inclusion of the Ezrin-produced “And the Address” is actually key for longtime followers of this ensemble. From album 1 to album 21 we get to compare notes…a quite enjoyable thing to do as both renditions are superb – and get a feel for how the group still has its essential element from the Tetragrammaton days in 1968 to the brave new world of 2020…dare I say it, fifty-two years after! With drummer Ian Paice as the “soul survivor,” to quote the Stones.
The original “And the Address” launches like some space-age rock tune, with a splash of their “Hush” hit record sound, and bits of Ted Nugent’s Amboy Dukes and even a dash of Sky Saxon’s Seeds flavored in their slyly. So you fast forward these five plus decades and get the Ezrin produced take, the enormous sounds condensed and less experimental, more like a straight ahead display of musicianship in the fun environment of a very well constructed instrumental.
“Dancing in My Sleep” changes style…and it is this quasi-reinvention of Purple …not too distant from their core sound, but being playful with their enormous fan base and stretching the Deep Purple envelope. It starts out spacey and goes orchestral, all within the confines of hard rock. Not that this is new territory for the boys, they just do it in a more pointed way this time around.
“No Need to Shout” opens with an Ozzy Osborne flair, a mix of Purple/Ozzy sensibilities.
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We interrupt this review to give you some background information on “And the Address”
“And the Address” from Shades of Deep Purple
Associated Performer, Vocalist, Organ: Jon Lord Associated Performer, Vocalist, Bass Guitar: Nick Simper Associated Performer, Guitar: Ritchie Blackmore Associated Performer, Drums: Ian Paice Studio Personnel, Engineer: Barry Ainsworth Producer: Derek Lawrence Studio Personnel, Mastering Engineer: Peter Mew
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“The Power of the Moon” and “Remission Possible” give the album the science fiction rock theme that the cover art promises, but make no mistake, this is not your daddy’s King Crimson or early Pink Floyd, this is Purple creating an outer space passion play of sorts. With Bob Ezrin at the helm you might think Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Lou Reed’s Berlin, or perhaps Welcome to My Nightmare and you’d be spot on. This being Bob Ezrin’s third project with Deep Purple, you can put it on the bookshelf next to the aforementioned Alice, Lou and Floyd classics. It more than makes the grade.
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from the publicist:
Whoosh! marks Deep Purple’s third album produced by Ezrin (Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd). The first — 2013’s Now What?! — charted at #1 in five European countries, as well as Top 10 in over 15 countries worldwide. Cementing itself as one of their most successful albums, inFinite, released in 2017, broke chart records the band accumulated over their 50+year history. With chemistry this electric, it only made sense for Deep Purple and Ezrin to collaborate a third time.
