Speedy King

Another group tackling the Deep Purple back catalogue, this time Saxon who have an album of cover versions due, featuring the tracks which inspired them as metal mad kids in sunny Barnsley all those years ago (I had a targeted email advert for retirement flats there only this morning – somebody at DHSS has been selling my personal data!). Speed King is amongst the set, taken at a blistering pace and with more extreme American style guitar histrionics than is perhaps good for you. It’s not my cup of Yorkshire tea that’s for sure but might find some admirers out there and some nice vintage rally footage slung together for the on screen video. What it proves if nothing else is that you can’t do Deep Purple without Jon Lord’s sound. Thanks to John Tucker for the heads up. SR

Sunday lunch

So many people have sent me a link to this clip that I figure there won’t be many Deep Purple folk out there who haven’t already downloaded it to their secret hard drives. But just in case, seeing as Gareth Toms tricked me into watching it the other day by embedding it into an email, l I don’t see why others shouldn’t suffer / enjoy / hide behind the sofa as well!  Toyah and hubby Robert Fripp have been doing little lockdown cover versions for several weeks and decided it was time to do Smoke On The Water, in front of their own lake, dressed as a cheer leader. Toyah not Bob.  I wonder if she realises it was this song which indirectly financed her first big record deal with Safari?!  I’m going to have to go and play Happy Family to get this out of my brain.  Will Ritchie and Candice reciprocate with a cover of Epitaph?

Split screen – tastic

Some fans have been enjoying this cover of Highway Star lately. It’s by the Kris Barras Band, which is basically Kris and … a keyboard player / drummer Josiah J Manning!  So they both did all the parts to camera (isolated), then mixed them together in a nice straightforward video.  I’m always wary of listening to DP covers (even when it’s Ian Gillan doing them on his remake album) but this is pretty good. It was a while before I even twigged it was just two guys.  And the thing I took away from it at the end is just what a bloody good track it is to stand up so well to this slightly modern take nearly 50 years on…  Thanks to John Tucker for the heads up. Bernie Marsden is a fan too and Mike Richards says they were so good when he saw them live in 2019 that he went again.

 

It’s been Mistreated

As it’s Easter week and every other bugger seems to be on holiday, for those who aren’t, it’s competition time:  It gets harder and harder to devise competitions as 99 times out of 100 you can Bing the answer (yes, I’ve switched) within moments, but couldn’t resist trying people out on this, a very strange (but far from unaccomplished) cover version of Deep Purple’s Mistreated. I mean who would have thought he could star in one of our all time favourite sitcoms AND manage this?  The question:  can you tell us who is singing?   Click on the link below leads you to a one off page where you can listen or download the MP3.  Answer next week, and the prize – a mint copy of the EMI remaster of Burn on vinyl – awarded to the first person out of the eHat who gets it right.  If nobody manages it, we’ll devise a clue. Put your answers in the comments section, and I will keep them hidden.

Mistreated cover version

Many thanks to Norman Barrel and Nick Robinson.