So, what have you been listening to lately?

[uwe]

Maybe I'm just bad at explaining it?

The commonalities between DP and JP always seemed obvious to me, I fell for Priest at a time (1977) when Purple had split up and only Rainbow was carrying the banner (albeit less satisfyingly so, Rainbow never appealed to me as much as Purple, it had no swing). Then I listened to "Sin After Sin" (Roger Glover produced) and I immediately felt musically at home. And I wasn't the only one, in the German serious rock press JP were derided (in a pun on "Deep Purple in Rock") as "Deep Purple in Leather - but without Jon Lord ...". English magazines described them as "bad enough to make you long back for even Dee Purple".

The way Priest employ riffs and embed them in their music is very much the Purple/Blackmore recipe. When I hear songs like these, I don't hear Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath (though there is a Sabbath content in Priest's music as well), I hear Deep Purple:





That chugging rhythm (you rarely have with Led Zep or Sabbath, Paranoid is an exception) is prevalent with Purple Mk II too (but generally too unfunky for you, I know  ):





Same with how Gillan sang over these tracks.

Am I projecting things? Maybe, but that still doesn't explain why at age 15 I saw Bon Scott-era AC/DC in 1976 opening for Rainbow and was aghast about how primitive their music was, yet about half a year later in bliss at hearing this:





(The riff at 01:24 is pure Blackmore though at 03:24 Queen arrive; no worries, Ritchie reemerges at 04:41!  )

And it had nothing to do with the image. At that point I had no idea how Judas Priest looked (and they hadn't in any case adopted their leather image yet)



and had already seen AC/DC - they had looked much like their music, unelegant! 

                                                                                        ********

Stumbled over this by accident, made me laugh out loud.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CPyDBcAo9LQ

Judas Priest was the first rock concert my son saw - he was 11 at the time and spent most of the gig on my shoulders to be fascinated with the group in the aftermath (it didn't last, he moved on to Korn, Whitesnake and Guns & Roses!). Years later, during a stay in Berlin, I invited my daughter to a Priest gig, she was then in her early 20ies. After the gig she said "That was enlightening from an anthropological viewpoint." And then "I can't believe how much of that stuff I knew listening to it wth you in the car when I was still a kid ...", only to then deadpan: "Parental abuse knows many forms!" 

[Dave W]

By sheer coincidence, this was posted yesterday in a roots music group I belong to. Uwe will appreciate it.

Appreciating Dave Edmunds

[uwe]

But Dave,  I have nothing against the other Dave! You know how evenhanded and varied I am in my music tastes, not a roots Taliban at all. My elder brother had both the Sabre Dance single



and the I Hear You Knocking one from the other Dave, I grew up with this stuff!

And I'm a Nick Lowe fan in any case. So it's all good, continue to build your Dave Edmunds altars of adulation! 

[Dave W]

Says the guy who has posted hundreds of DP and Priest videos. 

[uwe]

Yeah, but that's an affliction! 

And be fair, you learned a lot from it! As I did and do from the stuff you post and posted. A significant part of my broadened musical tastes in the last 20 years or so go back to what you guys here and in the Dudepit like(d) and listen(ed) to.

But you haven't converted me to Led Zep yet. 

Yet while I'm writing this, I'm enjoying some pseudo country.

[Pilgrim]

I just have to say thanks to Uwe for the Dave Edmonds clip. I LOVE that piece, and his playing is incredible.

[uwe]

I'm more the "live and let live"-guy! 

[doombass]

[Basvarken]

Nice to hear Brian sing with his normal voice instead of the evil witch on helium shriek that he's been using since 1980... 

[Ken]

Slash talks about Brian's voice for this recording here.

[slinkp]

Nice to hear Brian sing with his normal voice instead of the evil witch on helium shriek that he's been using since 1980... 

Mind blown. I had no idea he could sing any other way than "the AC/DC voice". He's really good at this style. I would never in a thousand years have guessed it was Brian Johnson.

[uwe]

He's not a one-trick-pony, he's just being kept as one in an Aussie stable! AC/DC are to musical freedom what Soviet Gulags were to personal liberty. 







In essence, Brian has a voice similar to Noddy Holder and Dan McCafferty, they can all do the high screaming, but it's not all they can do. Incidentally, all three were asked to join AC/DC after Bon's death, Noddy and Dan declined because they were loyal to their bands (though it was by then evident that AC/DC was on the way up, while Slade and Nazareth were on the way down). Brian didn't have a band at the time - Geordie had folded - and I don't believe that any of his descendants will ever regret his affirmative decision. 

[uwe]

Unsung West Coast heroes The Hollywood Stars with one of their songs most people know from Kiss' Destroyer ...



Still waiting for a CD release of their 1977 album, power pop par excellence.

[uwe]

Steely Judas Jackson ...

[Alanko]

Slash really has enjoyed a long, comfortable tail on his career! How many albums of pointless covers and awkward collaborations has he done?