Deep Purple-Made in Europe

[GuitarGeek]

I don't know about Europe but certainly in the UK, the BBC never had Deep Purple on many TV shows- the records of who performed on shows still exist even if the shows themselves do not. Also by the 1970s, fewer things were being 'wiped'. Most of 'In Concert' and 'Old Grey Whistle Test'- the two main outlets for rock as opposed to pop- survived. Deep Purple did appear on 'Top Of The Pops' but this show was mostly mimed performances.

They were still wiping stuff in the 70's. The BBC actually kept track of when stuff was wiped, and apparently some of the Doctor Who stuff was wiped in the mid 70's. I'm not entirely sure of the specifics how it was determined what would be wiped and when. The majority of the Doctor Who stuff that's missing is from the 60's (reaching into the first year of Jon Pertwee's era, I believe), yet some of it seems to have been erased after the tape had been sitting around for something like a decade.

And not even The Beatles were immune to such treatment, because at least one of the TV shows they appeared on in the UK (the on that was briefly excerpted in an early Doctor Who) was wiped too!

The UK was different from the US. Up until sometime in the 80's or 90's, they didn't have reruns the way we do Stateside, so so stuff was generally shown just once and that was it. I believe this was due to union regulations and such, so they really were in a place of having tons of stuff on videotape that they literally couldn't use beyond two or three broadcasts, and I believe I've read those had to be done within the first couple years after the original transmission. I imagine the actor's union were worried they'd be put out of business if reruns became rampant on British TV (just as musician's unions were worried about synths and samplers putting them out of business).

Oh, and about the Doing That Thing broadcast, I think it's also one of the few times Blackmore is seen on videotape playing an ES-335, which was his main axe during the MKI years. He only switched to the Strat around the time of In Rock. I believe he plays both on the Doing That Thing footage.

[grego]

I wouldn't be surprised if lots of tapes got used over, like the case with Monty Python and the BBC. They were going to reuse the tapes and they bought them from the BBC. Conventional wisdom, if there is any of that, would say there were many other shows filmed.

It seems conventional wisdom took a leap off the cliff with this band. Did any other major bands of the day screw the pooch this badly? Zeppelin is reigned over by Page so that's sort of different, I suppose. I only know of one Sabbath - Never Say Die - from BITD. Surely not everything everybody did was lost, right? Where's the Pink Floyd shows from the '70's, didn't they ever film anything?

Like the New York footage, they cut it a half hour then what, just threw away the rest? Seemed to be a pretty good show too. Bastards.

Yeah, Sabbath have only one comlete show from 70s, NSD. I read a lot of bad press on them for '78 tour, but that particular gig was really fine. Pink Floyd produced the Live in Pompeji film, in 72, if I'm not mistaken.

[grego]

Floyds really cared of filming, I remeber their clips from the 60s. Two soundtracks released completely by them, plus participation for Zabriski Point. A lot of casual footage too.

[JJ88]

^Not really. There wasn't a single PF concert between 1973-7 that was professionally filmed.

[ronmac]

It seems conventional wisdom took a leap off the cliff with this band. Did any other major bands of the day screw the pooch this badly?

WRT to footage, I'd say Nektar. Luckily, Mick Brockett held onto his own audio recordings (which they kept for personal use/review, so they're not high-fidelity) and kept a diary.

[grego]

^Not really. There wasn't a single PF concert between 1973-7 that was professionally filmed.

Was it really so utterly expensive back in the days that they can't afford filming? Or they didn't care much of video stuff?

[TheLoony]

Thanks for the responses. I was mainly asking rhetorical questions as I didn't know if anyone could answer my questions, other than with speculation.

Seriously, you're telling me Floyd's Pompeii isn't in Pompeii? Next you are going to tell me Kiss Alive isn't a real live album, huh?

So where the hell was it filmed? Did Floyd actually play it live or is it overdubbed? Is it really Floyd playing it or is it studio musicians? Crikey, this is what I get for asking questions around here.

[GuitarGeek]

Pink Floyd produced the Live in Pompeji film, in 72, if I'm not mistaken.

It was produced across something like a year. The footage of them performing in Pompeii (ie Echoes, One Of These Days and Saucerful) was filmed in 72, as was the studio performance footage (ie Careful With That Axe, Set The Controls, and Mademoiselle Nobs, plus the various shots of them of performing in front of the film screen, like during the Celestial Voices section of Saucerful or the first few minutes of the second part of Echoes). Then I think the stuff of them in the recording studio, pretending to record Dark Side Of The Moon, Roger and Dave arguing ("would you like to come in here and tend controls, Dave?!"), the interviews (including Dave's classic "People tend to think of Pink Floyd as a drug orientated band, and we're not [flashes ridiculous dopehead smile] you can trust us!" comment) and all the putzing around in the studio canteen (including Nick moping about not being able to get a piece of pie "without the crust") was filmed sometime in 73, I think.

[GuitarGeek]

Was it really so utterly expensive back in the days that they can't afford filming? Or they didn't care much of video stuff?

Yes it was that expensive. If you want a proper film or video, you'd have to have several cameras. If you're doing it right, you have one camera on each band member. And if you really want to, you might have one or two cameras on the audience, too. Professional grade videotape or film is expensive.

Then you've gotta have cameramen (or women) to operate the cameras. Trust me, this is more important than you can imagine. It's the difference between something that looks brilliant (watch the Grateful Dead Movie to see something that looks brilliant) and something that looks like it was shot by your father, on Christmas morning, before he even knew how to properly use the home movie camera (the David Bowie Ziggy Stardust film comes to mind in this regard...terrible cinematography in that one). So you have to pay all those guys, and they don't come cheap.

THen you have to hire an editing suite for however many hours it takes for you to edit the film the way you want. Or should say, the way the director wants it, since typically such films seem to get handed over to someone outside the band (the one exception I can think of being, once again The Grateful Dead Movie, which was pretty much put together by Jerry Garcia himself). And your director probably won't come cheap either, and neither will his editor.

Then you've got to mix the music, because if you were smart, you also hired a multi-track truck (another expense) and you're gonna spend at least a few hours (hopefully more) getting the sound right, though there's a few concert films where the audio wasn't "just right" (Yessongs, anybody?).

So yeah, all that adds up to a very expensive bill. Someone has to front the money for that beforehand, either the record company, or a television network, or some other entity who believes they can either make a good profit off the project, or at least lose enough money that they can write it off on their taxes. Unless, of course, you're The Rolling Stones or Paul McCartney or someone else like that (well, McCartney was incredibly wealthy, I think The Stones were still recovering from being burned by Allen Klein, though there again, they still managed to produce a concert film in 1973 and film two other shows later in the decade, followed by another concert film at the start of the next decade).

And like I said, I don't think any of the bands "didn't care", it was just a matter of getting someone interested in fronting the money for such a project.

[GuitarGeek]

Seriously, you're telling me Floyd's Pompeii isn't in Pompeii? Next you are going to tell me Kiss Alive isn't a real live album, huh?

So where the hell was it filmed? Did Floyd actually play it live or is it overdubbed? Is it really Floyd playing it or is it studio musicians? Crikey, this is what I get for asking questions around here.

It's a known fact that even the audience was overdubbed on Kiss Alive. Eddie Kramer said so. Apparently finding about this "ruined" Fred...what's the name of that dork from Limp Bizkit? When he was interviewed on the Classic Albums show on Kiss Alive, he sounded severely bummed when they told him that. I think Peter's drums are probably about the only thing that weren't overdubbed at some point on that record (if not throughout the entire album). And for the record, that apparently happens with a lot of live albums (Live And Dangerous, anyone?!).

As for Live At Pompeii, as I said in my previous post, Echoes, Saucerful Of Secrets, and One Of These Days were filmed at Pompeii. If you watch the other footage, you can see that they're playing indoors, apparently a TV or film studio soundstage. You'll notice that in some of the footage, Rick Wright is clean shaven, whereas in the Pompeii footage he isn't. And all the shots where the band is performing of a backdrop screen, those are in the studio too.

[grego]

It was produced across something like a year. The footage of them performing in Pompeii (ie Echoes, One Of These Days and Saucerful) was filmed in 72, as was the studio performance footage (ie Careful With That Axe, Set The Controls, and Mademoiselle Nobs, plus the various shots of them of performing in front of the film screen, like during the Celestial Voices section of Saucerful or the first few minutes of the second part of Echoes). Then I think the stuff of them in the recording studio, pretending to record Dark Side Of The Moon, Roger and Dave arguing ("would you like to come in here and tend controls, Dave?!"), the interviews (including Dave's classic "People tend to think of Pink Floyd as a drug orientated band, and we're not [flashes ridiculous dopehead smile] you can trust us!" comment) and all the putzing around in the studio canteen (including Nick moping about not being able to get a piece of pie "without the crust") was filmed sometime in 73, I think.

Yeah, I vaguely remember Nick talking about the piecrust or something, that was funny. I also remember Roger critisizing AHM(?) - he referred to some "previous" album, which I thought was AHM.

[GuitarGeek]

Yeah, I vaguely remember Nick talking about the piecrust or something, that was funny. I also remember Roger critisizing AHM(?) - he referred to some "previous" album, which I thought was AHM.

He was talking about the first pressing of Obscured By Clouds, which apparently was poor quality or whatever, something to do with there being too much sibblance, or however you spell it.

[grego]

Yes it was that expensive. If you want a proper film or video, you'd have to have several cameras. If you're doing it right, you have one camera on each band member. And if you really want to, you might have one or two cameras on the audience, too. Professional grade videotape or film is expensive.

Then you've gotta have cameramen (or women) to operate the cameras. Trust me, this is more important than you can imagine. It's the difference between something that looks brilliant (watch the Grateful Dead Movie to see something that looks brilliant) and something that looks like it was shot by your father, on Christmas morning, before he even knew how to properly use the home movie camera (the David Bowie Ziggy Stardust film comes to mind in this regard...terrible cinematography in that one). So you have to pay all those guys, and they don't come cheap.

THen you have to hire an editing suite for however many hours it takes for you to edit the film the way you want. Or should say, the way the director wants it, since typically such films seem to get handed over to someone outside the band (the one exception I can think of being, once again The Grateful Dead Movie, which was pretty much put together by Jerry Garcia himself). And your director probably won't come cheap either, and neither will his editor.

Then you've got to mix the music, because if you were smart, you also hired a multi-track truck (another expense) and you're gonna spend at least a few hours (hopefully more) getting the sound right, though there's a few concert films where the audio wasn't "just right" (Yessongs, anybody?).

So yeah, all that adds up to a very expensive bill. Someone has to front the money for that beforehand, either the record company, or a television network, or some other entity who believes they can either make a good profit off the project, or at least lose enough money that they can write it off on their taxes. Unless, of course, you're The Rolling Stones or Paul McCartney or someone else like that (well, McCartney was incredibly wealthy, I think The Stones were still recovering from being burned by Allen Klein, though there again, they still managed to produce a concert film in 1973 and film two other shows later in the decade, followed by another concert film at the start of the next decade).

And like I said, I don't think any of the bands "didn't care", it was just a matter of getting someone interested in fronting the money for such a project.

Thanks for enlightning, GuitarGeek, never could I imagine the charges gotta be so weighty. I thought the major acts like PF could easily get a sponsor, even a number of them.

[grego]

He was talking about the first pressing of Obscured By Clouds, which apparently was poor quality or whatever, something to do with there being too much sibblance, or however you spell it.

Yeah, so it was '72, when the album (OBC)was already released. Didn't he praised DSOTM then? Perhaps they were in recording process..

[profusion]

Thanks for enlightning, GuitarGeek, never could I imagine the charges gotta be so weighty. I thought the major acts like PF could easily get a sponsor, even a number of them.

It's not just a question of getting a sponsor, but of what you could do with the finished product even if you could come up with the money to produce it. Remember, the home video market didn't exist until the 1980s. Prior to that, the options were a theatrical or television release, and most of the decision making for those was obviously outside the control of the bands.

To me, it's remarkable that there's as much footage of '70s bands as there is.

Oh, and back on topic, I wore out my old LP copy of Made in Europe from playing it so much. Count me as one of those who enjoyed it more than Made in Japan. Some of the material on MIE was edited together and Glenn's screams were largely left out of the mixes. If you get the later archival releases from those three Stormbringer tour shows, Glenn is fully in the mix and overbearing. He became a much better singer after he sobered up in the 1990s, and it also helped that his voice got more character with age.

As for why MIE was a single LP, I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that it was put together to create "product" while Deep Purple was broken up, and there probably wasn't any impetus to create a more expensive double album. Ian Paice was the only band member involved in its release.

[Halmyre]

It's a known fact that even the audience was overdubbed on Kiss Alive. Eddie Kramer said so. Apparently finding about this "ruined" Fred...what's the name of that dork from Limp Bizkit? When he was interviewed on the Classic Albums show on Kiss Alive, he sounded severely bummed when they told him that. I think Peter's drums are probably about the only thing that weren't overdubbed at some point on that record (if not throughout the entire album). And for the record, that apparently happens with a lot of live albums (Live And Dangerous, anyone?!).

Some of the audience noise on 'Made in Europe' is overdubbed and looped - particularly noticeable if you listen to the last few minutes of the last track.

[JJ88]

RE; Glenn Hughes. I like the song 'This Time Around' a lot- I think his singing on that is excellent. Somewhere in the last 1/4 of that album ('Come Taste The Band'), they'd finally come up with a new sound that they could have pursued. The preceding 3/4 just sort of hangs around in this not-quite-soul, not-quite-rock no man's land, as opposed to a true funk-rock sound. 'Stormbringer' has the same problem with nothing songs like 'You Can't Do It Right', 'Holy Man' and 'Hold On'.

I also recall thinking the 'Hughes/Thrall' album was strong, in a 'sophisticated hard rock' sort of style.

At least this particular live album avoided the poor versions of the Mark II material. That was a good decision, and the track selection from the two studio albums with this line-up was solid. 'Soldier Of Fortune' is one obvious omission to me, but it doesn't seem the sort of song that would work so well live anyway.

[JJ88]

Was it really so utterly expensive back in the days that they can't afford filming? Or they didn't care much of video stuff?

Both. I think bands didn't care enough to go to the expense, and where was the outlet other than in the cinema? There weren't really home videos in the 70s, at least not that everybody could afford to have one. Nowadays live DVDs and the like are plentiful...problem is there's much less interest in later line-ups or past-their-best performances, than there is in footage of bands in their prime. That goes for any band, really.

[grego]

RE; Glenn Hughes. I like the song 'This Time Around' a lot- I think his singing on that is excellent. Somewhere in the last 1/4 of that album ('Come Taste The Band'), they'd finally come up with a new sound that they could have pursued. The preceding 3/4 just sort of hangs around in this not-quite-soul, not-quite-rock no man's land, as opposed to a true funk-rock sound. 'Stormbringer' has the same problem with nothing songs like 'You Can't Do It Right', 'Holy Man' and 'Hold On'.

I also recall thinking the 'Hughes/Thrall' album was strong, in a 'sophisticated hard rock' sort of style.

At least this particular live album avoided the poor versions of the Mark II material. That was a good decision, and the track selection from the two studio albums with this line-up was solid. 'Soldier Of Fortune' is one obvious omission to me, but it doesn't seem the sort of song that would work so well live anyway.

Holy Man is ok, mainly due to Blackmore's fine solo, but Hold On and Highball Shooter aren't the good ones - even the brilliant solo bits of both L and B didn't helped. But I agree, both Hughes songs on CTTB are his best for DP - This Time Around and Gettin' Tighter. For me Come Taste album without a doubt is better than Burn and Stormbringer.

[ronmac]

Some of the audience noise on 'Made in Europe' is overdubbed and looped - particularly noticeable

There's a live album by Carlos Santana and Buddy Miles that has the same 20-second loop repeated at least 25 times throughout the album. You keep hearing the same two whistles. It's absolutely ridiculous. Great album, otherwise.

[revporl]

RE; Glenn Hughes. I like the song 'This Time Around' a lot- I think his singing on that is excellent. Somewhere in the last 1/4 of that album ('Come Taste The Band'), they'd finally come up with a new sound that they could have pursued. The preceding 3/4 just sort of hangs around in this not-quite-soul, not-quite-rock no man's land, as opposed to a true funk-rock sound. 'Stormbringer' has the same problem with nothing songs like 'You Can't Do It Right', 'Holy Man' and 'Hold On'.

I also recall thinking the 'Hughes/Thrall' album was strong, in a 'sophisticated hard rock' sort of style.

At least this particular live album avoided the poor versions of the Mark II material. That was a good decision, and the track selection from the two studio albums with this line-up was solid. 'Soldier Of Fortune' is one obvious omission to me, but it doesn't seem the sort of song that would work so well live anyway.

I first heard This Time Around sometime in the mid 80's having got into Deep Purple via the Perfect Strangers reunion album. I still remember me and a friend corpsing as it sounded, and still sounds, exactly like George Michael and Wham who were very popular at the time.

[GuitarGeek]

Some of the audience noise on 'Made in Europe' is overdubbed and looped - particularly noticeable if you listen to the last few minutes of the last track.

I think a lot of live albums had overdubbed audience noise. Eddie Kramer admits he did that on Kiss Alive. I also recall the guy who produced Rock And Roll Animal said that someone tripped over a cable in the remote and disable the audience mics during the recording session. According to him, the crowd noise on the best of all Lou Reed albums is actually taken from a John Denver (!!!) concert that RCA had in the vault.

[Dave (in MA)]

When they do that sort of thing, they ought to go all the way and just throw in the Wilhelm Scream for the hell of it.

[GuitarGeek]

When they do that sort of thing, they ought to go all the way and just throw in the Wilhelm Scream for the hell of it.

Throw in that same stock thunderclap that was used in like every TV show and movie back in the 60's and 70's, as well.

[grego]

Both. I think bands didn't care enough to go to the expense, and where was the outlet other than in the cinema? There weren't really home videos in the 70s, at least not that everybody could afford to have one. Nowadays live DVDs and the like are plentiful...problem is there's much less interest in later line-ups or past-their-best performances, than there is in footage of bands in their prime. That goes for any band, really.

There are some exceptions, like Procol Harum. I think their recent videos are great.