Classic rawk roundup – Deep Purple vs. Status Quo

Classic rawk roundup – Deep Purple vs. Status Quo

DEEP PURPLE
Now What?! Gold Edition
earMUSIC

I wasn’t head over heels in love with “Now What?!”. I know lots of people drooled over it, but I felt it fell into the Gillan B-side trap of too many modern era Purple albums. There were some good tunes, and I’m still happily spinning the likes of ‘Hell To Pay’ and ‘Vincent Price’, but this might be the version to convince me. Yes, it’s the deluxe edition, which is coming out with a whole live album as an extra.

As with many albums recorded at different venues (Milan, Rome, Gaevle, Majano, Aalborg), it sometimes lacks in atmsophere, but the band are in good form, and it’s better than many of the official live albums doing the rounds. And in among the usual suspects (‘Strange Kind Of Woman’, ‘Lazy’, ‘Black Night’, Smoke On The Water’), you actually get a chunk of music you may never hear live again. So say hello to ‘Vincent Price’, ‘BodyLine’, and ‘Above And Beyond’. And there is a cracking version of ‘No One Came’ that made me very happy.

The studio album gets a couple of enhancements with the addition of the Jerry Lee Lewis cover ‘It’ll Be Me’ and ‘First Sign Of Madness’, which was a B-side on the single of ‘Vincent Price’. I don’t normally approve of this sort of thing, but as it’s out at standard price, it’s worth it even if you bought “Now What?!” the first time out.

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STATUS QUO
Still Doin’ It
Omnibus Press

I remember getting the original version of this book as a very welcome Christmas present about five years back. It’s basically a coffee table book for Quo fans, but why shouldn’t we have one.

It’s a fully authorised book of personal and professional photographs of the band, starting back in 1966 and coming right up to the present day. And I assume the Frantic Four reunion is why it’s coming out again. It’s also nice to see a 2009 quote from Francis Rossi telling us, bluntly, that said reunion would never happen.

It was compiled by road manager, songwriter and moothy player, Bob Young, and is exactly what you would want from a Quo photo book. As someone who grew up in the seventies, the pictures from that era bring it all back to life. I haven’t done a compare and contrast myself, but someone considerably sadder than me reckons that there are 32 new pages covering Quo activities over the last 5 years.

Whether that’s enough to justify upgrading is down to you, but if you didn’t get it first time round, then you should make a point of getting it now. A visual treat.

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