Florestan! You got me going on a musical journey here.
I bought "Deep Purple in Rock" after I saw their public rehearsal in Toronto.
The bass player in the only hard rock trio I ever had lent me his "Burn" and "Stormbringer" albums,
where we got more Deep Purple songs to do. Of all those songs, I still sing "Sail Away" to myself.
In a previous comment, when I said Deep Purple got funky, that was about "Sail Away".
If I heard "Never Before" I forgot, but as soon as I started listening,
I could hear the beginnings of Deep Purple funk, reminding me of "Sail Away".
That's when I went to get the YouTube link to that, sad to say it's just got an album graphic.
I looked at other lives ones by former members, but they weren't good enough.
Deep Purples' "Sail Away" had a synthesizer solo we all thought was lame,
and that instrumental passage ended with some over-dubbed guitars, leading back to the vocals.
Considering the heavy bass and drums, I would let my guitar start feeding back after the vocals,
and then we'd start riffing off like there was no tomorrow, easy to do in E minor.
If I remember Stryper at all, it's from seeing them in Rolling Stone and guitar magazines,
never having an album or seeing them live around here.
They come from the era when a lot of American bands didn't want to cross the border in to Canada,
so you might be seeing them as a band in a way I never could.
If American bands weren't playing live in Canada, they wouldn't get their music on the radio here,
unless it was an American owned station, and as a bar band we listened to local stuff,
just what people wanted to hear.
Deep Purple is very popular here, Canada always being their biggest sales market and for tours.
Right away, I'm thinking Stryper must be more of a band than I would imagine,
if they're doing Earth, Wind and Fires' "Shining Star", and they pull it off very nicely.
You can only say "Shining Star" is an r'n'b or funk based song,
so it didn't surprise me that "The Valley" had a slow, for hard rock, funky groove,
almost like "Sail Away" and "Never Before".
That was a nice video, a lot of artistic imagery, and they really are out in a desert,
maybe even Death Valley. Stryper wasn't afraid to get their message out,
at a time when a lot of people found it difficult to get past the hard rock vocals to hear the words,
especially if it was anything to do with being a Christian.
I've been saying hard rock because that's how I'm hearing them,
but "Bizarre", with the front man coming out with his own band is more heavy metal.
That's more about the drumming than changing the guitar style.
One of the comments says he's 54 years old here, looking and sounding very good,
so he must be following his own message in real life, something that gets my respect.
I don't know what it is,
but seeing a grown man with long hair all dressed in leather,
hopping backwards with his feet together and arms held up,
always got to me, just one of those stage moves that grabbed your attention.
That's another thing I liked, seeing the band moving around and having a good time.
I listened to "Burn" and was thinking, wow, we used to do that... I sang it... wow...
Considering what the new burn is in Ontario, legalized marijuana,
maybe I could slow it down and give it a slower burn,
where she's giving you some heat that isn't burning down your entire landscape.