Rapture of The Deep--40 years of Deep Purple

"Rapture of the Deep is the 18th studio album by English hard rock band Deep Purple, released in November 2005. It is the fourth studio album from Deep Purple since Steve Morse joined the band in 1994. It is also the second album to feature veteran keyboardist, Don Airey. The album was produced by Mike Bradford, who also produced the band's previous release, Bananas. Like Bananas, the album was met with a generally positive response from critics and fans"

Above paragraph is quoted from Wiki

It's great to hear new material from your childhood favorites. I have grown up listening to hard rock and heavy metal bands like Scorpions, Rainbow, Deep Purple, Metallica, etc. and I am glad to see many of these artists still bringing out new material.

70s and 80s were the golden times for hard rock; the genre in which Deep Purple excels. Originally formed in 1968, the band went through numerous lineup and style changes. Only one of the founder members, Ian Paice is still in the band. Many rock legends were part of this band, and together they made many memorable albums.

In 2004, from left to right, Roger Glover, Ian Paice, Ian Gillan, Don Airey and Steve Morse

If you take any of the older great albums of purple, i.e. Perfect Strangers, and compare their latest album with it, you will find that there are many common elements. The operatic keyboard riffs are still there, although Jon Lord is not there. Don Airey takes up the job and remains faithful to the purple sound and it's not really easy to distinguish their styles.

Yes, that's the key word--the purple sound. It's very much there. One of the things I like more about Deep Purple is consistency. They did not sell themselves out like Metallica; they kept on doing what they do best. Years after year, they are producing new studio material, and they are still great. For a band aging more than 40 years, it is very difficult to bring out breakthrough albums. Thus, I will not say Rapture of the Deep is one of their best albums.

Although statistics say that it's their 3rd best selling album, I won't even say that it's in the top five purple album's list. In fact, in the first listening, I did not like the album much. A few tracks were okay, and as I said, faithful to the purple sound that our ears have been accustomed to. Ian Gillan is great as ever. He can still scream and he can also sing those melodic notes with ease. Despite of being a veteran rocker, Gillan never once sounds old or worn out, which can be easily said about some of the other contemporary rockers like Dio.

The album has 16 tracks, and as you keep on playing it, the CD grows on to you. At first I liked the song "MTV" most. It's a humorous take on the over commercialization of today's music. This song is a trademark example of how the guitar sound has changed since Steve Morse replaced Ritchie Blackmore. I am a big fan of Blackmore--he is my favorite guitarist. However, I believe Steve Morse is the best guitarist Deep Purple could get in today's world. After the departure of Ritchie, we got one of the best rock albums of our times "Purpendicular" from Deep Purple, and a new Rainbow album "Stranger In Us All" and numerous excellent albums from Ritchie's new band "Blackmore's Night". So it's a win win situation for all.

Roger Glover(L) and Steve Morse (R)

Steve Morse was already an established guitarist with "Steve Morse Band" before joining purple. After listening to his work in Purpendicular, I collected some of his solo albums, and I really liked his style. While he can play the classic purple songs very well, he brings his own aspecific ttitude and style in to Deep Purple and enriches the band.

If you are a hard rock fan, you should definitely listen to this album. As you keep on listening, you will like the album more. The modern Deep Purple, as I like calling them, has produced four albums, and this ones comes as their second best effort preceded by Purpendicular.

Dire Straits - Dire Straits

They say that the first album of a band is the most important one. Well, I guess that is very much true for Dire Straits. Look at the track list of their self titled first album:

1. Down To The Waterline
2. Water Of Love
3. Settin' Me Up
4. Six Blade Knife
5. Southbound Again
6. Sultans Of Swing
7. In The Gallery
8. Wild West End
9. Lions

The album takes you from an emotional journey down to the waterline, and soon you feel a water of love. Then you set yourself up with a six blade knife, and before you realize, you are southbound again. There you meet the Sultans of Swing, who takes you in to the gallery in the wild west end. Finally you find Lions chasing you and you go down to the waterline.

Well, the paragraph above was kind of silly, but what I meant to say is that you can listen to this album over and over, without feeling bored. The first track starts off with an excitedly jubilant, and yet emotional tune. Then things get a bit slow with water of love, and the same pattern persists throughout the album. All the tracks are heavily influenced by different styles of guitar play by none other than Mark Knopfler. He is called a guitar virtuoso for good reasons, and this album nods to it perfectly well.

If you listen to the tracks using a two channel speaker, you will miss out many background sounds. However, the experience totally changes when you use a 5 channel speaker setup.

Sultans of Swing is obviously the chart topping hit, but the other songs are great as well. A must listen for any fan of music. I'd give it 10 out of 5. 5 for excellence, and an additional 5 for timelessness. This album came out 30 years ago, and yet it sounds fresh as new.

To Egypt and Back 4: Cucina

Cucina

Preceded by:
To Egypt and Back 3: From Dubai To Cairo
To Egypt and Back 2: Airport Drama and Towards Dub...
To Egypt and Back 1: Last Working Day and Prelude

Continued:

Just outside the Museum, I saw an elderly person selling some souvenirs. He was really old, and he was speaking in broken English. He pleaded us to buy some fake papyrus souvenirs. Omar strongly advised us not to buy anything from street vendors, as they sell counterfeit and non-durable goods. I felt bad for the elderly person. He was wearing spectacles and was literally begging us to buy something from him stating "I will give you the best deal". As far as I remember, he offered three different prices within the brief span of time, but still we didn't buy anything from him.

On our way back, we stopped in a Cartouche shop. A Cartouche is basically a gold or silver made ornament that one can tuck around his neck using a chain. The specialty of this ornament is that the sellers will engrave your name in Hieroglyphics on them. I was tempted to get one, but due to time constraint and somewhat high price, I opted against it.

We soon came back to the hotel. It was almost time for dinner. We went upstairs, freshened up and came down to “Cucina”, the hotel’s Italian restaurant for having our dinner.

I assumed “Cucina” means cuisine in Italian. But assumptions regarding a foreign language should not come true in a non-fantasy world; and hence I found out that it means kitchen.

At the entrance of the restaurant, we found a smiling Italian lady. She ushered us inside the restaurant and we settled down in a large table, at the north-eastern side of the restaurant. I’ve dined in Italian themed restaurants before, but none of them succeeded much in creating the true ambience. I haven’t been to Italy, but Cucina surely was all “Italian”. You can see the chefs tossing pizza dough in the air and applying tomato paste and other ingredients on the circularly succulent unbaked pizzas. Yeah, even the unbaked ones looked juicy and palatable.

If the partial view of the kitchen was a treat, the presence of a minstrel was the suddenly-surprisingly-declared-unexpected-mid-year-bonus. The minstrel was playing different Spanish, Italian and English songs using an acoustic guitar. He was a jolly good fellow. He was going from table to table and asking the occupants which song they wanted to hear. He had black hair and black eyes, and a matching black moustache. He was wearing a vest, an unimpressive shirt and jeans. He reminded me a bit of Carlos Santana. He had a powerful voice, and he had that Italian accent. The usher and the waiters also had that accent. Italian and Spanish culture always fascinates me. Though I haven’t yet tried Spanish food, I am sure I will like it; and by now you must have figured it out that I am a big fan of Italian food.

A tall, dull looking waiter came to take our order. We had to repeat the order multiple times until he finally managed to write them down. He was so busy being happy and smiling that he was seemingly neglecting his core job of taking the orders. But I guess it wasn’t that bad. A smiling and casual waiter is better than a serious and gloomy waiter. The whole restaurant actually had a casual theme. People came there for spending long hours eating, listening and smoking. Cucina was anything but a place to get a quick bite and leave. You go there only if you wanted to unwind and spend quality time with acquaintances. One of my colleagues got a bit impatient, but I was having fun watching the waiter trying to spread the happiness.

We ordered tomato soup, beef pizza, salad and pasta. When we were almost dying out of starvation, the soup arrived. By then our host was getting really impatient, and he even suggested that we move to another restaurant. However, all ill feelings vanished as soon as the hot soup reached the neck for the first time. The tomato soup was so good that thinking about it still makes me salivate. It was boiling red, and small bread crumbs were floating in within. It also had cream, which effectively makes it a “Cream of Tomato” soup. Soon the pizza, salad and pasta were served, and we indulged in to the purest form of gluttony.

I don’t think I talked much till the food was almost finished. The host offered us wine and hard drinks, but we declined. At that time, the singer came to our table, and asked us where we are from. To my personal delight, he pronounced Bangladesh as Bangladesh, not beng-lah-dehsh or any other weird pronunciation. He recognized our country as the one beside India, and asked us which song we wanted to listen to. Someone suggested La-Bamba, to which he gladly nodded. He asked us again to reconfirm our choice. But before he started, another of us suggested Hotel California, and the minstrel delightedly started playing the song without much ado. It was obvious that he liked the song.

He sang his own personalized version of the song, which kept true to the original song, but also displayed the powerful voice of the Italian minstrel. For almost 7-8 minutes, we remained awe struck. We were mesmerized bye the tune, and soon we were singing along. Suddenly he stopped singing, but I kept on singing. I am no public singer, and I got a bit embarrassed when I realized that my voice was no longer being hidden behind the powerful voice of the expert singer. With a flick of his eyes, he encouraged me to “go on” and I finished the stanza without difficulty. The whole restaurant got caught by the lively performance, and I noticed others gazing at us. His name was Paulo, and he was a regular singer for Cucina. I wish I chatted with him for some more time. Maybe I could become his friend, or maybe he could have taught me how to sing and play. But ah well, that wasn’t meant to be.

After the dinner, we decided to take a hike around the hotel premises. The hotel was truly majestic. There is another Marriot hotel in Cairo, which is in the heart of the city. It is very close to the river Nile. However, we were staying in JW Marriot, which is more of a resort than a hotel. There is a huge swimming pool, and an artificial beach in side the hotel. Beside the beach, there’s a community center, where marriages, birthdays and other cultural programs are held. There are also many shops, restaurants and other important establishments inside the hotel. If you have a lot of money, you can live your life in the hotel and not miss much of the outside world. There are at least five different thematic restaurants in the hotel; Cucina being one of the prominent ones.

We were lucky that night. A traditional Egyptian wedding was being hosted in the poolside.

We were standing on the bridge and from above, we caught a glimpse of the musicians down below. They were playing some traditional tunes, and it only felt right for us to pause and enjoy the ambient music. It was almost 10 PM Egyptian time. By then, our body clocks got kind of adjusted to the time lag, and thus although it was 1 AM at Dhaka, I didn’t feel sleepy at all. Suddenly, a woman who I thought needed to lose a few pounds to be qualified as a dancer came up and started belly dancing. I’ve heard a lot about Cairo’s famous belly dancers and I was sure she was not one of the best looking ones. However, she was good at what she was doing, and she performed for almost 15 minutes or so without missing a single beat. It was a treat for the eyes, but in a nice way. There was nothing vulgar or obnoxious about the dance. Men, women and children alike were enjoying the show. The lady asked a guy from within the guests to join her. I passionately gazed to find any sign of reluctance or disturbance in the guy’s wife, but she seemed very comfortable with the idea of her husband dancing with a belly dancer. The guy finished the dance with numerous claps and accolades.

Finally they paused dancing, and the guests went up to grab their plates. By then, one colleague of mine was pulling us relentlessly to call it a day and to hit the sack. I knew that the next day would be tough one. We had a whole day conference in our hand, and there will be little rest in between. We also had plans for the evening. So I came back to my room, took a shower, drained down the day’s tiredness and went off to bed.

I never dreamed that the first day would be so eventful! It took me a while to fall asleep, but the day’s sweet memories kept me happy until I fell asleep.

Small Update

Renamed my old blog (dmrwrites.blogspot.com) to http://workaholicfictions.blogspot.com

And here's my latest story:
http://workaholicfictions.blogspot.com/2008/06/reddish.html

Wrote it in one stretch.

Coffee and Bossa on a Friday Afternoon

Today's been a typical chaotic weekend so far. Waking up at 10:30, I wanted to go for the morning regularities, but found out that I have been queued behind dad who, just like me, is staying back at home in the morning on a Friday. I decided to head back to bed, and surprisingly enough, I managed to manage another hour of sleep. Since I woke up, I've been hit by the daily chaos of day to to day life. On weekdays, I go to office and I don't usually come back before 10 PM. Hence, I don't have to endure the summer heat, requests and questions and every other sort of peace shattering incidents.

----------------------
Someone to hold me tight
that would be very nice
Someone to love me right
that would be very nice
Someone to understand
each little dream in me
Someone to take my hand
to be a team with me

So nice,
life would be so nice,
if one day I find
Someone who would take my hand
And samba trough live with me

Someone to cling to me
stay with me , right or wrong
Someone to sing to me
some little samba song
Someone to take my heart
and give his heart to me
Someone who's ready
to give love a start with me

Oh yes, that would be so nice
Should it be you and me
I can see it would be nice
------------------------------
Someone to cling to me
stay with me , right or wrong
Someone to sing to me
some little samba song
Someone to take my heart
and give his heart to me
Someone who's ready
to give love a start with me

So nice, that would be so nice
Should it be you and me
I can see it would be nice
----------------------------
S0 nice(Summer Samba) -Astrud Gilberto

So here I am, listening to boss nova jazz tracks by Astrud Gilberto whilst sipping on my self made cup of coffee. I am trying to chill myself out. After the week's trivial stressful moments, I just can't take any more sources of pain.



I am supposed to go somewhere. I was due to reach there by 3 PM, but it's already 3:30 and I am not at all feeling like moving my rear end. Alright, the euphemistic "rear end" was totally unnecessary when I can just write "Ass".

After having lunch, I took a cup of drinking water in my cogito cup. I used to have another yellow flowers cup till 2 days ago, but the maid servant decided to drop it from her hand and break it. So I ended up with the Cogito one. Anyway, I poured the water to another cup and inserted it in to the microwave oven and set 3 minutes heating. At the same time, I took out powdered milk, nescafe coffee, sugar and a teaspoon. Poured 2 spoonfull of coffee and same amount of milk and sugar in the Cogito cup, applied a little bit of cold water and stirred it.

By this time 132 seconds have passed, and I had to wait another 48 seconds to get the hot water. Poured the hot water in the cold solution I just made and voila!, coffee is made after 2/3 more casual stirs.

Marveled with my creation, I came back to my room, and started played the album "Coffee and Bossa: The Chillout Sound of Astrud Gilberto". It's a very nice album. It has some upbeat and some sad songs. It starts of with the classic Carl Jobim tune "Girl from Ipanema" and ends with a remixed version of Here's That Rainy Day, which is another happy song. In between there are sad tunes like Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars (Corcovado) and Meditation (Meditacao). Overall, this is a Samba showcase--this is what Brazillian Jazz is all about. If you are planning to start listening to jazz, you can start with Astrud; her songs are easy to listen to--nothing shocking like Louis Armstrong in there.

3:39 PM, coffee is almost finished, and so is my creativity....

Ciao