Vanilla Fudge in Rock Hall? Cactus, too?

Carmine Appice thinks his bands aren't getting a fair shake

By Peter Lindblad

Carmine Appice 2013

Like so many others, Carmine Appice has a bone to pick with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame voters. 

And he's not shy about doing a little politicking for his own bands.

In a recent interview, the drumming guru, who just started his own record label, Rocker Records, made the case for both Vanilla Fudge and Cactus.

"Why neither one of them are ever even mentioned in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I’ll never know, especially Vanilla Fudge," said Appice. "We took out everybody with us. Frank Zappa opened up for us. I mean, Cactus had Bruce Springsteen open up for us. You know what I mean? It’s just crazy."

Having Zappa and Springsteen as support acts is pretty impressive all right, but does that alone qualify Vanilla Fudge and Cactus as Hall of Fame material? Appice takes another tack in his fairly good-natured, but still passionate, argument.

"And then they worry that Alice Cooper didn’t get in (that was before he actually got in, of course)," said Appice. "Okay, they’re right. Alice Cooper should be in there. Certainly the freaking rap artists shouldn’t be in there. If they throw those kinds of acts in there, they should call it the Music Hall of Fame, not the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But then Jeff Beck is in there twice. I mean, the Yardbirds are in there. Why are the Yardbirds in there and Vanilla Fudge isn’t in there? The Yardbirds were never that big here. Is it because they spawned the three guitar players? Vanilla Fudge spawned me and Timmy (Bogert) (laughs)."

While there isn't a great push among rock fans to get Fudge or Cactus into the Rock Hall, like there is with other hard-rock heroes Deep Purple  or KISS, maybe they do merit strong consideration.

Mixing up a heavy psychedelic and soulful rock brew, Fudge re-imagined a host of popular songs in the late '60s, including The Supremes' hit "You Keep Me Hangin' On." Fudge's tripped-out version, with vocalist/keyboardist Mark Stein's baroque organ making the track a warped little aural funhouse, went all the way to No. 6 on the US Hot 100. That's also where their 1967 self-titled album landed on the US Top 200.

A weird sophomore effort, titled The Beat Goes On and filled with sound collages rather than actual songs, derailed Fudge, although the record went all the way to No. 17 on the charts. Fudge's third album, Renaissance, was more in line with their first album, and it did well, hitting No. 20. In all, the prolific Fudge, often cited as the missing link between psychedelia and heavy metal, put out five albums between 1966 and 1969, and in the process, probably helped paved the way for the stoner-metal movement.

Appice and Bogert, Fudge's bassist, left in 1970 to start Cactus, leaving Stein to forge onward with Fudge. Known as the "American Led Zeppelin," Cactus stuck around for only two years, but their brand of high-energy boogie-rock influenced a number of high-profile artists, including Van Halen, the Black Crowes, Montrose and the Black Keys. 

But it was Fudge that made Appice and Bogert, who later formed a trio with guitar god Jeff Beck called Beck, Bogert & Appice, household names. And it was Fudge that sparked a reaction by reworking Beatles' songs like "Eleanor Rigby" and "Ticket to Ride," not to mention Donovan's "Season of the Witch," with a thick, lugubrious kind of soul approach that was more glassy-eyed than blue-eyed.

They were not playing by anybody's rules.

"The Rascals were big at the time, and we sort of blew them away with what they were doing to the extreme," said Appice. "And it’s just like Led Zeppelin took everybody else who influenced them, from Hendrix to Vanilla Fudge to the Cream and everybody else, and took what they were doing – especially The Jeff Beck Group – to the extreme. And that’s why they were so big, but 'You Keep Me Hangin’ On,' it was such a shock, because nobody really did covers in those days. If they did, they were doing them the same way as the original. But the way we did it, we shocked so many people."

Count some of the biggest names in rock among those stunned by what Vanilla Fudge was doing.

"I remember reading things that Eric Clapton and George Harrison and Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck and all these people knew exactly where they were the first time they heard that, because it left such an impression on them," said Appice. "And why? Because it was a white group playing really heavy, but soulful – so heavy soul wasn’t really in yet. White, blue-eyed soul was cool. That was what The Rascals did and the Righteous Brothers did, but nobody did it heavy – with big amps and the big drums, the powerful drum sounds."

These days, both bands are back touring, and Appice's new label is just itching to put some Cactus and Vanilla Fudge product that Appice has just sitting around collecting dust. Visit www.rocker-records.com for more information.

And stay tuned for more from our interview with one of the greatest drummers in the history of rock 'n' roll.

CD Review: Various Artists - Re-Machined - A Tribute to Deep Purple's Machine Head

CD Review: Various Artists – Re-Machined – A Tribute to Deep Purple’s Machine Head

Eagle Records

All Access Review: B+

Re-Machined - A Tribute to Deep Purple's Machine Head 2012

“Why in the world would anybody bring a flare gun to a Frank Zappa concert, let alone shoot it off inside the venue?” Even after all these years, isn’t that the question that springs to mind every time “Smoke on the Water” and that swinging sledgehammer of a riff, seemingly plucked out of thin air by that six-string magician Ritchie Blackmore, comes crashing through the speakers?

Whatever the reasons for such a brain-dead decision, it certainly had far-reaching consequences for Deep Purple. As related through the oral history of “Smoke on the Water,” Blackmore and company went to Montreux, Switzerland to make a record. They’d rented the Rolling Stones’ mobile studio and were all set to head into the Montreux Casino to record their archetypal heavy-metal manifesto, Machine Head, an album with all the driving horsepower of the finest Mustangs Ford ever manufactured. Then, that infamous “stupid with a flare gun” got trigger-happy and set off a blaze that burned the entire complex to ash, forcing a rather desperate Deep Purple to find other another place to make history. Through the ice and snow, the Mark II lineup hauled that mobile to an almost completely vacant hotel, where the band, working under severe time constraints and less-than-ideal conditions, somehow managed to forge a masterpiece.

The stakes, of course, were not nearly as high, but in some ways, this was rock music’s Apollo 13 moment – a small crew a long ways from home, their master plans derailed by a fire and other acts of God, forced to scramble and improvise on the fly to accomplish what they’d set out to do. On some level, what Deep Purple did was heroic, all the more so considering the incredible results produced by their perseverance and ingenuity. And so, with 2012 being the 40th anniversary of their groundbreaking accomplishment, it’s hard to imagine an album more deserving of a mostly sincere, star-studded homage as Re-Machined – A Tribute to Deep Purple’s Machine Head, which has taken on greater significance with the fairly recent passing of legendary Purple keyboardist Jon Lord and news of the band's nomination for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Getting behind the wheel of “Highway Star,” Chickenfoot and the thrown-together combination of Glenn Hughes, Steve Vai and Chad Smith open up the throttle on differing, frenzied versions of one of the greatest car songs of all-time, with Chickenfoot’s thundering, hot-wired live test-drive of the original wildly pushing into the red and Smith-Hughes-Vai’s take smoking its tires and leaving terra firma to soar into the stratosphere on Hughes’ prayerful wail. On their earthy funk workout of “Maybe I’m a Leo,” Smith and Hughes, a one-time member of Deep Purple’s Mark III crew, lock into the kind of chunky, soulful rock grooves that thicken and add organic, savory flavor to what was somewhat of a thin, starry-eyed stew cooked up by Purple so long ago, while “Lazy” gets a smoldering, bluesy makeover by guitarist Joe Bonamassa and screaming singer Jimmy Barnes.

Less inspired, Metallica’s surprisingly atrophied reworking of “When A Blind Man Cries” – not included on Machine Head initially, as it was a B-side of the “Never Before” single – doesn’t gnash its teeth or exhibit the kind of dynamic energy one would expect of them. Worse yet, the Flaming Lips disappointingly choose to take the piss out of “Smoke on the Water” and robotically dance with this sacred cow, much as Devo did in deconstructing the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction.” Arty and interesting in its own way, it also seems a waste of the Lips’ prodigious talent and even more proof that they’ve lost their way, whereas Iron Maiden simply plow through an explosive and gripping, if perhaps a bit too faithful, cover of “Space Truckin’” – recorded in 2006 as a B-side while making A Matter of Life and Death, and it’s sat on the shelf ever since.

What better time for it to find new life, and what better time for Joe Elliot, Steve Stevens, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum to come together as Kings of Chaos and vigorously shake some glam action out of “Never Before,” or for Carlos Santana and Papa Roach’s Jacoby Shaddix to smoothly maneuver through “Smoke on the Water,” with Santana playing off Blackmore’s riffage and making the track a multi-cultural experience. And then there’s Black Label Society, these hairy metal barbarians storming the gates of “Never Before,” with Zakk Wylde’s wah-wah guitar supernovas barely shining through nests of grungy folk. Diverse, with examples of incredible musicianship, Re-Machined takes some liberties with Machine Head, and more often than not, they’re worth the gamble. Maybe now everyone will forget about that damned flare gun.

-            Peter Lindblad

DVD Review: Deep Purple - Live at Montreux 2011

DVD Review: Deep Purple - Live at Montreux 2011
Eagle Rock Entertainment
All Access Review:  A-

Deep Purple has tried this before. Back in 1969, when the idea of a rock band sharing the stage with an orchestra seemed absolutely ludicrous, especially to so-called “serious musicians” who wanted nothing to do with anything besides classical music, Jon Lord’s ambitions were realized. The long-time Purple keyboardist had composed the three-part movement epic Concerto for Group and Orchestra, and plans were made for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to perform the piece at Royal Albert Hall … with Deep Purple, mind you.

Not surprisingly, as singer Ian Gillan recalls during a lengthy interview included with the new separate concert DVD and two-CD packages Live at Montreux 2011, many members of the orchestra “… had an air about them” and were not keen on cooperating with Purple in any capacity. At that time, classical musicians did not play well with others, which was somewhat understandable. There really wasn’t much precedence for this sort of thing, The Nice’s Five Bridges being the only other deal with the devil hatched between an orchestra and a rock band around that time. A forward-thinking conductor by the name of Malcolm Arnold wasn’t having any of it, however. Gillan remembers Arnold giving the whole orchestra a rather “… brusque ‘pull your socks up,’” which evidently is British code for, “stop acting like bratty snobs and get back to work before I give you what for.” The mutiny quelled, Deep Purple, still clinging to its progressive-rock approach while edging ever closer toward the more straightforward, riff-heavy attack they would unleash on 1970’s In Rock and 1972’s Machine Head, and the Royal Philharmonic ultimately joined forces to produce a performance that – perhaps because of the publicity the event generated – unexpectedly landed their collaboration on the charts.

What was once a groundbreaking proposition, reserved for only the most classically inclined bands of the progressive movement, has become old hat for Deep Purple, having performed with an orchestra several times over the years. Last year, Gillan, drummer Ian Paice, bassist Roger Glover, guitarist Steve Morse and keyboardist Don Airy, Lord’s replacement, went down to Montreux, the Swiss community forever linked to Deep Purple by catastrophe and the classic song, “Smoke on the Water,” inspired by the ruinous casino fire started “by some stupid with a flare gun” at a Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention concert. Backing them this time around at famed Montreux Jazz Festival was the 38-piece Neue Philharmonic from Frankfurt, Germany – under the blue-collar, workmanlike direction of Stephen “BK” Bentley-Klein – and in all likelihood, over time, Purple has learned a valuable lesson from other, more disastrous pairings such as this, and that is, don’t let the armada of cellists, violinists, and whatever other instrumentalists happen to be in the room play pretty and decorate these full-on, hot-blooded rock anthems with a lot of flair and ornamentation.

The buzz word for Gillan and Paice regarding this project is “augmentation.” Comparing the Neue Philharmonic’s purpose to that of Count Basie Orchestra, the two Purple war horses talk about how the orchestra swings and puts a strong shoulder to the grooves of the band’s classic hits, and the orchestra does indeed expand on and enhance them with huge, sweeping waves of sound that seem to lift and carry to heaven tracks like the lushly exotic “Rapture of the Deep” and the swooning instrumental “Contract Lost” – featuring Morse’s soaring, beautifully sketched guitar solo – that opens the doors of perception to a reflective, emotionally powerful “When A Blind Man Cries.” And when called for, Neue provides additional horsepower to “Woman from Tokyo,” “Space Truckin’” and a blazing, brightly lit version of “Highway Star.”

It all comes together on “The Well Dressed Guitar,” where Morse grinds away in brutally heavy fashion while glorious strings radiate blinding light as the crowd, in dazzling unison, raises their hands overhead to clap along with Gillan. Coming down however briefly from that incredible high, the two units launch into a powerful, majestic version of “Knocking at Your Back Door” that’s surges with dark melodic energy. On “Lazy,” Purple takes over, their bluesy breakdowns and uprisings needing no color or nuance, although Bentley-Klein does come down from his perch to offer up a scintillating violin foray to Morse’s clinical six-string dissection and Airey’s smoldering organ blasts. Between that and Airey’s needlessly showy, but nicely balanced solo blend of futuristic keyboard sounds and jazzy piano, “No One Came” works up quite a sweat, with Morse’s tricky lead finishing the job in spectacular fashion.

A bit glitzy, as if begging for a residency at some tacky Las Vegas hotel, and at times losing touch with the earthiness and guts that have always kept Deep Purple grounded, the lengthy Live at Montreux 2011 is, nonetheless, a lively, brilliantly filmed document of a magic night in the life of Deep Purple in a place that’s become to them a second home. The sound has great clarity and richness, while the high-definition cameras, shooting from a satisfying variety of angles and distances, provide a visual feast for the eyes. Packaged with in-depth, and quite candid, interviews with every current member of Deep Purple, plus a smattering of new and vintage footage, Live in Montreux 2011 is a heady rush of concert excitement. And when “Smoke on the Water” rises up like some sleeping giant awakened after around 40 years of dormancy, it fills Montreux with monstrous riffs, massive walls of strings and blaring horns trumpeting what feels like a new dawn for Deep Purple. It isn’t, actually, but for about 115 minutes, it seems as if the band, now having so much fun together, has dived right in to the Fountain of Youth and come out younger and full of vitality. And the Neue Philharmonic had something to do with that.

- Peter Lindblad