Listener/viewer comments

Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 17:14:46 -0500
From: AxeMann@aol.com (Christopher Oberst)

Got the tape today....cool!!!

There is definitely some variety on this one, huh?  That version of
SOTW nearly made me die laughing!!  I shoulda thought of that!!  This
is a fun tape.

I'd just like to say thanks for putting all of this effort into
getting the tape into existence.  It's cool to hear other DP fans give
their interpretations.



Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 23:41:02 -0500
From: AxeMann@aol.com (Christopher Oberst)

Well, I've had a chance to listen to the whole tape, and I'm still
quite impressed.

Thanks for putting me first, even if it is in chronological order.  I
must say, though, that my track is not the most memorable one on the
tape.  That honor would go to two tracks: the version of SOTW and the
Woman From Gaza. Those are two cool tracks.  I found myself listening
to the country version of SOTW again and again.  Those guys did a
fantastic job.  Have you heard the Hellecasters?  This track reminds
me of them.  Sort of the ultimate in country guitar.  The inside joke
on this song is that, of course, this version is similar to the song
"Ghost Riders In The Sky".  Grammatically, of course, that is
strikeingly similar to "Smoke On The Water".  I wish I had that kind
of imagination, since my cover version is relatively straight.

The other song I mentioned, Woman From Gaza, is simply, outstanding.
I'm not modest about my guitar skills, but I will admit, this guy is
smokin'!!  Again, there was a lot of imagination involved in combining
arab music and Woman From Tokyo.  My song mainly involves melding two
songs that have nothing in common with each other, but not blending
them together.

One other song deserves special mention: the version of Stormbringer
is probably the most progressive track on the album.  I had never
thought of an industrial version of a DP song before, but this song
convinced me.  If Trent Reznor had more class, then he might do
something like this.

Anyway, regarding sound: overall, pretty good.  It sounded really good
in my car stereo, which is more representative than my home deck.  I
have a Nakamichi at home, and Nakamichis have a reputation (deserved)
of having an 'idiosyncratic' sound.  This tape sounded relatively ok
on this deck.  One suggestion: you might want to make sure that
various tracks fade out fully before clicking them off.  A couple of
tracks had 'abrupt' endings.  I know, however, how easy this is to do,
so don't take this the wrong way.

To be honest, I can't really give you an honest assessment based on a
cassette tape.  The medium was invented in a dark time a long time
ago, and does not reproduce extreme frequencies very well.  Anyway, I
thought that you did a good job of normalizing volumes, which is a
tough thing to do, based on personal experience.



Date: Wed, 22 Nov 95 09:13 CDT
From: DUXBURY@macc.wisc.edu (Janell Duxbury)

I just got my copy of the a.m.d-p Deep Purple tribute cassette
INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY STARS yesterday from Ram (who was so kind to
send mine out ASAP).  My favorite track of course is Kevin Ferguson's
"Woman from Gaza" (because: 1. it's good, 2. it has a classical quote,
and 3. I recruited him to do it and he graciously agreed).  I thought
he did a great blending of DP's "Woman from Tokyo" and a theme from
Saint-Saens' "Samson and Delilah".  I also quite liked Christopher
Oberst's "Wring That Neck/Owed to G".  I even enjoyed the country
version of "Smoke on the Water" by the Lassos.  I think our Finnish
and Netherlands friends have quite an affinity for doing DP.  However,
what was that MIDDLE part in The Hooded Crow's "Fools"?  It sounded
like something mixed by Malcolm McLaren or some Euro-synth band!
Dennis Bozeman's "Child in Time" started out OK, but I thought I'd
need an eardrum transplant by the end (sorry!).  Everyone involved
gave it their best try at least, and the results are mixed, but always
interesting in one way or another.
  
Ram really did squeeze alot of printing onto the case insert.  The
pictures came out a little fuzzy, but he gave it a good try!  The
stamps on the cassette shell made it look like it has tattoos on the
front and back.
 
Great fun for just $3 (or more overseas).



Date: Fri, 24 Nov 1995 14:55:52 GMT
From: Dave Hodgkinson (daveh@fsl.com)

OK, I've just compiled up maplay to play the Superhighway Stars
tributes, and I must say, I'm beaming from ear to ear! You _have_ to
get this.

I'd just like to make special mention of the following (not detracting
from the others, of course, but these are, well, _special_):

* Fools by The Hooded Crow - good, faithful and powerful.

* Smoke on the Water by The Lassos - utterly, utterly brilliant!

* When a Blind Man Cries by Rod Cathey - music to cut your wrists by.

* Woman from Gaza by Kevin Ferguson - superb and seamless.

* Living Wreck by Purple Turtle - spacey.

Do it! Do it now!



Date: 22 Nov 1995 04:58:36 GMT
From: me@ram.org (Ram Samudrala)

Here is track by track review of the tape.  Please keep in mind that
anything I say is said with the best intentions.  I don't want it to
be taken the wrong way.  I think all the selections have a great
degree of passion, and a great degree of variety, which simply wasn't
present in the real tribute.  (Is anyone from Shrapnel listening?)  I
can write a lot more about each of these songs, but I'm going to try
to keep it short. Anyway, here goes:

Living Wreck - I was debating which order to put the whole thing, and
it came to me after I heard this song.  Here, Chris combines tunes
from two Purple eras in a straight-forward way.  His interpretation of
Wring that Neck is rather straight-forward, but his version of Owed to
G I thought was really creative and original.  It was very jazzy, and
it is powerful the way the keyboards and the guitar interact with each
other.  The recording quality is excellent, as is the drum machine
programming.

Child in Time - This was the most difficult track to normalise,
without making the volumes too low and without going into digital
distortion.  I think a better recording could've been achieved through
the use of a compressor (did you try this, Den?), but I liked the idea
of a guitar and vocals CiT.  It's a great "unplugged" sort of track.
One suggestion (if you ever plan to do this again) is to go along with
the guitar as you're screaming.  I thought the main vocals had their
moments, but I didn't like the screaming a whole lot.  To your credit,
your voice didn't break, nor did you really sound bad, but perhaps the
screams fit better with a lush musical background.

Living Wreck - Great keyboard work by our Kari here.   The vocals are
decent, and some of the guitar parts also stand out.   The recording
is pretty tight and overall, I think it's a cool cover.

Fools - What I liked most about this song is the use of a sample that
sounded like a crow in the middle. I thought it was quite clever (if
that was the intention).  For some reason, this version reminded me of
King Crimson.  But it probably had to do with the dynamics of soft
parts interspersed among loud parts.  I think this is the best song
The Hooded Crow has done (of course I'm biased :). Great recording
quality, and nice production.

Smoke on the Water - This is definitely one of the highlights of the
tribute for me.  Smoke done country style and it cracks me up
everytime I sing it.  Great recording quality, great production, no
complaints at all.  

Highway Star - Rod Cathey's scream is awesome, and one can imagine the
energy Titan must've had in their live shows.  For a live recording,
this isn't bad at all---the feedback actually adds to the song!  I
think this is a great cover in the spirit of a live Highway Star.

When a Blind Man Cries - Rod Cathey again shows his vocals powers, and
I think he does a great Gillan impersonation.   It's a great song, and
a cool cover.

Woman from Gaza - This is yet another highlight.  In fact, this and
Smoke alone make this tribute a worthwhile thing to have put
together.  Kevin's an amazing guitarist and mixing Samson and Delilah
with Woman from Tokyo (literally blending them) I think is a great
creative idea and the results are amazing.  You have to hear this to
believe how original this is.  Again, as with the Owed to G,  what
interested me most was the interplay between different keyboard and
guitar melodies.  Great, great cover.

Burn - This again has excellent keyboard work by Kari, and also some
cool guitar work.  Like the drumming on this also.  The recording is
okay, and it's a bit more different than the original than the Living
Wreck cover.

Stormbringer - What can I say?  This is my contribution.  I think the
vocals could've been better (in terms of timing), but I didn't have
time to work on them too much because of my candidacy exam (excuses,
excuses... :).  



From: skaajas@niksula.hut.fi (Samu Kaajas)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 1995 10:52:12 +0200 (EET)

Here is something song by song:

WTN: Good guitar work, background was a bit strange in Owed to G, best of
"computer songs"
CiT: Vocals are good, recording awful.
LW: I would like to do more different version than original but time ran out.
Fools: Great in every respect. Best song on the tape IMO.
SoTW: This is also great, very professional work here.
HS: Performancewise good but recording is awful
WABMC: Otherwise nice but drum sounds spoil the feeling a lot.
WfG: This is IMO more techincal show than cover version. I don't mind
doing songs differently but... too much guitar perhaps, vocals would
have balanced it a bit.
Burn: This is good also. In my version Kari's keyboards are almost
missing.  What happened to them?
Stormbringer: The basic idea is good but I think you pushed it a bit
too far. Technically good work

Overall it is nice tape. Different quality of recording is of course a
bit disturbing but hell... performances are mostly enjoyable.

Big thanks to you for the huge work you have done. Cover art is great
also. When do we do part II?  :-)

Samu



From: ANCANTIN@befac.indstate.edu (Mark Cantin)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 1995 12:27:36 GMT

Hello to all--

If you haven't already gotten a copy of Ram's DP tribute tape, I would
strongly urge you to.  It really is interesting.  The covers of Wring
that Neck (Christopher Oberst) and Burn (Donald) are particularly
good, though my favorite is Highway Star (Titan)--it really smokes!
And the C & W version of SotW is a hoot!  And the price is a bargain
that you just can't beat!  Mega-thanks to Ram for pouring in the
effort to please our little group--a job well done!

Mark Cantin
Land of Corn, USA



From: DJ (S0745294@let.rug.nl)
Date:          Wed, 20 Dec 1995 11:25:34 +0100

And while I'm at it... some short (critical) comments on the tape Only
listened to tape once yet, so I could still change my mind.

-Wring That Neck/Owed To G
 Nice playing. The drumcomputer does get sortof annoying after a 
 while and the break into Owed To G is a bit TOO weird for me. ;-)
-Child In Time
 This dude can sing. Too bad the guitars are way too low in the mix. 
 I think this should be rerecorded with a band.
-Living Wreck
 Very nicely done. Don't like the singing (whining) much tho.
-Fools
 Uhm, yes well... I think the sound of the drums worked out pretty 
 well. We all gave it our best I guess. Patrick's singing could still
 do with some improvement at some points
-Smoke On The Water
 Everything that needed to be said about this one has already been 
 said. Love it.
-Highway Star
 Very nice. Sound isn't all that great, but this one really smokes! 
 One of the best on this tape.
-When A Blind Man Cries
 Err.... no.
-Woman From Gaza
 How did you get to get the hi-hats from the drumcomputer to sound so 
 real? Very nice.
-Burn
 Nice instrumental. Just a pity that it IS instrumental. It goes on 
 for too long. Good playing tho.
-Stormbringer
 Sorry, Ram. I didn't like this one very much. I'm not into industrial
 music and yeh, you're right - your timing was off! ;-)

Yes, I know. I listened to it with musician's ears and therefore am 
complaining too much. All in all, it was quite interesting to hear 
this stuff. And there was some good stuff on the tape!



Date: Thu, 28 Dec 1995 08:06:20 -0500
From: BarbFox@aol.com

Ram:

My husband, Ed (another DP fan) and I both enjoyed the Superhighway
Stars compilation greatly. :-) Then I lent it to a friend of mine
who's another major DP fan, and he's *totally* fascinated with it and
has listened to it numerous times.  Among hard-core DP fans there
seems to be a market for reinterpretations of DP songs, at least
that's my perception.  I particularly enjoyed the Lassos' original and
well-executed arrangement of Smoke of the Water--that was the surprise
hit for me!

Barb Fox