Deep Purple is the greatest rock band ever.  Never mind what I said in the last post; the Beatles are the default greatest band ever, but Deep Purple walks the fucking walk.  What did the Beatles ever say, “All you need is love?”  Are we that naive?  What if someone asked you, no, told you “Let’s go Space Truckin!’”  You’re getting in that truck.

Deep Purple came around that time in rock when things were starting to get stupid.  The politics and spirituality of the Sixties was coming to an end, but the party would not stop.  Deep Purple carried that torch into the next decade.

Both Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin were gaining attention around the same time in the late Sixties, and both have a similar chunky blues derivative about them.  Led Zeppelin veered off into a world of increasing complexities and Hobbits; the Viking hordes attacking the soft fields so green and moving through Kashmir.  While Led Zeppelin floated in the clouds Deep Purple was in your basement, packing your bong and lighting your black light posters.

Deep Purple beat you over the face with rock with lumbering visceral sounds that seemed to bubble from the belly of Satan and rattle your eardrums into submission.  They hold the Guinness record for “The Loudest Band”.  They never gave that shit to Motley Crue.

When my psychiatrist gave me a word association test the other day, one of the things he said was “classic rock”.  Even if I were responding beyond a subconscious state, I would have responded Deep Purple.  The psychiatrist was taken aback, like I had so many other bands to choose from.  How could I associate all of classic rock with Deep Purple?  The real question is, how can you not?

Classic rock in it purest form started in the Seventies where the venues got bigger, the speakers got louder, and everyone in the band had long hair, beards, and performed with their shirts open.  All the other bands of this golden era of classic rock had a gimmick or theme that drove the band.  Not Deep Purple.  If you stripped any of the golden era classic rock bands down to their basics, they would be Deep Purple.  That is why Deep Purple is the greatest classic rock band.

That, and because they rock.