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Ian Gillan: vocals
Bernie Tormé: guitar
John McCoy: bass
Colin Towns: keyboards
Mick Underwood: drums
After Ian Gillan left Deep Purple under a cloud in 1973, he 'pursued business interests' for a year or two before appearing at a performance of his ex-Purple colleague Roger Glover's Butterfly Ball project in 1975. No doubt enlivened by his return to the live arena, he formed Shand Grenade, quickly renamed the Ian Gillan Band soon after, releasing three albums of middling jazz fusion to general public indifference outside Japan. At this point, the story becomes a little confusing: upon the IGB's split, Gillan retained keyboard whizz Colin Towns and recruited three new members, releasing a Japanese-only album as Ian Gillan, simply titled Gillan. After another two lineup changes, the band were signed to Acrobat via Arista, releasing two very different versions of an album entitled Mr Universe, the title filched from a song by Episode Six, Gillan's late '60s outfit. Australia and New Zealand got a nine-track release credited to Ian Gillan, carefully sequenced to avoid any crossover with the Japanese release, while Britan and Europe got a ten-track release credited to Gillan, repeating two tracks from the Japanese album, re-recording another three and sharing another five with the Aus/NZ version. With me so far? Good.
Having listened closely to all three albums, I have to say that the British version is clearly the most cohesive. The Japanese LP lacks dynamics, mainly due to Steve Byrd's highly competent but largely generic guitar work and some rather second-rate material, whle the Aus/NZ album, while featuring Gillan's new guitar whizz Bernie "Tormé" Tormey, is poorly sequenced and contains a handful of less-than-top-notch tracks. The Acrobat version, despite a couple of relatively so-so songs, generally features the best material from both the other versions, with the added bonus of Tormé's excellent and highly distinctive playing.
Second Sight: A Colin Towns solo keyboard piece, Second Sight survives intact from the Japanese album. Opening with an almost-dissonant piano melody, it builds up to a huge, massed synth section, Town's multi-overdubbed ARP 2600 used to its fullest. Beautiful.
Secret of the Dance: As the band's brief career progressed, we were to learn that Ian liked to open albums with a punky track and Secret Of The Dance is no exception. Saying that, it has all the hallmarks of a Towns composition, key-shifts present and correct, not to mention a ripping organ solo from the man himself.
She Tears Me Down: Opening as if it's going to carry on the work begun by Secret Of The Dance, She Tears Me Down features gentle, piano-led verses and jazz licks, heavying up for the choruses, making for a surprisingly sensitive piece, despite IG's overly aggressive lyric.
Roller: Another high-speed effort, Roller rocks like a bastard, while still sounding like a Towns composition, notably in its trademark middle eight and the descending chords under the repeating guitar riff, the whole thing ending on an infinite-repeat loop. Unfortunately, we also get another appallingly sexist IG lyric; I mean, "Keep your hands on my lever/Watch it while I stab your beaver". Oh Ian, please....
Mr Universe: The epic title track opens with a gutteral synth glide, morphing into filthy organ arpeggios (Yamaha, apparently) from Towns, before the rest of the band let rip. After two verses and choruses, Tormé is given free rein to spaff all over Mick Underwood's thudding, tribal drums, before grinding to a halt. Towns kicks off into the arpeggios again, coming back for a second go, before a final verse and chorus. Epic.
Vengeance: The mid-paced, major-key Vengeance opened the Aussie album, finding its way to the beginning of side two here, a painfully macho lyric doing its level best to spoil an otherwise excellent track (it fails). Tormé's given a chance to shine, the killer main riff possibly being the thinking behind the release of the track as the album's sole single.
Puget Sound: The album's blues number, Puget Sound is far better than that might suggest, not to mention far better than the band's best-known stab at the genre two albums on, the dullsville If You Believe Me. The only full band composition on the record, the track was probably jammed out at rehearsal, but still avoids most of the usual clichés, Towns' piano solo hinting at the blues without going all the way, unlike the lyrics. Speaking of which, this time round, they're not so much sexist as sexy, for once; no intimation of violence against women, anyway. Thankfully.
Dead of Night: The album's pair of lesser tracks are hidden away on side two, which isn't to say they're actually filler per se, just not quite up to the rest of the record. Driven by John McCoy's simple-yet-effective grimy bassline, the mid-paced Dead Of Night chugs along nicely enough, although I can think of at least one track from the Aussie album that might have worked better in its place.
Message in a Bottle: Although written by Towns, Message In A Bottle sounds like more of a guitar track. Seemingly a paean to alcoholism, IG phrases the lyrics strangely in places (see below), steering the track away from teetering on the rim of a void of averageness.
Fighting Man: Maybe surprisingly, the album's second epic, Fighting Man, is the original Japanese album version, correctly crediting Byrd and drummer Liam Genocky. I have a residual memory of Gillan saying that they didn't think they could improve on the recording, so they used the existing one. A Towns composition, it opens with piano and a gentle IG vocal, the production sounding distinctly different to the rest of the record, maybe unsurprisingly. Ian's 'ooh-ooh's and screams towards the end of the track recall his iconic work on Purple's Child In Time, while Town's ARP and Byrd's melodic guitar solos make a change from Tormé's whammy bar-filled playing elsewhere. Genuinely beautiful, this is the kind of track that should find its way onto compilations, but doesn't.
Bonus tracks: The original CD issue added the three live tracks from the 1980 Reading Festival that grace the second disc of the Trouble single from the following year, a previously unreleased live version of Little Richard's Lucille (an IG favourite) and, bemusingly, two live tracks from Reading '81, with Gers on guitar. Nonsensical, other than as an attempt to make everything available (it fails). The '07 reissue drops all the above, whilst adding the previously-unavailable-on-CD eight-minute studio take of Smoke On The Water originally found on the back of the Vengeance 7". Five of the six live tracks are now on disc two of the Double Trouble reissue, although I'm not sure what's happened to the live Lucille.
Overall, if not quite a five-star effort, this is certainly a four-and-a-half, with no actual duffers and six or seven killer efforts. The following year's Glory Road (for the Heinlein novel?) is almost as good, but lacks this album's raw vitality at the newness of their sound.
Gillan went on to spit out another four albums over the following three years, touring almost constantly, the only lineup change coming in early '81, when Tormé apparently storméd out, replaced by another obscenely talented player, Janick Gers from heavily underrated touring companions White Spirit. To be perfectly honest, their workload led to ever-decreasing returns, each album progressively weaker than its predecessor, culminating in their rather rubbish '82 swansong, Magic, Towns' utterly brilliant epic Demon Driver aside. At that point, IG lost a lot of respect as he messed his bandmates about, stating he had vocal problems, when he was actually looking for an excuse to go off to join Black Sabbath, of all bands. One disastrous album and tour later, the much-mooted Deep Purple reformation finally happened, taking up most of Gillan's time subsequently, apart from a brief period in the late '80s when he was dropped in favour of American AOR wuss Joe Lynn 'Jolene' Turner, a man not (vocally) fit to lick Gillan's arse boots.
All five Gillan albums, plus the Japanese release, have had expanded CD releases, the original '90s issues being replaced by the more complete and more carefully sequenced 2004 series. There's considerable bad feeling towards Ian from some of his ex-bandmates, alleging financial impropriety and general all-round dodginess, but it has to be said that without his initial drive, not to mention name, the rest of the band may not have broken through at all. I remember an interview with other band members where they moaned that Gillan 'sang in all the wrong places' on their songs, but they all sound right to me; maybe he had a better idea of where to add vocals than the actual composers? None of this excuses bad behaviour, however and it would seem that IG treated his loyal bandmates with rather less honour than they deserved. McCoy has sequenced and issued several volumes of The Gillan Tapes on Angel Air, apparently ensuring that all monies are distributed fairly. Including, presumably, to IG himself.