Rainbow Fans Are Rising

You guys may have figured out that I'm a bit of a Tumblr nut and a massive Rainbow fan. Well, my Rainbow love inspired a new Tumblr blog which I'm trying to use to help the band gain some recognition. There isn't enough about them on the web so the blog is here to just bring more Rainbow into your lives and to help introduce some new people to their music, which is so underrated. The blog URL is http://rainbowfansrising.tumblr.com. Even if you don't use Tumblr I recommend you go check it out because it's got lots of cool stuff on it.
It's also an interactive blog, at least that's what I'm calling it because I want people who visit the blog to help it roll. We ask a lot of questions, we give surveys and links to surveys, we answer all Rainbow related questions and we love submissions. Most of all, the blog has multiple authors. We're looking for as many people as we can to sign up as authors and to help make posts, to make this blog as big and versatile as possible. So if this sounds like it might interest you, get on Tumblr and contact me,cause I'd be honored to sign you up! Or if you want more info more directly feel free to kik ilovesnakesabo.

Who does David Coverdale think he is?

Any rock and roll fan will tell you that Whitesnake and Deep Purple were two of the most important, influential and downright awesome bands that have ever lived. A certain Mr David Coverdale was lucky enough to be a member of both of those bands: he replaced Ian Gillan in Deep Purple in 1973, and then launched Whitesnake in 1978. Over the years, Coverdale has had the opportunity to work with many of the most amazing musicians who have ever lived, between the two groups: Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, John Sykes, Don Airey, Adrian Vandenburg, Tommy Bolin, Glenn Hughes, Steve Vai, Vivian Campbell, Rudy Sarzo, Tommy Aldridge. Not a bad list, and I'm probably missing some. But Coverdale never really had anything nice to say about all these greats, especially the guitarists he worked with.

     Before I go any farther, I've got to emphasize that one of my pet peeves are musicians who badmouth other musicians. I find it trashy and low-class to the extreme, because being a musician is not easy, and the people who should understand that better than anybody else should be other musicians. They're like members of an extensive family to me, and when I hear one musician saying another one is no good, or just an asshole, I really resent that. Maybe they're completely right in what they're saying, but still, it's just a very rude thing for one musician to go around trashing other ones.
     My incriminating piece of information was the February 1990 edition of Guitar For The Practicing Musician magazine, in which David Coverdale talks about all the guitarists he had worked with to date. All he did was bitch and whine and bitch and whine some more: all in all, it was an infuriating article. First he talked about how much he hated working with Ritchie Blackmore, and while it's known that people have conflicting opinions of Blackmore (view my previous post, Ritchie Blackmore: The Great Debate) it cannot be denied that if nothing else, he was a fabulous musician. Not once did Coverdale say anything resembling that. He just talked about how if Blackmore wasn't such a perfectionist, he would have been a better musician. I disagree strongly- Blackmore's constant search to be the best musician he could possibly be was what made him so great. And for Coverdale to be so outright rude to the man who gave him his chance in the rock and roll industry and made him what he was... I lost a lot of respect for Coverdale when I read this.
     But what he said next was even worse. He started going after Tommy Bolin too. I for one, am a huge fan of Tommy Bolin. I don't think he was right for Deep Purple, but I love his playing. Coverdale says he did too, but then started talking about how he could have been better if it wasn't for the drugs. Coverdale had no  business making that comment- the drugs were Bolin's own business, and they cost him his life far too soon. And for all we know, without the drugs, it's possible that his music skills wouldn't have been what they were. A lot of musicians make their best music under the influence of drugs, and it was sheer ignorance and rudeness, for Coverdale to say that.
     He said fairly nice things personality wise about the early guitarists from Whitesnake, but never once did he say they were good musicians or made any statements about their musical fortes. Just talked about what great guys they were.
     Then it got really bad... Dave started talking about John Sykes like he was some dumb, immature kid who was selfish and hung up on himself, who wasted money in the studio and ultimately just wasn't a good enough guitar player for Whitesnake. I understand that personality clashes do happen sometimes, and that it's possible for two great guys to just not get along very well, like Don Dokken and George Lynch for example. But here I'm inclined to say that Coverdale was the one at wrong here, especially considering the relationships he had with his previous guitarists. Again, Coverdale had not much to say about what kind of a musician John was, and makes it sound like Sykes only gained skill once he had taken him under his wing. As a professional musician in a professional musician's magazine, Coverdale should have stuck to the facts about the music instead of letting his opinions be prejudiced by his bad personal experiences with his musicians.
     Vivian Campbell and Adrian Vandenberg were the next two in Whitesnake. Viv left early cause, according to Coverdale, he "brought bad vibes into the band". Yeah, leave it to Coverdale to go saying that Campbell was the one who made the atmosphere more tense. Again, I'm willing to believe that sometimes two good people just don't get along, but we've been seeing quite a bit about that lately and really, how many personality clashes can you have? At press time, Vandenberg was still  member of Whitesnake, so what Coverdale had to say about him was mainly positive. Not very encouraging, but positive. There was a little more gushing going on over Steve Vai, which I did appreciate, because it was nice to see Coverdale being a little bit more enthusiastic about one of the many great musicians he worked with.
     Vandenberg continued to work with Coverdale and Whitesnake on and off during the 90s, but basically, after the great Slip of the Tongue album in 1989, Coverdale fired the band while on one of his massive ego trips. I guess he couldn't stand not being the best looking member of the group any longer... Since then, he has hired mainly groups of faceless- very talented, but faceless- musicians, and hasn't really produced anything really worth listening to. Maybe if Coverdale had treated his guitarists a little more respectfully, and was a little more secure in his own skin, he wouldn't have reacted the way he did to his group's fame, but sadly, that was the way it went, and can't be changed now. If he hadn't been such a prick, Whitesnake might even still have been making really great music into the 90s and maybe up until today. But no- he just couldn't work with the greats anymore the day it all became about him...
     Normally I would put a picture of David Coverdale at the bottom of the page here, which is standard of my writings, but I'm a little tired of hearing about him right now, so here's a picture of the gorgeous Adrian Vandenberg instead. Ha. Enjoy!
(And for the record, I still absolutely love Coverdale for his music.)