4, 1971, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were playing a gig at the Montreux casino. The lakeside Swiss town of Montreux was in the news this week as the host of nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers.īut for rockers of a certain age, Montreux will always be best known for its rich musical history - including the roaring casino fire that inspired the English rock band Deep Purple's classic 'Smoke on the Water.' The casino caught fire during a Frank Zappa concert.

Montreux Jazz Festival runs until 14 July and Deep Purple play on 4 July ( mjf.The British rock band Deep Purple, shown here in 1971, wrote the hit song 'Smoke on the Water,' after watching the casino in Montreux, Switzerland, go up in flames later that year. But, then again, we’d have never heard “Smoke on the Water”. Just think: if it hadn’t been for that idiot with the roman candles, that beautiful building would still be there. The modern replacement is a Seventies eyesore. The Casino was rebuilt on the same spot, but sadly they didn’t recreate the Belle Époque splendour of the original structure. The Jazz Festival is his enduring testament (he also gets a shout-out as “Funky Claude” in “Smoke on the Water”). Nobs died in 2013, after a skiing accident, aged 76. By modern standards, this was virtually a live album.

It was such a palaver getting out of the hotel and into the mobile studio that they often didn’t bother listening to the playback. The sound he created was clean and sparse, never overly ornate or fussy. Sound engineer Martin Birch did a brilliant job. This no-nonsense attitude was reflected in the production. Today, it’s not only the most celebrated song on the album, but the most celebrated song they’ve ever played. And so belatedly, “Smoke on the Water” ended up on the LP, almost by accident.

Then they remembered the demo they’d recorded at The Pavillon, just before the Swiss police threw them out. They’d recorded six classic tracks, including “Lazy”, “Highway Star”, “Pictures of Home” and “Space Truckin’”, but it still came up a bit short for a full LP. By common consent it was (and still is) Deep Purple’s finest album. In stark contrast to Fireball, which was recorded off and on over nine months, Machine Head was finished within a few weeks. They set up their equipment in a vacant corridor, and “with a few red lights and a few old beds they made a place to sweat”. As the song says, “it was empty, cold and bare”. Clearly, The Pavillon wouldn’t do so Nobs got them into the Grand Hotel, a huge fin de siècle pile that was closed for the winter – a bit like a Swiss version of The Shining.

Smoke on the water video