3.01 The Trivia Remains
The Same
3.02 Electric Green Tennis Courts
And Other Cover Art
3.03 Plantations And Other Onstage
Musings
3.04 Trivia
Of Illegitimate Origin
3.05 Meet The Press
3.06 Zeppelin
Miscellania
3.07 Shaking The Tree
3.08
Coverdale/Plant
3.09
Like Father Like
Son
3.10 The Led
And How To Get It Out
3.11 Jimmy And The
Beast
3.12 Zeppelin
Mediawatch
3.13 Breaking Up Is Hard To
Do
3.14 Pezed
Pellni Anagrams
3.15 Nevaeh Ot
yawriatS
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Regrettably at this time, "The Song Remains The Same" is
still
the only official live concert released. Despite being underrated
by
most followers of the band, the surreal atmosphere and bizarre
twists
the movie takes make it quite intriguing, but as more of a
curiosity
than a blistering performance by the band.
o The shootout sequence at the beginning, with it's mafia overtones
is
meant to symbolise Zeppelin taking it's revenge on the
"faceless"
critics. Two of the people involved are band manager
Peter Grant, and the
road manager, Richard Cole.
o At the beginning of the movie...
- Peter
Grant answers the phone, and and after receiving some news
heads out for a
drive with his wife in his vintage Bentley
sports car, which is of course,
British racing green.
- Plant, his wife Maureen, and their two children Karac
and
Carmen, are fooling around beside a mountain stream before
the
messenger arrives on bicycle to pass on the tour dates.
- Jones is
reading a bedtime story to his children, "Jack and
the
Beanstalk."
- The first clip of Bonzo has him on a tractor
indulging his
passion for adopting the guise of a gentelman farmer. A
short
time later he is driving his "Blown Model T" hot rod to a
nearby
pub.
- Jimmy is in the garden of his manor, previously owned
by
Aleister Crowley, sitting on a blanket with an acoustic guitar
handy,
cranking the handle of a hurdy-gurdy. The music sounds
suitably
mystical.
o The fantasy sequences are...
Plant: Sailing in a small boat
with an enormous welsh flag on it,
and then a swordfighting scene with
several knights, with
the goal of saving a rather attractive princess. This
is
in "The Rain Song." The sailing sequence was filmed
at
Aberystwyth in Wales.
Page : Climbing a mountain, at the top of which
he meets a
somewhat older version of himself, several hundred years
older
quite possibly, whois dressed in a white cloak.
This is in "Dazed and
Confused." The sequence was filmed
at Loch Ness on December 10 and 11,
1973.
Bonzo: Driving a dragster, happens during his solo. Filmed at
Santa
Pod. Bonzo also shows off his uncanny ability to
ride at a motorcycle in a
variety of seating positions and
remain upright. There is also footage of him
at home with
his wife Pat and son Jason belting out a rhtyhm on a
custom
made miniature drum kit.
Jones: Travelling on horseback through
graveyards and back to his
house dressed in black wearing a mask. This is in
"No
Quarter."
o Also in the movie...
- Driving from the
airport to the concert venue in a fleet of
black limousines with some
surrealistic shots of the city
skyscrapers. These scenes were taken from
before the July 24
show in Pittsburgh.
- A scene where Peter Grant
confronts promoters over a man selling
unauthorised Zep memorabilia at the
Civic Centre, Baltimore.
- Several very lucky punters getting in for nothing
thanks to some
security guards.
- Footage from various press reports and
press conferences with
Peter Grant regarding the theft of money from a
deposit box in a
hotel Led Zeppelin were staying in during the U.S. tour.
The
last shot is of Peter Grant being taken downtown by the Police
for
questioning. The police apparently suspected Richard Cole
as being
responsible. The amount stolen was us$200,000 and the
disappearance of a
bellboy a few days after the event provided
a rough scenario of what might
have happened. The money was
never recovered, and neither Peter Grant or
Richard Cole, or
anyone associated with Zeppelin was ever charged. The
persons
involved have also been claimed to be, at various times, a
manager
or desk clerk, who resigned under a cloud of mystery.
o A few points to
note...
- Page uses the violin bow in his solo.
- Page uses the famed red
double neck for "Stairway to Heaven".
- Page uses the theramin
during "Whole Lotta Love."
- Plant's short sleeved demin waistcoat
defies good taste.
- Plant sings his famous added line in "Stairway to
Heaven".
- Jones performs the solo to No Quarter surrounded by dry
ice.
- Bonzo tosses away his drumsticks at one point and begins
playing
the drums with his hands during his "Moby Dick" solo.
o
The concert footage was filmed over three days at Madison Square
Garden.
o
There is an alternate version of Plant's fantasy sequence in which
his wife
plays a much larger role.
o At the beginning of Jones' fantasy sequence there
is a scene where
several men are being pursued down a foggy road by several
other
men on horseback. If you look closely at the road you can see
the
double continuous lane markings down the middle of it, meaning
of
course the horses were overtaking the pedestrians illegally...
o There
appear to be two version of the film out on video, which can
be distinguished
by the endings. One has "Stairway To Heaven"
playing as the screen
fades to black, while the other has the
Starship taxi-ing and taking off
while "Stairway To Heaven" is
being played. The latter was the
original ending in the movie
version shown in cinemas.
o The song
"Autumn Lake" which is listed on the video cover, but was
never
actually recorded by Zeppelin is the song Page is playing on
a hurdy-gurdy
beside the lake as the camera approaches him through
his garden.
o The
film is rife with editing and continuity errors. One of the
most obvious is
Jones's changing shirt during "Whole Lotta Love".
Jones also takes
off his bass twice at the end of the show.
Jimmy's hair changes it sweat
content half way through one song,
and the gong is lit at the end, yet in the
next frame it's not.
o Jones was the only member of the band unwilling to
wear the same
clothes at each of the Madison Square Garden gigs.
o
Contrary to the official word, the film and soundtrack do feature
overdubs,
probably mainly patches for glitches, in the guitar and
keyboard work. One
such edit occurs in the middle of the violin
bow solo, which is either an
overdub or a snippet from another
night's performance. The music on the film
does not match that on
the album, nor that on an unedited bootleg from one of
the shows,
whilst Page had a studio installed in his home and spent
months
working on the soundtrack, all of which support the theory that
the
music was retouched. The album version of "Dazed And
Confused", for
example, is from one night, while the movie version
is from multiple nights.
The movie version of "No Quarter"
deletes at least one guitar
solo.
o The actual filming took place over three nights at Madison
Square
Garden in New York, 27-29/7/73, with the additional
backstage
footage shot the previous three nights at Pittsburgh, Boston
and
Buffalo.
o The complexity of filming such a show with multiple cameras
was
not helped by the crew who managed to miss a few bits and
pieces,
which meant that Zeppelin had to go to a soundstage in late
1975
and early 1976 to act out the missing parts. The easy way to
tell
these lip-synched sections is to look at Plant's teeth, he had
them
straightened between the original filming and the additions.
o The caste used
for Plant's fantasy sequence can also be seen in
"Irish Tour '74"
with Rory Gallagher, where he spends some time
exploring and talking about
that particular castle, Raglan castle.
o A video came out in 1990 called
"The First Cuts". This exists in
both bootleg and extremely rare
official versions. It is mainly
comprised of outtakes from the film, minaly
dealing with the band
member's fantasy scenes, and also footage of "Moby
Dick", "Dazed
And Confused", "Whole Lotta Love", and
"The Song Remains The
Same".
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From the simple cover of the first album to the multiple covers
for
"In Through The Out Door" Led Zeppelin always came up with a
cover
that was individual and could be easily identified with the
band. Although
Page says none of their covers were intended to be
part of some sort of
concept for the album, they still make some
striking visual
statements.
o "Led Zeppelin"
- The cover of the debut album,
was a simple print chosen by Jimmy
of the Hindenburg airship disaster. One of
the largest airships
ever built, the Hindenburg was 245 metres long, 41
metres wide,
had a volume of 199,980 cubic metres, and a cruising speed of
125 kilometres per hour. The picture was taken on May 6, 1937
as the
Hindenburg approached its mooring mast at Lakehurst, New
Jersey. At this
point the hydrogen gas inside the airship
somehow ignited. The exact cause
of this has ever been
established. Of the 97 passengers on board at the
time, 35
perished in the ensuing explosion. This disaster was the end
of
an era where huge dirigible airships such as the Hindenburg
made
regular crossings between the USA and Europe, mainly
transporting
passengers.
- The picture of the band on the back cover was taken by
musician
turned photographer Chris Dreja, a former bandmate of Page in
the Yardbirds.
- To begin with the band name on the cover was printed in
turquoise, but this was soon changed to orange, creating a much
sought
after rarity.
- The overall design was co-ordinated by George Hardie.
o
"Led Zeppelin II"
- The group of men on the front cover is a
photgraph of the Jasta
Division of the German airforce with the band members
faces
inserted in place of those of the pilots. The faces of band
manager Peter Grant and Richard Cole were also added. The woman
in the
picture is Glynis Johns, the mother from "Mary Poppins".
Her
presence in the photo is an obvious play on the name of
recording engineer
Glyn Johns. The other face added was that of
bluesman Blind Willie
Johnson.
- The silhouette of the Zeppelin airship surrounded in brown
gave
this album it's nickname of "The Brown Bomber."
- The
centre spread is a lavish celebration of imagery and the
band members.
-
David Juniper is credited as having come up with the artwork.
o "Led
Zeppelin III"
- After the somewhat conservative covers of the first two
albums,
the cover of III is a major departure. Liberally splattered
with
various bits and pieces of psychedelia and hippie imagery,
and with its
rotating wheel and cutouts, the overall feel does
not appeal to
Page.
"I knew the artist and described what we wanted ... But
he got
very personal with this artwork and disappeared off
with it. ... I wasn't
happy with the final result - I
thought it looked teeny-bopperish. ... There
are some
silly bits - little chunks of corn and nonsense like
that."
- The man responsible for the art is only identified as Zacron,
which may be fortunate for his business reputation given the
lambasting
from Page.
- Original pressings of III have a quote from Aleister
Crowley
inscribed on the runoff matrix, "Do what thou wilt shall be
the
whole of the law." The quote however, may not necessarily
be
somewhat older than that. The Crowley version comes frim his
work
"The Book Of The Law" which was dictated to him between
the 8th
and 10th of April 1904. Crowley actually lost this
manuscript for five years
in the attic of Boleskine House,
eventually finding it again in 1909. It was
pointed out on the
list that the phrase was the motto of the Abbe de Theleme
in
Rabelais' "Gargantua And Pantagruel," `Fay ce vouldra.'
Crowley
actually founded an Abbey of Thelema in Cefalu, Sicily in 1920
before being expelled from the country by Mussolini. It was
also adopted
by the Hellfire club as it's motto several hundred
years ago. An interview
with Page available on vinyl apparently
has some details regarding this quote
on the it's sleeve. The
Crowleyian meaning is somewhat complex, suffice to
say it does
not mean `Do what you want' as it may imply.
- "So mote
it be" is not a quote from Aleister Crowley, it is the
last line of a
passage used to bind a spell.
- It would seem that there was an inscription
on the runoff matrix
of every issue of "III" right up until
pressing ceased, with the
sole exception of the mono white label promo
version of the
album.
o The first issue, Atlantic SD 7201, issued in
November 1970
has "So Mote Be It" inscribed on both sides.
o The
first issue a short time later with a "Gold Record
Award" sticker
has "Do What Thou Wilt" inscribed on both
sides.
o The white
label promo, stereo version, has "Do What Thou
Wilt" inscribed on
both sides.
o The white label promo, mono version, as previously stated
has no inscription on either side.
o The second issue, Atlantic SD 19128,
in around 1972 has "Do
What Thou Wilt" on one side, side two,
only.
o The second issue a "Gold Record Award" has "Do What
Thou
Wilt" inscribed on side one only.
o During the 1980s this
continued with the "Do What Thou Wilt"
quote only inscribed on one
side.
- Jimmy apparently had the quotes from Crowley inscribed on
the
runoff matrix without telling the rest of the band, who only
found out
about it after the album had been released.
- The first few thousand UK
pressings of "III" were reportedly
impregnated with a
"cannbis-smelling" resin.
- The brief credit to Bron-Y-Aur was
later to resurface almost
verbatim on Page & Plant's "No
Quarter".
o "(Untitled)"
- The artwork for the fourth album
is much more in keeping with
the band's image. In the words of Jimmy
Page.
"Robert and I came up with the design of IV together.
Robert
had actually bought the print that is on the cover
from a junk shop in
Reading. We then came up with the
idea of having the picture - the man with
the sticks -
represent the old way on a demolished building, with the
new way coming up behind it. The illustration on the
inside was my idea.
It is the Hermit character from the
Tarot, a symbol of self-reliance and
wisdom, and it was
drawn by Barrington Colby.
The typeface for the lyrics
to "Stairway To Heaven"
was also my contribution. I found it in a
really old arts
and crafts magazine called `Studio,' which started in the
late 1800's. I thought the lettering was so interesting I
got someone to
work up a whole alphabet."
- This album also saw the debut of the four
symbols, one for each
band member, which were used extensively to promote the
album,
which bore no artist identification anywhere on the sleeve.
In
deference to the rubbishing the band received from the critics
they
left their name off to show that Led Zeppelin was more than
just a name.
- The four symbols are arranged in a typical magical formation,
with the
two strongest symbols, Page and Plant's, on the outside
protecting the weaker
symbols on the inside.
- The picture of the man in white on top of a mountain
with a
lantern, was drawn in pencil and gold paint by Barrington
Colby
and is titled, `View in Half or Varying Light.' The original
was
auctioned in a sale of rock'n'roll art in 1981. This
imagery was reprised
for Page's fantasy sequence in "The Song
Remains The Same." If you
hold this image perpendicular to a
mirror, the face of a black dog or dragon
becomes apparent in
the mountain the man is standing on, or is if you
believe some
people.
- On one of the buildings pictured on the rear of
the sleeve, a
bareley legibile Oxfam poster bearing the sloagn "Someone
dies
from hunger everyday", can be seen. Page intended the picture
to
be clearer bu the negatives let him down.
o "Houses Of The
Holy"
- Led Zeppelin's most exotic album cover has to be the one for
this album. And according to Page, the cover should look even
better if
it were not for some problems translating the colours
onto the album
cover.
"When the proofs for the album came back, they didn't
look
anything like the original artwork. Again, we were on a
deadline and
there wasn't much to be done. I suppose it
doesn't matter now. But back then
it was a problem."
- The photograph on the cover was taken by Aubrey
Powell, who
trekked to the Giant's causeway in Ireland, Peru was
considered
as an alternative, with two children to try and fulfil the
idea
that Jimmy, Robert and Peter Grant came up with. Dave Lewis
provides
more details,
"This time they chose a collage print depicting a group
of
children mysteriously scaling the top of a mountain, which,
according
to Page, denoted the feeling of expectancy for
the music contained
within."
- Powell used a science fiction book "Childhood's
End" as a
basis for the cover, although some have pointed out a
resemblance to the pscyhedelic art of 1970's artists such as
Peter
Max.
- The children were originally meant to be silver, not purple.
- This
is the only Led Zeppelin album to feature song lyrics.
- The sleeve is the
first one commisioned by the band from
Hipgnosis, the firm founded by Storm
Thorgerson responsible for
a lot of the Pink Floyd album covers. However
according to Page
it was not a collaboration that got off to a good
start,
"We had commisioned them to design "Houses of the Holy"
and
this guy Storm came in carrying this picture of an electric
green
tennis court with a tennis raquet on it. I said,
`What the hell does that
have to do with anything?' And he
said, `Racket - don't you get it?' I said,
`Are you trying
to imply our music is a `racket'? Get out!' We never saw
him again. We ended up dealing with one of the other
artists. [laughs]
That was a total insult - racket. He
had some balls! Imagine. On a first
meeting with a
client!"
- Rumour has it that one of the children on
the cover is former
page three and centrefold model, and occasional singer,
Samantha
Fox.
- The album was originally sold with a paper ring around it
with
the name of the band and the album title on it, since this
wasn't
listed elsewhere. This was crudely reproduced by
Atlantic on the future cd
release by stamping the name and album
title slightly askew across the cover
of the album. This is the
only piece of cover art not reproduced in "The
Complete Studio
Recordings" (with the exception of the "In Through
The Out Door"
sleeve that changed colour when you added hot water to
it).
- The most ambiguous piece of artwork on this album is the picture
of an adult holding up what looks like a small child in front of
a
castle. One theory is that it is some sort of offering to the
Gods - which
is very prophetic regarding the death of Plant's
son. The children on the
cover do look a bit like Plant's kids,
especially after seeing them in
"The Song Remains The Same".
_Q_ magazine disputes this, however,
saying the girl is the same
one as on the back of "Presence", which
is somewhat unlikely.
o "Physical Graffiti"
- As with III,
cutouts on the album cover allowed the record buyer
to look inside the
windows of the building at the various goings
on inside.
- A similar
concept is employed on the Rolling Stones "Some Girls"
album. It is
also identical in concept to Jose Feliciano's
"Compartments",
including the pull-out card and the "hidden"
photos.
- The
building featured on the cover is at 97 St. Mark's Place in
New York City.
There is currently a used clothing store in the
basement appropriately
called Physical Graffiti.
- Down the middle right side of the fourth sleeve
is a Marilyn
Monroe look-a-like getting undressed, doing what looks like
a
strip-tease performance.
- Of the many pictures inside, quite a few are
quite easy to see
who they are while others a re pretty obscure. The
following
list lists the images from left to right in each row, top to
bottom.
o Sleeve 1.
A nun, ?, ?, ?, Charles Atlas, ?, Elizabeth Taylor
as
Cleopatra, ? , Jimmy Page, A Zeppelin blimp, ?, ?, ?, John
Bonham
& Robert Plant, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Queen.
o Sleeve 2.
King Kong,
Robert Plant, ?, ?, ?, Some indians or Aztecs, Lee
Harvey Oswald, John
Bonham, ?, Jimmy Page, An old lady, ?,
Someone and an ape (!), A lady in her
kitchen, A group of what
appears to be naked Bonzo look-a-likes..., The
Queen.
o Sleeve 3.
Planes, Peter Grant, Marlene Dietrich, ?, Neil
Armstrong, ?,
John Bonham, ?, ?, A horse, An indian guru of some sort?, A
religious looking painting, ?, Two children, Scene from an
old movie?,
John Bonham, The Queen.
o Sleeve 4.
?, A cat, A foot on a doll, ?, John
Paul Jones, ?, John
Bonham, I dread to think, A cowboy, Robert Plant, The
Virgin
Mary, a medieval looking painting, An angel, A woman putting
on
stockings, Jimmy Page with someone who is obviously a
buddhist, Jimmy Page
& John Paul Jones, The Queen.
- Roy Harper gets a credit for photography
although which photos
he took is unclear. Also credited is the band's
publicist at
the time, B.P. Fallon, most recently the "vibemaster"
on U2's
Zoo TV Tour. He has written a highly entertaining account of
that tour, "U2 Faraway So Close".
- The identity of the figure
sitting on the right hand set of
stairs is said by some to resemble John
Bonham. Those who
like to indulge in the sort of speculation that Beatles
fans do
regarding the cover of "Abbey Road", interpret the
presence of
Bonham as symbolic. The two doors symbolize "There are two
paths you can go by" from "Stairway To Heaven", light and
shade,
two opposites, heaven and hell, a choice? It's a big stretch
at any
rate. What makes the building look a bit odd is the
seemingly unnecessary
jumble of ladders, balconies and windows
which cover the facade of the
building. The person sitting on
the steps has what looks like two black dogs
in their arms. A
further twist on the door theory can be seen on the back
cover
where one door is brightly illuminated and shut, while the
door
inside the darkened doorway is open.
o "Presence"
- The
artwork for Presence is dominated by "the object." In the
past it
has been associated with the black slab-like object in
2010. In _Q_ Magazine
in December 1992, Storm Thorgerson of
Hipgnosis had the following to
say,
"I like pictures that don't necessarily have an
explanation off
pat," Storm Thorgerson says of the
beguiling sleeves that cemented the
reputation of
Hipgnosis, the design group he co-founded in 1968. "I
remember the idea for Led Zeppelin's Prescence which was
to Tamper with
nostalgic pictures of the '30s and '40s
with an object from the future,
which was basically a
funny shaped black hole. To me, it represented
Zeppelin
power, which people at home, or school, would have to
have a
blast of every few hours, like the ultimate drug.
So the design was related
to the band, yet extremely
tenuous, just as what makes music so rewarding is
that it
gives you your own pictures."
- A similar concept, having an
object in various strange
locations, is employed on the
"Coverdale/Page" album cover.
- "The Object" was actually
copyrighted by Swan Song Inc. in 1976.
o "The Song Remains The
Same"
- The details of the album cover are provided by Dave Lewis in
_Celebration_.
"The movie poster and sleeve design depicted a run
down
picture house, which was based on Old Street Studios, a
London
rehearsal theatre they used to perfect the 1973 US
stage act prior to the
tour."
- An interesting contrast to the run-down building in the
foreground is what looks like a skyscraper or at least a
somewhat more
modern and well maintained building in the picture
that is behind the main
scene.
o "In Through The Out Door"
- The cover for this album
came in six different configurations,
all photos of the same bar room scene
but each taken from the
perspective of a different person in the bar. Each
of the
photos shows the view that person had of a man at the bar
dressed
in white, who bears a passing resemblance to Jimmy Page,
setting fire to a
small white piece of paper.
- Perhaps the most curious feature of the scene
is the thousands
of small pieces of white paper that are hanging from the
walls
and ceiling, all very similar to the one the man at the bar is
about to set alight.
- The whole scene has a Caribbean feel to it, in
keeping with some
of the tracks on the album like "Fool In The
Rain" and "South
Bound Saurez."
- One out of every two
pictures that made up the album's front and
back covers featured a smear
which reveals the colours of the
photo under the greyish tint the photos
have.
- When released the album covers were prepared so that if exposed
to warm water, their colours changed.
- A final touch was added by Peter
Grant who insisted the albums
be sold in shrink wrapped paper bags so none
of the buyers could
see which cover they were getting out of the six, which
were
labelled A to F on the spine of the cover. Dave Lewis estimates
a
full set of six original record covers in good condition is
worth around one
hundred pounds.
- Some vinyl versions of the album have the word `strawberry'
carved into the runoff matrix.
- The bar that Aubrey Powell may have been
trying to recreate for
the cover picture is the Old Absinthe Bar, at 400
Bourbon
Street, just around the corner from the Royal Orleans hotel in
New
Orleans.
o "Coda"
- This album of unreleased material and
out-takes which was
released in 1982 is pretty plain compared to some of the
other
bands efforts. The spartan and stark cover and packaging for
the
album may be a reflection of the enormous loss the band
members still
undoubtedly felt about the death of John Bonham.
- A coda can be defined as,
"The closing section of a movement..."
- The black discs on the
front are in fact records.
- However, another school of thought has it that
the discs are
crop circles created by sprinkler systems. If this is true,
then the re-appearance of crop circles on the box set covers is
most
intriguing. Further details on this are that is when crops
need to be
irrigated they might be planted around a well, with
the sprinkler attached
to the well. This would account for the
"dry" ground surrounding
the crop circles on the album cover.
- Led Zeppelin guru Dave Lewis was
consulted by the band during
the design process.
o "Box Set : The
Collection"
- This deluxe 4 compact disc box set has a picture of a crop
circle with the shadow of Zeppelin blimp on it, as if the blimp
was
flying overhead.
- At the four corners of the box set there is a number. The
numbers and what they represent are:
o 54 : The number of songs on the
box set.
o 69 : (19)69, the year the first studio album was released.
o 79
: (19)79, the year the last studio album was released.
o (X) : The sideways
'8' is the mathematical symbol for
infinity, representing of course, how
long the music
will last.
- Given the `mysterious' origins of crop
cricles the cover picture
was a perfect choice in keeping with the mystery
and intrigue
the band had cultivated around itself during its career.
o
"Remasters"
- This two compact disc set set features the same
picture of the
crop circle used for the 4CD box cover, except that it is
viewed
from the opposite end.
o "Box Set 2"
- The now
familiar blimp and crop circle theme with a psychedelic
twist to it.
o
"The Complete Studio Recordings"
- The numerous attractions for
buying this box set, all the
albums, all the original artwork and so on tend
to ignore what
at first seems to be a chaotic haze of grey shades on the
outside of the box. The picture is in fact the scaffolding and
beams and
so on that support the exterior skin of a Zeppelin
blimp and maintained the
shape. Each of the ten compact discs
also has a picture of the inside of a
zeppelin on it, with no
two the same, or coinciding with the picture on the
exterior of
the box set. A feature unique to this box set is the "garage
door" style flip
top.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The heading for this section is the term sometimes used to
describe Robert
Plant's onstage utterances. These ranged from simple
introductions to songs
to humourous anecdotes and stories depending
on the circumstances.
o From the 21 June 1977 performance at the L.A. Forum (on the
"Listen To This Eddie" 3CD bootleg). Bonham was about to do his
solo, entitled "Over The Top" in those days, but apparently had
a problem with his drum hardware. So Plant filled the time:
"That
was called Kashmir...let me take you there. Bit of
trouble with the musical
equipment here. Right now, the
man who fought against the elements. The man
who fought
food poisoning. The man who drinks Heineken. The man who
doesn't get out of bed. The man who hasn't got a cymbal.
The man who's
having a chat with this man who knows the man
who tunes Jimmy's guitar and
comes from Scotland and doesn't
know the man they call Tim... but does know
Audrey from
Dallas (thank you). The man who now learns to construct
his
own drum kit. The man who's _not_ very professional.
(Shuddup, wait a
minute!) The man who said he could go back
to a building site anytime (and we
all agreed). The man
who's holding up the show... the Rhinestone Cowgirl.
C'mon
Bonzo, get on with it! The man who played the Los Angeles
Aztecs
and beat them 10-1 by himself. C'mon, you silly
fucker! The man one wonders:
is he worth waiting for? ...
and doesn't realize there's a curfew here. A
childhood
friend, a man who many people once said...`never 'eard of
him,' John Bonham Over The Top!!!!"
o From the Earl's Court 75 shows
and the bootleg "Rock and Roll"
after the band performs Tangerine,
Plant makes the interesting
observation,
"That is the first time the
four of us have sung together
on stage, or on record."
o At a
performance in Dallas on March 4, 1975 before "In My Time Of
Dying"
Plant goes some way to explaining whether Zeppelin were
more influenced by
the traditional version or Bob Dylan's cover.
"This is a tune that goes
way back to the roots from which
all English people took their notes from,
many, many years
ago; and strangely enough, it's called In My Time Of
Dying."
o Before the band performed "The Battle of Evermore"
at the June
10 show in New York, Plant introduces the song by way of the
following explanation.
"When we recorded this song we got a girl to
help sing the
vocals and we are pleased to have her with us tonight.
Ladies and gentlemen, John Paul Jones on vocals. John Paul
Jones on
vocals!?"
o From the "Silver Coated Rails" bootleg of the
Earls Court show on
May 23, 1975, is a peculiar recital from the song
"Cats In The
Cradle" by Cat Stevens. At one point between songs
Plant whines,
"Old man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like
you."
o At the 25/3/71 show at the Paris Theatre, which was taped for
the
BBC, Robert opens the show with the following preamble.
"First
of all, I'd like to say sorry about last week. We did
about 18 dates in 6
days, no at least 20 days. And uh, my
voice kind of gave up altogether. And
we hope it's in better
condition tonight, but if it's not, cheer because
you're on
the radio."
o The following spiel from Plant preceeded the
performance of "Over
The Hills And Far Away" at the March 29, 1973
show at Madison
Square Garden, New York.
"We had a really good one
last night, I don't know whether
anybody was here. But, ah, what we intend
to do try and
get it better every night. So with your - only with your
co-operation can we do that. And you know what I'm
talking
about."
The rendition of "Misty Mountain Hop" at
the same show was
preceeded by another dose of Plant verbosity, this time
directed
at a person in the crowd misusing firecrackers. Plant points
out
that they are "no longer clever".
"Now don't forget
that will ya. You up there with the
glasses."
Yet more dialogue
from the same concert. this time towards the
end of the show.
"At
the end of my career, I should be able to give a
television programme on how
to keep roses... but as that's
about a kiss away, it's out of the
question..."
o The bootleg entitled "From Boleskine To The
Alamo" of the 1973
Fort Worth show has Plant providing a confusing
introduction to
"Dazed And Confused".
"We like to uh... in
fact it's nothing to we it's something
to do with me... I'd like to dedicate
this next one to an old
friend... if she's about, the Butter
Queen"
o On the 1980 tour Jimmy Page did some of the song introductions,
which was unusual for him, and the following proceeded the
performance
of "Black Dog" at the Zurich concert.
"We're gonna do a number
it's called Strangers in the night
or fantasy dog town. This is an old
one... I don't know if
you can remember it or not because it's quite an old
one...
it's called Black... Dog."
o The L.A. Forum show of 27/3/75
saw the following humourous intro
for "Trampled Underfoot" from
Plant.
"I guess instead of a lemon song, this is a quart of oil
song... it's called Trampled Underfoot..."
o At a show in Japan in
1971, John Bonham's suspicious departure
from the stage was accompanied by
the following Plantation.
"Bonzo gone bye, bye. Bonzo gone for bath with
Geisha, yes".
o The following reminiscence from Plant is from Earl's
Court in
1975.
"The last time we played at Cardiff at the Lacarno
the
equipment was set up but they wouldn't let us in cuz we
didn't have
a tie on. It was really, those were the days,
but have things changed that
much? ... This song is really
for our family and friends... It's a song of
love in its
most (Page mumbles something) in its most innocent stages.
It's called
Tangerine."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
o The plethora of soundboard recordings from the 1980 tour suggests
that
there were some corrupted sound people behind the mixing
desk. In fact, this
may not be the case at all. When Jimmy's
home was burgled prior to
"Outrider" a large quantity of tapes
were stolen, including
professionally recorded shows. Tt is not
unusual for a band to record
themselves to see how well their
performance went, and this may have been
done with a view to one
day releasing the much talked about Live
Retrospective. Also,
over the years it is possible that other members of the
band's
associates may have had tapes stolen from the. It has also
been
suggested that some of the tapes come from roadies who got ahold
of
them "legitimately" and re-sold them later for large sums of
money.
But, getting back to the mixing board operators, with an
appropriate sum of
money it may not have been hard at all to be
able to persuade someone to tape
the show for you. Ironically,
Zeppelin and their management seemed to think
they were stemming
the flow of bootlegs throughout their career.
o At the
Dallas Pop Festival on 31/8/69 Zeppelin put in an amazing
performance.
However, due to time constraints they could only do
one more song after
"You Shook me" on the setlist, so they made
"How Many More
Times" stretch out to twenty minutes in length!
With the crowd
screaming for more they tossed in "Communication
Breakdown" to
finish their set.
o On the "Destroyer" bootleg at the 8:37 mark in
"Stairway To
Heaven" just as Plant has sung "And as we wind
on down the road"
the guitar sound suddenly disappears, and the
remainder of the
song is totally devoid of guitar, just keyboards, bass, and
drums.
The absence is really noticeable as Page was really howling up
that point. The guitar sound is picked up for the next song
though,
"Rock And Roll".
o An album is available in America called
"Bootleg Zeppelin :
Performed By John Vearity, Whole Lotta Love".
The album features
the aformentioned individual playing covers of 16 Zeppelin
tunes.
o The performance of "Misty Mountain Hop" on the 17/7/73
Seattle
show, on the "Trouble In Vancouver" bootleg, is dedicated
by Plant
to the people who drove the buses from Vancouver to Seattle.
This
refers to the cancellation of the scheduled Vancouver show, and
how
the people had to come from there by bus to see the band in
Seattle. The
Vancouver concert was cancelled after rioting broke
out while people were
queuing for tickets.
o An instrumental outtake of "Carouselambra"
appears on the bootleg
"In Through The Back Door".
o The
unreleased "Tribute To Bert Berns" is very similar to
"Baby
Come On Home" except that it is longer and has more of an
organ
presence. This can be found on the bootleg "Strange Tales
From
The Road" which also contains the 1971 Bombay Symphony
Orchestra
recordings made by Page and Plant of "Four Sticks" and
"Friends".
o On the well known "Destroyer" bootleg at one
point Plant says,
'...and the doctor was played by Larry Badgely.' Larry
Badgely
M.D. is a real person and was the doctor on that particular tour
as well as being a doctor for the Rolling Stones on their 1972
tour.
Relations between the band and Badgely were not particulary
good with at
least one claim that Page and Bonham were known to
dip into the good
doctor's supply of painkillers. Badgely is
known to have accused Page of
pilfering qualudes from his medical
bag while on tour once.
o The bootleg
cd "Stockholm '69" features the band running down a
version of
Otis Rush's "I Gotta Move" while Jimmy changes a string
he broke on
his guitar. The song is listed on the cd, however, as
"I Fought My Way
Out Of Darkness" though, another Otis Rush song.
o "Hiawatha
Express" has, amongst other things, three songs from
Plant's
pre-Zeppelin band, The Band Of Joy, a cover of "Hey Joe",
"Got
To Find My Baby", and "For What It's Worth".
o There is a
bootleg interview available from Japan on the CGI
label, identifiable by the
picture on the cover of the band with
some Japanese women. The band's name is
misspellt as Led Zeppelin
in the accompanying liner notes.
o A bootleg
entitled "Rare Tracks Vol.1", a Greek import, contains
several
interesting demo tracks of "Stairway To Heaven" amongst
other
things. Sources for this material are probably the thieves
who broke into
Page's house and made off with a variety of his
tapes.
o Both the versions
of "The Girl I Love" on the bootlegs "Shenadoah"
and
"Radio Session" fade out at about the same spot, during the
second
guitar solo. The version on "Radio Sessions" has better
sound
quality.
o Only a handful of performances of "As Long As I Have
You" have
been captured on bootlegs. The January 9, 1969 performance at
the
Fillmore West sounds like the band is still learning the song,
as
Jones plays a few bad notes, while the April version is much
better
realised, with several guitar solos and guitar/vocal unison
transitions.
Other performances were on March 13, and May 19,
1969. The song was
originally performed by Garnett Mimms but was
written by B. Elgin and J.
Ragavoy.
o The recordings with the Bombay Symphony Orchestra of "Four
Sticks"
and "Friends" can be found on the bootlegs
"Tangible Vandalism",
and the appropriately titled "Bombay
Symphony Orchestra", which
also several takes of each, along with Page
acoustic material.
The "Tangible Vandalism" bootleg also contains
"Physical Graffiti"
outtakes, third album session material, and
recordings from
Liverpool, England.
o "Poles And Sticks" is a
notable bootleg. It contains the only
complete version of "Gallows
Pole" and the only live version of
"Four Sticks", from a
performance at Copenhagen in 1971. There is
also the first live version of
"Celebration Day", a 20 minute
version of "Dazed And
Confused", and a 21 minute "Whole Lotta
Love" medley. Plant
introduces "Four Sticks" as a new song there
isn't a title for yet,
and "Rock And Roll" as "It's Been A
Long
Time".
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FROM: BOB ROLONTZ
ATLANTIC RECORDS SIGNS ENGLAND'S HOT NEW GROUP, LED ZEPPELIN,
IN ONE OF THE BIGGEST DEALS OF THE YEAR
Atlantic Records has signed the hot new English group, Led
Zeppelin, to a
long term, exclusive recording contract. Although the
exact terms of the
deal are secret, it can be disclosed that it is
one of the most substantial
deals Atlantic has ever made. Agreement
for the group's services was made
between Jerry Wexler, Executive
Vice President of Atlantic Records, and
Peter Grant, manager of the
group.
Led Zeppelin consists of four of the
most exciting musicians
performing in Britain today. They are Jimmy Page,
leader of the
group and lead guitarist; John Paul Jones, bassist, pianist,
organist, arranger; John Bonham, drums; and Robert Plant, lead vocal
and
harmonica.
Jimmy Page is a former member of the Yardbirds, the group
that
spawned the careers of two other great musicians, Eric Clapton and
Jeff Beck. Page joined the Yardbirds in 1966 and stayed with the
group
until it disbanded in the summer of 1968. Prior to joining
the Yardbirds he
was one of the busiest session men in London.
John Paul Jones is considered
one of England's finest arrangers
as well as an outstanding bass player. He
is the arranger of
Donovan's "Mellow Yellow", "Sunshine
Superman", and "Hurdy Gurdy
Man", and of the Rolling Stones'
"She's A Rainbow." Drummer John
Bonham created a sensation with
his drum solos while accompanying
Tim Rose on his British tour in early
1968. Vocalist Robert Plant
is considered one of England's outstanding young
blues singers, and
has been involved in singing blues since he was 15. All
of the
members of the group are in their early 20's.
The pulsations
surrounding Led Zeppelin have intensified ever
since the group recorded its
first (and as yet unreleased) album,
which was produced by Jimmy Page, just
a month ago in London. Top
English and American rock musicians who have
heard the tracks have
compared the LP to the best of Cream and Jimi Hendrix,
and have
called Led Zeppelin the next group to reach the heights achieved by
Cream and Hendrix. This Led Zeppelin LP will be released by
Atlantic
early in January.
Led Zeppelin is the eighth British group to be
singed by
Atlantic during the past 24 months. The others are Cream, Bee
Gees,
Julie Driscoll-Brian Auger & The Trinity, The Crazy World of
Arthur
Brown, The Marbles, The Magic Lanterns, and Jimmy James & The
Vagabonds.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
o The debut album was recorded in 30 hours spread over two weeks.
The MTV
Rockumentary though, claims it was 36 hours, while the
original quote
pertaining to this was something along the lines of
"A little over 30
hours."
o At a February 21, 1970 gig in Copenhagen the band was billed
as
"The Nobs" as a result of a threat of legal action from
aristocrat
Eva von Zeppelin. She is reported to have said, "They may
be
world famous, but a couple of shrieking monkeys are not going to
use a
priveleged family name without permission."
o Road manager and band
associate Richard Cole was relieved of his
duties for the band's last tour by
Peter Grant because of a
chronic cocaine addiction. Sent to Italy to detox,
Cole somehow
ended up being mistaken for a terrorist involved in a bombing
and
was imprisoned temporarily.
o On stage the band worked like this;
Jimmy usually led the band
unless Robert came up with a good lyrical segue,
Bonham watched
Jimmy for cues while Jones listened to Jimmy for cues. When
Jones
and Bonham figured out where Page was heading, quite often in
some
very bizarre directions, notably during "Dazed and Confused",
they
were right there. An example of Plant trying to direct the band
were
his attempts to get the band to segue into "Gallows Pole"
from
"Whole Lotta Love." Something he never quite managed. These
details
were provided by Jones.
o The title than band had in mind for the studio
album to follow
the 1977 tour was "Tight But Loose" but this ended
up not being
used as Plant's son Karac died mid-tour throwing the band's
plans
into chaos and resulting in everything being put on hold.
o Led
Zeppelin played to a total of 1,388,729 people on their 1977
American
tour.
o The way the songs were selected for the 1990 box set
was,
according to Page, that Page got Jones and Plant to write down
what
they didn't want to be on the set and he went from there.
o Peter Grant's
frustration with the efforts of bootleggers to rip
off his act is manifested
in many incidents such as the one in the
film "The Song Remains The
Same", Grant destroying copies of the
bootleg "Blueberry Hill"
he happened to find in record stores, his
rapid dissassembly and dispersal of
any unauthorised recording
equipment he came across at concerts such as at
the Bath festival,
and an infamous incident when he spotted a guy in the
front row of
the audience with a microphone. Grant marched out and
proceeded
to destroy the equipment only to later find the man was
a
government employee monitoring noise levels. This last incident
occurred
in Vancouver, and Grant apparently, according to Richard
Cole, a phrase which
seemingly guarantess inaccuracy, had to give
Canada a wide berth until the
arrest warrant for him was finally
lifted.
o When a show at Tampa, Florida
in 1977 was rained out a riot broke
out amongst the crowd.
o From the May
1993 issue of "Guitar World", page 15.
"In 1972 Jimmy Page
flew to Washington D.C. to hear bluesman
Bobby Parker perform, with the
intent of signing him to Led
Zeppelin's nascent Swan Song label. The two
guitarists
jammed and Page gave Parker $2,000 to buy a tape deck
and
record a demo. But Parker never completed the tape, and his
great
opportunity fizzled."
Plant acknowledges Parker as an influence, and the
interest of
Page is also some indication of a similar feeling. Parker was
at
the forefront of the British blues craze with his 1961
single
"Watch Your Step" and in 1968 was brought to England and
hailed as
the new Hendrix. Somehow it never quite worked out.
Parker
released a new album in 1993, "Bent Out Of Shape" and must
surely
regret his failure to cut a demo for Jimmy. "Moby Dick"
is
apparently very derivative of one of Parker's early songs.
o Former
tour manager Richard Cole has claimed he was only paid
$1250 by Stephen Davis
for his revelations which make up a large
proportion of Davis' notorious book
"Hammer of the Gods."
o Rap group the Beastie Boys sampled Zeppelin
at least twice, their
song "Rhymin' & Stealin'" uses the drum
track from "When The Levee
Breaks," and "She's Crafty"
uses guitar samples from "The Ocean."
Both these songs are on their
first album. At one stage the
Beastie Boys were sued by the group for their
use of these
samples. One song "License To Ill" samples
"Custard Pie", while
on Paul's Boutique there are samples from
"Moby Dick" and "The
Ocean". The Beastie also used a
sample from "Rock And Roll".
o The "Screaming Lord Sutch And
Heavy Friends" album from 1970 which
features Jimmy Page and John Bonham
has also been released under
the title "Smoke And Fire." Jeff
Beck, Noel Redding and Nicky
Hopkins also appear on the album.
o A song by
Jeff Beck called "Cathouse" on the soundtrack to
"Frankie's
House" apparently bears some similarities to
Zeppelin's
"Heartbreaker".
o The film "Sea Of Love"
does not feature the cover of that song by
the Honeydrippers, on which Plant
sang and Page played guitar.
It features the original version, and a cover by
Tom Waits.
o All the songs on Aerosmith's "Get A Grip" album are
copyrighted to
Swag Song Music Inc. The band are noted Zeppelin fans,
regularly
doing great covers of the Yardbirds' "Train Kept A
Rollin'" Bass
player Tom Hamilton has said Aerosmith wanted to be the
American
equivalent of the great English bands like Led Zeppelin and
Cream.
Guitarist Joe Perry thinks Aerosmith was more influenced by
the
Yardbirds though. Jimmy Page jammed with Aerosmith at the
1990
Donnington festival, and again at a Marquee Club show on August
20,
where they played five songs, one of which was "Immigrant
Song."
Anyway, the copyright name may well be some sort of
humourous name the band
came up with in light of all this.
o The band is known to have declined an
invitation from Cynthia
Plaster Caster to have their more private parts
immortalized in
stone. Other artists such as Hendrix did have casts
made.
o One of the few occasions when Zeppelin allowed one of their
songs
to be used during a film was in the film "Fast Time At
Ridgemont
High." The reason being that the director was Cameron
Crowe,
Zeppelin devotee, and a journalist who was popular with the
band
during their heyday, as he tended to write reasonable articles
about
them. The song that is featured in the film is "Kashmir",
and is
accompanied with some interesting comments about the
aphrodisiac-like effect
of the fourth album, "And when it comes
time to make out, pop in side
one of Led Zeppelin IV." Cameron
Crowe's wife, Nancy Wilson of the
Canadian rock group Heart, makes
a guest appearance in the film, as the
blonde girl in the sports
car who flirts with Judge Reinhold.
o An example
of the attitudes from the music press in general and
music critics to Led
Zeppelin is shown by this extract from an
essay written in 1969 by Jon
Landau, "Rock 1970 - It's Too Late
To Stop Now."
"Led
Zeppelin has now become the most popular of all the late
sixties British
bands. Like their predecessors, they build
their style on doubling bass and
guitar figures, thereby
creating a distored emphasis on the bottom sound
range. It is
a completely physical approach to sound that usually
works
better live than on records. Zeppelin's demeanor, like that of
most
of these groups, was loud, impersonal, exhibitionistic,
violent and often
insane. Watching them at a recent concert I
saw little more than Robert
Plant's imitations of sexuality and
Jimmy Page's unwillingness to sustain a
musical idea for more
than a few measures.
"I got a sense that the
real mood of the band is ennui. I sat
there thinking that rock could not go
on like this. There are
those who are prepared to buy it now, but there is no
future in
it, and that is why groups like Led Zeppelin take it all
now.
They have no place to go, no place to grow into, no roots
anywhere.
And so there they were in front of 15,000 people,
going through the motions-
their `act'- in order to pick up a
paycheck. Fifteen thousand people sat
through it all hoping
that somehow their expectations would be fulfilled.
They
weren't because in the words of a fine Bob Dylan song, `nothing
was
delivered.'"
o An issue of "Time" magazine in October 1993
featured an article
categorizing various bands from the 1960's to the
1990's. Led
Zeppelin was classified by them as a "60's Hard Rock
Band." In
keeping with this rather unusual interpretation of musical
history
Pink Floyd was categorized as an "80's Acid Rock
Band."
o Of all the strange places for Zeppelin to pop up, an episode
of
"Beavis & Butthead" has to rank up there. The conversation
that
preceeded the airing of "Over The Hills And Far Away"
went:
Beavis : This sucks! It sounds like folk music!
Butt-head : Shut up,
ass wipe! It gets cool. Just wait...
o The film "Bad Lieutenant,"
starring Harvey Keitel, features a song
by rapper Schooly D. called
"Signifying Rapper" which is basically
"Kashmir" with a
lot of rapping about violence over the top of it.
o The Toshiba phone company
in the October 4, 1993 issue of
MacLean's magazine published an advertisment
which purported to
show a single of "Stairway To Heaven" and had
the following
accommpanying text:
"Stairway to Heaven. You're in high
school. It's late.
You've got your arms around someone. It's playing. A
few
years later you hear it on an elevator and can't wait until
it stops.
But you find yourself admiring it for its
durability. And hope other things
might wear that well.
(Further claims about the durability of their
phones)."
o "Travelling Riverside Blues" - In addition to the
Rosedale
mentioned in the song, it has been pointed out that Roseale
is
also an upmarket suburb in Toronto and a shopping mall outside
St.
Paul, MN. It is however exceedingly unlikely Robert Johnson
was
referring to either of these, as his Rosedale is the one
on
Mississippi Highway 1, which is also known as the River Road, 45
miles
from Friars Point, which Johnson also mentions in the
original version of the
song.
o There is an amusing parody of "Stairway To Heaven" called
"Buying
A Slurpee At 7-Eleven." One of the verses begins, `There's
a sign
on the door, that says "Slippery Wet Floor", but you know
those
signs have no meaning.' The parody was written and performed by
Mark
Davis, althoug very likely not the Mark Davis who was one of
my lecturers in
first year, and Rob "Iceman" Izenberg. Another
parody is
"Elevator To Menswear."
o The famous Swan Song symbol that Zeppelin
adopted as the logo for
their record label was borrowed from an 1851
oil-on-canvas
painting by William Rimmer entitled "Evening Fall Of
Day." The
figure in the painting is the Greek sun god Apollo. The
painting
is not, as some people would have you believe, of Icarus
or
Daedalus. These two are also figures from Greek mythology.
Daedalus
is, according to legend, supposed to have crafted a set
of wings from
feathers and wax for himself and Icarus which they
could use to escape from
their prison on Crete to freedom in
Greece. Unfortunately, Icarus being the
younger of the two
thought it might be a lark to fly a little higher, and
flew too
close to the sun which melted his wings and he plunged to
his
death in a sea, which is still known as the Icarian sea. Icarus'
first
flight was also his swan song. Daedalus also designed the
labyrinth on Crete
for King Mino's minotaur, which was the reason
for his imprisonment, because
he alone knew the secrets of the
labyrinth.
o The Swan Song label came
into being in 1974 after Zeppelin's
contract with Atlantic came up for
renegotiation. Peter Grant
negotiated a deal whereby all the band's business
affairs and his
management of them would be handled by a separate label.
Dave
Lewis lists some rumoured names as Eclipse, Slut, Slag,
Deluxe,
Stairway, and the name of their publishing company,
Superhype.
Lewis also writes that a sub-company owned by the
band,
Cullderstead, was registered for Swan Song as a business name.
The
name is taken from the title of an unfinished band
composition, an
instrumental, which Page had tagged as "Swan
Song." The song was
another piece built around an exotic guitar
tuning from Page. Although the
song was never finished, it most
likely, according to Christopher Crowe,
evolved into the Firm song
"Midnight Moonlight." Dave Lewis writes
that "Swan Song" may have
been an early version of "Ten Years
Gone."
o The "Wayne's World" and "Wayne's World 2"
films feature a number
of Zeppelin references. In the first film when Wayne
goes to a
guitar store to buy himself his dream white Fender
Stratocaster
he starts to play "Stairway To Heaven" only to be
interrupted by
the store attendant who points to a sign in the store that
says
"No Stairway To Heaven". Wayne is understandably aghast.
This
sign is apparently quite common in music stores. In the second
film
when Garth meets Kim Basinger's character in a laundromat he
is wearing a
t-shirt with the cover of the first album, the
Hindenburg disaster, on it. A
quote from Wayne from the first
film, "Look at Led Zeppelin, they didn't
make songs people liked,
they left that to the Beegees." The
mirthmobile, is, by the way,
an AMC Pacer not a Pinto. The actor who plays
Garth, Dana Carvey,
is apparently a huge Zeppelin fan, which might explain
the
plethora of Zeppelin references. In the second movie when Wayne
and
Garth visit the home of the legendary roadie, they pick up a
photo album of
him and the bands he had toured with and a touched
up photo of the roadie,
Page and Plant is shown. Wayne states the
bleeding obvious by asking,
"Hey, is this you with Led Zeppelin?"
On all video and cable
releases of the first "Wayne's World"
movie, to "Stairway To
Heaven" that Wayne is supposed to be
playing in the music store are
overdubbed with random, distorted
guitar as the film-makers didn't have
permission to use the real
intro.
o _Rolling_Stone_ magazine, in an
unsubtle attempt to rewrite
history, and create the impression that they
loved all the
Zeppelin albums to death when they were first released,
re-assessed all of them for their recently released Album Guide.
When
first released, _Rolling_Stone_ was particularly dissmissive
and scathing of
most of Zeppelin's output. This institutional
bias has now been dissipated
with the addition of Zeppelin fans
such as David Fricke to the writing staff.
The revised ratings
are on a scale of one to five stars.
"Led
Zeppelin" ****
"Led Zeppelin II" ****
"Led Zeppelin
III" ****
"Untitled" *****
"Houses of the Holy"
**** 1/2
"Physical Grafitti" ****
"Presence" ***
1/2
"The Song Remains the Same" ** 1/2
"In Through the Out
Door" ***
"Coda" ** 1/2
"Led Zeppelin" (Box Set)
**** 1/2
o Similarities have been noticed between the riff in
the
introduction to "Under The Bridge" by the Red Hot Chilli
Peppers
and the intro riff in "Achilles Last Stand."
o Several
Zeppelin songs contain drug references, whether directly
or indirectly
through slang terms. Probably the most widely used
drug by the band, Plant
admits this, was marijuana, which is
referred to in "Over The Hills And
Far Away" in it's "Acapulco
Gold" incarnation. `I live for my
dream and a pocket full of
gold'. Plant added the "Acapulco" during
live versions.
"Stairway To Heaven" also contains a line, `..all
that glitters is
gold' although this is probbably not a drug reference.
"Misty
Mountain Hop" has the aura of some drug induced haze and
when
discussing the origins of the song Plant has hinted at the
presence
of drugs at a London sleep-in busted up by the Police.
"Dazed And
Confused" originally known as "I'm Confused" when
performed by
Jake Holmes was about an acid trip, but the lyrics
were changed for the
Zeppelin version, although a few lines hint
at its prior lyrical theme.
Harder drugs such as cocaine were
used by the band later in its career and
are mentioned in "For
Your Life" where Plant even makes snorting
noises. Another song
about the band's overindulgences, "The Rover"
also contains drug
references amongst other things.
o During an appearance
on "The Tonight Show" in America Plant
claimed that Zeppelin used
to try and sound like black guys from
Chicago, a claim supported by their
choice of covers, several from
Chicago bluesmen. The Chicago blues style
itself is markedly
different from other dominant blues styles, such as Delta,
Texas
and Memphis. It relies less on acoustisc instruments than
these
others, and can cover more traditional band elements in the form
of
extra musicians. Some notable exponents of Chicago blues as
Buddy Guy and
Robert Cray. Chicago blues was also the first blues
variety to gain a major
following among young British musicians in
the 1960's, although some of the
leading musicians of the time
such as Page, Clapton and Richards moved on
from Chicago quickly
to other more sparse styles such as Delta. However,
Zeppelin
probably sounds closer to the Memphis style which
incorporates
electric and acoustic elements. A Delta blues influence is
also
present with both Page and Plant readily proclaiming their
admiration for Robert Johnson the acknowledged "King Of The
Delta
Blues". Memphis is in turn a derivative of the Delta style.
o
The whole issue of whether or not "Stairway To Heaven" contains
a
backmasked message is surrounded by emotive and irrational
arguments.
One of the foremost sleaze expeditions on Zeppelin is
Stephen Davis's
"Hammer Of The Gods". Within this illustrious
tome, he asserts the
common theory that the message is "Here's to
my sweet Satan" on
page 9 of the book. Yet on page 309 he asserts
that when "Stairway"
is played backwards at a slower speed the
message is "I live for
Satan". Additional sources for this debate
include the christianmentary
"Hell's Bells : The Dangers Of Rock
And Roll" wherein the theory is
espoused that the message is "My
sweet Satan. No other made a path for
it makes me sad whose power
is Satan." Next up is renowned religious
freak Monty Python who
claimed to hear the message "Spam spam spam"
over and over
throughout the entire duration of the song. Of a slightly
more
factual nature, Henry T.F. Rhodes has claimed that in black
masses
prayers are sometimes said backwards, although presumably this
only
affects the word arrangements.
o Another persistent claim is that the
bandmembers, often with the
claimed exclusion of Jones, sold their souls to
the devil. This
helps to explain Plant's car crash, his son's death,
Bonham's
death and a multitude of other unfortunate occurrences. A
slight
twist on it is that Pagey was very close to the devil because
his
daughter was not injured in Plant's car crash, although the devil
must
not have liked one of his houses as it fell into the sea. No
such public
misfortunes befell Jones and so it logically follows
he didn't sell his soul
to the devil. But the whole idea of
someone selling their soul to the devil
for their success and fame
seems to be a recurrent theme with celebrities
dating back to
the nineteenth century. One example was Paganini who had to
get
his mother to write a letter stating his father was not the devil
in
order to appease a French town. Musicians seem to feature
prominently on the
list of celebrities well-acquantined with the
devil, such as Jim Morrison,
Eric Clapton (who is also God), John
Lennon, Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper and
Kiss, which is of course
stands for "Knights In Satan's Service".
Outside the field of
music others include Walt Disney (check out Fantasia),
Carol
Lombard, and even corporations such as Proctor & Gamble.
From
these examples, it appears that when people cannot find a
rational
explanation for the talent some people possess they begin to
look
for unusual explanations, hence the eventual claim that the person
in
question is in league with the devil, which is a quick, and
easy way to get
back at them I guess.
o Along with the recurring number 54 in relation to
Plant and
Zeppelin, the number 10 seems to pop up quite frequently as
well.
In "How Many More Times", `I've got ten children of my own',
in
"Heartbreaker", `It's been ten years and maybe more since I
first
laid eyes on you', in "Ramble On", `Been this way ten years
to the
day', and in "Ten Years Gone", `Ten years gone, holding on'.
A
slightly tenuous extension of this theme is that the number 10 is
sacred
to the ancient Cail Li'n cult of gaelic origin in a similar
way that 7 recurs
in the bible. Plant may have been trying to
invoke some sort of mystic power
or magical influence by repeating
the number in the lyrics to songs. A
comparison is that in the
bible many things are grouped in sevens, the days
of creation,
seven plagues in Egypt, and the number of apocalyptic
horsemen.
Much more likely is that it seemed a suitable timespan for
the
lyrical theme.
o One of the bands formed out of the ashes of the
Yardbirds was
Together. This featured Keith Relf and Jim McCarty but not
Page.
The band's style could be said to be soft acoustic rock.
o Led
Zeppelin's first five album were released on reel to reel
format. According
to Rick Barrett the first three albums are
numbered with roman numerals on
the spines of the boxes while the
fourth album just has the band member's
four symbols. However,
Barrett in an impressive display of attention to
detail notes that
there is a second version of "Led Zeppelin II" on
this format,
which features the roman numerals on the spine as the
normal
version does, but also the phrase "The only way to fly".
This is
apparently very rare and would be worth a quite
considerable
amount of money to a collector, such as Barrett.
o Zeppelin
are rumoured to have performed some christmas carols at a
show during the
early seventies.
o The Bombay Orchestra with which Plant and Page recorded
version
of "Friends" and "Four Sticks" in 1971 features
along with western
style instruments, native Indian ones such as tabla drums
and
sitars. While an interesting experiment, the recordings were
never
released offically and are only available on bootlegs. The
project is said to
have run into problems because Page complained
that the orchestra members
didn't keep time in the Western style
and some of them drank rather a
lot.
o When last mentioned, sales of "The Complete Studio
Recordings" in
the USA had been certified "Gold", meaning
sales of 500,000 units.
Sales of the first Box Set have reached one million,
four times
platinum.
o Rehearsals for "In Through The Out Door"
took place at Clearwell
Castle in May, 1978.
o The working title for
"Coda" was "Early Days And Latter Days".
o Another Zep
clone band in the style of Kingdom Come were an outfit
that went by the name
of Zebra, who supposedly did a cover of "The
Ocean". Another group
lumped into the Zep clone category, and
unfairly so according to some, is
Canadian group The Tea Party.
On their "Splendor Solis" album is a
song called "Sun Going Down"
which features the following lyric, `I
think my wings have fallen
below, Jesus I need another pair, St. Peter at the
gates of heaven
won't you let me in?' Random coincidence? The singer, in
all
fairness, sounds more Jim Morrison than anyone else. Yet
another
Zeppelin clone band is The White. The singer from this
outfit,
Michael White, is apparently so good at reproducing Plant's
voice
that it's eerie. Interestingly, Michael White is the mananger of
The
Tea Party, and The White and The Tea Party both use the same
studio, in
Vermont. A gig by The White in the U.K. was attended
by Plant's bass player
Charlie Jones, and his wife, Plant's
daughter Carmen. It was suggested to
Plant himself that he check
out the band and he has, although his thoughts on
their
performance are not recorded. The Tea Party recently played on
the
same bill as Page and Plant.
o In the gap between tracks 8 and 9 on Van
Morrison's "Tupelo Honey"
album ("When That Evening Sun Goes
Down" and "Moonshine Whiskey")
there is the sound of someone
exhaling that is reportedly a dead
ringer for Plant's exhale at the beginning
of "Whole Lotta Love".
"Tupelo Honey" was released in
1971 as a follow-up to the very
successful "Moondance" album. The
question of whether or not this
is sampled is a major stretch of the
imagination however, so it
can be classed as random coincidence.
o The
Spanish seaside town of Malgrat de Mar has a bar called
"Zeppelin"
which is run by a group of Zeppelin fans and
enthusiasts. The bar also sells
a t-shirt with it's logo on it
for tourists, the logo being a picture of
"Mr. Zeppelin".
o The Rock And Roll Cafe in New York City, situated
at 149 Bleeker
Street, at one point several years ago featured a Zeppelin
tribute
band called Four Sticks every Monday night. The tribute band
was
preceeded by a Hendrix tribute band.
o Peter Grant's bathrobe from the
cancelled 1980 U.S. tour with "Led
Zeppelin The 80's, Part One"
emblazoned on the back was spotted by
a listmember for sale in a Boston store
for around US$700.
Judging by the size of Grant at the time you certainly
get your
money's worth though!
o Punk "Musicians", a term I use
with some trepidation, were
renowned for bucketing Zeppelin. Johnny Rotten
who once labelled
the band, "boring old farts", was reported in _Q_
magazine as
having contacted Plant recently to get the lyrics for
"Kashmir" so
PIL could cover it. An even more derisive quote, is
Paul Simonon
of the Clash's, "I don't even have to hear the music, just
looking
at one of their album covers makes me want to throw up".
o
The street that the building depicted on the cover of "Physical
Graffiti" is on is St. Marks Place, New York City. The street
runs
right through Greenwich Village.
o The punk band Unsane does a cover of
"Four Sticks".
o Led Zeppelin are the only band to have had all
their albums reach
the Billboard Top 10. Of these ten albums, six went to
number
one.
o During his drum solo on their 1994 tour, Aerosmith drummer
Joey
Kramer would sometimes incorporate a section from "Poor
Tom".
o A song by Soundgarden, title unknown, uses the "Killing
Floor"
riff from 1969. This is the riff where an E is played
twice,
count out a measure, and a "Boom Boom" style riff is
then
played, at about half the speed John Lee Hooker plays it.
o The riff
from "In The Light" was borrowed by the guitarist from
Stone Temple
Pilots, sped up, made heavier and simplified and
incorporated into either
"Sex Type Thing" or "Wicked Garden".
o On the 1994
Aerosmith tour, guitarist Joe Perry was known to play
a bit of "Dazed
And Confused" during his solo which usually led
into "Sweet
Emotion". He did this at Aerosmith's Woodstock 1994
appearance. This
seems to be a common trend among guitarists,
with Slash also doing this with
Guns 'n Roses. On the Metallica
box set "Live Shit: Binge &
Purge" during one of the concerts on
video bass player Jason Newsted
begins playing the start of "Dazed
And Confused" at the end of his
bass solo. Guitarist Kirk Hammett
then chips in with the psychedelic guitar
chords from the song.
They also play a snippet from "Moby Dick"
later in the concert.
o The band Brother Cane have a song called "Make
Your Play" which
features some slide work reminiscent of that in
"In My Time Of
Dying".
o Kristin Hersh's "Your Ghost"
cd single features a cover of "When
The Levee Breaks". This can be
on the "Strings" album.
o Duran Duran's cover of "Thank
You" appears on the soundtrack to
the film _With_Honors_.
o The CBC
show "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" uses the same burning
Zeppelin
footage in the beginning of their show as appears on
the cover of the first
album.
o The Powder Monkey's album "Smashed On A Knee" features a
similar
picture to that on the first Zeppelin album, except that is
was
taken a few moments later.
o Heart is a band that wears its Zeppelin
influences on its sleeves,
but in places it does sound a bit too derivative.
Two examples
are the songs "Barracuda" and "Magic Man"
which imitate "Achilles
Last Stand" and "Immigrant Song"
respectively. Also, the end of
"Straight On" is a lift from
"The Crunge".
o Unlike during "The Song Remains The
Same", for the two Knebworth
1979 dates, the band dressed identically on
both occasions.
o A radio station in Florida found out the hard way that an
all
Zeppelin format was not a viable idea when it kicked off
its
transmissions by playing "Stairway To Heaven" fifty times in
a
row. Within two weeks the station had gone broke and had had to
resort
to the usual dull and unvaried commercial format.
o At a Minneapolis date on
his 1994 tour Billy Joel and his band ran
down a cover of "Good Times
Bad Times" with the introduction "This
is one of my all time
favourite songs". Before that he had
instructed the band to "Let's
do that one we were fooling around
with before". Billy played rhythm
guitar for this song.
o In the first story, _The_Langoliers_, in Stephen
King's _Four_
_Past_Midnight_, one of the characters says the
following,
"Sometimes, when I'm sure my music teacher isn't around, I
play
old Led Zeppelin songs," he said. "That stuff _really_ cooks
on
the violin. You'd be suprised."
o The programme for Zeppelin's
1979 Knebworth gigs was a little
ahead of their record company. It listed the
new, at the time,
album, "In Through The Out Door", as being
"Available now on
Swansong records and tapes". In fact, the album
was not available
at the time of the concerts, and was delayed for some time.
An
advertisement for HMV records also in the programme was more
accurate,
in that it listed all the previous Zep albums, showing
sleeves and prices,
but not "In Through The Out Door".
o A music convention in Toronto,
Canada, in early 1994 featured
Peter Grant as a keynote speaker.
o A
classical guitar recital at the Berklee College of Music
attended by a member
of the list in early 1994 included a song
listed on the programme as
"Bob Pix On Lead - Jimmy Page and
Robert Plant".
o Rapper Ice-T
has been known to use Zeppelin samples such as the
drum beat from "When
The Levee Breaks", commonly used in rap and
dance music anyway, and the
bass riff in "Heartbreaker".
o On March 29, 1975 Led Zeppelin made
music history by becoming the
first band to feature their entire back
catalogue, all six albums,
on the album charts at the same time. That was the
first and so
far, last time that has happened with that quantity of
albums.
o The 1969 Sony Super Show film features Zeppelin along with
Eric
Clapton and Steven Stills, amongst other.
o The shows that Zeppelin
recorded for the BBC have been rebroadcast
in recent years on the syndicated
shows "In Concert" and
"Superstars In Concert" on
American radio. Some of the material
may no longer exist in BBC archives, and
these radio broadcasts
are the ones that turn up most frequently as
bootlegs.
o The Kentucky Headhunters, an American group obviously, are
noted
Zeppelin fans. Some members of this band claimed to have been
signed
to Sawn Song at one point, as mentioned in the FAQL.
o Yorke's book on
Zeppelin contains the following illuminating
statistics regarding album sales
in the USA.
1st. The Beatles = 56 million albums sold.
2nd. Led Zeppelin =
45 million albums sold.
These figures do not include the sales of either of
the box sets
or "The Complete Studio Recordings".
o An unknown
Soundgarden song reputedly features the riff, or a
very similar one from
"Friends".
o The organist who played during Rangers home hockey
games at
Madison Square Gardens in the early 1990's had a repertoire
which
included "Kashmir".
o Richard Cole, possibly not the well
known one among Zeppelin fans,
manages the Zeppelin tribute band Physical
Graffiti.
o An interesting Zep legend relates to their 1968 show at
Denver,
26/12/68, which was the first date from their first US tour.
There
was a snowstorm in Denver at the time and Zeppelin were
stuck there without
their equipment and expected to do a show at
the Coliseum. Using borrowed
equipment Zep went ahead with the
show and whilst Plant was singing at some
point the microphone
went dead. Plant, reputedly, tossed it aside and
continued
singing without it.
o In June 1994, WHJY-FM in Providence
broadcast the statistic that
74% of the members of President Clinton's
administration believed
that Led Zeppelin was a fuel additive.
o At the
1994 Zeppelin convention, some newly unearthed footage of
Page and Plant at
an Australian press conference was shown. Only
about 10 minutes long, the
piece is an interesting curiosity.
o The film "The Client" features
several references to Led Zeppelin.
The kid in the film who witnessed the
murder is seen wearing a
Zeppelin t-shirt, and the lawyer asks the rather
rhetorical
question of whether the kid likes Zeppelin. The kid is under
the
impression that the lawyer has no idea about Zeppelin and is
just
trying to worm her way into his trust. He asks her what her
favourite
Zeppelin song is, and she replies, in a rather unusual
response, the live
version of "Moby Dick". The kid then asks her
to name the first
four albums, which she does, even explaining
that the fourth album is
officially untitled but is commonly
referred to as "IV". The film
incidentally is based on a John
Grisham novel.
o A series of comics
entitled "The Led Zeppelin Experience" were
published in 1993 by
Revolutionary Comics in California. As with
Australian bootlegs in recent
years, the covers loudly proclaim
their unofficial nature. However, the
comics are content just to
rip off Richard Cole's tired old road stories,
doing little but
translating them into pictorial form. However, one issue
does
get a little more interesting with an exceprt from Aleister
Crowley's
"Magick In Theory And Practice" printed on the inside
cover.
o A
song was released in 1993 called "She Likes To Make Love To
Led
Zeppelin" which had a lyrics that touched on various album
and
song titles.
o A 1994 song by Bomb The Bass contained several
references to Jimmy
Page and how "The song remains the same".
o
The exact pronunciantion of Bron-Y-Aur, the cottage in Snowdonia,
Wales,
where Page and Plant retreated to to write the songs for
"Led Zeppelin
III", is unclear. Welsh being one of the hardest
languages to
understand, it is obviously not pronounced as it
appears. The word apparently
originated in old Welsh dialects,
and one school of thought has it that it is
pronounced brom-rar.
However, Robert has been heard to pronounce it
bron-rar.
o In a section of Alice In Chain's "I'll Stay Away" where
the
acoustic part ascends, then descends, it sounds similar to the
guitar
in Zeppelin's cover of "Travelling Riverside Blues".
o Legend has
it that after their August 18, 1969, show at the
Rockpile in Toronto,
Zeppelin carried on playing acoustically
outside the venue on the street for
an hour or so. Nobody paid
much attention to them as they were not well known
at the time.
o The band members major influences could be stated as
follows:
Jimmy Page - Early rock 'n roll, electric blues, Carnatic
(Indian), Celtic folk, and Arabic music.
Robert Plant - folk rock
(Californian bands), psychedelia,
acoustic blues, Arabic, and Indian later in
life.
John Paul Jones - Motown, Jazz, Rock, and Classical arrangements
for non-standard instruments.
John Bonham - Jazz, Rock, and Funk.
o
Led Zeppelin's admiration of The Beatles is an established fact.
The famous
"Blueberry Hill" bootleg features them inserting a
quick nod to
"I Saw Her Standing There" during a
"Communication
Breakdown" medley. They also played "Please
Please Me", in
parody, on at least one occasion, and on the 1980 tour
played
"Money", with Phil Carson, at some shows.
o Stephen
Davis, author of the notorious "Hammer Of The Gods", has
claimed
that Zeppelin performed "Purple Haze" during concerts on
their 1973
tour. This is uncertain, but during "The Song Remains
The Same"
just after the bowing section and as Robert is saying
"Do it!"
Jimmy plays what sounds like a snatch of "Foxy Lady".
o Frank
Hannon, guitarist from the band Tesla, has a red Gibson
double-neck guitar
like Page's which he uses for the Zeppelin-
influenced "Love
Song".
o Boston band Fury And The Slaughterhouse, a local band from
Boston
appear to be adept Zeppelin thieves, with one of their
songs
featuring a direct sample from the beginning of "D'Yer
Mak'er",
and the drums from "When The Levee Breaks".
o
"The Ten Legendary Singles" a special New Zealand-only
release
features the standard ten Zeppelin singles in a seven-inch box
set
with a picture of a Zeppelin over Berlin during World War II
on the cover.
This is an official release, although a printing
error results in the A and B
sides being reversed on the singles
for "Whole Lotta Love",
"D'Yer Mak'er" and "Candy Store Rock".
o The Australian
release of "Led Zeppelin II" featured the band on
the inside front
cover instead of the bomber on some pressings.
o The hilarious
rock-spoof-pseudo-documentary "This Is Spinal Tap"
features more
than a few digs at Zeppelin. The most obvious is
guitarist Nigel Tufnell's
"bowing" solo where he plays his guitar
with a violin, as opposed
to Page using the bow. The band's
manager also appears to be modelled on
Peter Grant, and one of
their many previous drummers choked on vomit,
although it was
someone else's, and as someone in the film points out
"You can't
really dust for vomit". The film also takes swipes at
most
obviously Black Sabbath, although the Stonehenge gag may also be
a
poke at Zeppelin's "Stonehenge" theme at their Oakland show
in
1977.
o The slogan for Zeppelin's 1980 tour was "Cut The
Waffle", which
meant trimming down the hour-long-jams and endless solo,
with the
exception of the drum solo, making Zeppelin a far leaner
outfit
than for years.
o Mention has been made of a resemblance between
the Soundgarden
song "Superunknown" and "Misty Mountain
Hop".
o Zeppelin's last show was at Eissporthalle, Berlin, Germany, on
July 7, 1980.
o Phish has been known to cover "Good Times Bad
Times" in concert,
one such occasion being 24/7/93 at Greatwoods,
Massachusetts.
o The appalling quality of the sound and video footage of the
1979
Knebworth show available on various bootlegs, may be for a
reason.
The footage was originally stolen from Jimmy's house, and
while
the thieves most likely didn't get the master tapes, they may
have
purposely denigrated the quality to enhance the value of
their
copy.
o Japanese Zeppelin tribute band Cinnamon take the whole idea
of a
concept band to its extreme. They have been playing together
since
1979, and are so obsessed with accuracy that they introduce
each number by
title, tour, venue and date, playing the song
exactly as it was performed
that night. Hailing from Nagoya, they
go under the names of Robart, Jimy
Page, John-G, and Bonzow. An
album of their original material is, for some
reason, entitled
"Led Zeppelin", while their latest work,
"Cinnamon III", which
features a parody of the "II"
cover, is a 58 song medley of
Zeppelin classics performed in 56 minutes. Jimy
Page when he is
not reproducing the performance of the other Page owns and
works
in a drugstore, while Robart runs a Nagoya language school
named
"Woodstock".
o On a Red Hot Chilli Peppers bootleg the
band segues momentarily
into "Dazed And Confused".
o On October
21, 1994 _The_Guardian_ printed the following comment,
"Robert Plant and
Jimmy Page confirmed that they turned down an
offer of $100 million to
reform Led Zeppelin. So there is a
God..."
o A standup comedian,
whose name is not known, does a sketch about
what old rock stars are doing
these days. He says he pulled into
a gas station where Robert Plant was
working, and Plant walked
over, popped the hood, had a look around
underneath and wailed
"You need coolant..."
o There is a golf
video avilable called "Fairways To Heaven" which
has the title
emblazoned on the cover in the font Zeppelin used
for "The Song Remains
The Same".
o At an early 1972 concert at Mohawk College in Hamilton
Ontario,
Rush is reported to have played "Stairway To Heaven" as
part of
their encore.
o "How Many More Times" has appeared on
the soundtrack of at least
one film, who's title is not widely known, but
also includes at
least one song by Steve Miller. This film is
"Homer", from 1969.
The catalogue number for this album is
Cotillion SD 9037 (US)/
Atlantic 2400 137 (UK). This is mentioned in Robert
Godwin's
"The Illustrated Collectors Guide To Led Zeppelin (3rd
Edition)".
o Television advertisements for the film "Deer
Hunter" and maybe
also the film itself used "Dazed And
Confused" as background
music.
o There exists a musak version of
"Tangerine" that can be heard in
various elevators.
o The Swan
Song label was dissolved several years after Zeppelin
ended, but not before
"Coda" and Robert Plant's first solo album,
"Pictures At
Eleven" were released on it. The other artists on
Swan Song mostly
resigned with Atlantic, with a few exceptions.
Bad Company soldiered on minus
Paul Rodgers, while Dave Edmunds
switched labels. A recent retrospective of
his work contains all
his Swan Song material. Other artists simply lost their
recording
deals thanks to Swan Song's demise. Jimmy Page's soundtrack
to
"Deathwish II" also appeared on Swan Song.
o The publishing
companies used throughout the Zeppelin years were
Superhype and Flames Of
Albion, both set up by Jimmy but also used
by the other bandmembers to
administer their rights. For those
unfamiliar with how this works, these
companies then sign with one
of the major administrators such as ASCAP or
BMI. These companies
are reponsible for collecting the royalties generated by
other
people using the songs, such as companies publishing music
books.
Fees generated from radio and video broadcasts and live covers
are
also administered by these companies, usually at a standard
rate
regardless of the artist. However, depending on the band's status
in
the industry, their management may take it into their hands to
see that the
various fees are paid. These companies also handle
such things as songwriter
disputes, and disputed credits for song
authorship, such as the recent
Michael Bolton/Isley Brothers
dispute, which bypassed this mechanism and
ended up in court.
o Led Zeppelin were one of the few 1970's bands, big bands
that is,
who did not deliberately experiment with some sort of
deliberately
vague bisexual imagery.
o At one particular Primus gig, Les
Claypool, the bass player, put
on an unusually shaped bass and the band
started to play the
introduction to "Kashmir".
o A duet by Neneh
Cherry and Michael Stipe has a stab at recreating
the Bonham sound. The title
of the song is not apparent, but can
be distinguished by a chorus of
"Round and round and round..."
o Various things such as Tolkien
influenced lyrics and some album
art suggest that Zeppelin, most notably
Plant, had some sort of
interest in, fixation with subreality, such as that
explored by
Tolkien.
o There are quite a few things that a band might do
that could hint
to a Zeppelin influence. Probably the most obvious is
repeating
a blues-based or pentatonic riff over and over again.
Zeppelin
didn't invent this, but some of their most well known songs
such
as "Whole Lotta Love" use it. Additionally, backwards
echo,
multi-tracked guitars, choruses guitars, and open and Indian
tunings
all point to Zeppelin and Jimmy Page. Stylistically, a
song that stars off
with acoustic guitar and really soft sections,
then builds up to a much
louder, quite often electric, climax,
are Zeppelin trademarks. A recent
example being Van Halen's
"Take Me Back (Deja Vu)". Zeppelin was
again, not the inventor of
this, but songs such as "Babe I'm Gonna Leave
You" used it to
great effect. The influence of Zeppelin in rap is also
quite
important, Frankie Goes To Hollywood sampled Bonham for
"Relax",
and The Beastie Boys with Rick Rubin sampled a number of
Zeppelin
riffs and drumbeats. The interest in World Music also exhibits
a
Zeppelin influence with their dabbling in Carnatic, Arabic,
Celtic,
Caribbean and Moroccan music. The preponderance of a huge
reverb/gating
effect of drum sounds of people such as Phil Collins
and by producer Mutt
Lange with artists such as Bryan Adams is a
clear attempt to replicate
Bonham's sound. Also, the guitar hero
with the low-slung Les Paul and the
cigarette dangling from the
lips is not a trademark of Slash, but rather,
Jimmy Page, who can
be seen in various photos and footage leaning back into
the riffs,
in a much imitated pose. The influence of Zeppelin has been
very
pervasive, leap-frogging acorss genres and generations and is
very
likely to continue for some time to come.
o The name Zeppelin first
sprang to public prominence thanks to
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin
(1838-1971) who was a German airship
designed who developed the dirigible
balloon, named after him,
which was used in World War I. He developed the
airship between
1897-1900.
o The Zeppelin bursting into flames on the
cover of the first album
is The Hindenburg, named after Paul von Hindenburg
(1847-1934), a
German general and statesman. He succeeded Falkenhayn as chief
of
the High Command during World War I and served as President of
the
Weimar Republic (1925-1934). In 1933 he was forced to make
Hitler
chancellor.
o Led Zeppelin did four seperate tours of the USA in
the space of
one year during 1969, 26/12/68-08/11/69.
o Headley Grange, a
recording venue for Zeppelin during the 1970's,
was a converted
poorhouse.
o The search for the master tapes for the remastering process
took
Page to all manner of strange locations, such as a
now-abandoned
Underground Subway Station in North London.
o The Jeff
Buckley song "Mojo Pin" features a very Zeppelin-ish
section around
the 3:50 mark, and again later in the song, which
sounds like "Achilles
Last Stand".
o The plane featured in "The Song Remains The
Same" is a Boeing
720B, a scaled down model of a 707 that was formerly
owned by
United Airlines. United Airlines sold the plane to a
company
called Temporary Entertainer's Services which leased the plane
out
to various groups and performers for their tours. The plane
was also used by
at various times, The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple
and Elton John. The man who
ran this company was the manager of
singer Bobby Sherman, who derived his
fame from the tv show "Here
Comes The Bride." For the use of Led
Zeppelin the plane was
repainted in brown and gold and a logo added to the
fuselage.
This paint scheme was later changed by Elton John to a stars
and
stripes design. In turn, each group or person leasing the
plane
changed the paint scheme to give the impression that the
current
occupant owned it. In 1973 the plane was leased at $2500 a
day
plus a mileage charge. It was used by the group to travel to and
from
gigs and back to the major cities such as New York, Chicago
or Los Angeles
where they would "base" themselves for part of a
tour. The plane
was nicknamed "The Starship" or alternately
"Starship
One."
o At a gig in September 1970 at the L.A. Trouabdour where
Fairport
Covention were recording a live album, they were joined
onstage
by a previously unheard of band called the Birmingham
Water
Buffalo Society, who turned out to be Led Zeppelin.
o The reason for
Eddie Kramer's non-involvement between the second
and fifth albums was a
dispute that broke out in Electric
Ladyland studios in New York, where Kramer
was the director of
engineering. One of Zeppelin's roadies spilled some
Indian food
on a new rug, and when asked to clean it up by Kramer,
harsh
words were exchanged. Zeppelin sided with their roadie and
thus
something of a wedge was driven into their relationship
with
Kramer.
o While Woodstock was happening, Zeppelin was performing in
Asbury
Park, new Jersey.
o The completion of "Presence" just
prior to Thanksgiving, prompted
Jimmy to suggest "Thanksgiving" as
an album title.
o The rumoured title for "In Through The Out Door"
prior to its
release was
"Look".
----------------------------------------------------------------------
People have interpreted Jimmy Page's brief alliance with former
Whitesnake
and Deep Purple singer, and alleged Plant clone, David
Coverdale as an act of
revenge for Plant not agreeing to do a
reunion. Whether Jimmy really set out
to annoy Plant, or mush more
plausible he was dying to get back in the studio
and Coverdale came
along at just the right time, they did come up with an
album,
"Coverdale/Page," that has drawn mixed reactions from
Zeppelin fans.
o At the end of the recording process, there were a handful of
tunes
left over that didn't make the album, one of which is known to
be
called "Saccharine." In the words of Coverdale, `There's a
song
called "Saccharine" that is going to make you shit. The riff
is
absolutely obscene, as are the lyrics.' Another unreleased song
is a
mix of "Shake My Tree" with a `wild assortment of crunch
guitars'
according to Coverdale.
o On the "Coverdale/Page" album Page uses a
guitar tuning device
made by TransPerformance that apparently works by
automatically
winding the string until the correct pitch is reached after
the
string is struck. The device fits over the tunings keys. Page
had the
device installed on one of his Les Pauls, and he says it
can store up to two
hundred different tunings. This may well be
the guitar he uses in the
"Pride And Joy" video, as it looks to
have some sort of custom
parts added to it. It is also the
guitar Jimmy uses for "Kashmir"
on "No Quarter", which is how he
can segue into "Black
Dog" which is in a completely different
tuning.
o The
"Coverdale/Page" album was the first time Jimmy had played
harp
since on his solo single "She Just Satisfies" in 1965. Jimmy
plays
a dulcimer during "Pride And Joy", something he hasn't done
on
record since "That's The Way" on "Led Zeppelin III."
o
Coverdale's explanation for his screaming on the
"Coverdale/Page"
was that Page was writing songs that made him sing
`...up with the
pigeons.'
o The song "Take Me For A Little
While" is apparently about the
losses both Page and Coverdale have had
to deal with in their
lives, Bonham in the case of Page, and Tommy Bolin in
the case of
Coverdale. Coverdale has said he pictures the song as being
about
old buddies huddling around the fire for comfort. Page says
he
wrote the song while looking at his young son, while they were
in Tahoe,
Nevada. The solo of this song sounds reminiscent of the
one from
"Stairway To Heaven" being played slower.
o The idea to work with
Coverdale did not come from David Geffen
according to both page and
Coverdale, but from Page's management.
At the time Page had been sifting
through lots of demo tapes of
young singers and found nothing of
interest.
o The initial writing for the "Coverdale/Page" album was
done with
the aid of a $50 Radio Shack cassette recorder and some
backing
tapes of drum tracks. Coverdale jokingly says they thought
about
donating it to the Smithsonian.
o In the Kerrang interview with
Page, Coverdale made a somewhat
confusing comment, "... walking the fine
line between Pagan and
Christian, essential and superfluous." This is
what he says at
the end of the song "For The Love of God" on Steve
Vai's album,
"Passion And Warfare."
o The opening riff for
"Shake My Tree" from the "Coverdale/Page"
album was
something Page had come up with at the time of the
sessions for "In
Through The Out Door" but discarded because
no-one but Bonham had any
idea what to do with it. It was also
later ignored by Paul Rodgers when he
and Page were in The Firm.
o "Pride and Joy", another
"Coverdale/Page" track was originally
conceived by Coverdale as a
Dr. John style, laid back song called
"Barbados Boogie." Coverdale
notes, "...and then, of course, he
[Page] had to put in this
enormous...you know... gutter,
digusting, churning, malevolent, _sucking_
riff." A riff from
Sammy Hagar's turgid song "Heavy Metal"
sounds reminiscent to the
riff before the drum intro in "Pride And
Joy."
o The cover of the "Coverdale/Page" album with it's
traffic merging
sign, meant to symbolise the musical merging of Coverdale
and
Page, was designed by Hugh Syme who has in the past been
responsible
for album covers for Whitesnake, "1987" and "Slip Of
The
Tongue", and every Rush cover since "Caress Of Steel",
even
playing on the latter's albums. The sign from the
"Coverdale/
Page" album appears in a variety of locations, similar
to the way
the `object' appears on the cover of "Presence." The
locations of
the road sign are:
- Among some clouds in a blue sky. (Front
Cover)
- On the moon. (Rear Cover)
- Between two piles of felled
trees.
- In a field with cattle.
- In the desert with pyramids in the
background.
- In front of a pile of crushed cars.
- In shallow tropical
water. (The Great Barrier Reef?)
- In a breaking wave in a stormy
sea.
Hugh Syme is reported to have a very quirky sense of humour so
there
may well be a meaning for each of these scenes. A photo
of the same pyramids,
from slightly to the left and closer, is
included in the "The Dark Side
Of The Moon Twentieth Anniversary
Edition" of the classic Pink Floyd
album.
o "Coverdale/Page" session players Ricky Phillips (Bass) and
Denny
Carmassi (Drums) have made mention of the nearly impossible
rhythmic patterns Page wanted them ot play throughout the album.
In
several places on the album Page modulates the chord up a
half-step, which
has been suggested as a joking reference to
Bonham's "Wait For
You."
o The much rumoured US tour never happened, although at one
stage
they got as far as lining up Extreme as the opening act.
Instead
they played a handful of dates in Japan, with some
vintage
performances from Page, and then split amicably. Page is now
back
with Plant, while Coverdale is trying to reform an early
incarnation of his
previous band, Whitesnake.
o The solo for "Don't Leave Me This Way"
was done in one take while
Page had a 102 degree temperature!
o The slides
in "Waiting On You" are not done with a slide, but with
a whammy
pedal.
o The main riff from "Don't Leave Me This Way bears some
resemblance
to the Beatles song "I Want You (She's So Heavy)."
o
The credit John Kalodner : John Kalodner refers to one of the
promotional
people at Geffen, who is possibly best known for his
excessive hyping of lame
bands. Kalodner is also the bearded man
wearing the wedding dress in
Aerosmith's "Dude (Looks Like A
Lady)" video. Kalodner recently
left Geffen.
o David Coverdale's mother died while the album was being
recorded
and her name appears in the credits for that reason.
o The bass
player for Coverdale/Page's shows in Japan was Guy
Pratt. He would have been
unable to continue touring with the
band if any additional dates had been
added, as he was already
committed for the rest of 1994 to an obscure group
named after
two even more obscure Mississippi Delta bluesmen.
o In the
same way he had Durban LaVerde overdub all of ex-The Firm
bass player Tony
Franklin's parts on "Outrider", Page had studio
player, also from
Miami Sound Machine, Jorge Casas overdub nearly
all of Ricky Phillips bass
parts on "Coverdale/Page".
o In the video for "Take Me For A
Little While" Jimmy is playing a
very rare and expensive instrument
called a Gibson Harp-Guitar.
These were built sometime during the 1920's and
feature 12 extra
ass strings, one for each key, as well as the standard six
guitar
strings.
o "Shake My Tree" features Page's backwards echo
effect.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The war of words between Robert Plant and David Coverdale that
erupted in
the music media during Coverdale's alliance with Jimmy
Page for the
"Coverdale/Page" album is merely the latest salvoes in
the debate
over whether Whitesnake is a Zeppelin clone band.
o Ever since Whitesnake released its "1987" album with the
song
"Still Of The Night" on it David Coverdale has been
incessantly
bashed in the popular music media as a "Plant Wannabee"
and "Plant
Clone."
o What this ignores is Coverdale's pedigree
as an established singer
long before Whitesnake. Coverdale was the singer for
Deep Purple
Mark IV, after Ian Gillan left, and recorded several albums
with
the band which featured until his death, the late Tommy Bolin.
o The
similarites between Plant and Coverdale are surpericial to say
the
least,
- Both are English, both are singers, both have worked with
Jimmy
Page, both have king sized egos, both seem obsessed with
the
opposite sex, both have blond hair - although you have to
wonder
whether Plant uses dye these days, and Coverdale certainly does.
So
does dying you hair and working with Jimmy Page consist of
blatant
plagiarism? Given that they both emerged on the scene at
around the same time
with a similar base in the blues the
comparions would appear to be unfair to
both of them.
o The crux of the problem is the video for "Still Of The
Night"
where Whitesnake guitarist Adrian Vandenberg picked up a
violen
bow and in a manner reminiscent of another guitarist began to
play
his guitar with it. From a headline hungry media it was a
logical
progression that Coverdale was imitating Plant. At any
rate,
Coverdale was not the main musical writer behind Whitesnake,
he
wrote the lyrics mainly and Vandenberg's bow exploits are by
the
guitarists admission not Coverdale's idea.
o The part of "Still
Of The Night" which resembles "Immigrant Song"
most closely is
when the band are playing octaves and Coverdale is
singing "Ooooh...
Baby..."
o Coverdale has claimed in recent interviews that the riff from
"Still Of The Night" which sounds reminiscent of the one
from
"Black Dog" was something that Richie Blackmore had come up
with
during Coverdale's days with Deep Purple. According to
Coverdale,
John Sykes and himself tidied it up a bit for the song.
o
Another source of discontent was a remark Coverdale offhandedly
made about
his "good friend" Robert Plant and and how, "He and I
like to
sit down and discuss the current events in music." Since
then it has
been pretty much open-season from both camps. Plant
contended that he did not
know Coverdale, unlikely, and that the
aforementioned events never took
place. Page has remarked that,
"When I saw that guy pick up the bow I
just about fell out of my
chair laughing." Coverdale countered with,
"You can hear
`Kashmir' on Moroccan radio 24 hours a day."
o
Since then, the Coverdale/Page union has come and gone and left
little other
trace than their album. At the time, the feud seemed
to change focus a
little, Coverdale expressing his regret things
had got so out of
hand.
"Let's not pull any punches," Coverdale pouts. "There
_has_ been
something of a hate campaign conducted by Robert . A lot of the
things discussed by Jimmy and myself are, I'm afraid, very
personal, but
there's never, ever been a problem between Mr Page
and myself. The thing that
hurt me most of all is Robert saying
that we didn't know each other.
When
you asked before if Jimmy and I knew each other, we'd
crossed paths, had
maybe three chance meetings throught the 70s;
whereas Robert had brought his
daughter to Whitesnake shows when
we played in his neck of the woods, and
he'd been given the whole
royal treatment and all that.
I knew Robert back
in the 'Purple days, him and Bonzo. I
never knew John Paul Jones. So that was
a weird thing for me.
But I'd rather stay out of all that and let the music
do the
talking, really. I admire Robert immensely - I'll leave it
at
that."
Plant on the other hand is not particularly
conciliatory,
describing Coverdale recently as "...a fucking
idiot".
o Page at the time had this to say on the infamous violin
bow
incident, "That's what it was about. It wasn't anyting to do
with
the rest of the song - it was purely the reference to the bow,
which
wasn't used on the record, as far as I know."
o Plant's thoughts on
Coverdale/Page? "It's a bit limiting,
artistically, to think that's the
way it is and that's what is
needed."
o With Coverdale/Page achieving
only a small amount more succes than
Plant's "Fate of Nations"
album and the outward appearance that
Plant had squandered all his chances to
get together with Jimmy
sour grapes is an easy accusation to make.
o In
recent years the jibes between Plant and Page got so intense,
it wasn't Page
and Coverdale that seemed so unlikely, but Page and
Plant.
o One is left
wondering in whose interests the whole thing got
started, it certainly
wasn't either Plant or Coverdale and given
that the press has been quite
happy to give this prolonged
coverage, some unfortunate conclusions about the
character and
quality of music journalism can be
drawn.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
o As if it wasn't fairly apparent, Jason Bonham is the son of the
late
John Bonham and is an established rock drummer in his own
right these
days.
o In the words of Jason,
"Most fathers give their four year old
children train sets,
toy cars or tricycles - mine gave me a scaled down
Ludwig
drum kit."
o At the age of 11, Bonzo is said to have pointed
out that in his
opinion Jason was the only person he had heard apart from
himself
who could play the drum part of "Trampled Underfoot" just
right.
o Jason Bonham can be seen at a very young age in "The Song
Remains
The Same" drumming away furiously on his drum kit during Bonzo
Sr.'s fantasy sequence.
o Since then Jason has played in several Zep
reunions such as at
the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary gig, where Jason's
drumming
was apparently the only hightlight.
o Another reunion at Carmen
Plant's 21st birthday party saw Jason
on drums again for what was apparently
a much improved performance
from the other three members.
o The last of
these reunions was at Jason's own wedding where the
remaining three members
came together and played several numbers
such as "Custard Pie." As
with Carmen Plant's birthday, this was
from all reports a great
performance.
o Plant was apparently unwilling to consider Jason for his
touring
band during the late 80's because of an alcohol problem.
o Jason
formed his own group in the late 1980's comprising himself
on drums, Daniel
MacMaster (Vocals), Ian Hatton (Guitars) and
John Smithson (Keyboards, Bass,
Violin). The band released it's
debut album "The Disregard of
Timekeeping" to an encouraging
response in 1989. The band went by the
name "Bonham" and even had
a logo that resembled his father's runic
symbol from the fourth
Led Zeppelin album. The first album was comprised
of,
The Disregard of Timekeeping/Wait For You/Bringing Me
Down/
Guilty/Holding On Forever/Dreams/Don't Walk Away/Playing
To
Win/Cross Me And See/Just Another Day/Room For Us All
"Wait For
You" was released as a single with "Cross Me And See" on
the
flipside.
o The cover of the album with it's bar-room sceen brings
to
mind the cover of another album... "In Through The Out Door."
o The band was well promoted and toured extensively to a
sometimes
favourable and other times disparaging critical response.
The
singer bore an unfortunate resemblance to Plant which was a
source of
much derision and along with the debut album's Eastern
influences led to the
predictable label of "Zep Clone."
o A followup album in 1992,
"Mad Hatter" was a huge flop and the
band was dropped from it's
label along with several other `metal'
acts and slpit up. Jason also broke
his arm jsut before the band
was due to gon on tour at one point.
o Jason
most recently appeared on record on Paul Rodger's Muddy
Waters tribute album
and Rodgers latest solo effort. When last
heard of he was touring with
Rodgers and his band. The Muddy
Waters tribute album features Jeff Beck,
Richie Sambora, Neal
Schon, Gary Moore, David Gilmour, Slash, Steve Miller,
Trevor
Rabin and Buddy Guy. The guitarist from Jason's group Bonham,
Ian
Hatton is credited with playing rhythm guitars on the album.
o Jason is from
what he has said, not part of the current "rumoured"
Plant and Page
project, Plant instead using the drummer from his
"Fate of Nations"
album and last touring band, Michael Lee.
o Jason Bonham can also be found on
the soundtrack album for the
Moscow Peace Festival, "Stairway to
Heaven, Highway to Hell,"
playing on the track "Moby Dick," as
part of an all-star band,
Drum Madness, which also included Tico Torres,
Mickey Currie and
Jim Vallence.
o Jason played drums for a set with Paul
Rodgers on vocals, and
Slash on guitar, at Woodstock 1994. Amongst other
things, they
played a few Bad Company songs.
o The current activities of
Jason Bonham are not well-documented,
however it has been reported that he
has a new band Metropolis,
basically Bonham with a different singer.
o
Jason apparently lost favour with Page when he had his drum kit
made with
the Swan Song logo on it. On tour with Bonham the band
always used to make a
big thing of covering "Black Dog", which
probably did not endear
him to Page either. Rumoured alcohol
problems and the tackiness of involving
him in the Page & Plant
reunion have seen him continue his musical career
in relative
obscurity in recent
years.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
o A report in MTV's "Headbanger's Ball" in 1994 reported that
Jimmy,
Robert, Charlie Jones, and Michael Lee had been working on
around
twelve new songs since the beginning of March. The report
also
stated that there was enough material for an album.
o The May 1994
issue of _Q_ magazine in its news section featured a
small piece about the
ongoing collaboration and a picture of Page,
dressed rather badly in tie-dyed
shirt, black jacket, hideous
scarf and denim jeans, and Plant wearing a black
tracksuit,
outside a studio in King's Cross in a strong breeze.
The
following text also appeared.
"It's Pagey, it's Planty and it's
last month's rumour of an
MTV acoustic rendition entitled Unledded taking a
long stride
towards credibility. They were snapped in a windy mews
outside
a King's Cross rehearsal studio and, while MTV
spokespersons remain in
"schtum" mode, the smart money is on
them recording in June in New
York. ... Incidentally, Page
and Plant have also been in litigious tandem to
prevent a
Schooly D track, Signifying Rapper, being used in TV
screenings
of the Harvey Keitel movie The Bad Lieutenant
because of its "striking
similiarity" to their own Kashmir.
Certain ancient bluesmen might regard
this news with a degree
of wry scepticism."
o The Zeppelin fanzine
"The Only One" was amongst many sources that
reported a scheduled
Plant performance at the annual Alexis Korner
Tribute Concert Benefit For
Cancer Research on April 17.
o A radio interview with Francis Dunnery in May
1994, the guitarist
for Robert Plant on his "Fate Of Nations" tour,
added further fuel
to the rapidly spreading rumours. Dunnery claimed that
Page and
Plant really began to think about doing something while they
were
in Boston for a Plant show in 1993. Dunnery even referred to
the
project as being called "Unledded". However, he would not
confirm
or deny their involvement in the Gibson GUitars 100th
Anniversary
bash, but did point out that they had played together at
the
Alexis Korner benefit gig. Dunnery, who is apparently a good
friend of
Plant, repeatedly referred to him as `Planty' throughout
the interview.
o
Part of the impetus for "Unledded" may have come from plans
that
Plant had for making a travel documentary where he visited Wales
and
Morocco.
o A new version of "When The Levee Breaks" was recorded
for the
"Unledded" special in Wales. This was the first time the
song had
been peformed live by any of the ex-Zeppelin members since
the
early shows on their 1975 tour. Even then it only joined the
set
briefly, due mainly to the technical problems inherent in
lowering
Bonham and his kit into a specially prepared pit onstage.
o The
setlist for thw Page and Plant reunion at the Buxton Opera
House for the
Alexis Korner Benefit Show was as follows. "Baby
Please Don't Go",
"I Can't Quit You Baby"," I've Been Down So
Long",
"That's Why I Love You", "Train Kept A-Rollin'".
o WBCN
in Boston ran a competition offering free tickets and a trip
to the taping of
"Unledded" for their listeners.
o The location "Unledded"
was filmed at, was a venue of only 200 -
250 seats capacity, 50 of whom were
the lucky winners of a contest
run by MTV. Another 100 were picked at random
from a list put
together by Jimmy and Robert's management of known, and
various
influential fans.
o The arrangements for transporting the 200
lucky punters to the
Unledded tapings would not seem out of place in a tacky
spy movie.
The ticket holders were issued with instructions to turn up at
a
certain place in London, from where they would be transported to
the
secret location by bus.
o MTV widely publicised "Unledded" before
it appeared. One of the
commericals in use featured a cab driver rabbiting on
about the
"reunification of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page" before he
starts
to sing "Black Dog" and "Stairway To Heaven",
badly. The taxi's
passenger in the rear seat looked uncannily like Bonzo in
the late
ear of the band. Another commercial had someone pulling
lottery
balls out of a machine with the names of people that had
upcoming
performances on MTV, two of whom were Page and Plant.
o One
American paper greeted the imminent Page and Plant reunion
with the comment
"Can lightning strike four or five times in the
same place?"
o
The "Unledded" show was first broadcast on MTV on October 12,
1994,
and was preceeded by a Page and Plant press conference at
the Beacon Theatre,
in New York City, on October 11.
o Before "Unledded" was broadcast,
Jimmy was spotted walking down
Charlotte Street in London, an area abounding
in video production
facilities, with a minder, most likely working on the
project in
a nearby studio.
o Two of the locations used for
"Unledded" were Corris Slate
Quarries, near Bron-Y-Aur, in Wales,
on August 15, 1994, and
the London Television Centre. The audience at Corris
Slate
Quarries apparently comprised two people and a few sheep.
This
location was on land owned by Plant.
o It has been reported that Page
and Plant will headline the 1995
Knebworth festival in Hertfordshire,
England.
o The meaning of the term "No Quarter" in relation to the
album, is
most likely not a shot at John Paul Jones using the title of
his
signature song. The meaning is probably close to that of the
term when
used in a military sense, that the attacker will not
spare any of the enemy,
even if they surrender. This phrase was
used by officer prior to 1700, to
both psych up the troop and to
hopefully frighten the enemy into an easy
rout, just before the
rival armies engaged, thereby making their intentions
known to
the opposing side. Thus, in the Page and Plant sense it could
mean that no effort has been spared, no compromises made, nothing
left to
chance in the hope of fully realising the potential of the
project.
o The
phenomenal Michael Lee, who before "No Quarter" was a member
of
Robert Plant's band also worked with the English band Little
Angels
beforehand, featuring on their cd "Don't Prey For Me", a
cd which
features a note of thanks to Plant in the liner notes.
Lee is listed as being
responsible for drums, percussion and ghost
vibroslap. The cd was released in
1989.
o The meaning of "Yallah", the title of which was changed to
"The
Truth Explodes" on the "No Quarter" video is from
arabic. The
root of it is "ya-allah", a rough translation of which
is "Oh God"
although not in the commonly used way it is in English,
to
express one's surprise or amazement. In Arabic the meaning can
vary
from "Let's go!" to "Get a hike!" depending on the
context.
Interestingly, "Yahweh" is Hebrew for
"God".
o Although Atlantic claimed Page and Plant were present at
the New
York world premiere screening of "Unledded" but did not
think it
was worth making their presence known, a comment by Page at
the
Paris Press Conference seemed to indicate that the Paris screening
of
"Unledded" was the first time thay had seen it since the
actual
taping, which makes Atlantic's claim they were present in New
York
sound rather suspicious.
o "Unledded" generated MTV's
highest ratings for the "Unplugged"
series, with a rating of 2.4,
as opposed to the previous best, 2.3
set in 1992 by Eric Clapton.
o Najma
Akhtar, who sings with Plant on "The Battle Of Evermore" is
of
Indian nationality, and judging from her name, which is Muslim,
she is most
likely from northern India. She has also recorded a
solo album called
"Qareeb", which is available on Shanachie
Records, SH64009. While
the album was recorded in London, the
content is non-Western, with Najma
singing love songs called
ghazals in Urdu, backed by a mix of traditional
Indian instruments
and Western ones.
o The phrase "Wah Wah" is
an expression of pity and grief, usually
used after hearing some bad
news.
o The sparse arrangement of "Nobody's Fault But Mine" was not
a
new one, it returns the song, originally by Blind Willie Johnson,
to its
white country blues roots. Note that white country blues
as a label is not
related to the racial identity of the artist,
but is a reference to the
religious or spiritual theme of the
music.
o The "Unledded"
special was first broadcast on October 12, 1994,
the one hundred and
nineteenth anniversary of the birth of
Aleister Crowley. Rumour had it that
Jimmy had stipulated that
this would be the date of broadcast.
o During
"Yallah", or "The Truth Explodes" as it had been
re-titled,
while Jimmy is manipulating the echoplex unit, one of the
crowd
shots shows someone holding up a portable video camera in the
lower
left hand area of the screen.
o Rumour has it that the black dog shown
several times in "Unledded"
is the black dog that was present at
the sessions for the fourth
album and had the song named after it. However,
this is fairly
unlikely as that would make it a very old dog. Another rumour
was
that it was Plant's dog Strider, although this is not plausible as
it
is the wrong breed.
o Several times during the performance, such as in
"Gallows Pole",
Plant is seen to be staring down in front of him.
The likelihood
of him using a monitor is enhanced by his previous
problems
remembering all sorts of lyrics, such as at the Atlantic
40th
Anniversary show and at Live Aid.
o On the topic of tuning and
tonality, the original version of "No
Quarter" was Aeolian/Dorian
while the new version introduces some
Locrain elements. The locrian mode is
easily the most dissonant
of modes, and given Page's frequent use of
dissonance in the past
and its place in Middle-Eastern music it seems
apprpriate. The
clash in the new version of "No Quarter" is between
Plant's vocals
which represent the original tonality, and between the chords
that
Page plays, two of them, before he switches back to a standard
key.
o International Creative Management was the booking agency
handling
the Page & Plant tour.
o The "No Quarter" album
cover features a picture of Page and Plant
which looks very much like it was
taken at the Slate Quarry in
Wales where "Nobody's Fault But Mine"
and "When The Levee Breaks"
were recorded for "Unledded".
The carved wooden door that has
been used extensively, such as on the back
of the album and on the
"Gallows Pole" single, is most likely
African in origin. The
hands that are shown in the picture in the middle of
the cd
booklet are those of an African woman, with the
increasing
complexity of the spirals on her fingers as they move closer to
her hands signifying the development of femininity. The
spirals'
increasing detail means they are moving closer to the
wrist
chakra.
o Interestingly, the font used in the "No Quarter"
liner notes is
based on the handwriting of Leonardo da Vinci, such as on
his
noted sketches of a man spreadeagled and drawn with
unnerring
anatomical accuracy. The same font is used in the liner
notes
for Van Halen's "Balance".
o The release of "No
Quarter" coincides with the twenty third
anniversary of the release of
the untitled fourth album on the
eighth of November 1971.
o The liner
notes for "No Quarter" included the dedication,
"Credit must
be given to Bron-Y-Aur, a small derelict cottage
in South Snowdonia for
painting a somewhat forgotten picture
of true completeness which acted as an
incentive to some of
the musical statements. August 1994"
Which is
somewhat reminiscent of the dedication on "Led
Zeppelin
III",
"Credit must be given to Bron-Y-Aur, a small
derelict cottage
in South Snowdonia for painting a somewhat forgotten
picture
of true completeness which acted as an incentive to some of
these
musical statements - August 1970"
o The end of "Kashmir" where
Plant starts wailing "Feel, feel, feel"
is a daring
improvisation.
o The versions of "Wonderful One" on the video and
the album are
clearly different, the differences ranging from Plant singing
them
differently to Page's guitar sounding different.
o A rumour
circulating before the Page & Plant tour kicked off was
that several
dates were uncertain due to the availability of some
venues due to problems
with the American hockey season. This of
course, proved to be unfounded.
o
Some translations of what is being sung during "Wah Wah".
In
between "wah wah"'s the "leh he heBabi" means "no
baby" and the
"lah tin Sani" means "don't forget
me". He also sings other words
such as "the thought of your
hands" or eyes. The interesting
thing about "Wah Wah" is
although the title means "I'm sad", that
isn't necessarily what the
song is about.
o The arabic script at the end of the video has been
translated as,
"The things we played or the songs they stay the same
way".
o Despite their togetherness during the "Unledded"
promotional tour,
_NME_ spotted Page and Plant at one of The Black Crowes
Albert
Hall gigs, in two separate adjoining boxes.
o The footage for the
song "No Quarter" was shot in Dolgoth, Wales,
across the road from
Plant's farm. The forest is so dense that it
managed to conceal the fact that
it was raining quite heavily at
the time.
o While in Morocco Jimmy and
Robert were travelling up a mountain by
bus when Plant noticed a kid walking
along with a Led Zeppelin
shirt, in literally, the middle of nowhere. Plant
promptly jumped
off the bus to say hi.
o According to
"Unplugged" producer Alex Coletti, Page and Plant and
the band
recorded a version of "Hot Dog" while they were in Wales.
o Plant
personally selected Aubrey Powell to work on the project,
based on their
previous work together.
o According to Page, they tried out "Bron-Y-Aur
Stomp" with the idea
of using it, but it just didn't seem to
work.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This section is not intended to try and cover the entire area of
Aleister
Crowley and all his work. It is merely intended to give a
brief overview and
point those interested to further readings. The
subject of Crowley seems to
recur with a rather predictable sort of
regularity thanks to Page's interest
in him and his work. There are
many myths and rumours told about Crowley,
most of which are most
likely false, as this is a very controversial man,
even now, nearly
half a century after his death.
o Aleister Crowley was born in 1875 and died in 1947.
o A few general
points.
- Crowley was not a satanist, his obsession with the occult
does
not necessarily make him a devil worhsipper, he wasn't.
- He did use
drugs, and rather a lot of them. A common claim is
that he died hoplessly
addicted to heroin. Half true. In the
early part of the century the
prescribed medicine for chronic
asthma, which Crowley had, was, believe it or
not, heroin. He
went on to experiment with it, observing its effects on his
mind, and when he died he was still using it. He used a lot
of other dugs
too, notably expounded upon on in his essay
"The Psychology Of
Hashish".
- Crowley was interested in tantric sex, one of his
primary
interests actually.
- Crowley had a notorious sense of humour, and
revelled in the
public disdain for him, deliberately cultivaing it to
some
extent. His use of the "Beast 666" tag is one example of
this.
- Some of Crowley's other interests include mountaineering
and
poetry.
o Some references for further reading on Crowley and his
work.
- Crowley, Aleister,
_The_Confessions_Of_Aleister_Crowley,_An_
_Autohagiography_.
Crowley's
autobiography, an autohagiography is the biography
of a saint, which contains
lots of interesting details, but,
ends a long time before his death and is
thus somewhat
incomplete.
- Crowley, Aleister,
_Magick_In_Theory_And_Practice_.
- Crowley, Aleister, _Equinox_, Volumes I
& II.
- Crowley, Aleister, _The_Diary_Of_A_Drug_Fiend_, 1922.
-
Crowley, Aleister, _Songs_Of_The_Spirit_, 1898.
- Crowley, Aleister,
_The_Book_Of_Thoth_.
Crowley's interpretation of Eqyptian tarot.
- Camell,
Charles Richard, _Aleister_Crowley,_The_Man,_The_Mage,
_The_Poet_.
-
Crowley, Aleister. _The_Complete_Astrological_Writings_, Gerald
Duckworth
& Co. Ltd., London, 1974.
This contains Crowley's "Treatise on
Astrology: Liber 536",
and two hard to find essays,
"Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia",
and, "How Horoscopes Are
Faked".
- Maugham, W. Somserset, _The_Magician_, 1908.
This is based
pretty much around the life of Crowley, and
gives some idea of his obsession
with the occult and his
general character.
- Suster, Gerald,
_The_Legacy_Of_The_Beast:_The_Life,_Work_
And_
_Influence_Of_Aleister_Crowley_, W.H. Allen 7 Co., London, 1988.
This
is a good introduction to Crowley and his work, and is
reasonably objective,
and covers most of the major topics he
was interested in and worked on. A few
excerpts are included
in this section.
o A small warning though, Crowley's
writings are not an easy read
for novices, or those with just a casual
interest in the man. A
lot of his material was written specifically for
initiates into
the Hermetic Order Of The Golden Gawn, and as such are not
meant
to be understood by outsiders. For those with little or no prior
knowledge of the man the best place to start is probably one of
the
numerous biographies or books about him and his work.
o Some of the stigma
surrounding backmasking in popular music may
in fact come from the whole
aura of occultist sin that seems to
surround Crowley in the eyes of many.
The predilection to listen
to one's record collection backwards seems most
prevalent amongst
christians and may stem from something Crowley wrote, that
if a
man wants to practice magick he has to "train himself to think
backwards by external means, as set forth here following,
a) let him
learn to write backwards
b) let him learn to walk backwards
c) let him
constantly watch, if convenient, films and listen
to records
reversed..."
This quote comes from page 417 of Crowley's "Magick In
Theory And
Practice".
o A cd exists called "The Great Beast
Speaks" which apparently
features speeches by Aleister Crowley.
o
There is a Zeppelin bootleg entitled "From Boleskine To The
Alamo".
o An example of the sort of misinformation surrounding
Crowley is
the persistent claim that in the crypt of Boleskine House
a
child was sacrificed. Other juicy rumours have it that
orgies,
sacrifices, drug taking and other nefarious actitivites all
took
place regularly at Boleskine.
o Jimmy Page is known to have sought
out rare Crowley manuscripts
and obtained them for his collection. He has
been quoted as once
saying that he should have gone to university and done a
degree in
theology because he's studied it so much.
o The quote on the
runoff matrix of original pressingsof "Led
Zeppelin III" is
frequently misinterpreted and misquoted. Here is
an extract from the book by
Suster listed in this section which
provides some further
details.
"The central doctrines of 'The Book Of The Law' can be
stated
simply. First and foremost is the commandment: 'Do what thou
wilt
shall be the whole of the Law' - also reiterated as
'thou hast no right but
to do thy will'. This does _not_
mean 'Do what you want'. It means that
within every man and
every woman there is a True Will- 'The Book Of The Law'
states that 'Every man and every woman is a star' and that
the the only
serious business of life is to discover our True
Will and to do it. As the
Ancient Greeks put it: Know
thyself; then Be Thyself. 'The word of sin is
restriction'
means that everything which inhibits the True Will is
evil.
'Love is the law, Love under will' asserts that the
nature of the
Law is Love but that this love must be directed
by the True Will. As Crowley
states in his Old Comment:
'Love under will - no casual pagan love; nor love
under fear,
as the Christians do. But love magically directed, and used
as
a spiritual formula.' p. 126.
o A further extract from Suster is enlightening
and gives an insight
into what Crowley thought he was doing and how he viewed
people
that judged his work. The first paragraph is by Suster, the
rest
by Crowley.
"Small wonder that Crowley, hailed in 'The Book Of
The Law'
as Ankh-f-n-khonsu, priest of the Princes, finally wrote
'The
Comment' which is both a challenge to those who have
sufficient courage, and
a prohibition upon long, boring
commentaries on commentaries (the fate of
most sacred texts)
- and on squabbles, quibbles, and persecution among
those
called Thelemites, whose desire is to do their Wills in the
Aeon
into which this planet has entered during its spin
through the agony of
evolving human consciousness.
THE COMMENT
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
The study of this Book is
forbidden. It is wise to
destroy this copy after the first
reading.
Whosoever disregards this does so at his own risk and
peril.
These are most dire.
Those who discuss the contents of this
Book are to be
shunned by all, as centres of pestilence.
All questions of
the Law are to be decided only by appeal
to my writings, each for
himself.
There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.
Love is the law, love
under will.
The priest of Princes.
Ankh-f-n-khonsu." p. 133-134.
o
An interesting anecdote has it that Crowley, whose actitivies
during World
War II are the subject of much speculation, gave the
English war department
the "V" for victory gesture, as it is the
occult counter to the
Swastika.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Locating Zeppelin interviews, or more recent ones with Page,
Plant and
Jones can be a time consuimg business. Here then is a list
of some of the
many interviews they have done over the years.
o _Circus_, in 1975 had an interview with Jimmy done by Mick
Houghton.
o _Rolling_Stone_, also in 1975, featured one of the best known
of
the Zeppelin interviews, with Cameron Crowe interviewing Page
and
Plant.
o _Guitar_World_, 1990, interview with Page.
o _Guitarist_, the French version features and interview with Jimmy
in the
November 1994 issue, as well as a cover photo. Robert is
also
interviewed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
On Tuesday, December 7, 1993, Michael Ayoob posted the results
to a poll
he had conducted coinciding with the thirteenth anniversary
of the breakup
of the band. For his poll, Michael posed the question
"What would have
happened to the band had Bonham not died?" The
results are as follows,
and illustrate an interesting variety of
scenarios.
1) New Heavy Album 22% Of The Vote
2) Together, But Fairly Inactive
18%
3) Quit Anyway 16%
4) Popularity Loss 15%
5) Page Overdoses
13%
6) Softer Sound 9%
7) Plant Quits 4%
8) None Of The Above 3%
Interestingly, option five is what Richard Cole thought had
happened when
he had heard one of the band had died, based on his
opinion of the amount of
drugs Page was doing and his fragile
health.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This list of rather amusing anagrams was posted to the list some
time ago
by Maurice Maes with additions by others.
Black Mountain Side - "I ask Blunt, demoniac!" (Plant to Page on
phone)
Communication Breakdown - Demoniac Bowman Rock Unit (i.e. Led
Zeppelin)
- Demoniac Wombat Rock in U.N.
What Is and What Should Never
Be - When he had but satan's evil
word.
The Lemon Song - The omen's
long.
Bring It On Home - Hir'n' big root men
- Bong time,
Rhino
Immigrant Song - I'm in Grant's mog
Since I've Been Loving You -
Evil being evinces on you.
- Vince, you evil nose being!
Gallows Pole -
Allow Gospel (?)
Tangerine - Great Nine (Zep destined to end after nine great
albums)
Black Dog - Black God
Rock And Roll - An'l rock lord
Stairway
To Heaven - Yow! Satan via Ether
Misty Mountain Hop - Inapt ominous
myth
Four Sticks - Rock fits us - Rock sift us - For it sucks
The Song
Remains The Same - I'm here: Satan's theme song
The Rain Song - Another sign
- Gather on sin - Hit son, Anger!
D'yer Mak'er - Dyke Ream'r
The Ocean -
Neat echo - At once: He. (about the phone that rings in
this song)
The
Rover - Oh, revert!
Trampled Under Foot - Led: demon art up front
Kashmir
- His Mark (Whose do you think?)
Down By The Seaside - Bye, death's side won
- Death by wine doses
Achilles Last Stand - As Satanchild Tells
- Satan's
child: all set!
- Stella, Satan's child
Nobody's Fault But Mine - Built
out by Demon's Fan
- O! fun stubby demon tail!
Tea For One - Near To
Foe
In The Evening - He in gin event - The nine given (the nine
albums)
South Bound Saurez - As due, Bonzo hurt us
Fool In The Rain -
Hail To Inferno
Carouselambra - A lamb or a curse
I'm Gonna Crawl - A
malign crown.
Ozone Baby - A bye, Bonzo!
Darlene - Led near - real end.
(They were at that time)
Bonzo's Montreux - Sex! Not rum, bonzo!
Custard
Pie - Dustie crap
Royal Orleans - Eor (donkey noise) or anally
Travelling
Riverside Blues - Drugs aren't evil, I.V. beer still
- evil drug blisters
aren't evil
In My Time Of Dying & Bonzo's Montreux - Zoso demon! Fit rox
in my
bum, entity,
ne!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The debate over whether "Stairway To Heaven" contains any
back
masked messages from the Devil is rather a heated one. In order
to
put this debate into perspective here are the full backwards lyrics
to
"Stairway To Heaven", as transcribed by listmember Timothy
Lindsey, and posted to the list in December, 1993.
"Stairway to Heaven" - Backwards Version
Oh ask me of the wars of Beelzebub
Oh, I fear it, horrible
demon
Ah, shall I go along all right?
I'll make it mine, I'll reach
ya
Oh demon, hey do ya feel me?
Oh an eternity with the demon
Ah, it's
not over when you die
Ah, the Ultimate Opponent!
Ah, this time there is no
winnin'
My holy wand will fail me
Ah, Oh, they won't get me cause I live in church now
Hey look at that
football player he attack a lady
When I hear the serpent holler
And as the
shaky wall fall falls down ain't much to help
destroy
Oh, don't you give me that
Oh, here's to my sweet Satan
There was a little child who wore a great big
laugh with
glorious Satan
Did you hear me, Lord? I first give to
Satan
And, in a little school I shout, in the middle of a show,
"First Power is Satan!"
Wo wo wo
There was cat burglar, bit off my leg
I lay in true struggle, torn
up
Another year I dont feel the same
The heater broke down in flame
A
long, long crawl lead me to a better place to rest
Ah, I hear it too,
"There is no escape, too"
But even God fears the ultimate
plan
He hears to soon the the calling to lie down, go down to sleep
The
Cosmic TV's gone bad, I lose the Light of any time to leave
I
had
Gonna do, I'm Going to do
Favor, Oh Power of all on top mountain hidden under a moment
Look up at
me, at me, and thee
After my only wish replenished is all used up, I saw it
happening
Give me an answer, all I see that we moved
Dont thank me,
Easter Woman, who although followed me
What's that? I see you - dying
There was an eager picnic towards another demon-loft
Don't you hear me
asking?