Led Zeppelin: Classic Or Dud?

i love them so much. but i'm a total fanboy of them, i'm not objective about them. also, part of it was seeing them live and how amazing it was for me at a certain point in my life. al johnson is one of a kind.

but you might like them, i'm kind of suprised you haven't heard them actually.

led zeppelin have, like, 2 or 3 songs on their studio albums that are more than ten minutes long. out of, like, 60+ songs. most are 3/4/5/6 minutes in length. their average song time is probably 4.5 or 5 minutes long. plenty of time for noodles. but they were actually fairly economical when it came to song-writing. they didn't overstay their welcome in most cases. live they could be bloated, but that's a different story.

i will check them out, matt. i like fanboy declarations. they make me curious.

It should be noted that the riff during "For Your Life" during the "Do it when you wanna!" section has always been amazing.

US Maple were very fun live when I saw them (granted that was like 10 years ago)

here's a trailer for a new US maple doc that this dude has been working on...some of it looks a little cheesy but still it's got some cool footage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX4Dm7c-8aU&feature=related

It should be noted that the riff during "For Your Life" during the "Do it when you wanna!" section has always been amazing.

I always liked the way Masters of Reality ripped off the riff during the "fake it with all your might" part for their "Kill The King". And 5ive Style rips off part of the main riff for the 1st song on their 1st album.

What about that boot with LZ and Fairport Convention laying it down at the Whiskey? that'd be dope to hear…

-- Veronica Moser

oh man, YSI??

"ONE NIGHT IN L.A. - The Legendary Jam
Between Fairport and Zeppelin, September 4, 1970"
By Hugh Jones

I am writing this on September 4, 1996-twenty six years to the day after Led Zeppelin and Fairport Convention both played concerts that are still regarded as some of the most exciting and enduring performances of their career. I've been listening to the music recorded on this day in 1970 all week, and there's no doubt that its endurance and reputation is deserved. Here are two innovative, young English bands caught at respective peaks, both early in their careers, and both caught up in the heady atmosphere of rock stars on tour in the vast, welcoming wilds of the United States.

For Led Zeppelin, it was on their sixth tour of North America in less than two years, and they faced a crowd of some 20,000 people at the Los Angeles Forum. In another part of the city, Fairport played the first evening of a three-night stand at Doug Weston's Troubadour club, to a far more intimate gathering of only a few hundred. It was only their second trip to America, but a return engagement in a club that had seen the triumphant culmination of their first tour earlier that year.

Both performances were captured for posterity on audio tape. At the Forum, not one but two bootleggers were in action, unbeknownst to the band or Peter Grant. Both were using high quality reel-to-reel tape decks-one stereo and the other mono. Both recordings have been circulated and released as bootleg albums and CDs over the years, and the better of the two-the stereo one-made rock and roll history as one of the first and most successful bootleg albums, Live On Blueberry Hill. It is still available today, now in a form vastly upgraded from the original, and it surely stands as one of the best selling and most widely known bootlegs in rock.

Over at the Troubadour, Fairport's performances were being captured on professional 8-track recording equipment by engineer John Wood, under the auspices of the band's producer and mentor Joe Boyd. The resulting recordings were eventually edited down to become the 1976 album Live At The L.A. Troubadour, released only in England, and then revamped for release in the USA in 1986 to create a second album-with some variations in material-called House Full.

Blueberry Hill and House Full stand right up among the very best recordings by both of these bands. What's ironic is that a unique combination of these musicians also occurred on the night of September 4, 1970, and this too was captured on tape by John Wood and Joe Boyd. The Night That Zeppelin Jammed With Fairport has been talked about for years, and the recording made-which has never seen the light of day, bootleg or otherwise-more or less constitutes the Holy Grail to collectors of both bands. While the tape supposedly resides deep in a vault and we may never get to hear it, our imaginations can be fueled with help from the various anecdotes related by eyewitnesses and participants in the event.

Following their triumphant two and a half hour show at the Forum, all four members of Led Zeppelin and Peter Grant showed up at the Troubadour in time to catch Fairport's second set. Though Joe Boyd does not recall Bonham being present, Fairport drummer Dave Mattacks has described Bonzo's trashing of his drum set at the Troubadour jam on more than one occasion, so we can assume that perhaps Boyd was so distracted by Peter Grant that he didn't realize Bonham was playing!

The musicians changed around a bit from song to song, Richard Thompson playing a Les Paul and Page using Simon Nicol's hollow body electric Gibson L5, strung with heavy gauge strings that caused him some consternation and prompted him to remark afterwards, ". . . it was like trying to play railway lines!" (Jimmy has always been known to use 'super slinky' light gauge strings).

Dave Mattacks not only got to hear how his drum kit sounded from the crowd, he had the dubious distinction of having to repair it and replace the heads after Bonzo gave it a sound thrashing! Simon Nicol recalls that "Mattack's bass drum had been totally solid the whole night, but I saw it jump forward three or four inches on Bonzo's first strike!"

Indulging in some tech-talk about drum tuning, Mattacks says, "When John played my drums there was very little distinction between my three toms. And although he was playing very hard, which does make a difference, my drums were (tuned) way too low. The drums just sounded soggy. I remember getting off stage, hearing him play and thinking, 'Oh, they don't sound very good.' He was beating the shit out of them; he played great but the drums didn't sound too hot. I got back up and it was my lovely Super Classics-heads all dented!"

With various combinations of musicians including Plant on vocals and Jones on bass, the heavy metal folk rock combo played a handful of tunes, including the jig that challenged Page and some blues. Common ground was found with then-popular rock chestnuts like "Hey Joe" and "Morning Dew," Elvis Presley's "Mystery Train" and "That's Alright Mama" and Fairport's own rendition of the traditional folk tune "Banks Of The Sweet Primroses."

And the mobile recording equipment was rolling the whole time, by some accounts capturing as much as three hours of music!

As legend has it, the party continued on even after the Fairport/Zeppelin jam. Nearby after hours bar Barney's Beanery was the site of a drinking contest involving Fairport's Dave Pegg, Bonham and Janis Joplin, who no doubt was found hanging out at Barneys.

misty mountain hop is way 2 fonkay

Reunion concert goodness:

http://walhallahereicome.blogspot.com/

OK THIS WOMAN I WORK WITH'S DAD IS THE HEAD OF MUSIK AT BESTBUY AND SHE WENT TO THE SHOW. SAT IN FRONT OF PAUL MCCARTNEY, IN THE SAME ROW AS DAVE GROHL.

HAD "HIGH TEA" AND THEN ATTENDED THE SHOW WITH FUCKING RICHARD COLE, WHO APPARENTLY IS A FRIEND OF HER STEPMOM'S

i'm a "little" jealous

"he was saying he sometimes wished ian paice from deep purple was in sabbath"

pretty much every drummer after Ward for Ozzy were, like, Paice's little bitch boys…

Ha -- so I'm searching ILM for a LZ thread (since I'm trying, unsuccessfully, to D/L some Zep via nefarious means), and after clicking over here I run headlong into M@tt H's spot-on love of US MAPLE just minutes after I finished writing about a CD featuring ex-Maples! (And only a month after the CD was released, too!)

Back on topic -- are they going to re-remaster the catalog, or are the latest versions of the albums otay? I ask because I currently own NOTHING by them -- dudes fell victim to my high-school anti-classic-rock phase 15+ years ago (sigh), and even after I thawed out (still thawing, BTW), never bothered to pay $$$ for any of their stuff, since up until recently I lived with folks that got the Led out all over the place.

I'll go ahead and say 'dud' again. Dud.

Also, dudleys should go soak in a pickle jar.

Not sure about a remastered catalog, but considering the louder sound of the Motherload set, I kind of hope they don't. My advice with Zep is to buy used vinyl and then download. Those packages are nice and the vinyl sounds great, plus since they solid a kajillion albums it's easy to find.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqrbqkyTu3k&feature=PlayList&p=7E0D857131F39E25&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=1

Jimmy's gnarly solo

John's ridiculous drumming

Posted via the official FB page six hours ago. Any guesses?

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc6/216964_379888095416968_776403993_n.jpg

hmmm

"Surprise! We recorded this in 1972 and have been holding for just the right time."

Lock thread.

Rumor has it they're releasing the 2007 reunion show.

BORING

I'm finally reading through that Uncut (or whatever) special that came out a couple of months back and has been floating around my bedroom ever since. Must get back to listening to some of the lps after reading overviews of them in there. I don't think I got around to getting the last couple and that makes at least Presence sound like it should be interesting.

Do love the first US tour live sets the most though I think.

Apart from 'Achilles Last Stand' and 'Nobody's Fault But Mine', Presence does very little for me. I've given that record so many chances over the years...

Kinda like "Hots On For Nowhere". "Tea for One" is good, but I liked it better the first time when they called it "Since I've Been Loving You"

(at least Zep plagiarized themselves for once instead of somebody else)

They really should have taken a rest after Physical Graffiti, but I'm guessing that this wasn't an option due to the band being such a massive cash cow at the time. It was clear that Plant's heart wasn't really in Presence (and of course it wouldn't have been at that time, with him being wheelchair-bound and wanting to recuperate everything), and of course In Through The Out Door suffered from Jimmy Page being smacked up... maybe if they'd been forced to take things easy after Physical Graffiti, we may have had a Led Zeppelin for several more years.

Apart from 'Achilles Last Stand' and 'Nobody's Fault But Mine'

Ha, that's like half the album.

I never listen to "Presence," but I've got no problem with "In Through the Out Door."

Indeed, but looking over the Zeppelin albums prior to Presence there's very little I would 'throw away' (Maybe 'D'Yer Maker' from Houses Of The Holy which I've never liked and always found a bit corny), and then all of a sudden here's a Zeppelin album which I could easily do without half of; it's quite a drop in form!

It would be weird if they had made a post-Bonham album with a straighter drummer a la the Who post-Moon, although In Through the Out Door is almost what I'd imagine a Bonham-free Zep record to sound like anyway, at least in terms of the songs.

And yet his playing on the album is killer ...

Was Keney Jones a straight drummer? I kind of thought he had some of Moon's idiosyncracy as a drummer.

some of the wildness in playing during the Small Faces days at least.

He was pretty tamed (sober?) by the time he was in the Who.

I've always thought of Jones as more of a Bonham-type player myself. particularly on stuff like Afterglow.

but yeah he got tamer as he got older.

Jones stopped drinking on the Who's '82 tour, leaving Entwistle as the lone drinker in the band (Townshend had dried out, and Daltrey never partied on tour). His playing at that point, unfortunately, was free of much of what made him so distinctive in the Faces.

I will be all over this

That's awesome, but I sort of really don't want to see that in theater next to Zep fans.

Amusing that this one-off performance from the band in post-middle age, decades after its dissolution and minus its iconic, irreplaceable drummer, will surely be better than "The Song Remains the Same."

I'll pass.

Profound disappointment when word started to leak out that it was this reunion gig and not some awesome set from the 70s (deluxe editions with injection-molded abs mudshark)

(Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, not a shark with a rippling six pack)

Amusing that this one-off performance from the band in post-middle age, decades after its dissolution and minus its iconic, irreplaceable drummer, will surely be better than "The Song Remains the Same."

U MAD. Would muuuuuch rather see a theatrical re-release of TSRTS.

So, I'm going with a friend to see Celebration Day in the theater tomorrow night. I'm intrigued enough that I'd like to see it with a better soundsystem than I have at home. The bootlegs sounded pretty good, after all.

Nobody else is going on the one night it'll be in theaters? I'm a little surprised.

I'm probably going to go - I've got a ton of work that I really ought to devote my evening to, but it's only one night and it's Zep. Just why did they pick tonight?!

(ps the Stones are doing the same thing tomorrow, which I really can't do either. Grrr.)

It does seem like a random date. I get that it's not a weekend night, but still it's odd.

considered doing this for my birthday but had better options

happy birthday Shakey Mo!

thx