Can we talk about why Presence by Led Zeppelin is the best album ever made when you're actually listening to it, but it's easy to forget about when you aren't listening to it?

Mind you, ALS alone makes me feel like I'm listening to the greatest music ever recorded when it's playing.

i thought the same thing.

And there is no need for "Nobody's Fault But Mine" to have TWO guitar solos.

So I tried to listen to Houses Of The Holy and Physical Graffiti again, and both left me cold. Yeah, there's some great songs on them, but they aren't aging so well. IV is a different story. Pretty perfect, that one.

OK, you guys convinced me to listen to this and hear it a little differently. I could sort of see the math rock thing and this helped me to notice the interesting ways that all the repeated riffs interlock. Like some kind of weird math rock/James Brown hybrid or something. And, yeah, there's a lot happening in all the layered guitar sounds if you listen for it. Are those wild crashing-out-of-tune drops (e.g. in "For Your Life") just done purely with whammy bar? Particularly "Tea for One" has a staggering amount of detail in all the different guitar tones that are layered and drop in and out - it's the "guitar orchestration" thing that really blows me away about Page. And the soloing on that track is pretty great too. I still don't think it's their best album but there is a lot there.

the whole rekkid is great…

TBH I picked on "Hots On for Nowhere" upthread just because it was the one track I couldn't remember by looking at the track list. It's actually a good track, I realized when listening.

I'm not sure I understood anything in that discussion of liking Zeppelin "from birth," but the part that struck me as especially interesting, counterintuitive, and inexplicable, was the notion that Presence is appealing to those coming at Zeppelin from a punk background. Really? To me this is Zep at their most proggy and dinosaurian - I mean, there are, what, two ten-minute songs on this thing? Oof.

Anyone else really wish they'd built a song out of that really great tense intro to "Tea For One?" I always get all excited before I realize that it's just going to lead into yet another plodding blooze thing where Page fiddles around and Plant moans some pointless crap...

The highlight for me has to be "Royal Orleans," a song I never even knew by name until this more attentive, ILM-geared listen...

There's an acoustic guitar in Candy Store Rock, but it barely registers without headphones.

I think this might nail it (with the exception of ALS of course). But maybe I'll change my mind if I listen more.

Yeah, people I know who come to LZ from punk or indie usually take to II or stuff like "Immigrant Song" in my experience. The only people I've known (and most are from this board) who really love Presence have been obsessive longtime fans.

No, it's not the "best" Zeppelin record but I'll stack "Royal Orleans" and "Hots On For Nowhere" against anything, pretty much.

"Presence conveyed the sense of a band up against bad odds, fighting back. The opening two tracks, "Achilles Last Stand" (about the car accident) and "For Your Life" (about hell and drugs and terror, and about how life inside the band may have been developing), featured the best solos Page would ever play -- abstract, desperate, raging. "Presence was pure anxiety and emotion," Page said later. "We didn't know if we'd ever be able to play in the same way again. It might have been a very dramatic change, if the worst had happened to Robert. Presence is our best in terms of uninterrupted emotion."

Over the years, Presence hasn't sold as well as most of the band's catalog. It's more or less the forgotten album, its feelings are too hard, too intense and probably too insular to stay close to or very long. In effect, Led Zeppelin accomplished something akin to Eric Clapton's achievement on Derek and the Dominos' Layla: They forged the spirit and purpose of blues into a new form, without relying on blues scales and structures. Presence is clearly singular in Led Zeppelin's body of work, and it's likely the best album the band ever made.

"It was really like a cry of survival," Plant said. "There won't be another album like it, put it like that. It was a cry from the depths, the only thing that we could do."

---------

When I read that, I figured Gilmore was on crack and was just playing up the melodrama. Guess you had to be there to feel the intensity, because I don't remember any of the songs. I don't remember them being horrible, but just didn't leave an impression. But there are at least a couple people here who might agree with Gilmore to an extent.

I think with the exception of II, all the Zeppelin albums are inconsistent. I never understood what anyone saw in Physical Graffiti aside from "Kashmir" and "Houses of the Holy." So I'm open to hearing Presence again and entertaining the possibility that it's, like, their, um, fifth best. I'll pick up a used copy tomorrow.

"Achilles Last Stand" is absolutely incredible...my friends and i used to listen to that song for hours. "Tea For One," in my opinion, seems like a b-side to "Since I've Been Loving You," but a b-side that is just as enjoyable as the a-side.

Presence in its entirety would not be a good introductory album, but it is one of my top 5 Zep albums.

Think i'll give it a listen. It's been long enough.

If anyone here is old enough to actually remember this record when it came out in 1976 and can comment on the overall musical milieu it was born into, I'd love to hear about it.

i like their later period albums. prefer the vocals to plant in his supposed peak. he sounds like hes not trying so hard on presence. just relaxed. more like himself. and the riffs are still great. theres just an easier going charm about this era of led zep, you know theyre not trying so hard, have less to prove etc, but rather than = lazy, theres something appealing about them just doing what they do.

Surprised Bonham doesn't get more mention here. To me his drumming is on fire on this rek. That said, it's pretty much the case on everything. I love the guy to death.

When I did my Zep POX, I started from the premise of Presence + 3, then looked at the rest of the catalogue for songs strong enough to knock any of Presence's songs out. (My POX was 3 out of 10 Presence... before I managed to whittle it down, it was 5 out of 15 Presence.)

― truck-patch pixel farmer (my crop froze in the field) (Rock Hardy),

Took me a minute to decipher my own post there. But yeah, this is the absolute biznis, always will be to me.

My thoughts on Presence.

bringing this back up to the top for Sunday morning readers...

it's brilliant stuff, Marcello. Thank you for that. Still a huge fan of this, probably 3rd fave Zep record.. Bonham is so phenomenal on this, the whole thing does have that "room sound" that puts me in mind of what Albini strives for

also, as massive a Zep geek I am, did not know that bit about the Stones coming in for 'Black and Blue'!

seriously fantastic piece, Marcello

This isn't even LZ's best album but it's good enough for me.

Great post -- thanks! Very evocative -- I was instantly listening along in my head as you described sections.

As i said on twitter, an amazing piece of writing Marcello. kudos.

dude, marcello, A+. for real. and i hate everything and everybody! makes me want to work harder.

Presence is going on the turntable now.

Damn, that was a great piece.

that was great

(could do without the 'if you aren't feeling _____, you aren't really listening' tho)

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20668-presence-in-through-the-out-door-coda/

Anyone heard the new presence out takes "10 ribs and all?"

lol @ some corny Pitchfuxor giving Presence a 7.6 (and ranking ITTOD higher?!) -- it's better than 90% of the records on Best New Music

I guess 10 ribs will be available on Friday. Intrigued by the description of it as yacht rock and happy that's it's about 5 minutes long.

this album + headphones + weed could prevent (or at least postpone) a suicide

yes and the new pod song is great even if it's a pastiche

The opening chords sound like a sequence in the first track on the new Jim O'Rourke (who was just quoted praising Presence).

Anyone heard these remasters? Worth replacing my old LP copies (and 90s era CDs) for?

I have this semi-regular argument with my wife about how the 90s were the worst decade for mainstream rock, but listening to Presence again, so much of it sounds like a blueprint, it almost makes me want to reevaluate a lotta that bullshit: the obvious Stone Temple Pilots theft of the "For Your Life" riff, the double bass intensity on "Achilles Last Stand" that people think Metallica invented on "One," the "la la la" parts of "Hots On For No One" that invents Jane's Addiction, etc. I reckon any decade that could draw so much influence from this fucked up and amazing album can't be so bad.

I've mentioned before that "Achilles Last Stand" pretty much renders the Mars Volta's entire discography redundant.

the double bass intensity on "Achilles Last Stand"

That's a single bass drum. Bonham only played a double-bass setup once, on a demo of "Communication Breakdown" that was never released. Accounts vary, but supposedly either JPJ or Page felt that Bonham on a double-bass kit overwhelmed the rest of the band.

That's insane.

I guess, then, you could say "double bass-like intensity!"

My favorite moment on this record has always been the breakdown in "For Your Life" – the spectacularly overdubbed descending Page riff, Bonham's empty but relentlessly steady beat, Plant singing, "Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it when you wanna..." It's such a brilliant reminder of everything that made Zeppelin great.

That's insane.

I guess, then, you could say "double bass-like intensity!"

― Wimmels, Wednesday, 5 August 2015 15:26 (4 days ago) Permalink

Bonham had a notoriously fast right foot, however the kick hits on Achilles aren't really that rapid most of the time, it's sort of an aural illusion created by the interplay between the drums and JPJ's percussive bass part.

However "One" is an interesting touchstone to bring up, because the "DARKNESS/IMPRISONING ME" section definitely echoes the breakdown in Achilles.

Yeah, that's the part I was thinking of. It really didn't even strike me until recently.

Most insane drumming Bonham ever did: "Good Times Bad Times," especially during the "I sure do wish I was at home" part. Those bass drums you here are all his right foot!! I tried to play it myself, oh Lord how I tried.

Praising Bonham's drumming on tunes like "Good Times Bad Times" is kind of like that old SNL skit about Larry King's USA Today column where he spouts controversial observations like, "John McEnroe was a very good tennis player."

This is probably kind of a weedy thing to say, but it just occurred to me that Achilles Last Stand really is, like, their last stand. They just never go that hard again either for the rest of the record or on ITTOD.

Most insane drumming Bonham ever did: "Good Times Bad Times," especially during the "I sure do wish I was at home" part. Those bass drums you here are all his right foot!! I tried to play it myself, oh Lord how I tried.

― Mr. Snrub, Sunday, August 9, 2015 11:24 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It is great, but I think there is plenty of competition for that. The one that always gets me is the breakdown in In My Time of Dying.

Yeah, that's the part I was thinking of. It really didn't even strike me until recently.

― Wimmels, Sunday, August 9, 2015 9:34 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

On that part it's actually just heavy snare hits combined with bass, the kick is only hitting a few times.

The triplet lick on For Your Life reminds me of Woody Woodpecker

ok this is the day I finally come to see Presence as a masterpiece. by all measures Page was smacked out during the making of it, but it concentrated the little attention he could manage, and so the result is intricate & alien. it's like the album art, with the odd black totem in otherwise normal settings. you could call Presence meat & potatoes rock, but you'd be ignoring its inhuman focus. in that way it's well paired with another masterpiece of 1976, Station To Station. you could call those albums anti-psychedelic, in that cocaine and heroin promote no journeys to the center of the mind, but in products of an artificial self-mastery they are psychedelic in their own way.

I like that take.

this is the realest math rock, both in that the rhythms are algebraic, and in that everything must be decoded.

Also, black magic.

a second name for the album could be, After Evil.

Euler did you read M4rc3ll0's excellent piece on Presence, linked up-thread? He too makes the connection with Station to Station.

I just did! I hadn't seen it before I thought of the Station to Station connection, but I'm gratified to read his nicely-worked out version as well.

Station to Station is a good comparison, there's also something about this record that is very spare and harsh, being the only Zep record that is all electric rock band;there's acoustic songs (or at least elements) on all the other records.

Also, black magic.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, May 10, 2019 8:33 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I read this initially as bleak magic, which I think you could also use to describe this record.

I have such a skewed view of this album cuz the first LZ I heard (aside from songs on classic radio) was a tape with IV and Presence on the flip side, so to me this just always been one of LZ's best records

There's acoustic guitar (albeit of the Rockabilly style) on "Candy Store Rock".

Oh yeah, duh...well aside from that

I guess I was thinking more that there was no English pastoral folk or blues moments...wait, there aren't any keyboards on this record are there? I can't think of any

'Achilles Last Stand' and 'Nobody's Fault But Mine' are stone cold classics, and I listen to both plenty out of the context of the album, but at the same time I don't see why I would need to listen to this album front-to-back when Rainbow's Rising not only exists, but takes a great big yellow piss over everything else on this album that isn't those two songs.

that comparison makes no sense but ok

Booming revive by Euler

I love "Rising" by Rainbow. I also love "Presence" by Led Zep. I've never really considered these two records all that similar. Other than Page & Dio both had penchant for wizard-y appliques on their jeans

They're both hard rock records that were released in 1976.

Single word titles

Not to mention that the Rising era line-up of Rainbow were as musically potent as the members of Zeppelin, both individually and collectively.

Great headphone album. Insane.

I love "Tea for One" and "Hots On for Nowhere," especially the drums on the latter.

Booming revive by Euler

― flappy bird, Friday, May 10, 2019 12:48 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

listening to "presence" this morning i decided to listen differently than i normally do, which is to say i listened closely and carefully. like so many records that are important to me, this was a car record all the way, i.e. it was a cassette. and every few years, for weeks at a time, the album would begin when the car turned on and end when the trip was over. on longer drives it would repeat itself multiple times, but even then i never got a strong feeling that the record had a firm beginning or end. i stepped into the river, bathed in the river, knew the river by heart, but didn't have much of an idea where it came from or where it went. i definitely couldn't talk about the song titles, i could barely understand what robert plant was saying (still can't), and i knew that the cover art was white with some people on it but that's about it. so in that sense the thread title definitely made sense to me.

anyway, i put on my headphones this morning and was struck by a number of things that i'd like to share here.

achilles last stand is a song that for some reason i want to speak about in spatial terms: it is, among other things, immense. furthermore, it has a coldness, an austere quality, and a kind of classicist symmetry; despite its many flourishes the song doesn't meander, really. in fact, its focus over such a great length is part of its intensity, its power. in a sense the song, like the record, is a bit like, say, the parthenon: something to marvel at but not a place i want to live inside. lz ii is a record i can live inside, a world i can wonder around in. presence is a marble temple that inspires awe but does not exude warmth. intricate, alien, and inhuman indeed, Euler otm.

And there is no need for "Nobody's Fault But Mine" to have TWO guitar solos.

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Saturday, February 4, 2006 3:01 PM (thirteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sorry person from thirteen years ago, but it's actually a harmonica solo and then later a guitar solo, and they both fucking rule. the harmonica is played with a kind of mannered primitivity, and yet the way in which it incessantly churns the same simple blues figures again and again, barely more than a few notes, but so incessant and propulsive, it becomes almost manic: circular breathing turned hyperventilation. the guitar solo serves as exposition and recapitulation, through stilted, jittery echoes of a blues that has been deconstructed, flipped upside down, and reverse engineered through a thousand coke come-downs, resulting in what sounds like sputtering, buffering: a robot's failed attempt at b.b. king, and yet still so crisp.

the only thing i can understand robert plant say are "nobody's fault but mine" and "ding dong ding dong" so i dunno what's going on thematically here, but did read the thread and the blog link and found the stories interesting.

the congas that suddenly start in royal orleans in the verse begninning "down on bourbon street" are just so sick; the fact that they come in for barely 15 seconds and then disappear makes me crave them even more every time the song comes on.

candy store rock is a genre exercise, sure, but it's much more than that. here robert plant must be admired for his remarkable sense of harmony: listen to the chord implied by his melismatic "oo" on the word "before" (and i think "jaw" ? and "head") !! just this small moment that implies a completely different harmonic direction for the piece, or that's how i hear it anyway. and then that creepy coda really seals the deal.

hots on for nowhere: what the fuck is going on here ? is this the best song ever or is it just filler bullshit ? so it's enigmatic at the very least, a bit like a face that can alternately appear, according to lighting or circumstance, ugly or beautiful, although in the end my revulsion is sublimated into a kind of polyrhythmic desire; it's the focus and intensity of the drums, fills especially, that ultimately make me want to stick with this track.

speaking of desire: there is music that, in my experience, will and will not love you back. i don't know if i love presence (although i admire and, sometimes, desire it) but i do know that presence does not love me. presence is too involved in its own hang ups, its own brilliant and intricate inner-workings, it is too desperately focused on holding its fragile and deeply beautiful appendages together, to really allow space for the listener to be present in any way except as spectator.

when it ends i feel stunned and a bit lonely tbh.

Hell yes to this post, agreed on many points

"Hots On For Nowhere" is a weird fucking song

This, Station to Station and Animals form some kind triptych of 70s anomie/awesomeness.

"Hots On For Nowhere" is a weird fucking song

― chr1sb3singer, Friday, May 10, 2019

Glorious.

I remember an interview w/Plat from around the time of the reunion where he brought up playing the album for his current girlfriend, after which she told him "[she] didn't want to be left alone with...this music."

Plat=Plant, obvs.

I love "Tea for One" and "Hots On for Nowhere," especially the drums on the latter.

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, May 10, 2019 12:18 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

“tea for one” sometimes my favorite zep song

thank you budo jeru for your post, rich with insight.

when I called the album inhuman & alien & algebraic earlier, I meant that the music is rushing with expression, saying many things, and yet it’s inscrutable until “Tea For One”, whose perfect polycarbonate blues reveals profound human longing. Is that what the rest is expressing? Longing has plasticity, filtered through the drugs, the exhaustion, eight years gone. Or instead simply reaching through that, to try to express something new.

budo jeru and euler can see into the center of this record, great posts

Wow at Budo jeru's post. Couldn't be more OTM

yeah that is a peak ILM post, thanks b.j. gonna be queueing this one up.

https://e.snmc.io/i/600/w/9be20ee140b63144a9643fc5581398a4/6869895

Bloomington shout out.

This, Station to Station and Animals form some kind triptych of 70s anomie/awesomeness.

presence > station to station > just reached the climax of 'dogs'

i feel comprehensively nothing

in a sense the song, like the record, is a bit like, say, the parthenon: something to marvel at but not a place i want to live inside. lz ii is a record i can live inside, a world i can wonder around in. presence is a marble temple that inspires awe but does not exude warmth. intricate, alien, and inhuman indeed

Yeah, this really gets at something about the album.

I've got to be honest, I wonder if it's partly because "Presence" is sort of a "lesser" LZ album, at least in terms of popularity; it maybe the LZ album with the fewest tracks played (if ever) on classic rock radio, at least in my experience. "Station to Station" and the Berlin albums hold a similar place in the Prime Bowie pantheon. They're weird because ... well, because they're weird. But because most of the songs don't get played on the radio much, they've remained weird and mysterious for decades.

> Bloomington shout out.

― earlnash, Saturday, May 11, 2019

Whoa, throwback. I worked for their record label at the time and remember when they came up with the idea. The cover ended up getting more publicity than the music. Bummer b/c it's got so many great songs on it!

John and Josh, have you guys hung out?

Ha...we haven't but I think we realized we lived pretty close to one another at some point.

Always thought Harvey Milk’s “Lay My Head Down” was trying to mine the same vein as “Tea for One”

https://youtu.be/FjucU_X-zTU

I've got to be honest, I wonder if it's partly because "Presence" is sort of a "lesser" LZ album, at least in terms of popularity; it maybe the LZ album with the fewest tracks played (if ever) on classic rock radio, at least in my experience. "Station to Station" and the Berlin albums hold a similar place in the Prime Bowie pantheon. They're weird because ... well, because they're weird. But because most of the songs don't get played on the radio much, they've remained weird and mysterious for decades.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 11 May 2019 02:39 (two days ago) Permalink

For real, in Mpls back in the late 80s/early 90s when the playlist was "slightly" more adventurous the local classic rock monolith KQ92 would sometimes play "Nobody's Fault But Mine" but even that infrequently.

W/r/t Rainbow "Rising", the mention in this thread did lead me to track down "Live Munich 1977" which is fucking awesome

I've listened to little besides Presence since last week, and am now listening backwards through their oeuvre from there. I used to think that "Four Sticks" was the worst song on IV, now I think it's the best. Am I a latent prog fan?

How come 24 hour

listening to Zep III right now, it seems to be a mirror image of Presence: it's a sentimental album, from the simultaneous joy & horror of the conquering horde, to the mellow jams of side 2. Whereas Presence detaches from all this, leaving only unit structures

what lovely sentences!

Wilhelm Worringer, "Abstraction and Empathy", 1908. Abstraction is "to wrest the object of the external world out of its natural context, out of the unending flux of being, to purify it of all its dependence upon life, i.e. of everything about it that was arbitrary, to render it necessary and irrefragable, to approximate it to its absolute value.’’

this is how I hear Presence

otm

when I called the album inhuman & alien & algebraic earlier, I meant that the music is rushing with expression, saying many things, and yet it’s inscrutable until “Tea For One”, whose perfect polycarbonate blues reveals profound human longing. Is that what the rest is expressing? Longing has plasticity, filtered through the drugs, the exhaustion, eight years gone. Or instead simply reaching through that, to try to express something new.

still processing this / trying to respond

but do want to thank you for the initial revive which inspired my re-listening to "presence" and then "station to station" which was a big breakthrough for me because i worship bowie but never really "got" that record until just a few days ago

listening to HOTH now, both "the song remains the same" and "no quarter" seem to anticipate "presence"

you guys this is such a great revive

Regarding this quality of remoteness or abstraction, I think it gets after something essential about Zeppelin which is anticipated not just on HOTH but from the very beginning. There's a prevailing misapprehension among their detractors (but a lot of fans too) that because they trafficked in traditions that are predominantly "expressive" (blues) or more broadly "communicative" (folk) that these qualities are what they, too, wanted to forward. But the mission from the outset was sonic. This is what sets them so far apart from everybody else. On record, anyway, their heaviest, most experimental, most inventive contemporaries—Hendrix or Cream or whatever—are still prioritizing some compact with the listener that has to do with the given trope, whereas with Zeppelin even the most brazen dilletante blues or cod-folk is *not* Freedom Rock. It is rather sculptural, framed, finished. It's sound-qua-sound, art rock.

And while it's true that there were smart business reasons not to release singles, or edit for radio, or put the band's name on the sleeves, or tour with opening acts, I believe this was Page's real motivator in all those choices: it wasn't a statement that they were better than anyone else (although they knew they were) but a category factor. You couldn't just *have* them—any more than you can "have" something screwed onto on pedestal or mounted on a gallery wall.

that's a good point; that Zep's accomplishments stem from their being blues posers.

Accomplishments stem from high quality music from the very first album on...

It is rather sculptural, framed, finished. It's sound-qua-sound, art rock.

this is really getting to something that i've felt for a long time about lz; they really have much less in common with mayall, clapton, et al. than they do with george martin and the beatles. page's studio wizardy has been remarked upon at length, but rarely is it acknowledged as more or less the core of the project -- instead it's more along the lines of, hey, how fortunate they had this dude to bulk up / amplify their sick chops and killer riffs. i don't really buy that.

i think, at its core, what this musical project does is necessitate that performance and sonics are inextricably linked. the arc of the riff and the tone of the guitar that plays it are the same sonic unit, as it were. in that way the organizing principle of a led zeppelin song is not its lyric, or its melody, and rarely is the quality of the songwriting (in the traditional sense) a major concern for me as a listener. rather, what i hear is the effect, the sound, created by the constitute units of riff-tone, drum pattern-sound, etc. -- all of which in turn are essentially the products of a studio process that selects and then isolates specific idioms or gestures them from the earlier, deeply rich socio-cultural contexts of various folk and black popular musics (page, whatever he might say to the contrary, is basically anti-historicist), and it's precisely this process of separation, fetishization, and distillation that is the core of the musical endeavor. since worringer has been quoted, allow me to make the analogy that picasso's cubist paintings are not exactly "in dialogue" with west african folk art objects. i think that in much the same way, led zeppelin deliberately failed to work "in the tradition" -- in fact, if my observations are correct, they were inherently incapable of doing so since their project relied on a specific kind of presentation -- which is what i think hadrian is otm about.

i want to relate this back to "presence" but i don't have time right now !

I have nothing quite as sophisticated as any of the last several posts to say, although they are quite good posts, but whenever I revisit Achilles and really a lot of Zeppelin's work I'm struck by the fact that they are thought of as pure "cock rock" and yet the lyrics (to one of the heaviest songs ever recorded) are actually fairly sweet and not very macho:

Oh, the fun to have
To live the dreams we always had
Oh, the songs to sing
When we at last return again

^ i do like the tenderness of those lyrics

"Hots on for Nowhere" is easily one of Zep's best 10 songs.

― darin (darin), Monday, February 6, 2006 3:55 PM (thirteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Totally agree.

I'm trying to imagine the people whose first introduction to Zeppelin was this album, and how they'd view the remainder of their catalogue. Would they have preferred the most "Presence"-esque tracks like "The Wanton Song", "Wearing and Tearing", and "Out on the Tiles" as if they were on the record ("Wow - more songs dominated by tight bass-kick-guitar interplay!"), or found them to be far too ornamented, preferring the "real thing" instead? What about the more straight-ahead rockers like "Communication Breakdown", "Hot Dog", or "Rock and Roll" (which are surprisingly scarce in their catalogue - it's wild how many of their "traditional" blues-rock tunes have at least one major time change, key change, or instrumental-based bridge that can almost be its own song - see "Black Dog", "Heartbreaker", "Whole Lotta Love")? I'm guessing they'd be all about the epics like "Kashmir" and "In My Time of Dying", yet find the slower bluesy stuff found on the early records to be a bit boring (except for "Since I've Been Loving You", which stands out from that group with its musical complexity), but who knows?

I'd especially love to hear their perceptions of the more bucolic Fairport Convention-style tracks ("Going to California", "Battle of Evermore", "Bron-yr-Aur") that are about as far from "Presence" tracks as possible, or their more eccentric regular-length songs like "The Ocean", "The Song Remains the Same", or "Down By The Seaside"?

The big question, of course, is how would they have responded to "In Through the Out Door", especially if they didn't hear it until after consuming the rest of their oeuvre?

(Or better yet, what if "ITtOD" was their first Zep!?)

LZ's riff that they use as the intro for "Tea for One" had been around for a while. They used it to open a few different songs live.

I’ve been thinking about that intro riff a lot lately! It’s such a damn shame they couldn’t get an entire song out of it.

I think every garage band has one riff that they think is pretty cool that they never figure out where else to go.

“Soft Enfolding Spreads,” by the Howling Hex, is sort of a song-length mutant offshoot of the “Tea for One” riff.

(Or better yet, what if "ITtOD" was their first Zep!?)

I'd heard the first two albums, but the first Zep thing I bought was Coda because it was in the cassette rack at the local drug store ca. 1984. So I was well-acquainted with the ITTOD outtakes on side two long before I heard Presence which might explain why it never seemed that bizarre to me. It is a less-immediate record than most of their catalogue, certainly - less obvious hooks - but I don't think it's that surprising from the band who previous released stuff like "Four Sticks" and some of the tracks on Physical Graffiti (Sick Again, The Rover, even Trampled Under Foot and Kashmir).

i think, at its core, what this musical project does is necessitate that performance and sonics are inextricably linked. the arc of the riff and the tone of the guitar that plays it are the same sonic unit, as it were. in that way the organizing principle of a led zeppelin song is not its lyric, or its melody, and rarely is the quality of the songwriting (in the traditional sense) a major concern for me as a listener. rather, what i hear is the effect, the sound, created by the constitute units of riff-tone, drum pattern-sound, etc. -- all of which in turn are essentially the products of a studio process

yes yes yes

the "Tea For One" riff is a tweaked and slowed down version of "Walter's Walk" which is a HOTH outtake...he also used to fold it into Dazed and Confused live

"The Ocean" seems to me a predecessor of Presence.

I want to add something about the influence of the abstraction of James Brown on Presence, thinking that his funk was an abstraction from soul, but I don't know enough to say for sure. We all know about "The Crunge", but the latter seems to me such a misstep (chiefly for JPJ's anemic keys) that it can't be a definitive statement of JB's influence. And I'd like to know how the different members of the band appreciated JB: was it mostly one member, like Bonham, or was it Page, etc?

I know they used top play Sex Machine and Licking Stick live....I would imagine the whole band were big fans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd0b42chX5A

I want to add something about the influence of the abstraction of James Brown on Presence, thinking that his funk was an abstraction from soul, but I don't know enough to say for sure.

Funny I was listening to Achilles this very morning and really focusing on the drums & something that people gloss over when they talk abt Bonham's drumming it is so deft, so fleet-of-foot and fonky, everyone just talks about how hard he hits.

W/r/t to Brown, I believe they were all fans but specifically Bonham and JPJ were to the r&b/funk fanatics

jpj tells a story about Clyde Stubblefield and the other JB drummer at the time (Melvin Parker?) at Newport, standing behing Bonham during the Zep soundcheck and gawking at him playing both their parts

John Jabo Starks, I would guess

I know they used to play Sex Machine and Licking Stick live

wait what

They would do this live in 1975, folded into Whole Lotta Love or Dazed and Confused, just sections—"Ain't It Funky Now" too

Is that on any live recordings? I've never heard them play either I don't think.

apparently it's on this one: https://longliveledzeppelin.blogspot.com/2015/09/19750312-led-zeppelin-long-beach-great.html

a Vancouver show too, a handful of '75 boots

I hadn't really read anything about the connection before, but The Crunge always made me assume they were James Brown fans.

it's been made many times -- Page and Plant mentioned it?

(not trying to dis you)

i fuckin love this album and this thread

This, Station to Station and Animals form some kind triptych of 70s anomie/awesomeness.

― 29 facepalms, Friday, May 10, 2019 2:18 PM (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

guess what also came out in 1976, that's right aerosmith's rocks

which "hots on for nowhere" kinda exists in the same universe of

The persistent avoidance of For Your Life, the dark center of this album and my favorite song from this release by some distance, renders this otherwise classic ILM thread less potent than it ought to be. Bonham is playing lead here and Plant is singing off him, his vocals are like fills, as the drums start, stop, rush, and swing. Structurally, the song is sneakily complex with five distinct parts—ABABCDCEAB—with the whole descending riff in the “Do it when you wanna” section a master class in tension and release as Bonham unveils a straight 4/4 beat while a chorus of Plants tease and coo over the top about the darkest cocaine hell I could imagine. Run-on sentences do not capture how much I admire this song.

Yes
And the off beat on the Do you Wanna section
Magic

still the greatest ilm thread

this album kinda terrifies me, putting me into a very weird mood right now

always