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?

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