Hey Hey , What can I do?

I will be updating this site and playlists, soon.

Please stay tuned for more Zeppelin.  

ॐ

~Pamela

It’s November 1969, the premiere, begins with a brief stage announcement before Bonzo counts off to the first appearance of the Good Times Bad Times/Communication Breakdown opener. Plant is in exceptional voice, faithfully recreating every high note. He shakes the mic violently during the intro to I Can’t Quit You Baby. The modern french radio announcer makes his first intrusive appearance during Page’s excellent solo.

Bonzo comments “they don’t even know what it is!” as Plant introduces the first appearance of Heartbreaker to the crowd. The performance is very similar to the version on Led Zeppelin II. There is a strange echo effect added to Page’s a cappella guitar solo. Whether this effect was added live by the sound engineer or later by the radio station is unclear. The same echo effect is used sporadically throughout Dazed and Confused, leaving us with an army of Bonzos. The DJ returns at the beginning of an especially eerie bow solo. Page is introduced as “The Wanking Dog” by Bonzo and Plant before White Summer/Black Mountain Side. The DJ once again intrudes during a quiet passage. Plant adlibs new lyrics during You Shook Me. Jones and Bonzo are like a well-oiled machine.
The recording ends with an excellent How Many More Times. Page solos wildly during an extended Bolero section, including some Over Under Sideways Down licks. Plant tells someone in the crowd to shut up during the “got you in the sights…” section, just before another interruption by the DJ. Plant makes mention of a girl who’s been with Aynsley Dunbar during his intro to the medley, drawing laughter from the crowd. The medley includes John Lee Hooker’s Boogie Chillen, now with lyrics from Plant. The atmosphere on stage is very playful as Plant reaches the final “gun!” The finale is devastatingly heavy with Plant grunting seductively as the band explodes around him.

Few Words and a Whole Lotta Pictures

In the mythology of rock, Jimmy Page is the great guitar wizard, hurling Led Zeppelin’s thunder and fire down from the mountaintop. It’s an image that the band cultivated, of course, but it wouldn’t have stuck if it weren’t for Mr. Page’s skill, finesse and imagination, which made him one of the most influential guitarists in history.

Mr. Page, now 66, was never much of a talker, and when he gave interviews he mostly preferred talking about his music instead of about himself. He’s still that way. On Sept. 27 Genesis Publications, a British company that specializes in lushly designed rock photo books, will publish “Jimmy Page by Jimmy Page,” a 500-page collection of images that Mr. Page selected to represent his career.

Instead of a straight autobiography, it’s a career record in pictures, and while there are some candid shots at diners and customs checkpoints on the road, for the most part the book portrays Mr. Page in six-string-Adonis glory onstage. Catherine Roylance, a co-publisher, said Mr. Page immersed himself in the book’s design, down to the blue-black hue of the cover. The book, printed and hand-bound in Milan, is limited to 2,500 copies and available only through Genesis (genesis-publications.com), for £445 (about $685).

Mr. Page spoke recently by phone from London with Ben Sisario about the book, Led Zeppelin and how even in his days as a choirboy he was itching to play guitar. Here are excerpts from that conversation.

Q. Why did you decide to do this book, as opposed to a more traditional autobiography?

A. I’ve been approached to do an autobiography, but I thought that was the least attractive way of doing a book. So I thought it would be quite interesting to do a photographic autobiography. It’s the story of a kid who’s involved with music, but really the music involved itself with him. It’s this conjoining of music and a teenager, and off it goes.

I thought that a career in pictures was really the best way to do it at this stage, but I wouldn’t discount the idea of an autobiography. This is usually my defense: When publishing people say, “How about writing a book?,” I say, “Yes, I’ve thought about it, but I’d like a book that came out posthumously.” That’s probably as good as it’s going to get: this visual documentary, and then possibly, if I ever get around to it, doing a book that comes out posthumously.

Q. Was your aim here to correct the record, to present your own version of the story of Led Zeppelin?

A. No, I didn’t think that was necessary. Everyone wants to know what happened here and there, and you’ve got so many people that come forward with explanations — people who give authoritative accounts who were never anywhere near the place. But there’s only one thing as far as I’m concerned that remains constant and true, and that’s the music. So if you want to use your imagination, please apply it to the music rather than things that maybe surrounded it.

As far as a pictorial record, you can certainly see a little bit behind the music, and you can make your own mind up. I’m not really coloring it too much with what annotations I’ve made. I didn’t want to laden it with controversies. I just wanted the pictures to speak in a way that the music does.

Q. The photos here are almost entirely focused on your career, instead of pictures of your family or your private life.

A. It’s purely about the music, and nothing else. It would have been incongruous to have family photos or pictures on the beach. Admittedly I’ve got some passport stamps from when I went traveling, but it wasn’t a travel photo book. No, no. I did take photographs when I went on holiday, but they’re not of the sort of quality that you would like them to be.

Q. The tour itineraries make clear how hard the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin worked. And the photos show that you looked very good doing it. Your wardrobe really plays a starring role.

A. I was very keen to show what the workload was with these bands. With the Yardbirds, our tour itineraries were pretty dense. But I particularly wanted to show what Led Zeppelin was doing in 1969, just how much work we were doing. We were recording “Led Zeppelin II” during that tour of America, at studios in the states, and I wanted to show the way it was approached as a work-in-progress album while we were on the road.

Q. What was your relationship with photographers like in those days? Was it collaborative? Antagonistic?

A. I didn’t really come from a generation where photographs were taken all the time. It was quite a ritual to have photographs taken, even family ones. I guess that sort of stuck with me. I’ve never been the one jumping in front of the camera, whereas with other people it’s second nature to do that.

The Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page in 1968, from the book “Jimmy Page by Jimmy Page.

Of course, for musicians today, that’s one of most important aspects of how you’re projecting yourself. Your playing might be good, but you have to look damn good as well, to follow it up. I never really bothered.

I may have been interested in dressing, and how I looked to fit the bill, but I wasn’t really making a point of making myself get photographed all over the place. I sort of paid the price for that when doing this book.

Q. The first picture in the book shows you as a 12-year-old choirboy, and it’s credited to one Mr. Coffin, the choirmaster. Does Mr. Coffin know what became of you?

A. He’s no longer alive, Mr. Coffin, but I guess he was an amateur photographer. I remember we took a little while setting it up, with various angles. And it’s a damn good photograph.

The curious thing is, we got in touch with his son-in-law, and he remembers me taking my guitar with me and practicing beforehand, waiting for everyone to turn up for the choir practice. So there we are. There are clues right at that first shot. I was right in the early in stages of picking up the guitar and getting it tuned and stuff, right around that time.

Q. The caption on that picture is, “It might get loud.” Has that become your motto since being in the documentary of that title two years ago, or was that just a convenient phrase?

A. It’s so goofy, to have a photograph of yourself as a choirboy. [Laughs.] But it’s what it is. That’s my first point of music — it’s the portal, the way in. You’re playing music, you’re singing — thankfully I stopped singing along the way somewhere. But I thought it was really important to have that. People might think that’s humorous, that the choirmaster’s name was Mr. Coffin. Dennis Coffin was his name. It’s a humorous shot, but it fits in the context of the book, and it’s honest.

But what do you put as a caption? Well, “It might get loud.” ’Cause it might. And it did.

The new Tight But Loose magazine is almost ready to go. We signed off the proofs yesterday and it should be all ready to ship out at the end of the month.

Many thanks to Mick Lowe, Gary Foy, Cliff Hilliard and Jez Firth for their help with this issue and all the contributors who have made it what it is.

With so much recent Zep related activity, this 27th issue of the magazine has grown in to quite an epic. Over the past three months, designer Mike Lowe and I have spent many hours honing the text from a variety of contributors into a 40,000 word chronicle of essential Led Zep reading past and present.

Yes that’s 40,000 words – in effect a mini book.

Here’s what’s in store:

• There’s an exclusive preview of the contents of the forthcoming Jimmy Page visual autobiography with a series of photos reproduced from the book via Genesis Publications

• There’s extensive coverage of the Band Of Joy recent activity. Steve Sauer,Larry M Bergmann jr, Stephen Humphries, Jamie Harvey and myself file on the spot reports from a variety locations on the experiences of witnessing the latest twist in Robert’s tale. Steve Sauer also offers a perceptive guide to the original sources of the songs that make up the Band Of Joy album

• On the 30th anniversary of the death of John Bonham, his son Jason in another exclusive interview for TBL, reflects on the intervening years and his thoughts on his Dad three decades on. He also discloses his plans for the forthcoming Led Zeppelin Experience project. Gary Davies and I also offer a fans reaction to the events and aftermath of September 25th 1980.  Gary’s view is one of the most moving I’ve ever read on this subject. It captures the real essence of the effect that John’s loss and the disbandment of Led Zeppelin had on him as a young Zeppelin fan growing up in the Midlands area Bonzo hailed from.

• There are further exclusive interviews with Glenn Hughes, Joe Bonamassa and Jason Bonham – the key players in the formation of Black Country Communion, the most talked about rock supergroup of the year as they tell their story of how their debut album came together.

• Mike Tremaglio again opens up his exhaustive files to track Led Zeppelin flying high on tour 40 years ago in 1970. From Iceland through the Bath Festival, Germany and onto America -  the saga unfolds through a series of key images and background info. Mike reveals more strange tales from the road including how resistance from local authorities thwarted more than one planned Zep festival appearance that summer of ‘70.

• Part Two of my conversation with legendary NME scribe Nick Kent offers some illuminating views on how the punks saw Zep, the final era of the group and Nick’s thoughts on the 02 reunion and their ongoing legacy.

• John Paul Jones latest news, CD reviews from Gerard Sparaco and other news wrap up another iluminating issue of the Tight But Loose magazine.

So what’s not to like about all that!

This one is an engrossing read, in fact it might well have been a good idea to supply a pair of reading glasses with each issue, such is the depth of text with over 40,000 words to wade through. A captivating read designed to take you back to the music with fresh perspective.  As I have often noted – Web sites are great for browsing: The Tight But Loose magazine is for reading again and again – tangible collectable and re readable. An eagerly anticipated physical product to be opened, read, stored and coveted as a key Zep reference work.

This single issue cost including postage and packing is £6.50 UK , £7.50 Europe  and £8.50 USA/Rest of world.

For the amount of detailed info and in depth stories,  I’d consider that pretty good value for money.  I accept we are in recessionary times and life’s luxuries for us all are at a premium, but there are some little treats worth hanging onto. I believe Led Zeppelin fans will find that the TBL magazine is one such item.

The disappearance in recent years of Tower, Virgin, Zavvi and Borders has severely limited the magazine’s distribution. So ordering direct from the site is the main method of getting the message out.  It’s a cold hard fact that currently the sales of the TBL magazine in relation to the number of hits on the TBL site is not high – a lot of visitors have yet to indulge. It could well be you are reading this and have never seen a copy.

So here are 62 vivid examples of his vocal supremacy accompanied by memorable key lyrics and relevant comments:

From 48 to 2010 – he remains the definitive rock vocalist – make sure you play some of these and your own Plant faves …

Our Song,  (‘’It made us fall in looooove’’)

Laughing Crying Laughing  (‘’Jack loves Jill she don’t care’’)

For What it’s Worth  (Something’s happening here..’’)

Good Times Bad Times  (‘’I know what it means to be alooone’’)

Babe Im Gonna Leave You (‘’I ain’t jokin’ woman you gotta ramble’’)

Whole Lotta Love  (‘’Shake for me girl!’’)

What Is And What Should Never Be   (‘’And if I say to you tomorrow’’ – that gorgeous  opening line…)

Thank You  (‘’And so today my world it smiles’’)

Ramble On  (‘’Gotta find the queen of all my dreams’’)

Immigrant Song (-‘’Ahhhhhh…Ahhh!!)

Since I’ve Been Loving You  (‘’Said I been crying..’’)

That’s The Way  (‘’And so I say to you that nothing really matters…’’)

Black Dog  (‘’I gotta roll can’t stand still’’)

Battle of Evermore  (‘’Bring it back..’’)

The Song Remains The Same  (‘’I had a dream’’)

The Rain Song  (‘’Upon us all..’’)

Over the Hills And Far Away (Live anytime in 1975 -  ‘’Acapulco gold!’’)

In My Time of Dying (‘’Doncha make it my dying…dying…’’)

Kashmir   (’ Trying to find, trying to find where I’ve beeeeeeen’’.)

In The Light   (‘’Eveybody needs the light’’)

Down By The Seaside (‘’ Do you still do the twist’’)

Ten Years Gone (‘’Holding on…’’ pure emotion)

Night Flight  (‘’ I received a message  – that opening line is vocal bliss)

Tangerine ( Earl’s Court May 24 1975 – ”To think of us again….”)

Going To California (Earls Court official DVD version ‘’Oh she sings’’)

Dazed And Confused (Earls Court May 24 1975 ‘’We’ve got to get ourselves…back to the garden’’)

Stairway To Heaven (Earls Court May 24 1975 ‘’That’s all we got’’)

Achilles Last Stand  (‘’the devils in his ho-o- o-o -le’’)

For Your Life  (‘’When you blow it, babe, you got to blow it right’’)

In The Evening  (Knebworth August 4 1979 – ‘’It’s gotta stop it’s gotta stop!’’)

All My Love (Outtake with full ending -  ‘’Sometimes…sometimes…sometimes oh oh ’’)

I’m Gonna Crawl  (‘’She give me good lovin’’ and that final scream…)

Moonlight In Samosa (‘’Time and again I see you walking down the street’’)

Slow Dancer (‘’To the heights… to the heights’’ – the point he knew he could do it all again)

Far Post   (‘’Sure as winter follows fall, sure as maybe I will call’’)

Pledge Pin  (Live in Dallas 83  ‘’As the cavalcade begins to thin, do you stop and look around’’)

Big Log (Live Dallas 1983 ‘’Oh my love oh my love oh my love…is in league with the freeway’’)

Sea of Love  (‘’Come with me’’)

Sixes And Sevens  (‘’Am I at six ,am I at six, am Ieeeee!’’)

Ship of Fools  (‘’Crazy crazy fool’’ – absolutely stunning vocal)

Tie Dye On The Highway  (‘‘With the messengers of peace and the company of love’’)

Anniversary (‘’What is this land that I have found’’)

Calling To You (‘’Oh  Jiimmmy!’’)

Come Into My Life  (‘’ Oh when you get there, well you know ‘’-  another of his very best…)

The Greatest Gift (‘’ Everything I do, yes I do for my love’’  Peerless delivery)

In The Mood (Live at Paradiso club Amsterdam 93 –stunning medley)

Wonderful One  (MTV Unledded – ‘’The queen of love has flown again’’)

That’s The Way  (MTV Unledded ’’I can’t believe what people saying’’)

Blue Train  (I been waiting on a corner’’-  the best recorded moment of the Page and Plant  re-alliance)

Little Hands  (‘’Come let us meet them’’ – birth of a new style)

Life Begins Again  (‘’This is the day and the hour’’ – at his most exotic)

Flames  (Brilliant Priory Of Brion psych fest )

If I Ever Get Lucky  (‘’Win my train fare home’’ Live in the desert)

Skips Song   (‘’If you’d seen the naked dream I had of you… would you care’’-  another vocal masterclass)

Dirt In The Hole  (‘’Pretty flowers in sweet array, picked to die and fade away’’  Brilliant)

Seven And Seven Is  ( ’When I was a boy I thought about the times I’d be a man’’  Live anywhere – a magnificent SS tribute to Love and the late Arthur)

Tin Pan Valley  (‘’Like this!’’)

Freedom Fries (‘’They were moving fast –they were raising sand’’)

Stick With Me Baby (‘’Everybody’s been talkin’ ‘’ – in perfect harmony with Alison)

Kashmir ( Live at the 02 Arena – the whole event  could never have worked so well without such total vocal commitment )

Angel Dance (‘’Yeah yeah yeah – Dance!’’ –Ushering in another new dawn)

Monkey ( ‘’Tonight you will be mine…’’ Masterful Band Of Joy performance)

John Anthony Gillis, better known to the world as Jack White, appears to be attempting something that has never been done before: the  transmogrification of one man simultaneously into four others, namely, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Henry Bonham.  If The Dead Weather’s set at Crystal Ballroom was any measure, the experiment seems to be working out explosively well.

Although the sold-out crowd at the Crystal cheered White’s every move, the band really would not be much more than his latest side-project without its all-star rocker line up, which includes The Kills’ vocalist Allison Mosshart (aka “Baby Ruthless”), Queens of the Stone Age bassist Dean Fertita, and The Raconteurs’ bassist (and fill-in Dead Weather drummer) Jack Lawrence.

Opening aptly with the White-penned song with Loretta Lynn, “Portland, Oregon,” The Dead Weather’s show at Crystal Ballroom fulfilled every rock cliché in the book:  Black leather? Check. Big haired rock chick standing on the monitors headbanging her very soul out? Check.  Pasty British-looking white dudes blowing your mind with mammoth drums, vintage guitars, blazing synths, and stacks of Marshall Amps? Check, check, check.

One gets the sense that, in returning to his musical roots as a drummer with The Dead Weather,  Jack White knows he is carrying a torch that has nearly burned out since the untimely death of John Bonham and dissolution of Led Zeppelin in 1980. Bonham’s death was, in a very real way, the death of rock drumming and, therefore, rock itself. Let’s face it, there’s never been a band that good since.

The following statement may generate some heated replies in the comments section, but to leave it out for the sake of prudence would be highly un-rock: While they’ve not yet matched the depth and breadth of Led Zeppelin’s recorded output–and to their credit, the band only formed in early 2009–The Dead Weather have saved rock from the clutches of the cynical, hipster, focus-group driven, music industry fuckfaces worldwide and are as great a live act as Led Zeppelin ever was. Yeah, I said it. And here’s why:

1) Rock is built upon the classic sounds of the Ludwig drum set. Ringo played Ludwig drums and so did John Bonham. If you need any more testimonial evidence of that, you should stop reading now because you obviously don’t know what the hell rock drumming is all about. But you know who does? Jack White, that’s who. And do you know what kind of drums he plays? Custom Ludwig Maple Classics with the Black Oyster Pearl wrap, that’s what kind.

2) Unlike the eternal bluesy-Hobbit-metal bro-down that was Led Zeppelin, The Dead Weather have possibly the most bad-ass woman ever to grace the rock stage since Joan Jett. Simply put, Allison Mosshart is the Rock Goddess, The Mother Mary, The All-Knowing and All-Complicated Muse at whose altar all MUSE-icians worship. Do you realize how cool it is to FINALLY have a band as good as Led Zeppelin with a WOMAN in it? Do you realize what this means?

When Robert Plant collected the 2009 Grammy for Album of the Year for Raising Sand, and a further five more for his work with bluegrass singer Alison Krauss, it confirmed that Plant was hungry to build on his substantial musical legacy.

His new album, Band Of Joy, was recorded at Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ Woodland studio in Nashville, an important hub from the Seventies which the pair rescued from closure. Despite Plant’s name being above the album’s title, Band of Joy - named in honour of his pre-Zeppelin psychedelic blues outfit - is a collective endeavour built on a mutual love of high-powered roots rock, country, folk and gospel.

“After all the things I’ve done, the idea of just stepping forward with other people and letting them take the lead is an exciting prospect,” says Plant. “Nothing is daunting for me – but forever challenging. I have to be able to just get out there into the great drift of music and possibility, and hang onto great themes and ideas.”

The album makes for Plant’s most eclectic work so far, an album which continues the explorations of Raising Sand into exciting new territory.

Spotify Premium users can now get a first glimpse of his new album Band Of Joy on an exclusive six-track Spotify EP - plus from the 13th they’ll be able to hear the
album in full.

Robert Plant loves to dig in America’s Rich Soil

NASHVILLE — When Raising Sand, Robert Plant’s collaboration with bluegrass singer Alison Krauss, sold more than 1.5 million albums and won album of the year at the Grammy Awards, most people (Plant included) expected the two singers would record a follow-up.

Plant’s Band of Joy, out today, isn’t that album.

Plant and Krauss did start recording a successor, but he says those sessions never found their groove.

REVIEW: One jumpin’ ‘Band of Joy’

“I think we ran out of cakes,” he says lightheartedly, deflecting further inquiry. “There was an amazing amount of cake and food and coffees and sodas. By about 11 o’clock in the morning, we were ready for a nap.”

But Plant, a restless musical soul who had spent considerable time in Nashville since Raising Sand, didn’t think he was finished with the town’s musicians.

So he contacted Buddy Miller, a highly regarded guitarist who toured with the Raising Sand band and has produced albums by Patty Griffin and soul singer Solomon Burke.

“Buddy Miller is everybody’s dream date,” Plant says. “He’s a master of mood and circumstance.”

Band of Joy is plenty moody: Bassist Byron House and drummer Marco Giovino provide that low-end rhythm-section sound that Plant loves, while Miller and Darrell Scott add guitars and other stringed instruments and Griffin serves as Plant’s vocal foil.

Though the album bears similarities to Raising Sand, none of the musicians sought to re-create that album’s sound.

“There’s a thread connecting them,” Miller says. “Not a huge piece of rope, but a definite thread. And there needed to be.”

In some ways, Band of Joy goes further back into Plant’s career. The album shares its name with various versions of Plant’s pre-Led Zeppelin band that explored psychedelicized American music.

“That was perfect for me” at the time, Plant says. “I was completely and totally besotted by the kind of rhythm and blues coming out of Texas and New Orleans.”

That affair with American music continues on the new album. Plant satisfies his love of Texas R&B by covering Barbara Lynn’s 1965 single You Can’t Buy My Love. The rest of the tunes range from traditional American numbers (Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down, Cindy, I’ll Marry You Someday) to tunes by Los Lobos, Richard Thompson, Townes Van Zandt and Minnesota indie-rockers Low.

“The idea with this Band of Joy is to open it up and let everybody play to their hearts’ content,” Plant says.

After two albums, Plant says he’s nowhere near finished exploring Nashville’s musical avenues, as long as he feels he isn’t repeating himself. When he talks about not wanting to become a parody, it’s clear why he has little patience for speculation about Led Zeppelin reunions.

“(What) I’m afraid of is being an older guy who thinks he’s got it when, in fact, what he’s doing is parroting the same old crap in different clothing,” Plant says. “So as long as I think I’m learning, I’m OK.”

Let’s just hear the story of your discovery of West and North African music?

Well, I haven’t got long. Do you have a couple of days? When I was 21 I was in one of the most groundbreaking bands that was on the scene at the time (Led Zeppelin), and we were traveling to and playing in every country that was permissible to play in. We couldn’t play South America, we couldn’t play in the Soviet states or the eastern block. But we could play in Japan and on the way from Japan, Jimmy Page I stopped through Thailand and India. Eventually, by meeting people in these countries- travelers who were not musicians but who were going east and around- I was encouraged by a lot of people to come to Marrakech in Morocco. From 1971 to now, 32 years, I’ve been traveling in the south of Morocco where the Tuareg are quite prevalent, in a line along with Berber, or “Chleu,” south of Marrakech down to Sagora, and the wall that was put up or the fence that Hassan the king erected…So, I was always exposed to this amazing timbre. It was a music that was, not haunting me, but it was reminding me constantly of my youth and my love of Son House and Charlie Patton. You know, when I was 14 or 15 I was in a very arty environment and I was constantly being encouraged by older guys who were always showing me this very archaic African music, which had become a commercial enterprise in America—Paramount Records, OK Records, the Race Records of the late 20’s and early 30’s, were kind of jolly ditties mixed with some real primal music. When I got to Gulmin, Tantan Tarfaya and into Southern Morocco, I heard the grandfather of this music. And I’ve been glued to it ever since, because it has none of the vanity. It has none of the conceptions of what music can represent to the Western mind, especially in this incredibly disposable time, musically. And so now, this is my reward for putting up with and having some very tight jeans in the 70’s. How sad is that?

Were you ever tempted at the time when you were discovered that music in Morocco to bring your vast audience along?

With Led Zeppelin, from the beginning to the end, we touched on the music of Morocco and India. And being English, I was surrounded by people of India and Pakistan from the beginning of time. So we were very aware of that and Jimmy Page’s work and relationship with George Harrison from the Beatles and our links through Ravi Shankar with musicians in Bombay, we recorded some amazing stuff there in ‘71, it was always there in our hearts—“Kashmir” and songs that came out of the ether. We weren’t following in anybody else’s footsteps. We were just playing the way we felt. But to take an American or English audience into this, it’s just… It has to have its own feet and its own legs. You also have to be careful that it doesn’t just become a coffee table moment in Western culture because it’s all very well listening to Tinariwen and saying this is amazing stuff. The trouble is, with the coarseness and the cynicism of the world which we arrived from, that it is just another book on the table. It’s another disc to play to replace Mark Knopfler and Sting, but yet it has nothing to do with that at all. But that’s the way it goes, I guess. Robert Johnson, that packaged CBS multi-CD, 40 years after he was murdered, got a gold disc. And that’s not so bad. I mean, music is music and it should be spread around. We can’t covet this. Everybody should be aware of this. But taking it to a Led Zeppelin audience in 1975, that was quite a painful place to be.

As opposed to many musical acts of the time, especially of their caliber, Led Zeppelin did not know how to talk to the press, so it was exciting when they consented to an actual press conference to announce their shows at Tokyo’s Budokan. The conference cemented the boys’ negative views of the press, thanks to asinine questions from reporters: One interviewer questioned what rock music really was, another asked whether Plant might get a haircut, and the last straw came when someone asked whether Zeppelin’s music sounded better on drugs. Plant’s response: “Oh, no! That is a stupid question. ..It is much more interesting to talk about sex and music than drugs and music.”…(haha, Robert)

The band in December 1969 at London’s Savoy Hotel, posing with their many gold record awards for their first and second albums. By early May of 1969, Led Zeppelin’s first album was in America’s top 10, and would remain on the charts for a jaw-dropping 73 weeks. Chart records were not the only things the band had been breaking during the past year. They were notorious for renting entire sections of hotels and wreaking havoc. John Bonham once rode a motorcycle through the lobby of the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles!