Self Care – My Led Zeppelin Holy Grails

I’m moving another post over from my old blog. I’ve thought about putting this here in the past, so here it is. Also, yet again I’ve got another series of days of just Self Care posts. I’ve decided to stop getting myself stressed over the daily disgusting Agent Orange headlines darkening the news and focus on two posts I’ve been promising for a while now… the policing post and the ableism and slurs post. Both of these have taken me so long because they both require a lot of research, formatting, editing, and so on. I can’t just bang these out in a few minutes and throw them on here. Which, of course, means I’m procrastinating. But not any more. I’m getting them done, whether I want to or not!

But anyways… let’s talk about Led Zeppelin…

As a collector of unofficial Led Zeppelin material, there are so many things I wish to have but don’t. A few rare things are simply because I haven’t been able to find them. Some more are because they’re being horded.

But there’s some material that, as far as most collectors know, simply isn’t being circulated. Indeed, for some of this stuff, whether or not recordings exist is a question hotly debated.

But my interests aren’t limited to unofficial stuff. They extend towards potential official material, as well.

I got in to collecting unofficial Led Zeppelin material on an old, sadly no longer existing forum known as Planet Zeppelin. My very first unofficial recording was known as “The Secret History of Led Zeppelin”, which was a 1-cd compilation putting together some of the material from the BBC sessions that wasn’t officially released. I can’t put in to words how I felt when I listened to it for the first time, but it certainly made me addicted, and I haven’t stopped collecting since.

I’d like to go ahead and list, with short explanations, my top 10 “holy grails” of Led Zeppelin material, both official and unofficial.

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Self Care – 5 Batman Gadgets that are Real! (YouTube Video)

Okay so… YouTube list videos are sort of a guilty pleasure of mine. Here’s one I thought I’d share with y’all, mainly because I absolutely love Batman, and the idea that his gadgets actually exist in the real world excites me. Admittedly, most of them will be used for war, which sucks, and also makes sense considering the fact that Batman is the inspiration. But despite that, these are still pretty cool…

Self Care – How Vinyl Records Are Made

This is a clip from the How It’s Made series… a series I used to love very much.

As for vinyl records; yup, I’m a fan. Initially it was for audiophile reasons. I very much used to believe that analog recordings were better overall than digital recordings. And I’m sure that was true back in the 80s when digital was new and in the 90s when it was upgrading and coming into its own.

Now, though?

Now even downloadable digital files can come in high enough quality that the claim “vinyl records sound better” can, at the very least, be challenged. I do still prefer lossless compression to lossy compression (though, of course, I still use MP3 to carry music with me on my phone), especially for unofficial recordings (like audience recordings of live shows). The reason is because the quality of the recording, especially of a recording of a live show done in the 60s and 70s, is iffy at best (and sometimes quite terrible), and so keeping the audio files as close to the master recording as possible is preferred, as a loss in musical data can easily make an already iffy recording sound utterly horrid. FLAC is the standard lossless format, and my favorite, as well.

That said, though, I do, indeed, listen to vinyl when I can, if for no other reason than I’m the type who likes to sit back and just listen to music, and, mostly for cultural reasons, vinyl is the preferred way of doing that.

So anyways…

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Reminder: GGS, AP of the W, and Self Care in General All Open for Submissions

I just want to remind readers that Self Care in general, as well as Great Guitar Solos and Astronomy Picture of the Week are open for submissions. I’m eventually going to run out of stuff to post in these series, and would love to know what space pictures/videos/ideas you find interesting, what guitar solos you love, and what videos, pictures, recipes, etc you just enjoy and make you feel good, so I can post them here.

Don’t be shy! I’m genuinely curious, and I’d be happy to share it!

Self Care – Great Guitar Solos: Jeff Beck and David Gilmour Play Hi Ho Silver Lining Live at the Royal Albert Hall on July 4, 2009

This is an audience recording, so the quality isn’t entirely great, but seeing Jeff Beck and David Gilmour play together is just… it’s damn well near a spiritual experience…

This solo may not be technically flashy or pack an emotional punch, but I adore this one because it’s just fun! They’re clearly enjoying themselves.

They both play the guitar solo… it’s a guitar solo duet! It starts at 2:13 and ends at 2:44. There’s a second one (which actually looks like it wasn’t entirely expected, but hey! That means improv!) starting at 3:07 and ending at 3:43.

Enjoy!

Self Care – The Story of My Favorite Star Wars Character

She was a Jedi padawan to Anakin Skywalker. When the Jedi council betrayed her, she turned her back on them, and became what some call a Gray Jedi, wielding two white lightsabers.

I’m sincerely hoping that Ahsoka Tano shows up in one of the films. I really want to see her interact with Luke. It would be fascinating if she had some role in his belief that “the Jedi must end”…