The 1970s. Hanging out with my buddies after school. Driving around, trying to look grown up. This song comes on, we immediately turn up the radio to the loudest volume, and we’re all playing air guitar. Now it’s being played in a concert hall, for President Obama, with Heart doing the honors? (They rock it well, but I missed the rawness of Robert Plant’s voice.) I’m feeling old.
That song came out when Richard Nixon was president. I hope his corpse is crying bloody tears as the vibrations shake his tomb.
(via 3 Quarks Daily)
I actually detested that song when I was young. I was a student radical, and I associated the song with the surfer culture in my home town. I was way too damned serious back then. It sounds as if you had a hell of a lot more fun.
That’s not the only Led Zeppelin song they’ve covered. You can find “Immigrant Song”, “Black Dog” and others on youtube, but I preferred this one for the sheer power of it:
http://youtu.be/UthqOLQYBFw
oh my god HIGH SCHOOL!!!!
I kind of enjoyed that version (even though the guitarist played the original solo note-for-note; that’s bullshit in my view); suitably bombastic.
By the way, I recently ran across the below-linked clip, and for some reason it made me feel much better about myself to learn that even Jimmy Page palys air guiter!
Rumble
Heart in Washington? Dog and
PonyButterfly would have been a better choice. Much better song as well.Sigh. How did we get so old?
I’m the first one in to link to Wayne’s World? For shame.
For those wondering why they did the solo straight–remember that Heart wasn’t only playing for the Obamas, they were playing for the surviving members of Led Zeppelin! Page, Plant, and Jones were receiving the Kennedy Center Honors that night. (And the members of Heart were some kind of nervous playing before THAT audience–but it’s reported that Zep were quite pleased with their performance.)
By surviving…
If it’s air-guitar practice you’re after, try Wolfmother—Communication Breakdown.
Kennedy Center Honors for Led Zepplin? Unbelievable!
Ask a 20 year old Robert Plant, busy busting up hotel rooms and taking on groupies 3 or 4 at a time whilst ingesting illegal substances by the pound, if he could ever envision that happening and he’d would have probably vomited in your face.
The award is as much for surviving as it is for the music.
You’re sad because you can’t play that on air guitar any more? I’m sad because I can’t play it on real guitar any more. (Yeah, it’s been like 35 years since I last did; I just need to look up the TAB and reconstruct the chord positions. Thank you, internet…..)
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I do love to listen to Led Zeppelin. So much so that I listened to Ramble On and The Battle of Evermore right afterwards. (I’m a Tolkien fan too.)
Stairway to Heaven is OK (though this version has some unbearable pseudoviolins). But I rather played air guitar to this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OorZcOzNcgE
Robbie never could pull that off either.
Of course Stairway to Heaven was modeled after CiT.
mobius @12: The Battle of Evermore and When The Levee Breaks are, by far, my favourites tracks from Led Zeppelin IV.
As someone who loves Led Zeppelin’s music (especially the work of John Paul Jones, who often seems to me to receive somewhat shorter shrift), I’d just like to point out that another honoree at that particular event was Buddy Guy, and it seemed to me from the broadcast that the surviving members of Led Zeppelin were appreciative of Buddy’s honor, presence, influence, legacy, and achievement.
When I lived in Chicago I lived in an apartment complex next to Buddy Guy’s Legends, which is his Blues club at the corner of 8th and South Wabash. Though I never actually encountered the great man himself, my roommate did one time, just crossing the street, and offered up a cheerful, “Hi, Buddy!” which was returned in kind.
So here’s to Led Zeppelin. And to Buddy.*
Still learning,
Robert
_____________
* Oh, and I’m pretty sure the scientific term for Tracy Chapman’s, Beth Hart’s, and Bonnie Raitt’s performances in the tribute is Totally Awesome.
uh…they looked real to me.
Pretty elementary stuff…only 2 chords, and they stuck to just the one for the entire guitar solo.
“Of course”? Care to elucidate what you see as the similarities before I go ahead and call bullshit?
Zep thread. Yay!
I’ll never forget the rock club 20+ years ago, where five notes and a *smack* *thump thump* (squeak) reduced the place to semi-stunned silence followed by a collective sigh.
Since I’ve Been Loving You
Interestingly, neither Pete nor Keef were fans.
Bad Zep memory…as an antisocial teenager, there was nothing I hated more than school dances, and of the activities that took place at schools dances, none displeased me more than slow dancing. I had done something bad, and my mother knew that grounding never worked, and so she dropped me off at a school dance when I was about thirteen. To, like, punish me. I hadn’t even intended on entering the gymnasium, but just outside he school door a girl asked me for a dance, and I begged off. And she did this several more times, and I begged off, and she stayed in the hall and talked to me, and that was nice, I guess. Finally, she had been so nice and I had been such a jerk that I agreed, on what ended up being the last slow dance of the night. And it was Stairway to Heaven, the song that goes on for fucking ever
Anyway. I have only in recent years gained an appreciation for LZ, but I’ll never like that song. Kashmir is kind of good.
Although, maybe if I had been born a decade earlier, before metal really got heavy, I would have liked Zeppelin more. They just couldn’t compete with Anthrax, Slayer, and Metallica.
What is CiT?
Wait, what? You’re resentful of having to do an 8 minute long slow dance with a girl in high school?
I got to do a slow dance at a high school prom one time, and I didn’t want it to end. I don’t even remember the music now.
‘Child in Time’, a Deep Purple number than some apparently prefer to Led Zeppelin. *shrug*
It was “Color My World’ by Chicago. You’re welcome.
Of course, Deep Purple’s Perfect Stranglers was modelled on Kashmir, too. ;-)
—
This compass is missing a point! No love for Mustaine’s other band?!
—
(I’m struggling to imagine a thrash slow-dance, though. Orion?)
The last words of Otto forever ring true.
GAH. I second the call of bullshit. Anyhoo, we all know “Stairway” was really ripped off from here.
my bad: Colour My World.
(F major 7 ftw)
Chas #23
re: Child in Time spawned Stairway to Heaven
ah, yes
I understand.
Does Ravel’s Bolero fit in there somewhere?
@ chigau
Pachelbel!
theophontes
Good plan.
As long as we include innagadadavida.
And make those TV dance-survivors boogie! to the tunes.
What an overproduced mess. The original was bad, and this is just sad and ugly. Gimme Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Jethro Tull …
culch #30
Bless your heart.
LED ZEPPELIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Though I’m only 26, they are my all-time favorite band. I’m rather obsessed with them. I have so many unofficial live recordings and studio outtakes, including, I’m rather proud to admit, the complete BBC Sessions, which actually need 4 discs instead of two!
I also have the multi-track stems for Heartbreaker, Ramble On, What is and What Should Never Be, and Whole Lotta Love.
Oh yeah… I get to hear how WLL actually ends in the studio, and I’ve got to admit… it’s pretty frickin’ cool.
I’m also obsessed enough to be working on a continual project called The (In)Complete Roots of Led Zeppelin. Which makes me feel at least slightly qualified to comment on a couple posts here…
mnbo @ #13:
Sorry… no. This one was actually debated quite heavily on the For Badgeholders Only emailing list as well as Royal Orleans a few years back (the debate was actually a small part of the inspiration for my journey to compile the roots of Led Zeppelin), and the overwhelming consensus is that this song really didn’t play any part at all in the formation of Stairway to Heaven.
I referenced those debates when putting my compilation together, in fact.
Of course, STH is not entirely original, which brings me to…
Rey Fox @ #25:
I am sorry to say that I’ve never been able to confirm this, but supposedly there’s an interview with the band Spirit or their guitarist or someone else in the band, and they’re asked about STH, and they basically say that they sort of gave JP that main riff after hearing him noodle around with it and take it to places they never imagined. And after hearing STH, not only did they feel confident in giving it to him, but they publically divorced themselves from the song, saying that it is not in any way related to Taurus and could never be.
But… again… although I’ve been searching for anything even close to that, I’ve never been able to find anything resembling such an interview. I have found numerous references to similar quotes, but nothing I can confirm.
So, for now, that’s complete speculation, based on hearsay. I’m hoping to eventually confirm the truth or falsity of it, but as of right now, I can’t.
And finally, my favorite LZ song and all-time favorite song is this one. I still haven’t figured out why, but I’m okay with that because… it’s a frickin; awesome song!
lol. You can have ’em.
Although one of the things in your little list is not like the others. Did you know that Jethro Tull had other albums besides Aqualung? It’s true!
Here, dig this if you can.
NateHevens, this is for you.
Chas… are you on the For Badgeholders Only emailing list? There’s someone there with the handle Chas (Stumbo, though) as well…
And thanks for that! I have those shows. Zep was not at their best in 1980. I’m actually a fan of their earliest years (1968/9 – ~06/1972), although there are some shows from ’75 and ’77 that I love. The only thing keeping me away from ’73 is Plant’s voice, which squeaked and cracked so often that year that it hurt my throat. Otherwise they were on fire in ’73…
naw, I’m not that Chas.
The 1980 stuff is just the first page…that site has posted pretty much every show from every tour over the past few years. Keep next-paging…
I saw them once, in Feb. 1975, and so that’s the era I kind of gravitate to.
I’m so old Billy Joel played at our Senior’s Sweetheart Dance.
YEAH! Fuck people whose musical tastes are different to your own, amirite?!!
Although I do agree with the larger point of #30 re: way too much production.
I find it hard to enjoy Led Zeppelin since I learned that Jimmy Page kidnapped and repeatedly raped a 14 years old girl in the 70s. I know that an artist and their creations are different things, but I just can’t avoid remembering that every time I listen to one of his solos.
Wolfmother @ #9. Check this out – we might have gone slightly backweards in the 44 years that elapsed since this ….
1. Michelle enjoys functions like this much more than Barack does.
2. Robert Plant has a really big head.
3. From a few decades out, it looks like Ann Wilson was the best rock singer of them all, except when David Bowie’s orbit brought him near the genre.
As far as Zeppelin is concerned I’ll give a big +1 for When the Levee Breaks, that song still gives me goosebumps. I also liked his duet album with Alison Krauss (Raising Sand), check it out it’s worth a listen as well as his current stuff he is doing with Band of Joy. I was lucky enough to catch them at Jazzfest in New Orleans a couple of years ago and they were great, they even did some Zeppelin covers but in a more blue grassy way. BTW his voice hasn’t changed much if at all over the years he can still wail like no one else.
Since Chas mentioned both Black Sabbath and Jethro Tull in one post, I thought I’d mention that great R&R oddity The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus which has or two actual highlights, including Tull during the brief period when future Sabbath founder Toni Iommi was their guitarist, rubber fingertips and all.
Shit haven’t listened to those guys in years, I’m gonna have to dig deep into the collection (well as far as the j’s since everything is digital and in the cloud these days) and get me some of that.
Yes.
I will always love Led Zeppelin, but when talking of influences on their music, I always think of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByUjZ80HGRU
@carlie #6: I have a theory that that scene is actually much deeper than the obvious joke. See I think it’s actually about how Wayne has just sold his artistic soul to the metaphorical devil, in effect trying to purchase his stairway to heaven, which is denied. But that’s masked by the simple surface joke.
Everyone I mention this to tells me I’m reading too much into it though.
I wonder how he felt when he realized that he could make his voice do that? “Holy crap, I’ll be rich”?
Tangential: have you seen the documentary “It Might Get Loud”? Jimmy Page, Jack White, and The Edge talk and share ideas about guitar playing. There is one scene where Jack White and The Edge ask Page about the lead to “Whole Lotta Love”. Page speaks for a minute then begins playing: the grins on the faces of the other two guitarists are priceless (and it sounds good too).
Yep, great doco. I like the intro where White makes a simple one stringed guitar using a piece of wood for the neck, a coke bottle for the bridge, a pickup, a string and a couple of nails plugs it in and plays some slide guitar.
great ‘translation’, bro. *eyeroll*
I linked a relevant clip in #3 above. Here’s another: Kashmir.
[ooo, look; here’s the whole thing!]
well, what the fuck…I have unpleasant tasks to procrastinate and Holms has cracked the bottle, so let’s bust this open.
There’s this claim that always comes up that musical taste is just that: simply taste or preference, Coke vs. Pepsi or chocolate vs. vanilla. I say bullshit.
In art and, I would argue, particularly in music, there is a meaningful concept of–to use a perhaps unfortunately baggage-fraught term–sophistication. There are opinions based on nothing more than ‘sounds good to me’ and then there are opinions that are informed by knowledge and experience. I don’t even hate to sound elitist about this. I am. The latter opinions are just better ones.
To apply the example above, as a musician of some decades experience*, I can tell you confidently that there is much more going on musically in ‘Stairway’ than in the entire Deep Purple catalog combined.
Now, maybe you don’t give a shit about such things, because you pick your music solely by its headbanging/air-guitar content–and that’s fine by me, really (as long as it’s not 2am when I have to get up for work the next day), to each her own. But look–if that’s your sole criterion then yoiu’re embarrassing yourself by making specious comparisons in public. You’re ignorant.
Sez me. So there.
*(this is not about me, but I’ll list my bona fides if anybody gives a shit)
Chas: If you don’t have anything to do, maybe you could explain what’s going on muscially in StH that’s pretty awesome…or indicate or hint. Or link. Or whatever. Like I said, I never much cared for the song, but maybe its because I don’t know why I should. I’d consider it a favor.
Well, now I’ve listened to StH 3-4 times*; the end sounds kind of like Hendrix’ cover of All along the Watchtower…I mean, I don’t think Zep yoinked it or anything, because that chord progression is pretty common. The breakdown before the solo is pretty interesting rhythmically (although not quite so much as other Zeppelin songs that I can think of, and certainly not on par with most metal/prog stuff). The solo is OK, I guess, but kind of standard for blues-inspired rockers.
Not for nothing, but I kind of like Ann Wilson’s vocals on this better than Plant’s…you can’t really help the voice you’re born with (beyond certain limits, anyway), but she sounds like Plant with power.
*Maybe the first time that’s happened since I was 13.
lesofa @ #39:
I just want to be clear about a few details, here…
You’re talking about Lori Maddox, who to this day sees this as one of the best times of her life (she still refers to Jimmy Page as “my greatest love”, and we should be supportive of people in her position seeing these things however they want. She did indeed consent to this. That said, it was illegal and was statutory rape and it’s among the many less savory episodes of Zep’s history… and if you want to argue that her positive feelings towards this incident in her life is Stockholme Syndrome, I wouldn’t argue against that. A distinct possibility, to be sure.
John Bonham, sad to say, was the worst. If any of them ever came close to violent rape multiple times, it was him. When he got drunk, Grant would put a security detail on him basically to protect women from him. Numerous times they had to pull him off screaming and terrified women. He was an almost insanely different person when sober; family man, never angry, car lover… alcohol brought out a monster.
Not that alcohol is any excuse, however.
Another infamous incident is the mud shark incident, although, if my sources are right, the woman actually suggested they do that to her… that is, it was her idea… and she loved it.
Behind the music, John Paul Jones was the only one who seemed to respect the women around him. Plant blames being a 19 year old and having bare breasts shoved in his face, but that’s not an excuse. LZ sort of defined the Rock n’ Roll culture that came after them (Van Halen and beyond), even moreso than The Rolling Stones, who put their sexism directly into their music.
————————————————————-
You know… it’s odd… as much as I love Led Zeppelin’s music, I absolutely abhor the music they directly inspired: 80’s metal and such (known by many as Cock Rock). I’m pretty sure there’s no decade worse for lyrics or guitar solos than the 80’s. Jimmy Page may have defined soloing excess, but at least he was good at it! At least Jimmy Page knew whether or not a solo would fit, and what kind of solo would fit. At least he knew when to be more technical or more emotional. At least Page knew how to balance it.
With a few rare exceptions, the guitarists who counted Jimmy Page as their main inspiration had no understanding of that balance. They were largely technical players who apparently couldn’t understand how a face-melting shredder solo simply didn’t work in the middle of a slow love ballad and had absolutely no understanding of the solo as an instrumental verse in the song meant to drive the song forward and elicit further emotion. They also didn’t seem to know how to tell if a song even needed a solo.
But the real travesty of the 80’s was lyrics. I’ve always believed in sincerity in lyrics. That is… I’m not saying someone should write social critique songs n’ shit, but… you know… be real in your lyrics. My favorite example is Billy Joel: his lyrics, bar none, are sincere. You know that what he sang about were things in his life, memories, events, thoughts, and so on. Billy Joel is, IMO, an absolutely perfect lyricist because he was sincere.
Robert Plant was sincere as well. A lot of people don’t realize it, but even Whole Lotta Love (even though it’s a cover song and not actually an original song) was directed towards someone specific Plant had in mind (of course, it was a specific groupie he was having a fling with at the time). So even Led Zeppelin’s lyrics were about something connected to Plant (and Page, when he wrote lyrics). And this includes the more obscure lyrics, such as Stairway to Heaven and No Quarter and such.
Yeah, it means you can write about love, and sex, and parties, and drugs, and stories, and movies, and experiences… just… you know… write about a party you actually went to, or drugs you’ve actually done, or sex you’ve actually had, or someone you’re actually in love with. When you just get drunk or stoned and pull lyrics out of your ass, those lyrics are going to be bad. The 80’s was rife with this… and it hasn’t stopped. Just as with the Blues and Progressive Rock and guitar solos, I have to go underground to find good lyrics.
And, sadly, even being sincere doesn’t necessarily mean good lyrics.
I think I much prefer the music inspired by Pink Floyd. I like the more experimental stuff out there. If you haven’t heard of Steven Wilson or his work, then you desperately need to. The guy is an incredible guitarist, a great lyricist, has a really good voice, and he’s a brilliant producer. If anyone here is a fan of ELP or King Crimson, then you have heard of him, because he’s the one who’s remastered and is remastering both ELP and KC catalogs for the anniversary releases. There are rumors he’ll be doing work on Pink Floyd’s catalog, and he’s shown interest in working with Jimmy Page on the LZ remasters that Page has been promising (and recently there’ve been rumors that Page is looking for someone to work with on those… if true, I seriously hope he goes with Wilson).
So today I listen to a lot of underground Progressive and Psychedelic Rock… the darker and more experimental, the better.
well, look, I don’t want to give the misimpression that I think it’s a Masterpiece of Western Civilization or anything; I was only comparing it to the neanderthal-level Deep Purple stuff. (My own preferred musical tastes run to Miles Davis’s 2nd and 3rd Quintets, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the Grateful Dead, Pat Metheny, and these days Umphrey’s McGee and Railroad Earth.)
But, you know, it’s got 5 or 6 chords instead of just the 2, it’s got different, contrasting sections, melodies that aren’t just ancient cliches, interesting instrumental textures, a bit of rhythmic complexity, ponderable lyrics, and then the whole sexual-metaphoir build-slowly-to-climax structure (yes, Ravel* was there first). It’s just got relatively lots going on, which was my actual claim (not ‘awesomeness’).
Sure, but it’s worth keeping in mind that you’re looking back after 40 years! It sounds “standard” today, but Page set that standard. One can make a good case that pre-Hendrix rock lead guitar can be succinctly summarized as Clapton, Beck, Page (i.e. the various Yardbirds).
hee hee. (a beautiful little arpeggio)
*[my father loves to tell the story of a P-Chem professor who was always warning students that the course was similar to the Bolero, in that it started slow but built and built and built on what had come before, and if students didn’t keep up they were screwed. SO one day, maybe 2/3 of the way through the course, everybody’s there for lecture, and the prof comes in a few minutes late, opens up a portable record player, drops the needle on Ravel’s Bolero and leaves the room–it was the entire lecture.]
Fair enough. This stuff was already catalog by the time I started listening, and it is really hard to appreciate a context that I didn’t experience. By the time I was starting to get my groove on, minor-pentatonic based leads just saturated rock. That being said, I have always loved Hendrix…to me he just kind of stands apart. My opinion on this could not be more cliched.
I sometimes like to think about what I would have been into had I been born a decade earlier…Creedence, the Kinks, and the Who always seem like obvious choices, but maybe I would have dug on some Yardbirds and Zep. IDK.
I think that’s empirical and uncontroversial.
if only…
Only just got to this (curse you work and your YouTube block):
Oh, the Asteraceae! Rosaceae! Convolvulaceae?
I’ve got some lilies here, too, as it happens, but to be frank, they’re a bit too smelly for romancing, and the pollen stains something awful. ;-)
Re: Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple
Oh crap, I inspired am “expert” to bloviate.
Ugh no, not even close.
I will take you at your word that you are knowledgeable about music theory. Fine. If people were discussing the chord progressions (or whatever) of Deep Purple vs. Led Zeppelin songs, then I’m sure you would have plenty to contribute to that discussion, and would perhaps set people straight on some of the particulars.
The problem is, you weren’t simply disagreeing about an article of music theory, you weren’t disagreeing with people’s opinions, you went further: you were disagreeing with the legitimacy of people having their opinion in the first place. Musical taste is precisely ‘what sounds good to me’, and the criteria you use are not necessarily the same as those used by others.
You like music with certain particulars X, Y and Z? Cool, but don’t get the idea that you get to shit on other criteria, however different they may be.
Personally, I like both bands roughly equally.
Jesus, some people are suckers for pretentious snobs. This guy event wants you to tell him what his opinion should be.
Dude, there’s nothing wrong with not liking Stairway.
haha! Rock on, bro! Have a nice day!
(hey, how did you like ‘The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles’? Nothing “overproduced” there, am I right?)
Strange, I don’t recall using the word “theory”…oh yeah, because I didn’t. When I spoke of musical “knowledge and experience” I wasn’t talking (just) about theory. Theory is book learning. I was talking about a much more nebulous and important concept better referred to as ‘musicality’ or ‘musicalness’.
Bullshit. Quote me. If you were to try reading for comprehension, I think you’d find I said pretty much exactly the opposite.
Exactly right. But what you don’t seem to get is that criteria are not (necessarily) substitutive, they are additive. Just because I might recognize what chord inversion somebody is playing (theory), or I might judge that somebody is just copping Albert King licks instead of trying for honest artistic self-expression (musicality) does not mean I can’t appreciate simple rocking out.
On the other hand, if all you care about in music is that it has a good beat you can dance to, then I reserve the right to know that I know more and better.
I didn’t shit on anybody’s criteria. I merely pointed out that some people are applying a very limited set of criteria, and that the larger the set of criteria applied, the more meaningful the opinion. That’s all. I stand by that.
You are so cool! But why should anybody else give a shit? I like chocolate and vanilla. *shrug*
I know, right?! Asking questions in an attempt to learn something! What a dipshit!
I totally agree with that.
But, if you have reasons for your dislike, there are some reasons that are better than others.
Ah, but what if it has that and more? :-)
The mix from the beginnings of the spacey Psionic (about 0:32:00) to the pounding Movin’ Thru Your System (0:57:00; a track described by one writer as “like being trapped inside a broken-down Galaga machine”) is, I’d claim, a great piece of music. Written by many people and assembled by one, but still.
Alternatively, I could take the meaning of your words and then summarise them using other words. Your contemptuous and snide language was what I was going by when I said that you disputed the legitimacy of other opinions, but I see you’re going to claim nuh-uh because you didn’t say those precise words. Fuck that.
See, your insistence that your musical tastes are better is precisely the ‘shitting on other opinions’ I was referring to. Your knowledge may be better (or so you claim), but your opinions are not. Learn the difference.
I suppose this is an example of you not being snide?