Led Zeppelin- The Song Remains The Same

[JeffCarney]

Yes, they might lack "discipline" on stage. Just like Cream, Experience or almost every other 1st generation hard/power/blues-rock band that came out of the 60s. And that is precisely what has attracted me to this genre and what I sorely miss when such bands started to streamline their music to pure riffs, shreds and pounding drums. I have no use for any disciplined hard-rock, it is not how it was originally invented!

Seven-minute long live Dazed & Confused? No thanks, I will stick to unabridged 25-minute versions!

That's actually quite interesting how different expectations we music fans have from the same bands, or even the same compositions. I cannot forget comments on another forum about Clapton's guitar solo on What Does Love Got to Be So Sad from Derek & the Dominos' live album. The discussion focused on the different take that had swapped the original one on Live at the Fillmore reissue (of the original In Concert release). Some fans complained that on the longer "replacement" version Clapton played as if he had been high or driven too much by uncontrolled emotions, and thus lacking the discipline displayed on the originally published take.

When I read that I said to myself: aren't emotions the best aspect of blues-rock? Upon hearing that reissue's take for the first time I immediately fell in love with it. In my opinion it contains one of the most emotional (best?) guitar solos ever. For others it is only Eric flubbing his solo part.

Let's not compare Led Zeppelin to Cream as improvisers. That would be absurd.

[GuitarGeek]

JPJ's long solos are very chordal to my ears, not really anything like Emerson/Wakeman.

Yeah, but he displays a similar dexterity of technique.

[JJ88]

I have also a feeling that the persisting antipathy towards Led Zeppelin among hard-core music fans has more to do with their bombast lifestyle, sexual excesses, early plagiarism and mass popularity than their actual musical shortcomings. I mean many people often claim that Led Zeppelin were bloated, boring, self-repeating and self-indulgent live, but in the same breath they go to heap praises on Made in Japan (or numerous other recordings or acts displaying these very same characteristics) as the best live recording ever. I do not get it I am afraid.

I think Made In Japan is one of the best live rock albums ever. I hear a firepower and intensity on it. And what would be deemed 'bloated, boring, self-repeating and self-indulgent' on there other than 'Space Truckin' anyway? I don't even have a problem with that version, far from it...but the Mark III ones, as we see on California Jam, could be pretty horrific, with Glenn Hughes bleating all over the place and Jon Lord using the synth like a new toy.

[Jay.Dee]

Let's not compare Led Zeppelin to Cream as improvisers. That would be absurd.

I do not compare them, I put them in the same stylistic and aesthetic bag. In that regard they are closer to each other than either of them to AC/DC, Rainbow or Thin Lizzy.

For me the level of improvisation in Led Zeppelin was just fine and they did not need to go ballistic like Cream (whose live improvs were BTW also accused of being boring, self-repeating and directionless). Zeppelin tended to mix improptu parts into their composition fabric and that was great in my book too.

By the same token Miles Davis did not need to have chops and dexterity of, say, Clifford Brown or Wynton Marsalis to deliver exciting live performances, and all despite the slow wane of his performing powers across the decades. His 70s live fusion recordings like Pangea/Agharta were frequently criticised as bloated, sloppy and unfocused, while for me they're among one of his finest albums. I just do not feel that Miles is lost in the haze, Henderson plods and Cosey is a second-rate soloist, as some other jazz fans want to hear it.

[Jay.Dee]

I think Made In Japan is one of the best live rock albums ever. I hear a firepower and intensity on it. And what would be deemed 'bloated, boring, self-repeating and self-indulgent' on there other than 'Space Truckin' anyway?

The fans who attack Dazed & Confused or single out Moby Dick as a proof of Zeppelin's live shortcomings usually fail to notice that:

- Space Trucking - 20 minutes, mostly filled with self-indulgence (hey, we have even a maligned guitar bowing here!)
- The Mule - 10 minutes of drum solo bore
- Strange Kind of Woman - 10 minutes, much of it dedicated to the same vocal/guitar duel trick repeated every night

That's more than a half of the original release (76 minutes in total). And now go and check other gigs from that Japanese run. Same program night by night, most takes played in roughly same fashion. Is it the band at the peak of their powers, really?

And do not get me wrong - I love Deep Purple too, but I am not blind to the favourable treatment they (and many other bands) get.

[JJ88]

Instead of looking for a non-existent agenda it could be simply that, you know, people like the longer tracks on Made In Japan and don't on TSRTS. I've heard off-form Deep Purple- in the Mark II era, I never thought that B&W videotaped Denmark gig from 1972 was all that great, it's less fiery- and this isn't it.

For me, 'Moby Dick' is an endurance test- and their long, long solos only got worse in later years. I don't find anything on Made In Japan anywhere near as trying. You are talking about personal taste and looking for some kind of illogical rationale behind it.

Now, overall I think Led Zeppelin have the more substantial and varied body of work. But that's besides the point.

[Jay.Dee]

Well, I do not think it is an agenda, I would rather consider it an unconscious bias.

One may have personal preferences and tastes, but it does not imply they can be logically explained. Accusing Led Zeppelin of lack of coherence, self-indulgence and repetition, while turning a blind eye on blatant examples of such elsewhere is not something that would stand up to scrutiny. You dig Space Truckin'? Fine, but you won't prove me that it is an example of coherence, constraint and focus.

And personally I find Moby Dick as dull as The Mule, but of course to each his own.

[Watanabe]

Relative to the fact they were a less famous band, i've probably read\heard as almost as much criticism of Purple for their extended live jamming than i have of Zep.There will no doubt be people out there that for various illogical reasons dislike aspects of bands they are more than willing to dig in others, but i'd expect most will take them on their own merits.

They are after all different players and compositions.

Incidentally you have to be a monstrous philistine when it comes to appreciation of percussive improvisation to consider The Mule as boring as Moby Dick.Paice was one of the best rock soloists of that era, a great combination of top-notch big band\post-bop rudimental finesse and application of all the emerging hand-and-foot rock licks of the day.Usually done in 6-7 minutes and not 15-30 minutes!.

[Man In The Mountain]

Love the movie and the soundtrack. Watched it a million times back in the day. Love the updated 2007 version, great sound, great extra cuts. Wish there was a version without some of the non-live stuff in it, I hate the scene with the cops beating up on a fan backstage during the middle of Dazed & Confused. Other than that, it's a great document of a time and an era.

The 30 minute Dazed and Confused is the best. Watching that when I was 13, made me become a prog fan. Love it.

[Jay.Dee]

Incidentally you have to be a monstrous philistine when it comes to appreciation of percussive improvisation to consider The Mule as boring as Moby Dick. Paice was one of the best rock soloists of that era, a great combination of top-notch big band\post-bop rudimental finesse and application of all the emerging hand-and-foot rock licks of the day.

You may be quite right about a monstrous philistine aspect of my music worship!

Although I have no problem with acknowledging instrumental skills of Little Ian, vastly underrated drummer in the classic rock milieu, I have never found any excitement in his extended solo spots. Now that you are challenging me I will reluctantly go back to Moby Dick, then subject myself to The Mule and finally play Toad, or even better some Elvin Jones' drum solo. If I manage to get through the whole session, I will come back with the fresh conclusions.

God, have mercy on me!

[Jay.Dee]

OK, that went pretty fast.

Ginger Baker's Toad wins hands down for me against Paice's and Bonham's solo numbers. He has both technique and music vision, there is a flow, nimbleness and polyrhythmic narrative in his '68 take (17 minutes) from Cream's Those Were The Days boxset. That's a kind of rock drum improvisation I can listen to without quickly growing tired.

Moby Dick seems clearly moulded on the Baker's soloing template, however Bonham sounds to me light years away from his inspiration in terms of drumming skills. The '72 version from How the West Was Won rambles for 19 minutes, and although I can clearly hear that the drummer wanted to weave an improvisational tale, he was too often out of his depth. A point for trying though, especially that some segments work by their sheer heaviness and punch.

Unfortunately The Mule is the furthest away from any improvisational (jazz) drumming. Ian Paice has a superb technique indeed, but to these ears there is no music story told on the '72 version off Made in Japan (10 minutes). The whole solo section is just a workshop-like display of his technical chops; it also sounds carefully pre-rehearsed. Nonetheless for me there is no actual music here, but I can easily understand that drum practitioners may be impressed or inspired by the "demonstration".

That's my philistine take on these three classic drum solo pieces, as I have mercifully refrained from bringing Elvin Jones into the comparison.

[Vic2012]

What do you guys think of Jimmy's Danelectro solo on White Mountain/Black Mountain/Whatever on the Zeppelin DVD of 2003? I think's it's great but it goes on a bit too long.

re: Drum solos: I like Bill Ward's drum solo on Rat Salad a lot more than Bonham on Moby Dick (comparing the studio versions). I've always thought of Rat Salad as Sabbath's "Moby Dick." And I'm not saying Bill's a "better" drummer, I'm just saying the drum solo in Rat Salad is just easier to listen to. Really, I can't stand when Bonham throws down the sticks and starts playing with his hands.

[Jerjo]

Then there's Peart's solos, which I always thought were musical but not very improvised.

[pb2015]

Then there's Peart's solos, which I always thought were musical but not very improvised.

True, although I read that he made an effort to improvise more over the last few years.

BTW, although I didn't like the Ginger Baker's Air Force album much, the double drum version of "Toad" with Phil Seamen is good (possibly better and more concise than the Cream version).

[JeffCarney]

What do you guys think of Jimmy's Danelectro solo on White Mountain/Black Mountain/Whatever on the Zeppelin DVD of 2003? I think's it's great but it goes on a bit too long.

re: Drum solos: I like Bill Ward's drum solo on Rat Salad a lot more than Bonham on Moby Dick (comparing the studio versions). I've always thought of Rat Salad as Sabbath's "Moby Dick." And I'm not saying Bill's a "better" drummer, I'm just saying the drum solo in Rat Salad is just easier to listen to. Really, I can't stand when Bonham throws down the sticks and starts playing with his hands.

I always thought of "Moby Dick" and "Rat Salad" as part of the tradition started by Cream on "Toad."

But I agree with you. In less than a minute solo and with a 4-piece kit, Ward is flat out slippery good on "Rat Salad."

[Score2112]

Appreciate the film FAR more as an adult then when I was a kid, thats for sure.

[Watanabe]

OK, that went pretty fast.

Ginger Baker's Toad wins hands down for me against Paice's and Bonham's solo numbers. He has both technique and music vision, there is a flow, nimbleness and polyrhythmic narrative in his '68 take (17 minutes) from Cream's Those Were The Days boxset. That's a kind of rock drum improvisation I can listen to without quickly growing tired.

Moby Dick seems clearly moulded on the Baker's soloing template, however Bonham sounds to me light years away from his inspiration in terms of drumming skills. The '72 version from How the West Was Won rambles for 19 minutes, and although I can clearly hear that the drummer wanted to weave an improvisational tale, he was too often out of his depth. A point for trying though, especially that some segments work by their sheer heaviness and punch.

Unfortunately The Mule is the furthest away from any improvisational (jazz) drumming. Ian Paice has a superb technique indeed, but to these ears there is no music story told on the '72 version off Made in Japan (10 minutes). The whole solo section is just a workshop-like display of his technical chops; it also sounds carefully pre-rehearsed. Nonetheless for me there is no actual music here, but I can easily understand that drum practitioners may be impressed or inspired by the "demonstration".

That's my philistine take on these three classic drum solo pieces, as I have mercifully refrained from bringing Elvin Jones into the comparison.

Some fine observations Jay, though i'd say Paice solo is definitely mostly improvised.He had a rather fixed overall style of soloing, but not in the sense of actually constructing and rigidly fitting together various worked out patterns like Peart mostly did.It's actually full of big-band style snare playing, so not far away from a jazz vocabulary so much as adapted to a more straight-eighth accented rock context.While i wouldn't agree it's a dry technical excercise i can understand that style of percussive soloing not being for everyone, or sometimes coming off as just a chops fest if you don't like building improvisation around mostly rudimental snare and top-kit playing.

It's straight out of the whole swing tradition of Rich, Bellson etc where much of the musicality is in telling a story with your accents rather than the way someone like Max Roach or Baker plays(a great unique rock stylist and an innovative if sometimes ponderous and inconsistent soloist imo)where they tend to be building and improvising patterns around a melody or riff.A fair amount of more modern jazz or rock drummers tend to see that whole really heavy on the rudimental shredding with lots of accents approach as personified by Buddy Rich-and carried into rock by the likes of Paice, Bunker, Palmer and plenty others for soloing ideas even if they were otherwise more influenced by post-bop players or no jazz at all-as more technical than musical.It's certainly not an improvising style that's aged without criticism or that you see too often anymore as a dominant aspect in younger drummers.

[JJ88]

What do you guys think of Jimmy's Danelectro solo on White Mountain/Black Mountain/Whatever on the Zeppelin DVD of 2003? I think's it's great but it goes on a bit too long.

As with Howe/'And You And I' on Yessongs, I don't get why he didn't use an acoustic for that. But I remember that Royal Albert Hall show being explosive. Page should really put a lot of this live stuff out on CD.

[GuitarGeek]

As with Howe/'And You And I' on Yessongs, I don't get why he didn't use an acoustic for that. But I remember that Royal Albert Hall show being explosive. Page should really put a lot of this live stuff out on CD.

Page, I read once got fed up with audience members screaming "LOUDER!" when he broke out his acoustic on the early Led Zeppelin shows. That's why he went to using the Danelectro for White Summer/Black Mountain Side.

As for Howe and And You And I, I think there were two things at work there:

1. I think he wasn't that happy with what was available in the early 70's, vis-a-viz amplifying the acoustic guitar in the context of an electric band. You'll notice he didn't play acoustic on Roundabout either. I think he wasn't until later in the 70's (or maybe even later) that he felt that he could get a satisfactory tone out of such instruments.

2. There's that passage where he had to switch to six string electric, which he probably felt at the time meant he "needed" to use the doubleneck. I think after the doubleneck got knocked over damaged in the middle of a tour (and then repaired badly), he suddenly realized that And You And I "had" to be played on acoustic. But that was sometime in the late 70's when that happened, I think either on the Going For The One or Tormato tour.

[winkersnufs]

Hello There greater Cleveland Chris...

I enjoy reading your informative posts. You certainly have your bits and Thank You.

Carry On
Chris Buckley

[Jefferson James]

The Song Retains the Name

[BravadoNJ]

best performance of Dazed & Confused ever.

[Trane]

Having heard dozens of versions of "No Quarter" from the '75 and '77 tours, it concerns me that you have clearly taken to smoking crack.
Come on ...

typical Jeff diplomacy...
But he's got a point JPJ is just apt for Zep's needs for KBs (though NQ is close to my fave Zep track)

I disliked the album rather intensely even back when I was a fanboy. I somehow think it was partly due to the MSG concerts being in support of HotH, (still) my single fave LZ record. Those 26+ minutes of "Dazed.." always struck me as some of the most tedious 70s rock music out there. "Bore'em at the Forum", wasn't that Bonham's immortalized epiphany concerning some Jethro Tull appearance involving LZ? How about "Pardon for the Garden" in relation to the latter...

Well, I never actually owned the album (until recently, the extended version was given to me), but I saw the film many times in local theatre midnight screening and everyone loved D&C

However, those 20+ minutes of Deep Purple's Space Truckin'... that's a tougher endurance test for me.

Indeed, Space Trucking was much worse in that regards.. I even preferred lengthy Wring That Neck and Mandrake Root extended jams to ST

Nope. It's just that while I enjoy some of the ensemble playing in the various versions of "Dazed & Confused," I also sometimes hear a band who just plain lacked discipline. And it was often to their detriment, IMO.

I'm a bigger Zep than Purple fan, but for my money Led Zeppelin were inconsistent live to an extent perhaps more severe than some of their peers. And it didn't just start in '75 or '77 as some fans might wish to believe. Listen to something like Buffalo '73. Yikes!

But that's ok. I mean, I love the Japan '72 shows. Plant was at his worst, there are missed cues all over the place ... but the band is on edge and exciting to me. And hearing early versions of the HOTH material is tremendous.

Indeed, I can agree that Zep was fairly inconsistant (like VdGG, to their own admission) especially compared to Purple

For ex, in Toronto, they never gave a good show (injury or health issues, but it was more than that)

Yes, they might lack "discipline" on stage. Just like Cream, Experience or almost every other 1st generation hard/power/blues-rock band that came out of the 60s. And that is precisely what has attracted me to this genre and what I sorely miss when such bands started to streamline their music to pure riffs, shreds and pounding drums. I have no use for any disciplined hard-rock, it is not how it was originally invented!

Seven-minute long live Dazed & Confused? No thanks, I will stick to unabridged 25-minute versions!

I'll even go for the 7-mins studio version of D&C rather than a live version of that length.

Cream was different case, IMHO. All three were masters at their instruments (not the case with Zep, who were just "good" to "excellent"), and they could allow themselves to wander off anywhere. JHE mostly relied on Jimi's presence

[Trane]

And personally I find Moby Dick as dull as The Mule, but of course to each his own.

Never one for drum solos... At least, Sabs saved us that (though I never saw them with Ozzy in the 70's) and they didn't release a live album.

But if I have to choose one drum solo: Clive Bunker at Wight.

Although I have no problem with acknowledging instrumental skills of Little Ian, vastly underrated drummer in the classic rock milieu, I have never found any excitement in his extended solo spots. Now that you are challenging me I will reluctantly go back to Moby Dick, then subject myself to The Mule and finally play Toad, or even better some Elvin Jones' drum solo. If I manage to get through the whole session, I will come back with the fresh conclusions.D

OK, let's not mix jazz drummers in there (though Ward and Ginger were very jazzy), but I'll take Moon The Loon's totally intuitive drumming over any of them other stars (though I can't think of a leghty drum solo)

Then there's Peart's solos, which I always thought were musical but not very improvised.

Owned and transported five or six times the amount of gear than the others, though.

Love the movie and the soundtrack. Watched it a million times back in the day. Love the updated 2007 version, great sound, great extra cuts. Wish there was a version without some of the non-live stuff in it, I hate the scene with the cops beating up on a fan backstage during the middle of Dazed & Confused. Other than that, it's a great document of a time and an era.

The 30 minute Dazed and Confused is the best. Watching that when I was 13, made me become a prog fan. Love it.

Absolutely... Sure, I was a teen (sometimes too-high), but TSRTS (and later The Wall and Spinal Tap) is part of my personal history

Appreciate the film FAR more as an adult then when I was a kid, thats for sure.

Well TSRTS certainly built a myth around Zep when I was a kid, partly due to to these fantasies as well, while DVD sort of dismantle that same myth, even if technically their performances are better in the latter release

[GuitarGeek]

Cream was different case, IMHO. All three were masters at their instruments (not the case with Zep, who were just "good" to "excellent"), and they could allow themselves to wander off anywhere. JHE mostly relied on Jimi's presence

Too bad they couldn't hear each other half the time, so when they'd start jamming, it was basically three guys soloing, without any real cohesion in terms of playing together.