YouTube is flooded with Led Zep listening videos (reactions from kids and whatnot) but there are only a few listeners who go in knowing the music, who can break it down and illuminate its qualities from a musicological perspective:
YouTube is flooded with Led Zep listening videos (reactions from kids and whatnot) but there are only a few listeners who go in knowing the music, who can break it down and illuminate its qualities from a musicological perspective:
OK, so.
While I don't care for the song itself very much I have to admit that the guitar solo in "Stairway to Heaven" is one of the real greats. So I went and watched/listened to ten live versions.
Page apparently could not capture, live, the lightning he had caught in that bottle. In every single case the solos were (a) too damn long (except the O2 one); (b) boring; and (c) unmelodic noodling.
Perhaps they just are not for me. I can live with that.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
That is my biggest problem with Page. Many times, his lack of restraint caused great songs like No Quarter to be ruined in concert. And I, too, was never a Led Zep aficionado. In recent years, I have grown "appreciative" of them, but mostly, they leave me flat and bored.
Brian Dennehy: "I'm now 80 and I'm just another actor and that's fine with me. I've had a hell of a ride," ... "I have a nice house. I haven't got a palace, a mansion, but a pretty nice, comfortable home. I've raised a bunch of kids and sent them all to school, and they're all doing well. All the people that are close to me are reasonably healthy and happy. Listen, that's as much as anybody can hope for in life."
Page in concert was variable over time. There are times early on (late 60s through to 1973-ish) where I'm like, how the hell did he play that? But then later it's sometimes, how the hell did he play as badly as that?? Clams all over the shop.
The version of 'No Quarter' on The Song Remains The Same was- for me- excellent. It was different to the studio version, but retained its spook factor. I'm less enamoured of the bloated 20-30 minute versions of later years, which just devolve into an unrelated blues jam in the middle. An excess crept into the live show, probably reaching its nadir on the 1977 tour. ISTR Plant also said that he felt they were showboating too much in that period. (Talking of which, a new, original source of Mike Millard's famous Listen To This Eddie tape recently emerged...sounded good to me!)
You may find this interesting, then:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cOosnkWj2g
David
Happy with what I have to be happy with.
Help you understand Led Zeppelin? Led Zeppelin is thin at one end, much much thicker in the middle, and then thin again at the far end.
seems quite similar to Anne Elk's theory on brontosauruses!
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...tail&FORM=VIRE
There was a thread over on Hoffman on "Tea for One" off of Presence. The old school view is that it was just a retread of "Since I've Been Loving You" but they point out the lyrical scope is entirely different, the guitar layering is far more extensive with rich harmonics, and the turnaround is totally different. I was playing it loudly on the big stereo a few times a week all summer and I was a little surprised that my spouse never complained.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Regarding Zep studio vs. live, I think they sounded way, way better in the studio. Very sloppy live, especially late in their career when they were all wasted during the show. Zep remains the only band whose show I left in the middle of. It was painfully bad. I refer to their show at the Capital Center in Landover MD in 1977.
Page was a wizard in the studio and the sound he got from his guitars and the band in general were utterly fantastic. This is all IMHO, of course.
I was at the April 9, 1977 show at Chicago Stadium that was cut short by Jimmy Page's "intestinal flu". I've since watched most of the videos available from that time, and have to say that what limited show I saw, as flawed as it was, was still breathtaking. Plant and Page were electric, Bonham was earth-shaking, and JPJ was the glue that held the whole hot mess together. Admittedly, I was 15 and stoned out of my gourd, but it left an indelible impression and fueled my love for the band to this day.
David
Happy with what I have to be happy with.
For badgeholders only, Jimmy has a new long interview plugging his new book. Among other things, he talks about his early interest in avant-garde music and picking up the guitar again while in quarantine.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...pelin-1074825/
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Led Zeppelin is lesson #1 for anyone getting into rock music.
my introduction into LZ was hanging out with my stoner neighbor-
the soundtrack to The Song Remains The Same was the only album he had by them.
of course i went to a High School where everyone loved them-
if it weren't for LZ, i probably wouldn't have gotten into Rush.
Interesting. Because of Zeppelin I didn't get into Rush till the '90s - my brother had one of their early records and tried to entice me by saying "They sound like Led Zeppelin", which of course turned me right off and I couldn't hear how good it was.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
I hear zero similarities between Rush and Zeppelin. Help me understand why early Rush is always compared to LZ.
Part of it is that they actually started out trying to imitate Zeppelin. Part of it is that you've got three very technically skilled musiians and a high screechy vocalist playing early-metal-style hard rock.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
First time I heard Rush was crashing a party near a lake cabin in Saskatchewan. I heard some heavy rock and asked what was playing. "Yeah, we got our own Zeppelin now, eh."
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Happy 77th birthday to James Patrick Page!D5BFE3DB-A26F-44DA-8481-A881D8A976E7.jpg
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