LED ZEPPELIN AND THE HAMMER OF THE GODS
- The FastTracker
- Aug 4, 2013
- 4 min read
(Source: Spaghetti Gazetti)
We were taking a break during a recording session and decided to listen to the first few Led Zeppelin records with the lights off, the sound pushed right up, eyes closed, us lying down on our backs and being reminded why this incredible band really put The Heavy into Heavy Rock.
Sure, later along came Vanilla Fudge, Iron Butterfly, Blue Cheer etc from the States, but they were like Spinal Tap compared to Led Zep, four musicians who had been kicking around for years in other bands and with Jimmy Page leading this Brontosaurus Stomp.
Page was Little Jimmy to Big Jim Sullivan, both being the most in-demand session men in the UK with the former being a 14 year old wunderkind who played on Gloria by Them, early Kinks records and with rumors that he played on some Beatles recordings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOB7GY1ICwo
Having started his career being around and playing with and for seasoned musicians and bands at such an early age plus possessed with his prodigious talent, Page must have watched, absorbed and learnt so much over the years and during his short stint with the Yardbirds.
He had had to know what was missing in music- something heavy.
When time came to launch Led Zeppelin, he was ready and so were Robert Plant, John Paul Jones- another session musician and arranger- plus John Bonham.
(Source: James McGachey)
Hustling and managing the band was Peter Grant, a very big man- a thug with underworld connections in the UK- who broke down doors- and probably a few heads- to make his band a success- and at a very rapid ascent.
(Source: Wiki)
I still remember meeting Grant and the band in a Chinese restaurant and he was a scary sight.
They were with a local promoter who wanted to bring them to Hong Kong for a concert and was lost as to what to do with them after dinner. He needed support- and someone to take them off his hands.
Apart from Robert Plant who spoke to me at length about Camelot and King Arthur and the Knights Of The Roundtable while we walked down Nathan Road with him towering over me wearing silver boots with five inch heels, the others were on one mission: To get laid. And they did over the two days- non-stop while staying at the Mandarin Hotel and servicing a number of schoolgirls who were happy to stand in a queue and wait their turn. The concert never happened.
(Source: JPS)
Their music were basic blues but wrapped up in a keg of dynamite, and the first time anyone heard Good Times, Bad Times, the opening track off their eponymous album, it was like a musical sound bomb going off.
(Source: Wiki)
I still remember a friend lost in the track with his headphones on and some idiot with us cranking up the volume to ten as a “surprise”. It was an unpleasant one which I doubt the poor guy never recovered from. The sound was just that powerful.
Now, after all these years, the music and sound of Led Zeppelin is being revisited along with so much more created and produced before the music died- Sly And The Family Stone, James Brown, Motown, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde On Blonde, Pink Floyd, the Stones and, of course, every record made by the Beatles.
What was so special about Led Zeppelin?
To me, first and foremost was that SOUND- the guitars of Page, the sparseness and separation on the recordings and the huge Moby Dick drums of “Bonzo” Bonham. It’s a sound produced and patented by Page and Eddie Kramer which has still to be figured out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97RZPKfHx7Q
To others, Led Zeppelin was and is the raw sexuality of their music and the combination upfront of Page and Plant where the bare-chested, angelic looking singer with the leonine blonde hair and very unique vocals formed an alluringly visual musical alliance with the far more demonic with an angelic face of Jimmy Page picking notes from the air and playing his guitar with a violin bow.
(Source: Free Servers)
They still remain the world’s first and true two Rock Gods. Even Mick and Keith never came close to “Pagey” and “Percy”, a nickname given to Plant’s apparently very well-hung weapon of mass attraction.
The band didn’t last long- remember, too, that everything the Beatles did was achieved in seven short years- as Jimmy Page went over to the dark side and embraced the occult of Alistair Crowley and even moved into the satanist’s castle.
(Source: Jhstrega7)
Peter Grant had died of a heart attack and the death of Plant’s three-year-old son in a bizarre car crash during this and the death of Bonham in the castle were blamed on Page dabbling in something that was stronger than him.
It was the start of the end for the band with the guitarist’s drugs and drunken lifestyle leaving Page bloated and creatively broken except for the occasional cameo appearances without the band.
The magic and chemistry had gone and Led Zep had crash-landed with the death of Bonham changing the band forever.
Though they have toured sparingly a few times with Jason Bonham on drums, it’s really not Led Zeppelin.
Led Zeppelin remain in the great records they made and will live on forever as The Hammer Of The Gods.
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