Led Zeppelin: Classic Or Dud?

"PLAY THE MIXOLYDIAN SCALE!"

but I do know Zep's long shows reportedly set the new standard that bands like the Stones had to try to adapt to.

well, uh, speaking as someone who has heard many of those bootlegs and in fact wrote a several thousand word long article for my blog on the topic of led zeppelin bootlegs several months ago, on some of those bootlegs you _can_ hear audience members yelling at the band to "get on with it"

Ftr, the question I was replying to was "if anyone was going to the shows *for* the drum/guitar/organ solos" (italics mine), not whether everyone or even the majority were. That said, fwiw, the Song Remains the Same double live album went platinum in the US in 1976 and 4x platinum by 1997; I was still seeing the 26-minute "Dazed and Confused" on MuchMusic in the late 80s. I don't doubt that there was a range of expectations but, if a ballet crowd could riot over Stravinsky, I expect crowds that included thousands of inebriated young males could have done more to express their outrage than some isolated cries of "get on with it" or tossing paper airplanes (acc to an anecdotal report from a member of a rival band) if they really were alienated en masse by this band's self-indulgence. I wasn't there, though; maybe people really did want them to keep the tunes to their snappy eight-minute studio runtimes.

Not sure drum solos at rock gig were ever been popular - once the novelty value had worn off. Kind of a standing joke weren't they?

I remember years ago seeing a journalist reminisce about Zep's live shows - he commented that he'd quickly learned that when Page headed for his Theremin, it was the thinking punter's cue to head for the bar.

I maintain that available evidence shows that a nonzero number of people enjoy them and most of the rest at least tolerate them enough that more than one official live release has been a consistent platinum-level seller, despite decades of changing pop music trends, whether bc novelty or whatever else; beyond that, I don't really care.

Clip of Bonham about the timing on "Black Dog" is v cool.

I think the deal is that the drum chart is like this:
https://imgv2-2-f.scribdassets.com/img/document/428557172/original/a35f0ab269/1587692189?v=1

And if the guitar is written in the same metre, it looks like this:
https://cdn3.virtualsheetmusic.com/images/first_pages/HL/HL-199501First_BIG.png

But when I tried to transcribe the guitar riff for a student so that it reflects the phrasing and accents of the guitar melody on its own, it came out more like this (with a simplified version of the drum beat and location of bass and snare hits written above; cheated on the 5/8 bar in the drum line for this purpose): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rGOjLBqN6Se0CTZ3JokXLLaSk8j6JY6o/view?usp=sharing

Ofc, if you're transcribing the whole thing, you'd go with the metres in the drums and vocals but I think the off-kilter feel comes from the polymetric aspect (gets even trickier in the prechorus: https://external-preview.redd.it/nUWMfWCKgRJwTBTknxfCIPN1JKbK74PbMbcLmAFnRns.jpg?auto=webp&s=675e8928c0cad0e58e4d39a525d6bf9342de2b96).

Heh, I was just reading about the longest Zeppelin shows, and one of them is apparently Seattle 6-19-72, where the band, among other things, played "Dancing Days" twice. That's pretty hilariously indulgent. I'm trying to think of shows I've seen where the act did a song twice. I know Paul Simon did "You Can Call Me Al" twice on one of his tours. I last time I saw Joe Strummer he had the audience vote which of the Clash songs they'd already played that they should do again. I'm trying to think of other examples.

― Josh in Chicago

when i saw cheer-accident they played the same song three times in a row, it ruled

"That said, fwiw, the Song Remains the Same double live album went platinum in the US in 1976 and 4x platinum by 1997; I was still seeing the 26-minute "Dazed and Confused" on MuchMusic in the late 80s. I don't doubt that there was a range of expectations but, if a ballet crowd could riot over Stravinsky, I expect crowds that included thousands of inebriated young males could have done more to express their outrage than some isolated cries of "get on with it" or tossing paper airplanes (acc to an anecdotal report from a member of a rival band) if they really were alienated en masse by this band's self-indulgence. I wasn't there, though; maybe people really did want them to keep the tunes to their snappy eight-minute studio runtimes.

― Feel a million filaments (Sund4r)"

they _did_ express their outrage in other ways. peter grant had _ample_ opportunity to beat the shit out of audience members, and by the '70s he had plenty of professional help in this. on early gigs you can hear plant pleading with the audience to for god's sake chill the fuck out already... i mean, that who concert where people were crushed to death, that didn't come out of nowhere, that wasn't an aberration, that was how things _were_ back then

as for "eight minute studio runtimes", before 1975 (at which point their songs got much, much longer), they had precisely two tracks that topped out at or near eight minutes - stairway and "how many more times". they were indeed a _great deal_ more concise in the studio - live, even a song like "communication breakdown" could run to six minutes!

"Now that we've established that improvisation is both deceptive and lazy, I still think "self-indulgence" is a weird thing to criticize an artist for (cf. "pretentiousness", both of which I know were popular among rock critics at least from the 70s to the 90s). I'm not sure how to read it other than as a bizarro quasi-moral judgment on doing something that might challenge listener expectations. Seriously, who are artists supposed to be indulging?

― Feel a million filaments (Sund4r)"

like literally i am _happy_ to hear zep play "dazed and confused" for half an hour if it's any fucking good. the "self-indulgence" comes from the experience i've had that it often wasn't. members of the band would play even when they were too incapacitated to perform at all. i'm not opposed in theory to hearing jimmy page solo unaccompanied for half an hour, but when he's too fucked up to play the goddamn mixolydian scale? who the hell wanted to hear robert plant come up on stage and croak out the hits the way he did in indianapolis in 1975? oh, sure, they could have had an opening band, but then they would have had to _pay them_, and how would they meet their cocaine and airplane budget that way?

that is what strikes me most about zeppelin - they were absurdly, insanely rich. i do feel a lot of the critical animus towards them is based on their obscene wealth and opulence, while at the same time the blues musicians whose work they "improved" on, if they were around to play their music at all, were playing in places like memphis hotel rooms. now that there is no more reality to zep, only myth, now that bonham and grant are dead, page is easily ignored, and robert plant has aged into a lovable old hippie, the critical animus seems utterly bizarre and elitist, but zeppelin, '70s rock, was a brutal spectacle.

Oh, yeah, there's definitely crappy live stuff out there. Even TSRTS isn't as good as the better recordings that have come out since. My problem with that stuff is that it's crappy, though, not that they were indulging themselves. Still, some good points about the opulence and arrogance of the stars of the time, which likely came off as a betrayal of countercultural ideals to hippie critics.

My problem with that stuff is that it's crappy, though, not that they were indulging themselves.

otm, 'self-indulgent = crappy' bespeaks a puritanical conception of art more than anything.

https://isleyunruh.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/spinal-tap-nigel-guitar-solo-violin-1-300x225.jpg

Re: "Black Dog," I'd always heard that Bonzo provided what amounted to a click on this song, but it wasn't until the remaster (loud, or on headphones) that I could hear more than a couple of soft stick clicks. But in fact iirc they go throughout almost the entirety of when he is not playing.

Regardless of countercultural values, I think they were just unpleasant people to deal with, certainly they surrounded themselves with unpleasant people - so, guess what, their reputation suffered. Not that they cared, being dangerous was part of the image. So Peter Grant was a thug and they employed scumbags like John Bindon, who was a murderer - but, hey, no-one will dare mess with Led Zeppelin! Not to mention that Bonham, in spite of the boyish Worcestershire accent, was a vile bullying arsehole.

Actually, I'm doing them a disservice, Bindon didn't actually murder anyone until after working with Led Zeppelin. That we know of, that is.

Is that why Mendelsohn and Fletcher hated their records, though? Fletcher hated Eno too: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/here-come-the-warm-jets-203410/. I'm not sure that the Stones or Dylan would have been the most pleasant people either.

Probably not, but the fact is the LZ had a uniquely horrible reputation, which seems to have been well-deserved and at least partly a deliberate choice on their part.

Ok so you could walk out of the Garden in the middle of Dazed and Confused and basically cross the street to see Derek Bailey dicking around for an hour on his own guitar the same night, or to see Mahavishnu Orchestra w/ an entirely different crowd—neither of which most critics would be inclined to describe as indulgent or pretentious.

You end up with this kind of weird, inverted rockism that has to do w/ keeping the fans of these bands in some kind of ghetto. It's an elitist resentment—that these hesher kids are getting off on the kinds sounds that for class reasons a lot of critics would have preferred to see roped off in a given downtown.

man alive OTM from a few days back

I can't stand Baker's drumming.

There was some discussion of this recently on the Blind Faith thread. I don't enjoy Baker's playing, but I can briefly lift my cap to him for approaching the instrument in a unique way.

Blind Faith – Blind Poll

i think "not the most pleasant people" ellides a central point. yes, rock and roll was filled with scumbags, yes, '70s rock and roll was filled with problems, but that doesn't exculpate any of the specific awful things that came out of zep and their entourage. grant, bonham, page, all of them were nasty, brutal, abusive people in ways that have been fairly well documented. these days we're insulated from and protected from that nastiness, there's this implication that to acknowledge it would mean that we couldn't enjoy "when the levee breaks". and for me, you know, i will always stan for zep. always. but anybody who tries to emulate some of the specific awful things that came out of what they were doing, i will not exculpate or ignore or _accept_ that.

Believe me I saw Derek Bailey dicking around on guitar for an hour on quite a few occasions and not once was I reminded of Jimmy Page!

The best portrait of Zep's ugliness as far as I'm concerned is the way Phil Collins described the Live Aid debacle in his book, and what happens to those people when they all get together in the same room. Esp. Plant, a friend of his who gradually shifted from gentleman to asshole. Of course they did tons of horrible things, to others and each other, before that, but I thought the Phil tale did a good job depicting their shifting personalities in real time.

I don't think I said that Derek Bailey would remind anyone of Jimmy Page

i mean, that who concert where people were crushed to death, that didn't come out of nowhere, that wasn't an aberration, that was how things _were_ back then

It could've just as easily happened to Zeppelin in that same arena in '77:

On 19 April, over 70 people were arrested as about 1,000 ticketless fans tried to gatecrash Cincinnati Riverfront Coliseum for two sold out festival seating/general admission concerts, while some gained entry by throwing rocks and beer bottles through glass entrance doors and some wall height, all-glass panes surrounding the outermost perimeter of the arena.

Ok so you could walk out of the Garden in the middle of Dazed and Confused and basically cross the street to see Derek Bailey dicking around for an hour on his own guitar the same night, or to see Mahavishnu Orchestra w/ an entirely different crowd—neither of which most critics would be inclined to describe as indulgent or pretentious.

You end up with this kind of weird, inverted rockism that has to do w/ keeping the fans of these bands in some kind of ghetto. It's an elitist resentment—that these hesher kids are getting off on the kinds sounds that for class reasons a lot of critics would have preferred to see roped off in a given downtown.

Tbf, I doubt that John Mendelsohn would have lasted very long at a Derek Bailey gig either. But yeah, there was definitely something oddly prescriptivist about pop music crit from that time - I think this is what people were originally referring to as "rockism", although that always seemed like a possible misnomer to me since rock, in the way that a lot of people understand it, was what these critics hated as often as not.

i sometimes wonder what it would be like to be robert plant. i don't believe plant is a bad person. maybe i'm wrong in that, probably it says more about me than it does about him, but when i look at plant i don't just see a great artist i see, well, an old hippie, basically. an old hippie who, when he was younger, found himself in this weird fucked up situation where he was feted as a golden god, treated like a superhuman, and all around him there's all sorts of really fucked up shit going on that nobody talks about, and sometimes he's part of it, he does some fucked up shit and nobody talks about that either. and then after ten years of that someone dies and it's all over.

except it's not because in the ensuing decades while he just tries to put it all behind him, what he did in those ten years becomes celebrated and acclaimed as the Greatest Thing Ever Done By Anybody Ever, and sometimes it seems like that's all anybody wants from him, to go back and do all that all over again. what's he going to do? talk about the pain, talk about everything he lost, talk about all of the horrible fucked up things that went with that? yeah, do that and see how quickly people break out the world's tiniest violin. nobody wants to hear about that.

I wonder about that too. I was not exculpating anyone btw, neither Zeppelin nor the comparatively critically favoured Stones, whose record with underage girls or the hiring of violent thugs wasn't spotless either. I just didn't know if their moral failings as people explained the critics' disapproval at the time.

Plant seems to have managed the whole thing amazingly well. The odd thing about the way these guys are characterized to me, esp the midlands faction, is that for the most part they hated being on the road and preferred beingbhome with their farms and families and old friends. For kids they seemed very self-aware—that "golden god" appelation is Plant's own, ironic quip. They seemed to understand it was an unsustainable joke.

Plant lived in the Austin area for a while, and I'd hear stories about him from time to time, and people universally painted him as an extremely nice down to earth dude.

Also, me and my buddies once passed Page and Plant walking down the street in Harvard Square, Cambridge, and they looked every bit like the rock gods you'd expect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGyeLApBguU

Plant was reported back in Nashville last month working w/ Alison Krauss on another album

Also, me and my buddies once passed Page and Plant walking down the street in Harvard Square, Cambridge, and they looked every bit like the rock gods you'd expect.

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles)

I understand passing pressure.

Everyone I know that has interacted or hung with Robert Plant says he is a great guy. That's why I brought up the Phil Collins story. Granted, It was decades ago, but in it Phil tracks the transformation of Robert Plant from great guy to asshole the closer they get to reforming Led Zeppelin. The implication is that the vibe of Led Zeppelin itself just lends itself to that sort of personality or behavior. I don't know, maybe it was all the goat sacrifices.

I feel like Plant's work with Krauss has been both musically laudable and, to an extent, a good PR move. Associating himself with American roots music both underscores the folkie/trad elements of Led Zep, AND distances him from the worst sweaty bombastic excesses of his old band.

Page presenting himself as a seasoned elder statesman and scholar of his instrument seems also like good PR strategy.

But still, almost no one would be interested in these dudes without their history, warts and all.

Can't think about LZ without thinking of the Fool in the Rain thread, and the isolated drum tracks therein.

You know that part of Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain" where they come out of the silly Latin section back into the main piano riff and there's like a steadily rising drum roll and

I do not really identify as a Zep fan (for many reasons) but Bonham retains a place in my pantheon because of his command of his instrument and the particular quality of his sound.

Everyone I know that has interacted or hung with Robert Plant says he is a great guy. That's why I brought up the Phil Collins story. Granted, It was decades ago, but in it Phil tracks the transformation of Robert Plant from great guy to asshole the closer they get to reforming Led Zeppelin. The implication is that the vibe of Led Zeppelin itself just lends itself to that sort of personality or behavior. I don't know, maybe it was all the goat sacrifices.

― Josh in Chicago

i think that makes a lot of sense, josh. i've certainly been in those sorts of situations.

maybe it was all the goat sacrifices

new borad description please

I feel like Plant's work with Krauss has been both musically laudable and, to an extent, a good PR move. Associating himself with American roots music both underscores the folkie/trad elements of Led Zep, AND distances him from the worst sweaty bombastic excesses of his old band.

My understanding was that the musical partnership with Krauss was also a romantic partnership not a PR move

I think Plant's had a varied and musically curious solo career, I can't imagine he ever thinks like "this is going to distance myself from sweaty bombast" he's just doing what he's into

I really love the production by T Bone Burnett on Raising Sand. Also his production on Gregg Allman’s album Low Country Blues. It’s very elegant for a blues/americana sound but it never sounds too clean or overproduced.

I love how Plant sings on Raising Sand. It's relaxed, not trying to squeeze any lemons, like he's at peace with no longer hitting the high notes. Reminds me of Roy Orbison.

Yeah, no high notes for him, that Roy Orbison.

I got to see the Plant/Krauss tour, was pretty classy.

uh Plant / Krauss was a romantic thing too? Couldn't he be her dad?

uh Plant / Krauss was a romantic thing too? Couldn't he be her dad?

Not a romance, just a singing partnership. He was living with Patty Griffin - another folk/Americana singer-songwriter - for several years, though.

Well, my friend who sat in a large group with Kraus and Plant at SWSW when they were canoodling would say otherwise

Got no time for spreadin' roots.

You need canoodlin', Baby I'm not faloodilin'

You can take the boy out of Led Zeppelin but...

https://lastfm.freetls.fastly.net/i/u/770x0/10d6a9ec8f0a4f3ebd9fcb71b0504e74.jpg

John Paul Jones has also taken to the americana/roots music scene. There's a great video of him playing mandolin on Going To California with Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings.

You need canoodlin', Baby I'm not faloodilin'

― "...And the Gods Socially Distanced" (C. Grisso/McCain)

think you mean "fadoodlin'"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImYKSTJsf-Q