Post by pledm on Jan 21, 2008 11:49:18 GMT -5
Just something from Blender magazine thought it was cute.
1. Their guitarist used to be "Little Jim."
As a prolific young guitarist playing on session work by the Who and the Kinks, Jimmy Page was called Little Jim to distinguish him from another session player, Big Jim Sullivan. In 1966, Page joined blues rockers the Yardbirds. "It was a hands-on apprenticeship," he tells Blender.
2. Their bassist was a swashbuckler.
John Baldwin took the alias John Paul Jones from a 1959 film about a Revolutionary naval hero. An in-demand string arranger, Jones got to know Page on the session circuit. "There was a good scene in those days," Jones remembers. "We'd say good-bye in the morning and meet up at the next session." After Led Zeppelin, he arranged the string parts for such songs as R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts."
3. The singer and drummer were pains in the ass.
Frontman Robert Plant and drummer John "Bonzo" Bonham knew each other from playing in Birmingham groups the Crawling King Snakes and Band of Joy. "Nobody wanted to be around us, because we believed in ourselves so much," Plant explained in 2002. "We were really unbearable."
4. Their name was a joke …
Page talked about forming a supergroup with the Who's Keith Moon and John Entwistle and Yardbird Jeff Beck, but they couldn't find a singer. Moon suggested the name Led Zeppelin, from an old quip about an unsuccessful band going down like a lead balloon. "Keith was coming up with everything," Page says. "It was a pipe dream, really."
5. … but it was better than Obstweedle …
That was the Lord of the Rings–inspired group Plant was fronting when Page first came to check him out. "There was hardly anyone there," Page remembers. "I immediately responded to the range and the power. He wasn't whispering into the microphone."
6. … and much better than the Nobs.
In Copenhagen in 1970, Zep were forced to play under an alias after Danish aristocrat Eva von Zeppelin threatened to sue. "They may be world-famous, but four shrieking monkeys are not going to use a privileged family name without permission," said an aggrieved Frau Zeppelin.
7. Nobody messed with their manager.
Peter Grant, a fearsome former wrestler, earned a reputation for negotiating unprecedented royalties, threatening promoters and waging war on bootleggers. "He had some wonderful ideas, and he had the clout to get them done," Page says. Adds Jones: "If you ask other managers, he's a hero."
8. America loved them …
Led Zeppelin made their name by touring the U.S. five times in their first 18 months. "When the door is cracked slightly, you don't just peep through — you kick it open," Page says.
9. … except for the critics.
Zep were panned throughout their career; rock writer and future Bruce Springsteen manager Jon Landau called their 1970 tour "loud, impersonal, exhibitionistic, violent and often insane." "How can we be reviled in so many different generations," Plant later protested, "and then find out we were the people's favorite band?"
10. Don't bring up Hammer of the Gods.
Stephen Davis's unauthorized 1985 biography painted them as debauched rock pigs, thanks to anecdotes such as the notorious "shark incident," in which Vanilla Fudge's Mark Stein filmed tour manager Richard Cole inserting a live red snapper into a groupie. But don't ask Page or Jones to sign your copy. "It's a miserable book, and we don't really want to talk about it," Jones says flatly.
11. Jimmy Page: marked for death.
"I was once informed that someone was set on killing me while I was in the States," Page revealed in 1973. "It was a real Manson situation. Eventually this guy was tracked down and got carted away to hospital. He would have definitely had a try, though."
12. They were their own opening act.
Zeppelin became famous for marathon sets that passed the three-hour mark; "No Quarter" alone could last 30 minutes. "We just really enjoyed playing," Jones says. And they don't think it was excessive. "If I'd been in the audience," Page says, "it wouldn't have been enough."
13. They didn't like singles.
After their record company released "Immigrant Song" and "Whole Lotta Love" against their wishes, Zeppelin blocked the release of further singles, only recently agreeing to make their music available on iTunes. "Unlike today, when everything seems to be done song by song," Jones says, "there was drama and tension and a story to be told."
14. Led Zeppelin IV isn't called Led Zeppelin IV.
The title of the third-biggest-selling album of all time is widely known as four unpronounceable symbols — said to each be chosen by a band member — but it's also known as Four Symbols, IV or Zoso by fans and irritated record-store clerks. "Names and titles do not mean a thing," Page explained. "What matters is our music."
15. They're still not bored of "Stairway to Heaven" …
Plant has described their signature tune as "pompous," but Jones reckons, "It's still good. I was doing one of the great bass parts of all time. Unfortunately, it was under one of the great guitar solos of all time."
16. … and there are no hidden messages.
Page's fascination with occultist Aleister Crowley inspired rumors of a curse on the band, as well as a Baptist minister's claim that they'd buried satanic messages in the "Stairway" mix. "I didn't pay attention to what anybody wanted to read into the music," Page says defensively. "My lifestyle had nothing whatsoever to do with it."
17. They love country living.
In 1970, Page and Plant retreated to Bron-Yr-Aur, in Wales, to write their third album. "There was no electricity," Page remembers. "We had cassette recorders and acoustic guitars. When we got there we were like, [sighs] 'Ah, God, the countryside.'"
18. Jones almost became a choirmaster (kind of).
In 1973, the bassist joked about leaving to teach the choir at Winchester Cathedral. "It wasn't serious," he clarifies. "I got tired and emotional, and I felt that not enough consideration was being given to holidays. It resolved itself pretty quickly."
19. They had their own Starship.
That was the name of the opulent private jet — complete with bar and fireplace — the band used for its mid-'70s tours. On the ground, their favorite hangout was the Hyatt West Hollywood, rechristened the "Riot House," where they allegedly raced motorcycles in the halls, ejected TVs from windows and entertained groupies. Looking back, Page said, "I was thinking that I should be in either a mental hospital or a monastery."
20. They hung with the King.
In 1974, they were invited to meet Elvis in Los Angeles. "He was shy," Page recalls. "We were certainly shy. Then John Bonham said, 'What was that hot rod that you drove in Loving You?' And that was it — we were all musicians and lads together."
21. The Song Remains the Same shouldn't be at the top of your Netflix queue.
Their 1976 concert movie took three years to complete and became notorious for fantasy sequences in which the band acted out Celtic myths and scenes from tarot cards. "Robert's and mine ended up like the Horse of the Year show," says Jones with a wince. "I do like Bonzo's," he adds, which showed the drummer drag-racing and spending time with his family. "It was just so him."
22. 1977 was a terrible year.
In July '77, Bonham and Grant were arrested for assaulting a staffer at the Oakland Coliseum. Three days later, Plant's young son died suddenly of a respiratory infection. "There's nothing on the planet to equal that kind of grief," Plant said recently. "It still makes me shudder."
23. There is such a thing as getting too big.
Before the '77 tour was cut short by Plant's tragedy, Zep headlined the world's biggest indoor rock show, to 76,229 fans at Michigan's Pontiac Silverdome. "The audience was 60 feet away behind a crash barrier," Jones remembers with a grimace. "I was standing onstage thinking, This is bloody hard work." Agrees Page: "It was surreal. It was like you weren't actually there."
24. Punks hated them …
With their flowery, mystical lyrics and epic drum solos, Led Zeppelin represented everything the new generation of British bands despised. Clash bassist Paul Simonon snapped, "I don't have to hear Led Zeppelin. Just looking at their record covers makes me want to throw up."
25. … or did they?
In 1977, Page and Plant hit up London punk hot spot the Roxy. "A member of the damned came up and said, 'Don't worry what these other people are saying,'" Page says. "'I often go home and play "Stairway" at night.'"
26. They invented heavy metal, but that doesn't mean they like it.
Plant, in particular, has always shunned the devil-horn brigade. "If I'm responsible for this in any way, then I am really, really embarrassed," he said in 1988. "It's so orderly and preconceived and bleuurghh."
27. When John Bonham died, so did Led Zeppelin.
After the hard-drinking drummer asphyxiated on his own vomit in 1980, his bandmates immediately decided to call it a day. "We couldn't just bring in another drummer," Page says. "It would have been an impossible role to fill. I absolutely believe that if we had lost any one of us it would have been the same conclusion."
28. Their first reunion was a washout.
Bob Geldof persuaded Zeppelin's surviving members to play three songs at Live Aid in 1985, but they were in such poor form that 20 years later they blocked the performance from appearing on DVD. "Live Aid was a fucking atrocity," Plant later remarked. "It made us look like loonies."
29. Page and Plant are the Odd Couple …
"We're like Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon," the singer once said. "Page is a clever, talented guy who has a particular slant on music, and I was his sidekick who had a different slant."
30. … which makes Jones the odd man out.
When Page and Plant reunited for two albums in the '90s, Jones didn't get the call. "Nobody even talked to me," he said at the time. "I read about it in the papers."
31. They have an impressive fan club.
Dave Grohl and Jack White are just two of rock's avowed Zeppephiles. "What current bands don't you hear Led Zeppelin in?" Jones asks. "It's really nice to hear something and think, Hmm, I wonder what they were listening to before."
32. They're back …
On December 10 in London, Led Zeppelin, with John Bonham's son Jason on drums, are scheduled to play their first show in 12 years, to benefit a charity founded by late Atlantic Records boss Ahmet Ertegun. More than 25 million people applied for tickets.
33. … but not for long.
"There have been numerous offers over the years, as you can imagine," Page says. "Forget that. It is what it is. Thank goodness it's now and not in 10 years' time, that's all I'm going to say."
1. Their guitarist used to be "Little Jim."
As a prolific young guitarist playing on session work by the Who and the Kinks, Jimmy Page was called Little Jim to distinguish him from another session player, Big Jim Sullivan. In 1966, Page joined blues rockers the Yardbirds. "It was a hands-on apprenticeship," he tells Blender.
2. Their bassist was a swashbuckler.
John Baldwin took the alias John Paul Jones from a 1959 film about a Revolutionary naval hero. An in-demand string arranger, Jones got to know Page on the session circuit. "There was a good scene in those days," Jones remembers. "We'd say good-bye in the morning and meet up at the next session." After Led Zeppelin, he arranged the string parts for such songs as R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts."
3. The singer and drummer were pains in the ass.
Frontman Robert Plant and drummer John "Bonzo" Bonham knew each other from playing in Birmingham groups the Crawling King Snakes and Band of Joy. "Nobody wanted to be around us, because we believed in ourselves so much," Plant explained in 2002. "We were really unbearable."
4. Their name was a joke …
Page talked about forming a supergroup with the Who's Keith Moon and John Entwistle and Yardbird Jeff Beck, but they couldn't find a singer. Moon suggested the name Led Zeppelin, from an old quip about an unsuccessful band going down like a lead balloon. "Keith was coming up with everything," Page says. "It was a pipe dream, really."
5. … but it was better than Obstweedle …
That was the Lord of the Rings–inspired group Plant was fronting when Page first came to check him out. "There was hardly anyone there," Page remembers. "I immediately responded to the range and the power. He wasn't whispering into the microphone."
6. … and much better than the Nobs.
In Copenhagen in 1970, Zep were forced to play under an alias after Danish aristocrat Eva von Zeppelin threatened to sue. "They may be world-famous, but four shrieking monkeys are not going to use a privileged family name without permission," said an aggrieved Frau Zeppelin.
7. Nobody messed with their manager.
Peter Grant, a fearsome former wrestler, earned a reputation for negotiating unprecedented royalties, threatening promoters and waging war on bootleggers. "He had some wonderful ideas, and he had the clout to get them done," Page says. Adds Jones: "If you ask other managers, he's a hero."
8. America loved them …
Led Zeppelin made their name by touring the U.S. five times in their first 18 months. "When the door is cracked slightly, you don't just peep through — you kick it open," Page says.
9. … except for the critics.
Zep were panned throughout their career; rock writer and future Bruce Springsteen manager Jon Landau called their 1970 tour "loud, impersonal, exhibitionistic, violent and often insane." "How can we be reviled in so many different generations," Plant later protested, "and then find out we were the people's favorite band?"
10. Don't bring up Hammer of the Gods.
Stephen Davis's unauthorized 1985 biography painted them as debauched rock pigs, thanks to anecdotes such as the notorious "shark incident," in which Vanilla Fudge's Mark Stein filmed tour manager Richard Cole inserting a live red snapper into a groupie. But don't ask Page or Jones to sign your copy. "It's a miserable book, and we don't really want to talk about it," Jones says flatly.
11. Jimmy Page: marked for death.
"I was once informed that someone was set on killing me while I was in the States," Page revealed in 1973. "It was a real Manson situation. Eventually this guy was tracked down and got carted away to hospital. He would have definitely had a try, though."
12. They were their own opening act.
Zeppelin became famous for marathon sets that passed the three-hour mark; "No Quarter" alone could last 30 minutes. "We just really enjoyed playing," Jones says. And they don't think it was excessive. "If I'd been in the audience," Page says, "it wouldn't have been enough."
13. They didn't like singles.
After their record company released "Immigrant Song" and "Whole Lotta Love" against their wishes, Zeppelin blocked the release of further singles, only recently agreeing to make their music available on iTunes. "Unlike today, when everything seems to be done song by song," Jones says, "there was drama and tension and a story to be told."
14. Led Zeppelin IV isn't called Led Zeppelin IV.
The title of the third-biggest-selling album of all time is widely known as four unpronounceable symbols — said to each be chosen by a band member — but it's also known as Four Symbols, IV or Zoso by fans and irritated record-store clerks. "Names and titles do not mean a thing," Page explained. "What matters is our music."
15. They're still not bored of "Stairway to Heaven" …
Plant has described their signature tune as "pompous," but Jones reckons, "It's still good. I was doing one of the great bass parts of all time. Unfortunately, it was under one of the great guitar solos of all time."
16. … and there are no hidden messages.
Page's fascination with occultist Aleister Crowley inspired rumors of a curse on the band, as well as a Baptist minister's claim that they'd buried satanic messages in the "Stairway" mix. "I didn't pay attention to what anybody wanted to read into the music," Page says defensively. "My lifestyle had nothing whatsoever to do with it."
17. They love country living.
In 1970, Page and Plant retreated to Bron-Yr-Aur, in Wales, to write their third album. "There was no electricity," Page remembers. "We had cassette recorders and acoustic guitars. When we got there we were like, [sighs] 'Ah, God, the countryside.'"
18. Jones almost became a choirmaster (kind of).
In 1973, the bassist joked about leaving to teach the choir at Winchester Cathedral. "It wasn't serious," he clarifies. "I got tired and emotional, and I felt that not enough consideration was being given to holidays. It resolved itself pretty quickly."
19. They had their own Starship.
That was the name of the opulent private jet — complete with bar and fireplace — the band used for its mid-'70s tours. On the ground, their favorite hangout was the Hyatt West Hollywood, rechristened the "Riot House," where they allegedly raced motorcycles in the halls, ejected TVs from windows and entertained groupies. Looking back, Page said, "I was thinking that I should be in either a mental hospital or a monastery."
20. They hung with the King.
In 1974, they were invited to meet Elvis in Los Angeles. "He was shy," Page recalls. "We were certainly shy. Then John Bonham said, 'What was that hot rod that you drove in Loving You?' And that was it — we were all musicians and lads together."
21. The Song Remains the Same shouldn't be at the top of your Netflix queue.
Their 1976 concert movie took three years to complete and became notorious for fantasy sequences in which the band acted out Celtic myths and scenes from tarot cards. "Robert's and mine ended up like the Horse of the Year show," says Jones with a wince. "I do like Bonzo's," he adds, which showed the drummer drag-racing and spending time with his family. "It was just so him."
22. 1977 was a terrible year.
In July '77, Bonham and Grant were arrested for assaulting a staffer at the Oakland Coliseum. Three days later, Plant's young son died suddenly of a respiratory infection. "There's nothing on the planet to equal that kind of grief," Plant said recently. "It still makes me shudder."
23. There is such a thing as getting too big.
Before the '77 tour was cut short by Plant's tragedy, Zep headlined the world's biggest indoor rock show, to 76,229 fans at Michigan's Pontiac Silverdome. "The audience was 60 feet away behind a crash barrier," Jones remembers with a grimace. "I was standing onstage thinking, This is bloody hard work." Agrees Page: "It was surreal. It was like you weren't actually there."
24. Punks hated them …
With their flowery, mystical lyrics and epic drum solos, Led Zeppelin represented everything the new generation of British bands despised. Clash bassist Paul Simonon snapped, "I don't have to hear Led Zeppelin. Just looking at their record covers makes me want to throw up."
25. … or did they?
In 1977, Page and Plant hit up London punk hot spot the Roxy. "A member of the damned came up and said, 'Don't worry what these other people are saying,'" Page says. "'I often go home and play "Stairway" at night.'"
26. They invented heavy metal, but that doesn't mean they like it.
Plant, in particular, has always shunned the devil-horn brigade. "If I'm responsible for this in any way, then I am really, really embarrassed," he said in 1988. "It's so orderly and preconceived and bleuurghh."
27. When John Bonham died, so did Led Zeppelin.
After the hard-drinking drummer asphyxiated on his own vomit in 1980, his bandmates immediately decided to call it a day. "We couldn't just bring in another drummer," Page says. "It would have been an impossible role to fill. I absolutely believe that if we had lost any one of us it would have been the same conclusion."
28. Their first reunion was a washout.
Bob Geldof persuaded Zeppelin's surviving members to play three songs at Live Aid in 1985, but they were in such poor form that 20 years later they blocked the performance from appearing on DVD. "Live Aid was a fucking atrocity," Plant later remarked. "It made us look like loonies."
29. Page and Plant are the Odd Couple …
"We're like Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon," the singer once said. "Page is a clever, talented guy who has a particular slant on music, and I was his sidekick who had a different slant."
30. … which makes Jones the odd man out.
When Page and Plant reunited for two albums in the '90s, Jones didn't get the call. "Nobody even talked to me," he said at the time. "I read about it in the papers."
31. They have an impressive fan club.
Dave Grohl and Jack White are just two of rock's avowed Zeppephiles. "What current bands don't you hear Led Zeppelin in?" Jones asks. "It's really nice to hear something and think, Hmm, I wonder what they were listening to before."
32. They're back …
On December 10 in London, Led Zeppelin, with John Bonham's son Jason on drums, are scheduled to play their first show in 12 years, to benefit a charity founded by late Atlantic Records boss Ahmet Ertegun. More than 25 million people applied for tickets.
33. … but not for long.
"There have been numerous offers over the years, as you can imagine," Page says. "Forget that. It is what it is. Thank goodness it's now and not in 10 years' time, that's all I'm going to say."
