The Led Zeppelin Discussion Thread

[Lorraine]

Whoever it was is missing Bonzo's oomph.

[Rod in Toronto]

Whoever it was is missing Bonzo's oomph.

 

It´s safe to say that ANY drummer in the world who tries to duplicate what he did will miss something. He should be in the rock and roll hall of fame for the intro to "When The Levee Breaks" alone!

 

Actually, I´m curious to find out one thing: these days, the death of any half famous artist causes a huge commotion and a flood of uncompromised "RIPs" on social media. I wonder what kind of reaction Bonham´s death caused when it happened. Did Neil or any other famous drummer say anything about it?

[Mr. Not]

I'm not picking a favorite album... But I will say that this is my favorite hard rock track of theirs.

 

http://youtu.be/TG-j2_9IvyQ

Edited September 16, 2016 by Mr. Not

[Lorraine]

Whoever it was is missing Bonzo's oomph.

 

It´s safe to say that ANY drummer in the world who tries to duplicate what he did will miss something. He should be in the rock and roll hall of fame for the intro to "When The Levee Breaks" alone!

 

Actually, I´m curious to find out one thing: these days, the death of any half famous artist causes a huge commotion and a flood of uncompromised "RIPs" on social media. I wonder what kind of reaction Bonham´s death caused when it happened. Did Neil or any other famous drummer say anything about it?

 

I don't remember it causing any major reaction. By the time he died, we were used to losing rockers to overdosing or other fatal accidents.

[custom55]

Whoever it was is missing Bonzo's oomph.

 

It´s safe to say that ANY drummer in the world who tries to duplicate what he did will miss something. He should be in the rock and roll hall of fame for the intro to "When The Levee Breaks" alone!

 

Actually, I´m curious to find out one thing: these days, the death of any half famous artist causes a huge commotion and a flood of uncompromised "RIPs" on social media. I wonder what kind of reaction Bonham´s death caused when it happened. Did Neil or any other famous drummer say anything about it?

 

I don't remember it causing any major reaction. By the time he died, we were used to losing rockers to overdosing or other fatal accidents.

 

I remember the day Bonzo died. I went out to lunch and driving back to work and the news came across WNEW-FM NYC so I sat in my car for awhile before heading back into work.

 

I didn't do too much at work that day.

[foghorn-leghorn]

I was fortunate enough to see him live on the final tour.

 

[Mithrandir]

New discussion point--my qualm with LZ:

 

Often times I find when I'm listening to LZ that I love the vocals, drums, and bass consistently, but Page is a total wild card. He might play something really cool and inspired, or he might fumble around for notes in a pretty amateur sounding manner, and often times I find he does a bit of both. I suppose it's mostly his leads I'm talking about, but he takes so many of them, it just seems like they could sound a bit less...sloppy?

 

You know he was a heroin addict from about 1975 until 1980, right? Are you talking about before 1975?

 

I tend to assume nearly anyone famous in that decade was on some kind of drugs, but most of them still manage to sound consistenly good, bad, average, inspiring, etc. Page just makes me mad because I often feel like he had much more potential had he just worked harder.

 

are you talking about his live performances? I don't find page's studio work sloppy or amateur at all. maybe "loose" or "unstructured" at times, but led zeppelin doesn't need al di meola or allan holdsworth. page's flaws just add to the sexiness of the led!

 

Well amateur might not be the right word, but I often get the impression that he could play better but doesn't care enough to, now that I think about it I don't really hear much if this on Zep II, so maybe it came with fame.

The sloppiness is the bluesy aspect of Zeppelin. It's intentional.

Jimmy Page was the top session musician in England pre-Led Zeppelin. You don't achieve that by being a "sloppy" player. I once bought into the "Jimmy Page is a sloppy player" narrative. But, when I give Led Zeppelin a focused listen I find his playing anything but sloppy. Raw. Emotional. Free. At times, brilliant. But not sloppy.

 

Well, I don't think listening any closer is gonna make me think he couldn't've played better at this point, though I do think he could be an amazing player when he wanted to and certainly had the background for it. Once again, maybe I'm choosing the wrong words ("amateurish," "sloppy"), but something about roughly half of his playing rubs me the wrong way and comes off as kind of not-cared-for. He does have some particularly great moments on most tracks though, and somehow the guitar break in Heartbreaker manages to take exactly what I'm talking about with him and turns it into something wonderful and extraordinary, where it usually comes off as under rehearsed or underwritten or something. Spontanaity's great and totally bluesy/jazzy when it sounds good, but when you're just making noise up there because you've not put much thought into what you'll play, you tend to lose my attention and a bit of my respect.

 

I think you are so far off base in your critiques of Page. I never find him giving anything but top notch guitar playing. He is the riff-meister general with good reason.

[Entre_Perpetuo]

New discussion point--my qualm with LZ:

 

Often times I find when I'm listening to LZ that I love the vocals, drums, and bass consistently, but Page is a total wild card. He might play something really cool and inspired, or he might fumble around for notes in a pretty amateur sounding manner, and often times I find he does a bit of both. I suppose it's mostly his leads I'm talking about, but he takes so many of them, it just seems like they could sound a bit less...sloppy?

 

You know he was a heroin addict from about 1975 until 1980, right? Are you talking about before 1975?

 

I tend to assume nearly anyone famous in that decade was on some kind of drugs, but most of them still manage to sound consistenly good, bad, average, inspiring, etc. Page just makes me mad because I often feel like he had much more potential had he just worked harder.

 

are you talking about his live performances? I don't find page's studio work sloppy or amateur at all. maybe "loose" or "unstructured" at times, but led zeppelin doesn't need al di meola or allan holdsworth. page's flaws just add to the sexiness of the led!

 

Well amateur might not be the right word, but I often get the impression that he could play better but doesn't care enough to, now that I think about it I don't really hear much if this on Zep II, so maybe it came with fame.

The sloppiness is the bluesy aspect of Zeppelin. It's intentional.

Jimmy Page was the top session musician in England pre-Led Zeppelin. You don't achieve that by being a "sloppy" player. I once bought into the "Jimmy Page is a sloppy player" narrative. But, when I give Led Zeppelin a focused listen I find his playing anything but sloppy. Raw. Emotional. Free. At times, brilliant. But not sloppy.

 

Well, I don't think listening any closer is gonna make me think he couldn't've played better at this point, though I do think he could be an amazing player when he wanted to and certainly had the background for it. Once again, maybe I'm choosing the wrong words ("amateurish," "sloppy"), but something about roughly half of his playing rubs me the wrong way and comes off as kind of not-cared-for. He does have some particularly great moments on most tracks though, and somehow the guitar break in Heartbreaker manages to take exactly what I'm talking about with him and turns it into something wonderful and extraordinary, where it usually comes off as under rehearsed or underwritten or something. Spontanaity's great and totally bluesy/jazzy when it sounds good, but when you're just making noise up there because you've not put much thought into what you'll play, you tend to lose my attention and a bit of my respect.

 

I think you are so far off base in your critiques of Page. I never find him giving anything but top notch guitar playing. He is the riff-meister general with good reason.

 

I think it's interesting you resurrect this thread to critique my criticizing, lol. I do love Led Zep, all four of them, when I'm in the right mood. I think when I wrote that I just wasn't in the right headspace, or I was just annoyed that I didn't click with them as much as I'd like to.

[Ancient Ways]

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of a zep show here in Tampa that was cancelled due to bad weather and resulted in a riot. My big brother was at the show and I had to ride down to the stadium with my mom to pick him up.

 

http://www.tampabay.com/things-to-do/music/a-rained-out-led-zeppelin-concert-caused-a-riot-at-tampa-stadium-40-years/2326008?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[Mystic Slipperman]

The run from LZ3 through Presence is my favorite... hard to pick one of those albums as tops, but I'd probably say Houses of the Holy.

[goose]

I'm not picking a favorite album... But I will say that this is my favorite hard rock track of theirs.

 

http://youtu.be/TG-j2_9IvyQ

Sooooo METAL!!!!!

[Lorraine]

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of a zep show here in Tampa that was cancelled due to bad weather and resulted in a riot. My big brother was at the show and I had to ride down to the stadium with my mom to pick him up.

 

http://www.tampabay...._medium=twitter

How times have changed.

 

Today cops stand around and let rioters do whatever.

[custom55]

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of a zep show here in Tampa that was cancelled due to bad weather and resulted in a riot. My big brother was at the show and I had to ride down to the stadium with my mom to pick him up.

 

http://www.tampabay...._medium=twitter

 

WOW... 40 years. hmm... Mother Nature caused a riot.

[custom55]

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of a zep show here in Tampa that was cancelled due to bad weather and resulted in a riot. My big brother was at the show and I had to ride down to the stadium with my mom to pick him up.

 

http://www.tampabay...._medium=twitter

How times have changed.

 

Today cops stand around and let rioters do whatever.

 

I work at Metlife stadium NJ in security and totally disagree with your statement. I'm not a cop but our State Troopers, Police and Security staff stationed at the stadium are top notch. We practice evacuation drills and crowd control constantly so the Police are better trained today than years ago.

[Lorraine]

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of a zep show here in Tampa that was cancelled due to bad weather and resulted in a riot. My big brother was at the show and I had to ride down to the stadium with my mom to pick him up.

 

http://www.tampabay...._medium=twitter

How times have changed.

 

Today cops stand around and let rioters do whatever.

 

I work at Metlife stadium NJ in security and totally disagree with your statement. I'm not a cop but our State Troopers, Police and Security staff stationed at the stadium are top notch. We practice evacuation drills and crowd control constantly so the Police are better trained today than years ago.

I don't know what goes on in your NJ arenas, and that's not what I was referring to.

 

Think Berkeley. That's what I had in mind when I posted. Sorry I didn't make that clear.

Edited June 5, 2017 by Lorraine

[LedRush]

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of a zep show here in Tampa that was cancelled due to bad weather and resulted in a riot. My big brother was at the show and I had to ride down to the stadium with my mom to pick him up.

 

http://www.tampabay...._medium=twitter

How times have changed.

 

Today cops stand around and let rioters do whatever.

 

I work at Metlife stadium NJ in security and totally disagree with your statement. I'm not a cop but our State Troopers, Police and Security staff stationed at the stadium are top notch. We practice evacuation drills and crowd control constantly so the Police are better trained today than years ago.

Watch TSRTS... no way we let anyone get away with that today.

[Lorraine]

In case anyone wants to watch:

 

 

Man said he put it together from two bootlegs.

[Steevo]

PG. Houses nearly on top though.

[Entre_Perpetuo]

So it turns out in all of my musical knowledge and my ear for weird rhythms and such and my understanding of theory...that I have never been able to understand, barely even register, the incredible things this short video points out about the music of Led Zep, simply from Bonzo's drums.

 

 

Somehow Zep just jumped up a tier in my unsorted rankings of my favorite bands, certainly Bonzo just became top 5 material in my favorite drummers department.

[Rod in Toronto]

So it turns out in all of my musical knowledge and my ear for weird rhythms and such and my understanding of theory...that I have never been able to understand, barely even register, the incredible things this short video points out about the music of Led Zep, simply from Bonzo's drums.

 

 

Somehow Zep just jumped up a tier in my unsorted rankings of my favorite bands, certainly Bonzo just became top 5 material in my favorite drummers department.

 

Dude, that video was AMAZING!!!! Thanks for sharing...

[goose]

So it turns out in all of my musical knowledge and my ear for weird rhythms and such and my understanding of theory...that I have never been able to understand, barely even register, the incredible things this short video points out about the music of Led Zep, simply from Bonzo's drums.

 

 

Somehow Zep just jumped up a tier in my unsorted rankings of my favorite bands, certainly Bonzo just became top 5 material in my favorite drummers department.

 

Dude, that video was AMAZING!!!! Thanks for sharing...

Bonzo flat out grooves, and that drumming feel elevates Zeppelin's music.

[goose]

So it turns out in all of my musical knowledge and my ear for weird rhythms and such and my understanding of theory...that I have never been able to understand, barely even register, the incredible things this short video points out about the music of Led Zep, simply from Bonzo's drums.

 

 

Somehow Zep just jumped up a tier in my unsorted rankings of my favorite bands, certainly Bonzo just became top 5 material in my favorite drummers department.

 

Dude, that video was AMAZING!!!! Thanks for sharing...

The Kashmir section starting at 5:00 is a highlight.

[Lurkst]

Wow, I didn't even know Robert Plant plays the guitar. Apparently Roger Daltry does too.

 

Daltrey used to make guitars, IIRC. Plant learned soon after joining LZ.

 

I'm sure he learned guitar long before Zep...

 

http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/articles/InBetweenTimes/Listen.jpg

 

[goose]

A fun watch...

 

[Blue J]

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of a zep show here in Tampa that was cancelled due to bad weather and resulted in a riot. My big brother was at the show and I had to ride down to the stadium with my mom to pick him up.

 

http://www.tampabay.com/things-to-do/music/a-rained-out-led-zeppelin-concert-caused-a-riot-at-tampa-stadium-40-years/2326008?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

 

It was June 3rd, actually, rather than the 4th- but no matter, really.

 

I have a recording of that show. It's three songs, about 20 minutes long...it's really a shame, because from those three songs they did play, they were really firing on all cylinders that night. It would have been a tremendous show.