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The Old Hermit

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    Over the hills and (very) far away...

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  1. Hey Steve... are you saying that, in your considered opinion, that the would-be live album that Jimmy intimated was imminent back in 2017 was Japan '71...? I know you're pretty plugged-in to the grapevine, so I'm just interested where or how you came to this deduction? A Japan '71 live set would be just awesome, and the digital production technology we have now could enhance the multi-track tapes nicely to Jimmy's satisfaction... why did that live release not happen, Steve, did you hear any rumors on the grapevine about a reason? I'm still holding out for an Earl's Court live release; that would be the big one for me... and it would have real commercial cache too, those shows are legendary for a reason!!! If Jimmy really is retired now, having sorted out his recorded legacy over the last decade, then it's time we Zepheads faced the fact it could really, truly be over... the band are finished, not just as an active musical entity (that happened on September 25th, 1980) but as an album-releasing one too. Jimmy could still surprise us yet, but I just feel it's completely over now... hope I'm wrong though...
  2. I'd love to see the miniature stage set-up for the planned October/November 1980 U.S. tour that Dave Lewis was shown by Jimmy Page himself whilst visiting the Swan Song office just a week before Bonzo's fatal bender... was there any photos taken of it, or has anyone ever asked Dave Lewis to draw it from memory? Apparently they were working with Iggy Knight again (who designed the lighting for the 1973 tour)... would just love to see how the stage set-up would have looked had that tour actually taken place, alas...
  3. Probably a break BEFORE Bonzo's death would have been more fitting - the guy really did not want to go back out on tour, that much is obvious - but hey, that's a hindsight issue and they were different (better?) times...it's also clear that both Jimmy and Peter Grant desperately wanted Zeppelin back on the road in the lucrative/high profile U.S. and worked on Percy to achieve that objective... it's just a pity that Bonzo was the weak link they never counted on breaking, alas...
  4. Oh boy... 'Whole Lotta Love' Berlin 1980 is in a class by itself; that freak-out jam session is a thing of beauty, Jonesy playing bass like Jimmy plays guitar, it's magisterial... almost as if they (subconsciously) knew it was the last hurrah for them and they gave it their all one last time... it's magnificent even if the rest of that show was spotty, alas...
  5. Not sure if it's a 'controversial' opinion as such, but I've never heard a live rendition of either 'Whole Lotta Love' or 'Achilles Last Stand' that worked for me, much less equaled the superior studio versions... the strength in those two tracks were how they were produced/mixed, and you just couldn't replicate that onstage. Again, my own humble opinion, of course.
  6. If I remember that story correctly, the guy's boss told him to get the feck outta there... quickly... 😀
  7. If you're talking about heroin, according to Benji LeFevre - as recounted in Barney Hoskyns' definitive Zep bio Trampled Under Foot - Jimmy didn't finally get the monkey off his back until mid-way through the second Firm U.S. tour in 1986...
  8. Didn't Bonzo allegedly once say to a journalist that "if Jimmy would just stop all that fookin' magick shit, none of this would be happening"...? I remember reading that somewhere, whether or not it's an apocryphal story. He did once ask Jimmy (either on the '75 or '77 tours) "what do you do, hang upside down in the wardrobe all day?" with regards Page's perenially nocturnal activities 😁... and that particular story was true.
  9. I find it ironic that whilst Peter Grant stated years later, and with the benefit of clear-headed hindsight, that Bindon being employed by the band for the infamous '77 tour was the biggest mistake he made as Zeppelin's manager, it was Grant himself who brought him onboard; Bindon was an associate of Richard Cole, often went drinking with him at The World's End pub across the road from Swan Song, and that's how he entered Zeppelin's orbit. Grant found Bindon amusing to be around, more so after his divorce proceedings started when he needed cheering up, and thus when the '77 tour was beginning, the manager turned up in America with Bindon in tow as security detail... much to the surprise and bemusement of many in the band and organization. If there is ever to be a film made about Led Zeppelin, they should focus on the '77 tour, 'cause that traveling insane asylum was a story unto itself...
  10. Bonham was involved in the beating of Jim Matzorkis at that infamous Oakland show in July 1977; it was he who saw the latter push Warren Grant and quickly came over to voice his disapproval by promptly kicking Matzorkis in the groin! But Bonzo wasn't actively involved in the pummeling that Grant and Bindon gave the unfortunate Matzorkis a little later... not that it mattered to the fully-armed SWAT team who arrested all three the morning after the last Oakland show. And I believe Jimmy Page did visit Crowley's abbey in Sicily; during his and Plant's (and families) holiday in Rhodes during August 1975, Page left Charlotte Martin and Scarlet with the Plants to visit Sicily by himself for a couple days to view Crowley's former property there, and that's when the car accident back in Rhodes happened... I'm sure I read that somewhere in the mists of time.
  11. No more live releases from '68-'73... that era is MORE than well covered in the live canon! The only exception that would get me excited would be if the mythic Japan '71 multi-tracks were cleaned up, mixed, and released.... those shows are simply too incendiary to ignore! Other than that... Earl's Court all the way!!! Or both. I'd be more excited about a chronological live album if there was at least one multi-track from '77 to work with, and a lot of great material hadn't already been released separately since 2003. Whatever it is that Jimmy has planned, hopefully it'll be interesting and unexpected...
  12. So if we're getting an official deluxe illustrated book, what was the point behind the hardback books that came with the deluxe box sets in 2014-15...?
  13. "Here Jimmy, try this heroin... it'll make you more creative and your band will soar higher than ever when you're snortin' this baby!" - Keith Richards, 1975. "Bastard!!!" - Jimmy Page, 1976 onwards.
  14. Atlantic as a company in and of themselves were never in the film distribution business, so I think you mean the accompanying 'soundtrack' album that was released simultaneously with the film; when Grant informed Atlantic of the planned in-concert album, the record company said "aha, a live album... we'll own that!", Grant countered with "uh-uh, it's not a live album, it's a SOUNDTRACK album, and if you look at pages 38 and 39 of the contract, it clearly stipulates we retain the rights to any film soundtracks"... score another one for 'G'.
  15. The decision to film the final three shows of the tour at MSG on 27-29 July '73 was very much a last-minute decision on Jimmy's part; Joe Massot had approached the band previously about filming a concert performance but was declined... until Jimmy and 'G' decided in early July that year it would be a good idea after all, and hired Massot literally at a moment's notice, who then had little to no time to hurriedly assemble a crew and get their tails to Uncle Sam to start filming. Most of the backstage 16mm-shot footage was not captured in MSG but on previous dates on that final leg leading up to the final three dates that were shot on 35mm and used for the movie. It was all a little haphazard if truth be told, in concept and execution, but God help me, for all it's flaws, I still love it!!! With hindsight, they should have waited, but it probably seemed a good idea at the time - cocaine's a helluva drug, don't ya know! - and besides, those were both heady days and witchy times anyway...
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