Jimmy has been asked several times in recent years about future live releases. His answers have been all over the place. It seems as though part of him feels it's unnecessary since so much of it has leaked out on bootleg. There is also the question of what he has as opposed to what was stolen from his home. For me, just because something is out on bootleg shouldn't be a reason to not officially release it because if he has a first generation master, it's going to sound better than any bootleg.....especially once it has been manipulated and tweaked in a studio. I know some people like having complete shows, but for me, I would like to get, for instance, the best of the 1980 tour in Europe so that we could get the best takes of each song so that the engineering crew doesn't have to do a bunch of edits.

At the end of the day, the people who really deserve to be blamed are labour and the UK tax laws at the time. Rod Stewart said in the mid-70's he was paying 98 cents to the dollar in taxes by living in England. So he had to get out and live in California. There's a reason why almost every British musician left the country in the 1970's. That kind of tax rate is utterly insane. If forced musicians into making some very hard decisions.

I don't know....Robert had been w/ "homewreckers" many times over since the first tour of the US. He was married very young. Blaming him for his affair with Audrey is a little ridiculous considering Led Zep's lifestyle and work life. I think a lot of what we can call conventional morality really doesn't apply here. I mean, this is a band who after Robert got in a serious auto accident in 1975 that almost killed himself and especially his wife, and that really hurt his kids, put Robert in tax exile within days despite the fact that his wife was on the verge of dying. The reason? He would've lost millions of dollars if he had stayed in Britain. It just seems like a life that is so unrelated to what normal people go through. What most of us see as conventional morality needs to be reconsidered in this case. These guys were almost never at home until Robert's kid died in 1977.

I felt that most of Jimmy's live solos during IMTOD were interesting to great, but more in an avant garde sense. They were truly improvised. Both solos on the album just make melodic sense from beginning to end. I don't know, it's hard to explain. The album solos were clearly punched in at certain parts. I bet Ten Year's Gone was hell to compose. I know Jimmy worked on it for quite some time. So many guitar tracks, and the rhythm guitar track underneath the solo seems to feature some jazzy like chords.

I read in an interview where Plant said he was very unhappy about Grant and Co. forcing him to go into tax exile after the accident in Greece. I swear I read this somewhere. Not making it up. It wasn't just that he was angry at the British govt and their tax laws.

Plus, Plant probably put his foot down after the death of his son that he was staying in England with his family regardless of the taxes. As I recall he was deeply resentful of Grant and Co. of forcing them to relocate to L.A. after the accident in Greece. His wife was really, really hurt as were his kids.

One the major advantages of the tuning-changer (which isn't clumsy) is that it allows you to change the tuning in a middle of a song. So Jimmy could change from DADGAD to concert in an instant, which is great for soloing. Soloing in a DADGAD tuning is hell. The tuner-changer guitar also allows you to be able to play slide guitar in an opening tuning and switch back to concert tuning for playing verses and choruses. It is an incredibly useful guitar. I never liked Jimmy's Danaelectro. They're cheap guitars. Always preferred Kashmir on the 75 tour. It sounded heavier. I also never understood why Jimmy had to play the double neck for TSRTS and The Rain Song. Jimmy could've just played a regular 12 string for TSRSS. When the song finished, just hand him a telecaster or whatever tuned to the original Rain Song tuning. There was enough time between both songs to switch guitars. Carrying that large double neck for twenty minutes of music is an utter pain. Those things are heavy. More importantly, you don't have to mess around when retuning guitars during an actual concert.

I was surprised that the band didn't play All My Love (because of its popularity, and to include something from ITTOD) and Achilles Last Stand. I know the former is one of Robert's all-time LZ favorites, and that Jimmy and Robert consider Achilles to be an all time LZ favorite. But I can understand why they may have wanted to drop Achilles due to how long it is. You can only include so many long songs. I felt it was great to include "For Your Life," although the key was changed so drastically that the middle sections didn't even sound like the original song in a way. It was important for them to throw something into the set they hadn't played before.

I wonder why this never materialized. Myles, other than the fact that he's in 15,000 bands, would have been a nice singer for a JPJ/Page/Bonham project. Having Steven Tyler in the thing would've been a disaster. It would make the band look like one of these record company produced super groups that makes a record but never tours because everyone is involved in so many things. They needed to get a singer who could hit the high notes in The Immigrant Song for the project to be truly awesome. I wonder why the project never materialized. They didn't need the Led Zeppelin brand name. They could've called themselves The Magic Bullets, but as soon fans found out who was in the band and the songs they would be playing, I guarantee you the band could've played 50 dates in 17,000 seat sold out arenas in the United States (and elsewhere). I really do hope that at some point Jimmy Page gets together a new band, puts out a new album, and does a new tour. I was so fortunate to see the Page/Plant "Clarksdale" tour, and it's a night I will never forget. Seeing Jimmy back on stage playing with fire was a dream come true.

I still question whether JPJ and Jimmy seriously entertained the idea of bringing in another lead singer and touring under the name of Led Zeppelin. The whole thing may have been a callous business tactic on the part of a greedy business manager to try to piss off Robert enough to cave in. Once they realized that the singer auditions weren't going to influence Robert, they dropped the whole idea. It's just speculation on my part, but I wouldn't put it past anyone in the music industry to do this.

I have always felt that after the completion of the North American tour (that is, if everyone managed to survive it) that Plant would've said that he wanted to do solo work and for the band to adopt an arrangement similar to Genesis where the band members would either take time off or do solo projects for an extended period, and then come back, make new music and tour as Led Zeppelin when the time was right. I don't feel Plant would've just bolted. The band was too good, but the days of LZ working non-stop were over, as were the days of being tax exiles. Since LZ stayed in Britain from 1977 until the end, one would assume that some of the awful tax laws that forced English rockers into exile had been reduced. It still saddens me that Bonzo died before all this could've happened. It's possible that being able to stay in England with his family and the reduced workload, along with support from family and friends, might've led him to getting sober or at least severely curbing his booze intake once the tour was done. I don't know.....it's probably wishful thinking on my part.

I wonder how much money LZ had to fork over for the cancelled tour? Groups cannot contract to do a tour and bow out because they don't feel like it. You have to pay back promoters and such. There have been all sorts of cases throughout rock/pop music history of promoters and artists/managers ending up in legal disputes over cancelled tour dates. Unless there is some clause in these contracts that if someone in the band dies or gets seriously ill, the band doesn't have to pay back the money.

The time between Bonzo's passing and the early December 1980 announcement (however obscure the statement may have been) that Led Zep had disbanded is the subject of a lot of conjecture and rumors. If you listen to the surviving members nowadays, they will tell you that the decision to bust up was immediate. That the band couldn't have survived without Bonzo, and the decision to stop was immediate. They just wanted to wait a little bit before announcing it. However, I have heard in so many LZ documentaries over the years that various drummers ranging from Carmine Appice to Aynsley Dunbar were seriously rumored to be replacements...even to the point of rehearsals being scheduled. I can understand the temptation to tour because the band must have forked over a bunch of money to promoters for all the cancelled gigs on the North American tour. Do you feel that the decision to disband was totally immediate and unified, and do you feel that the surviving members seriously considered keeping it going but thought the better of it in the end?? I mean, the announcement that they put out in early December 1980 wasn't exactly a definitive statement that the band was done. It just said that they couldn't continue as they were. Well, or course not, nobody could replace Bonzo. But The Who said the exact same thing after Moon died....that they couldn't continue as they were....but that they would try to continue.

There are also parts of the IMTOD solo that sound punched in. And anyone that criticizes guitar players for punching in solos is a fool. A studio album lasts forever, and most fans don't give a crap how it was made. They care how it sounds.

Even though Pagey is known for doing solos that are totally improvised, I have a strong suspicion that the solo for the studio version of "in My Time Of Dying" was composed and rehearsed. The reason is that the studio version is extremely well organized and melodic, whereas the live versions, although exciting, were just all over the place with Jimmy moving his slide all over the fret board without a care of where his slide landed.

Yeah, Black Dog has all sorts of weird time signatures. According to the Uncle Joe's Record Guide on Hard Rock Bands, the entire band danced about during the playback of the basic tracks of Dancing Days. Also, the book claims that during the final mixing sessions for "Houses Of the Holy," "Dancing Days" replaced the song "Houses Of The Holy" in the album's final sequencing. So "Houses" actually darn near made the Houses album.

How about this scenario: after Bonzo's passing, set aside a certain amount of time to grieve, pursue solo projects, and get healthy. Then reform with a couple more musicians (a drummer, keyboardist, maybe a 2nd guitarist?) and just form a band with a new name? And then put out a new studio record. That way Led Zep would've been put to rest, preserving Bonzo's legacy, but without ending whatever special musical collaboration that could've taken place with the surviving members. One of the mistakes that I think many business managers and musicians have made over the years is being fixated on using the old group name for marketing purposes. You want to tell me that a new band with Plant, JPJ, Page and couple of semi-famous musicians couldn't have toured sold out arenas in the U.S. without the Zeppelin brand name? Maybe it wouldn't have been a massive deal, but then again, that was part of the thing that Plant was wanting to get away from, and partly why the Tour Over Europe was played in intimate venues. The shows could've focused on the new material, some key covers, and some Zeppelin tracks that fit the other tunes in the set list. It's like what other people in this thread were talking about when it comes to Black Sabbath. When Ozzy left Sabbath, the band should've just ditched the name, brought in Dio, and did what they eventually did, and that's call themselves Heaven & Hell. I personally feel that the Sabbath albums "Heaven & Hell" and "Mob Rules" are better than most of the albums with Ozzy. Yes, the band may have not initially sold out stadiums using another name besides Black Sabbath, but that music was so dang brilliant that it would've eventually caught on. But the musicians, promoters and business people lacked patience. Go for the quick buck. As a side note.....if Adam Clayton ever left U2, the band would be finished. Those guys have been in a band since they were 14 or something. If you think Led Zeppelin were tight....theses guys are absolute best of friends, and they are in a band. Also, they are one of the only bands that truly collaborates on its music. The songs are almost totally based around band jams. You could stick another bass player besides Adam in there, but I am pretty sure it wouldn't work, but NOT for the reasons why Led Zeppelin wouldn't work with another drummer besides Bonzo. I think Bonzo was a musical equal to JPJ and Page, and the three of them had developed a virtual musical ESP through playing live together. Each musician knew where the other was going next without having to communicate about it. You can't create that kind of connection with a session drummer.

I think he peaked in 1975 and got back to where he was in 1975 in 1998. He was simply awesome during the Page/Plant tour for Walking Into Clarksdale. His solo in "No Quarter" at the Bizarre festival in '98 was amazing:

There are a number of Led Zeppelin songs that are enormously complex in their arrangements. Tracks like "Ten Year's Gone," "Achilles Last Stand," "The Song Remains The Same," and "No Quarter" come to mind. Contrary to popular belief, I have heard several times that "Stairway" was actually written quite quickly. Over the years in various interviews, have the members of LZ ever referred to certain songs in the catalog that were very difficult to write and arrange? On a semi-related note, what songs were the most difficult to record? I know of one group who says that there is at least one song per album that just doesn't seem to want to get recorded....that the group has to do a million and one takes to get the song done, while another song might get finished with one take. I wonder if there some LZ songs that the band just had to work on again and again and again. "No Quarter" has always struck me as being one of those tunes, but I could be wrong.