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Jimmy the Perfectionist


Occam's Razor

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I was talking Zep with a fellow fan yesterday. He told me about the time Jimmy was on a BBC Radio 5 Live phone-in with Simon Mayo, around the time Remasters came out, he thinks. So he decided to call in and ask whether the remasters were going to be a faithful, 'warts and all' job, or whether he would be 'tidying things up' at all. The conversation apparently ran something like this:

"What do you mean?", says Jimmy.

"Well, will we still be able to hear the squeaky bass drum pedal on SIBLY, for example?", says matey.

Pause...... "Um, I've never noticed that", says Jimmy. :blink:

"Oh come on, Jimmy!", says matey. "Everyone knows about that. People even used to use it to test the quality of their hi-fi setups!"

But Jimmy was having none of it.

So matey came off the line, but after that, practically every caller mentioned the 'squeaky bass drum pedal on SIBLY'. And when the phone-in was over, just before handing over to 5 Live Drive, Simon Mayo said "Oh, and by the way....I'VE just heard the squeaky bass drum pedal TOO!" :D

Did any other members hear or participate in this phone-in? And does a recording exist anywhere online?

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Jimmy's been trying for years to rid the buzzing in his ear from the airplane flying overhead during "Black Country Woman".

How'd you expect him to hear squeaking with Bonham pounding the foot pedal ?

INCOMING !!

It's shellshock I tell ya. :rolleyes:

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  • 2 weeks later...

I actually met a fellow fan in line at a recent Robert show and we struck up a conversation and this came up. He swore up and down that I was wrong when I mentioned the squeaky pedals but I know I heard it.. I guess maybe some people hear it and some don't? That's interesting about the interview. I've heard him refer to the matter before:

The only real problem I can remember encountering was when we were putting the first boxed set together. There was an awfully squeaky bass drum pedal on "Since I've Been Loving You". It sounds louder and louder every time I hear it! [laughs]. That was something that was obviously sadly overlooked at the time.

http://www.iem.ac.ru/zeppelin/docs/interviews/page_93.gw

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I actually met a fellow fan in line at a recent Robert show and we struck up a conversation and this came up. He swore up and down that I was wrong when I mentioned the squeaky pedals but I know I heard it.. I guess maybe some people hear it and some don't? That's interesting about the interview. I've heard him refer to the matter before:

http://www.iem.ac.ru...iews/page_93.gw

I recall the quote as well. When I bought the two CD verion of the remasters (limited sale on tv back in the early 90s), it came with an interview cd with the band. I believe it's on that.

Led-Zeppelin-Profiled-1028.jpg

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It's my favourite song ever!! The bass pedal is only really heard in the intro and first verse and even then you have too listen carefully, but as the density of the sound of ther instruments increase, you can' t really hear it anymore!!

I never really heard it at the beggining, but then i read about it on the net a few years ago, on some forum and the topic name was: Things you really don't want to know!!:lol:

Then i listened and heard it and now i sometiems notice it and sometimes not. When i do hear it, it does spoil the picture a little bit, because i get a bit of a feeling of not listening to fine art anymore but being in a mechanics workshop!:lol:

You just don't want to get a feeling that a machine is holding the beat, when you listen to a deeply emotional song!!

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  • 2 years later...

It's funny for years listening to that song, I never heard the squeek.

Then, after hearing Page himself mention it, I can't listen to the song without hearing that pedal squeek! (definitely more audible during the early more quiet phrases)

That song still can bring tears to my eyes though.

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I think Jimmy was at the peak of perfectionism with songs like Ten years gone, Achilles and The rain song,

but with some of the blues stuff he knew it was cool to let some imperfections in!

The Heartbreaker solo was probably left like it was for artistic effect of portraying the frustration of a heartbroken man!

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The thing about Page being a perfectionist is a myth, imo.

The "perfection" that people hear in Zep recordings is in the performance of the band, backed up by the fact that Page cared about the recording process, whereas most bands didn't. The major difference is that Page knew how to capture the right take, be satisfied with it, and then mix the album to suit the style and enhance that performance. Whereas albums by Hendrix, Cream, or the Rolling Stones fell short, even though they had solid studio production. Cream records are a particular tragedy, because they released both studio and live records, and the listener can compare how much better they sounded live than they did on record. Not so with Zeppelin records. They sounded every bit as good on record as they did live.

But as far as studio perfectionism goes, Page was nowhere near a perfectionist. There are tons of mistakes and rough edges on Zep records, with many of them deliberately left in for the sake of the take or the performance. People look at how they recorded at Headley Grange or Stargroves as being indicative of how innovative they were, but I think they get that part wrong. They recorded in a house because they knew it didn't really matter where they recorded, and because Page knew that post-production could clean anything up. As long as they could still get the takes right, why not be comfortable? I mean, there's a friggin airplane at the beginning of Black Country Woman. Yet that song is a killer. It's the performance that matters, not the production.

Whereas, a group like the Beatles were perfectionists. They did dozens of takes of songs, with numerous arrangements, and numerous studio effects to a degree where nearly every possible sound combination was tried by the time they were done. Whereas a lot of the Zep stuff was worked out in advance through rehearsal, and then very quickly finished in the studio with a handful of takes.

The Zep II multitracks that recently circulated I think show just how much of a perfectionist Page wasn't. He left in Bonham's yelling during the drums for WLL, there are flubs and timing issues all over the place on songs like Heartbreaker and Ramble On, and instruments are even out of tune on some tracks (most notably the difference in pitch between the rhythm and lead guitars on Heartbreaker).

It was in the mixing and the performances themselves where the "perfection" came in. But in most cases, that's not really owing to the kind of studio perfectionism that the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Queen, ELO, Boston, or Steely Dan strove for. Zeppelin were a great live band that were able to get that properly captured on tape. But the real magic was in the performance, and how the resulting sound was mixed so as to let all of the power of the performance shine. They could've used any number of arrangements or studio tricks and the resulting impact would've been the same, whether the mistakes or flubs were taken out or not.

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Well when I talked about perfectionism I meant more in terms of how perfectly songs like Ten years gone and The rain song were recorded in the overall process, which includes the whole composition, the arrangement, the recording techniques and the whole technical ability and songwriting gift of the band!

All those elements were brought in carefully by Pagey and this kind of songs were certainly also played very perfectionistically, althought I wouldn't be suprised if someone would find something there aswell! But what could possibly spoil The Rain song hehe!? But perhaps I've got an example myself, such as Plant singing Ten years gone, holdin' on at the end of the song in a rather poor fashion, he did it much better live, but Page just left it that way!

But overall Page certainly wasn't a perfectionist, I never said that and the material and tecnical ability of the band was always so strong, that they always saved the songs from minor imperfections!

Perhaps if we could hear how those old clasicall composers would record thier sonatas we would realise they would perhaps leave certain things in, which a modern pianist that plays their stuff mechanically would never leave in and he would perhaps also never have the musicality of the original composer!

Oh and cookishoes you are damn right how alive Page could make the songs sound on the records, when compared to Cream and especially The Who!

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far from a perfectionist

the little bit that I know demonstrates that Page is however ultimately unwavering in pursuit of what is most vital; and singularly, utterly ever watchful of the best interests of the band and its members.

this takes the form of what is done, what is not done- Page favors the feel of the band over the pristine sterility of heavy handed producers/label thugs/manufactured sounds "it". In a world of loops, sequences, ProTools and plug-ins, the moment, "that take", the shimmer and halo of the ether unity around them, not the notes, not the formula, not the demographic.

If anyone still holds to the perfectionist label, the following cured me.

STH-bbm-graph1.jpg

STH-bpm-graph2.jpg

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Can you explain these graphs here please? Thanks!

And let's not forget that before the solo the song speeds up on purpose and if it speeds up a bit before that, it only adds up to the effect, so I would not call that unperfectionistic at all!

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So he decided to call in and ask whether the remasters were going to be a faithful, 'warts and all' job, or whether he would be 'tidying things up' at all.

It's possibly worth mentioning several of the tracks on the Led Zeppelin Boxed Set (1990) have their fade out at different points than the original album releases, most likely just to fit the timing constraints of the compilation-style release. Mind you, we're only talking a few seconds difference but different nonetheless. If I find my notes I will post specific details.

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If there's ONE track I really wish Jimmy would fiddle with it's 'Your time is gonna come'...

The organ intro is brilliant - pure genius. Hairs-up-on-the-back-of-the-neck good.

The acoustic guitar comes in, and it's slightly out of tune with the organ, but I can live with that. It's still cool.

Then.....

that god-awful pedal steel comes in.

It's so out of tune with everything else it hurts.

If he was to fix the tuning on that (and it CAN be done folks), I for one would not complain, because in spite of that guitar I think it's a nice song.

If he fixed it I think it's be a great song.

Just sayin'.

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That's no 'demo'. :blink:

Somebody (who hasn't a clue how to use a compressor btw..) has got hold of the multitracks and brought up the faders. The harmonica is the same, but you can now hear where good ol' 'one take' Pagey has heavily edited the song to use the bits of heavily eq'd harmonica solo he liked.

Shows his skill that you simply can't hear the cuts on the released mix. But still.

I would LOVE to get hold of the multi's to hear some of the stuff that's going on and do my own mix of some of this stuff.

I've actually pitch corrected the pedal steel in a short bit of 'ytigc' but I don't want to post it and be nabbed by the copyright gurus :( .

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That's no 'demo'. :blink:

Somebody (who hasn't a clue how to use a compressor btw..) has got hold of the multitracks and brought up the faders. The harmonica is the same, but you can now hear where good ol' 'one take' Pagey has heavily edited the song to use the bits of heavily eq'd harmonica solo he liked.

Shows his skill that you simply can't hear the cuts on the released mix. But still.

I would LOVE to get hold of the multi's to hear some of the stuff that's going on and do my own mix of some of this stuff.

I've actually pitch corrected the pedal steel in a short bit of 'ytigc' (just to show that it can be done....) but I don't want to post it and be nabbed by the copyright gurus :( .

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