Zeppelin Mysteries Hosted by Steve A. Jones

[SteveAJones]

Not counting the the few football stadium concerts on the 1977 tour of North America, do you have any idea how many cities, other than Birmingham, were general admission as opposed to reserved seating?

I've long believed the energy from a sardine packed standing crowd hundreds deep on the floor that night helped to fuel an exceptional performance.

Of course the folks in the seats were far from passive...

That's a fair question that I can look into further. Bear in mind that the tragedy at The Who concert in Cincinnati in 1979 put general admission seating in the spotlight for quite some time.

[markbowmanimages]

The Houston 1975 gig at the Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston, Texas was fully General Admission... no seats on the floor.....

(We celebrate the 40th anniversary of that show on Friday - 1st show AFTER the release of PG)

There was a long line at the main doors and for some reason they opened the side doors first away from the line.. I was one of the first ones in the door and SPRINTED as fast as I could to center mike..... The crowd was not violent or aggressive, even for a GA show, and Robert made a really nice comment about how great the vibe was in the crowd that night... They had a few "rowdy" nights on the East Coast during the first leg of the 75 tour.... After a 2 week break for them, this was the first show of the 2nd leg of the US Tour.... Robert's voice was fully rested and THEY TORE IT UP...!

Also, there was no security barrier, like they have now.... I could have reached up and tapped Robert on the foot...

After 3 hours and 45 minutes, it was over..... They were spent - we were spent.....

No audience bootleg or soundboard of this gig exists to this day.....!

Edited February 25, 2015 by markbowmanimages

[slave to zep]

ok here's one....

what is the name of the Led Zeppelin roadie that also worked for Ian Drury in the 80's ?

He is referred to as the "Sulphate Strangler " by Ian ......

[SteveAJones]

ok here's one....

what is the name of the Led Zeppelin roadie that also worked for Ian Drury in the 80's ?

He is referred to as the "Sulphate Strangler " by Ian ......

Peter Rush

https://ianduryauthor.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/ian-and-the-sulphate-strangler/

[slave to zep]

Peter Rush

https://ianduryauthor.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/ian-and-the-sulphate-strangler/

Yes! I emailed his ex girlfriend, and she said he did indeed work for Zeppelin assisting with lights etc....

I am awaiting her reply on whether I can post her whole reply.

[slave to zep]

Yes! I emailed his ex girlfriend, and she said he did indeed work for Zeppelin assisting with lights etc....

I am awaiting her reply on whether I can post her whole reply.

This is what she wrote to me:

yes, he did work for Zepplin, when was a teenager.

Pete was home schooled from a young child as he had severe asthma, the treatment he received when he had a very long stay in hospital, a year I think?-which was a new type of treatment for childhood asthma- was thought to have contributed to his height? consequently as a result he felt an outsider in Bournemouth & followed music. he used to hitch hike to London, from when he was a young teenager- from about 14 -to watch gig's. He hung around & chatted to crew before hitching back to Bournemouth)& they took him under their wing in a way & he ending up helping out crewing, setting up stage & shutting down stage & lights for Led Zepplin. He also worked with Arthur Brown....dunno if you are old enough to remember who he was?! also Roy Harper. this led onto in future years- not probably remembered in correct time line order by me!, Thin Lizzy, Rory Gallagher, Motorhead, Bob Marley(in London), the 1st time Marley performed in the uk, I know as I was there for the Marley gig? Gary Glitter(yup-I know?!), ,Bonzo Dog, Leo Sayer, Camel, Susie & The Banshee's, also Genesis, The Who, The Stone's, Reckless Eric, Leonard Cohen.....well the list goes on, I could mention more, those are a few off the top of my head. He was a veteran backstage way before Ian Drury.

[SteveAJones]

This is what she wrote to me:

yes, he did work for Zepplin, when was a teenager.

Pete was home schooled from a young child as he had severe asthma, the treatment he received when he had a very long stay in hospital, a year I think?-which was a new type of treatment for childhood asthma- was thought to have contributed to his height? consequently as a result he felt an outsider in Bournemouth & followed music. he used to hitch hike to London, from when he was a young teenager- from about 14 -to watch gig's. He hung around & chatted to crew before hitching back to Bournemouth)& they took him under their wing in a way & he ending up helping out crewing, setting up stage & shutting down stage & lights for Led Zepplin. He also worked with Arthur Brown....dunno if you are old enough to remember who he was?! also Roy Harper. this led onto in future years- not probably remembered in correct time line order by me!, Thin Lizzy, Rory Gallagher, Motorhead, Bob Marley(in London), the 1st time Marley performed in the uk, I know as I was there for the Marley gig? Gary Glitter(yup-I know?!), ,Bonzo Dog, Leo Sayer, Camel, Susie & The Banshee's, also Genesis, The Who, The Stone's, Reckless Eric, Leonard Cohen.....well the list goes on, I could mention more, those are a few off the top of my head. He was a veteran backstage way before Ian Drury.

An incident that occurred while he was working for Roy Harper is briefly mentioned here:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jul/17/rocks-back-pages-roy-harper-cricket

[em1165]

"Oh I've met alot of bimbos out there. You know how girls like to exaggerate".

comments like those really rub me the wrong way as a female. i love the music but i don't like the misogyny. that is why i really try not to listen to the lyrics, just the music.

[SteveAJones]

An incident that occurred while he was working for Roy Harper is briefly mentioned here:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jul/17/rocks-back-pages-roy-harper-cricket

...as a by the way, the 2014 edition of Jimmy Page by Jimmy Page omits two photos of Jimmy with Roy in 1984, perhaps to allow for the inclusion of two more recent photographs towards the end of the book (one of Jimmy meeting the U.S. President at The White House, and the other of Jimmy at the Berklee College of Music in Boston).

comments like those really rub me the wrong way as a female. i love the music but i don't like the misogyny. that is why i really try not to listen to the lyrics, just the music.

If it's any consolation, Roxie's comments were posted more than seven years ago.

[ScarletMacaw]

So, is this Page on the guitar solo? The uploader of the video says so, and it sound more like him than Keith Richards:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SroCr2hx1ww#t=152

[SteveAJones]

So, is this Page on the guitar solo? The uploader of the video says so, and it sound more like him than Keith Richards:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SroCr2hx1ww#t=152

Much of Page's session work is unconfirmed, and this song is no exception. To my ears, it does sound like Page, and he was working for Oldham at Immediate Records at the time. However, unless Page or Richards have commented, all we have is anecdotal evidence from Bobby Jameson:

http://bobbyjameson.blogspot.jp/2008_01_02_archive.html

[osoz]

I heard it had to be Jimmy Page as he was the only one in London with a fuzz box at the time and wasn't about to lend it to Keith Richards. Perhaps not true, but I found it a funny anecdote.

[SteveAJones]

I heard it had to be Jimmy Page as he was the only one in London with a fuzz box at the time and wasn't about to lend it to Keith Richards. Perhaps not true, but I found it a funny anecdote.

Although it's probably true Keith did not own one until early 1965, it's unlikely Page was the only one in London with one at the time of the Bobby Jameson session in 1964. George Harrison was photographed using a Gibson Maestro Fuzz-Tone in the recording studio for the Beatles' 'She Loves You' sessions back in 1963. John Lennon was also photographed using one for the 'Don't Bother Me' sessions in September 1963. They used the Fuzz-Tone experimentally for several takes, but it does not appear in the final mix of either song.

(Late 1964)...Roger Mayer, a young man working for the Admiralty Research Laboratories in Teddington, makes his first fuzz pedal for session guitarist Jimmy Page, an improved version of the Maestro Fuzz Tone. According to Roger he also made fuzz pedals for guitarists Jeff Beck, and Jim Sullivan, another session guitarist working the same circuit as Jimmy at the time. Both Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck have confirmed that Roger Mayer did make a fuzz pedal for each of them. According to Mayer, he was friends with Page and used to go to his house, or Page would come to his, and they listened to American records. Mayer has also claimed he produced a treble booster that was tried and used by his friends, including Page, in 1961. Page had just joined his first band in 1961, the Crusaders. The first popular treble booster, the Top Boost, was actually created in 1961 by Vox for the AC-30 amp, which sparked a host of makers later creating treble boosters. It is interesting that Mayer claims he also made one the same year, especially when his website states he first began making guitar effects much later, in 1964.

Here is Jimmy Page's recollection of his Roger Mayer fuzz box from the film It Might Get Loud, Jimmy states: "Knowing that there was a threshold in volume, I wanted to get more sustain out of things. I'd bumped into this chap, Roger Mayer...'did I have any ideas?' I had this record at home of a guitar that had a lot of sustain on it, and I got him to come down and have a listen to it, and I said, 'can you get that?'. And he went away, and came back with this phenomenal thing." In a 2014 interview for Absolute Radio Page stated that he made sure Jeff Beck got the second Mayer fuzz box made. In a 1977 interview Page elaborated more on the development - "Anyone who needed a guitarist either went to Big Jim (Sullivan) or myself.... It was all just flooding in because they didn't have any other young guys playing guitar. I had just started to do a few sessions (reports vary, but Jimmy began session work in 1961, then heavily through 1964-65, ending Spring 1966) and he (Mayer) said, 'I work for the Admiralty in the Experimental Department and I could make any sort of gadget you want'. So I said why didn't he try to make me this thing I'd heard years before on this Ventures record, 'The 2000-Pound Bee'. We had one in England, but it wasn't too good. In actuality it was a disaster. So I said, 'Why don't you improve on this with the Admiralty's facilities?' Which he did." The Ventures actually used a hand made fuzz box on that tune, but Page is thinking they used, and is referring to, a Maestro Fuzz-Tone, the only production fuzz pedal available in America at the time.

This is Roger Mayer's recollection - “The first pedals that I made for Page and Beck ran off a six-volt battery and were housed in a custom-made casing. There were controls for gain and biasing as well as a switch that modified the tonal output. They were rather unlike the pedals that you see today in that they had a separate foot switch attached to the box by a length of cable. I built a treble booster for Jeff Beck, and I was told that he borrowed Page’s fuzz box for some of the Yardbirds’ stuff.”Mayer has also stated: "The one I originally built for Page was loosely based on the Gibson Maestro". "Right from square one, Pagey and I wanted something that sustained a lot, but then didn't start jittering as it went away. One of the things that became very, very apparent early on was that you didn't want nasty artifacts. It's very easy to design a fuzz box' - anybody can do it - but to make one sound nice and retain articulation in notes, now that's something else."

Another Mayer quote from an Iconic Axes interview in 2012: "...I never saw a Gibson Maestro first of all. I’ve never had one in my hands, in fact, to date; I’ve never had one in my hand [laughs]. We listened to the sound of it you see, on the early Ventures records. I think they had a record out called “The 2000 Pound Bee” and it seemed like an interesting sound. The problem with the early Maestro fuzz tones were I guess quite percussive in nature; they didn’t have a lot of sustain. So I built, when I was working with the Admiralty, a version of a germanium fuzz box loosely based on the Maestro. It gave more sustain and it had a richer sound. That became quite popular amongst the session players around London. Big Jim Sullivan used it on a couple of Proby records. The Nashville Teens had one, Jimmy Page had one, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, I think Ritchie Blackmore. There wasn’t that many, I didn’t really make that many of them, only for the session guys and a few bands."

Note that Mayer states he never had a Gibson Maestro in hand, then says his circuit was loosely based on it, which seems to be a contradiction. In Martin Power's bookHot Wired Guitar it states Mayer did borrow the configuration from the Maestro. Here are some relevant quotes from the book: "Jimmy came to me when he got a hold of the Maestro fuzz and said 'It's good but it doesn't have enough sustain...it's a bit staccato.' I said 'Well, I'm sure we can improve on that...That conversation spurred me to design my first fuzz box." "There had to be similarities of course (to the Maestro), because there were only three terminals to work with, bit I managed to build one that had much more sustain." Examining his Page-1 fuzz circuit, a pedal he began selling in 2004 that was supposed to be an improvement upon his original Page fuzz, it does loosely resemble the Gibson Maestro FZ-1, but it also resembles the Tone Bender MKII circuit.

[dazedjeffy]

Ever since 1970, it has been known that a majority of the tracks from Led Zeppelin III were recorded at Headley Grange, as per the original liners. Now, with the release of the Super Deluxe Edition, the accompanying book said that a majority of the tracks were recorded at Olympic Sound Studios.

Which is correct??????

[sam_webmaster]

Ever since 1970, it has been known that a majority of the tracks from Led Zeppelin III were recorded at Headley Grange, as per the original liners. Now, with the release of the Super Deluxe Edition, the accompanying book said that a majority of the tracks were recorded at Olympic Sound Studios.

Which is correct??????

Olympic

[SOFREP]

John Bohman died from 40 shots of Vodka. What brand of vodka was it?

[SuperDave]

John Bohman died from 40 shots of Vodka. What brand of vodka was it?

Doesn't matter as he's dead! That was a stupid question!

[Texten]

It probably doesn't matter what kind of car James Dean was driving when he died. It probably doesn't matter how Belushi consumed the drugs that killed him. It probably doesn't matter what brand of vodka Bonham drank the night he died, but some people are interested in the details.

That was a stupid answer punctuated by an even more stupid emoticon.

[SteveAJones]

John Bohman died from 40 shots of Vodka. What brand of vodka was it?

No specific brands were cited at the inquest nor in the coroner's report.

[SteveAJones]

I'm always curious about where the master tapes are kept from the early albums. I think I read recently where Jimmy said he found some content or alt. takes on some tapes he had, but does he really just keep them in his home studio? I always thought stuff like that was kept safe in places like Iron mountain or similar.

I think you'd be surprised and perhaps disappointed to realize just how haphazard they often times were stored. For example, the master tape for Led Zeppelin's 'Baby Come On Home' went missing for many years and allegedly turned up in a refuse bin outside Olympic Studios in 1991.

[SteveAJones]

Too bad Mike Milllard wasn't in charge of the archive back then. I wonder how much has been lost.

Mike Millard killed himself. He allegedly destroyed all of his master tapes prior to doing so.

[SteveAJones]

I've seen The Song Remains The Same countless times but only recently was it brought to

my attention the flags were at half-staff on at least one of the dates (July 27, 28, 29 1973):

Anyone out there with access to a NYC news archive that can confirm for whom the flags

were at half-mast? I'm pretty sure it was for World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker, who

died on July 23rd. However, Mike Burke, Pres (NY Yankees)/dir (Madison Square Garden)

died July 26th and must be considered a possibility.

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1008.html

Edited May 3, 2015 by SteveAJones

[jimmie ray]

Eddie Rickenbacker lived in NYC. But wouldn't you think that much of the movie's content was re-enacted and filmed at later dates?

[SteveAJones]

Eddie Rickenbacker lived in NYC. But wouldn't you think that much of the movie's content was re-enacted and filmed at later dates?

All of the offstage footage was shot while on tour in Baltimore, Pittsburgh and New York. Some of the onstage content was re-entacted in August 1974 at Shepperton Studios in England, and of course the fantasy sequences were filmed in Autumn 1974 at various locales in England & Wales.

[sam_webmaster]

Washington Post - TV listing, 9-5-70.... What was aired on "New Explosion", w/ Led Zeppelin on Sept. 5, 1970? I haven't found any info in the Post archives.