Random Newspaper Articles

[Knebby]

[Knebby]

Now this is a book I'd buy.

[Nicey]

This seems like a good thread to deposit some of my stuff.

(Note: Links might change eventually. I'm always moving things around. I'll try not to change 'em any time soon.)

BAM - Mar 1978 - pg 20

BAM - Mar 1978 - pg 21

I'll try to post more later. My connection is acting funny and these are big files.

EDIT: Knebby, I feel like I'm following you around, but I don't mean to.

Edited July 11, 2011 by Nicey

[Knebby]

Ha ha not at all no worries

[Knebby]

I have what I assume is the prequel to that article - sorry I have had to scan in two parts as my scanner is only a4, hope you guys can make sense of it.

Edited July 11, 2011 by Knebby

[Knebby]

[FireOpal]

Is that "Front Pages" article accurate, that Pagey didn't start smoking until the mid-70's (i.e. until he was about 30)?? Very surprising. He just seems like a natural born smoker, someone who would have started in his early teens.

[SteveAJones]

Is that "Front Pages" article accurate, that Pagey didn't start smoking until the mid-70's (i.e. until he was about 30)?? Very surprising. He just seems like a natural born smoker, someone who would have started in his early teens.

The accuracy of this article's claims have been debated before and what it comes down to is in order to refute it someone needs to provide proof (either a photo or a quote) to substantiate he was smoking cigarettes prior to the '77 tour.

[FireOpal]

OK, thank you very much, Steve. Maybe there will be an "Ask Jimmy" forum on the new web site. One can dream.

[Knebby]

I was thinking about this and don't recall seeing any earlier pics of him smoking. But oh well.

[Nicey]

I have what I assume is the prequel to that article - sorry I have had to scan in two parts as my scanner is only a4, hope you guys can make sense of it.

Oh, awesome! Great pic of Bonzo. I had never even heard of BAM until I saw this article.

Here's an article from Ciao2001, 13 May 1973:

cover

TOC

pg012

pg013

pg014

And I completely forgot to resize these images, so uh... cover's, like, 2350 x 3065 or something. Slow connections be warned.

Regarding Jimmy's smoking habits...

I have about 3200 pics of Mr. Page, mostly between 1968 and 1980 during Zep with a couple from the Yardbirds era and before. Even though this will make me sound like I have autism, I went through each pic and put keywords on them -- so I could find 'em easier. Things like "blue dress shirt" or "double-necked." Every time I saw a cigarette, I added that as a keyword.

SO! I searched my Jimmies for "cigarette," and the earliest date I have is April 1, 1977 -- the Dallas show that started the 1977 US tour.

Unless you count this:

I found Sep 1974 as the date for it, but that could be wrong. Also, that sucker may not even be lit.

[SteveAJones]

Regarding Jimmy's smoking habits...

I have about 3200 pics of Mr. Page, mostly between 1968 and 1980 during Zep with a couple from the Yardbirds era and before. Even though this will make me sound like I have autism, I went through each pic and put keywords on them -- so I could find 'em easier. Things like "blue dress shirt" or "double-necked." Every time I saw a cigarette, I added that as a keyword.

SO! I searched my Jimmies for "cigarette," and the earliest date I have is April 1, 1977 -- the Dallas show that started the 1977 US tour.

Unless you count this:

I found Sep 1974 as the date for it, but that could be wrong. Also, that sucker may not even be lit.

September 1974 is almost certainly correct. I don't have my copy of this magazine to confirm if it is lit but regardless, the evidence suggests beyond a reasonable doubt he was smoking.

[Nicey]

September 1974 is almost certainly correct. I don't have my copy of this magazine to confirm if it is lit but regardless, the evidence suggests beyond a reasonable doubt he was smoking.

Awesome. Thanks for the info!

EDIT:

More articles... Don't have many, so I'll be running out, soon.

Circus, 6 Feb 1979:

cover

TOC

pg017

pg026

pg027

pg028

pg029

pg032

pg033

pg034

I just recently went through all the Zep mags I had and found they were all stored shoddily in a banged-up old cardboard box. So I restored all of them but scanned them beforehand, just in case the tornadoes have it out for us this year. I'm just posting everything I scanned.

Edited July 16, 2011 by Nicey

[SteveAJones]

I just recently went through all the Zep mags I had and found they were all stored shoddily in a banged-up old cardboard box. So I restored all of them but scanned them beforehand, just in case the tornadoes have it out for us this year. I'm just posting everything I scanned.

Many thanks. I know how time consuming scanning can be. I've mentioned before I have a couple thousand scans already completed and hope to make them all available online one day.

[Nicey]

Many thanks. I know how time consuming scanning can be. I've mentioned before I have a couple thousand scans already completed and hope to make them all available online one day.

Oh, yeah, it was total drudgery. But I know if I don't scan 'em, the washing machine'll leak and soak the boxes or something.

Here's Circus, 9 Jun 1977:

cover

TOC

pg039

pg040

pg041

[Nicey]

Circus, 13 May 1976:

cover

TOC

pg024

pg025

pg026

pg027

pg028

Why own this stuff if you don't share it?

[FireOpal]

Many thanks for your contributions, dear people

[Knebby]

Many thanks for your contributions, dear people

I'll try to post more

[Knebby]

[Knebby]

[Knebby]

[Knebby]

[kenog]

I have newspaper articles which I thought I would post on this site and Webmaster Sam Rapallo diverted me here. Some of the articles may be elsewhere on the site, but the site is now so large, it is difficult to check. Apologies in advance if there are any repeats.

The Independent (London)

February 22, 2000, Tuesday

LAW: BRIEFS

BYLINE: Robert Verkaik

SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 11

LENGTH: 303 words

ONE OF the more surreal sightings on the Kidderminster tennis circuit is the pairing of David Lock MP, minister at the Lord Chancellor's department, with rock legend Robert Plant.

The Kidderminster MP and the lead singer of Seventies supergroup Led Zeppelin have been friends for years and often battle it out on the tennis court.

Recently their paths have also crossed in the political arena. Mr Plant has given financial support to help save Kidderminster Hospital, a cause close to Mr Lock's heart. The MP recently used a touch of political top-spin to secure the retention of the hospital's accident and emergency unit.

THE CROWN Prosecution Service Inspectorate's report, published last week, provided a rare insight in to what makes a bad prosecutor. A number of prosecution advocates, according to the judges' report, were let down by their "verbal or physical mannerisms" which the observing judges concluded could be "surprisingly distracting". The report also drew attention to the case of one prosecutor whose cross-examination technique relied solely on "mocking" the defendant's answers.

THE CITY solicitor Lawrence Collins is rapidly becoming an embarrassing exception to everything the Law Society claims is wrong with the QC and judicial appointments system. First, Mr Collins became one of only four solicitors to have taken silk, a rank which the Law Society is pledged to abolishing. Then this week it was announced that he is to become the first solicitor in private practice to be appointed a High Court judge. The Law Society is also committed to reforming the judicial appointments system which it describes as biased against solicitors. Unsurprisingly, Mr Collins, whose career appears to be on the same trajectory as an Apollo rocket, has been silent on both these issues.

Edited August 16, 2011 by kenog

[kenog]

The Independent (London)

April 6, 1991, Saturday

Stairway to heaven, paved with gold; Steve Turner follows the maze of mysticism and Celtic mythology to a small cottage in Snowdonia where the legend of Led Zeppelin was forged

BYLINE: By STEVE TURNER

SECTION: WEEKEND TRAVEL PAGE; Page 45

LENGTH: 1791 words

It was a marriage of electric bombast and Celtic mythology; of bone-shaking riffs and ethereal thoughts. Led Zeppelin's riffs came from guitarist Jimmy Page via the honky tonks and shotgun shacks of the Mississippi delta, the legends from vocalist Robert Plant via the swirling mists, border wars and mountain spirits of Wales.

Plant grew up in Kidderminster, close to the Welsh border. On a typical summer weekend his father would pack the family into the 1953 Vauxhall Wyvern and motor up the A5 through Shrewsbury and Llangollen into Snowdonia. The young Plant fell in love not only with the scenery and the place names but with the tales of sword and sorcery.

One place he visited was a remote eighteenth-century cottage called Bron-yr-Aur owned by a friend of his father's. Here there was no bathroom or electricity. Lighting was by Calor gas and the nearest town was two miles away down a gated mountain road.

In 1970, when Led Zeppelin's star was rising, Plant was to return to his childhood haunt with Jimmy Page and write a collection of songs which would redefine the group's sound.

''I was pretty keen to go because I had never spent any time in Wales,'' Page said later. ''We took our guitars along and spent the evenings around log fires, with pokers being plunged into cider and that sort of thing. As the nights wore on the guitars came out and numbers were written.''

It was here that they wrote ''Bron-yr-Aur'', ''Bron-y-Aur Stomp'' (Bron-yr-Aur is the name on the house, meaning ''breast of gold'' although, to confuse matters, the Ordnance Survey map has Bron-y-aur), ''Misty Mountain Hop'' and ''That's The Way''. It was here, too, that Page first fumbled with the opening chords of ''Stairway to Heaven'', the mystical song that was to become Zeppelin's best-known track.

The most noticeable effect of Welsh mountains on the music was that they brought a hush and a contemplation not there before. In the hotel rooms of American cities while in full touring flight, they wrote such lemon-squeezing numbers as ''Living Loving Maid'' and ''Whole Lotta Love'', but at Bron-Yr-Aur they tapped into a vein of Celtic folk music that was to dominate one side of the album Led Zeppelin III. Momentarily they forsook Willie Dixon for Joni Mitchell and the Incredible String Band.

''It was time to step back, take stock and not get lost in it all,'' Plant explained. ''Zeppelin was starting to get very big, and we wanted the rest of our journey to take a level course. Hence the trip into the mountains and the beginning of the ethereal Page and Plant.''

Bron-Yr-Aur stands at the end of a narrow road that climbs off the A493 just outside the small market town of Machynlleth in Gwynedd. It is an area rich in myth and legend. The giant Idris Gawr has his seat on the mountain of Cader Idris and anyone who sits on it will either die, go mad or become a poet. It is said King Arthur fought his last battle in the Ochr- yr-Bwlch pass east of Dolgellau.

Half a mile up the steep mountain road there is a black slate sign on the right-hand side which points the way to the property. After passing down through an avenue of overhanging trees with sheep fields on either side, the grey stone shape of the cottage looms up in a clearing at the end. It has a blue front door with a horseshoe nailed above it. A tattered Welsh flag flies from a flagpole to the right of the clearing. Mountains rise steeply behind.

The present owner is the Reverend Canon John Dale, a churchman in the diocese of Worcester, who bought it in the mid-Seventies with no knowledge of its pop cultural history or of who on earth Led Zeppelin were. He still has not introduced electricity, but he has added sleeping space by converting the old milk parlour.

On the day I rolled up he was dressed in running shorts and painting his window frames. His dog was playing in the long grass. I introduced myself and explained my interest. As soon as ''Led Zeppelin'' passed my lips he smacked his forehead in mock horror.

Did he get a lot of trouble from fans? Not really, he admitted, but the traffic increased whenever there was a mention in a new biography. For the first few years of his ownership there were no callers, but now there is a steady trickle. Last year some people had wanted to camp out in his garden.

''Mostly they just want to see where the songs were written,'' he said. ''They just can't believe they have found it. They are normally happy just to see the place, marvel and then go away again.''

Why was the house named ''breast of gold''? Canon Dale speculated on its origin: ''The bracken at the end of the year turns gold and that could have given rise to the name or, possibly, it could have been a reference to gold in the mountains behind. We are not far from Dolgellau where gold has been found.''

This part of Wales, on the southern fringe of Snowdonia, has long attracted artists and idealists keen to escape the pressures of urban life. Rich hippies were fond of buying Welsh cottages to go with their Chelsea flats, and seekers of alternative lifestyles came with their tepees hoping to return to the Garden of Eden. The Centre for Alternative Technology opened in 1975 in a deserted slate quarry close to Bron-Yr-Aur.

Led Zeppelin biographies have wrongly claimed that Plant subsequently bought Bron-Yr-Aur. In 1973 he decided to buy a working sheep farm in the nearby Llyfnant Valley, four and a half miles from Machynlleth on the road to Aberystwyth.

While living here he immersed himself in the life of rural Wales: taking Welsh lessons, learning to dip and shear sheep and pursuing his fascination with the legends of the Dark Ages through the manuscripts kept at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.

The large library, which stands on a hillside overlooking the university town, has on display the thirteenth-century Black Book of Carmarthen and the Book of Taliesin, a fourteenth-century manuscript of poems by the sixth- century poet Taliesin.

When his first son was born, Plant named him Karac after the legendary Welsh general Caractacus. Karac unfortunately died of a respiratory virus in 1977.

Because the band had what Page called ''warm vibes'' about this area of Wales, Led Zeppelin decided, in January 1973, to play Aberystwyth. They booked the 800-capacity King's Hall, a sea- front venue demolished in 1989 to make way for a car park.

A concert which should have brought a pitch of excitement to a seaside town starved of high-class rock entertainment instead exploded with all the force of a damp squib. The audience remained in their seats throughout and offered only polite applause. ''That's the first and only time that happened to us,'' said Page much later. ''It's good to have one concert that is strange and a bit unnerving. But only one.''

In the same year the American director Joe Massot began shooting The Song Remains The Same, ostensibly a documentary about Led Zeppelin. The core of the film was a concert at Madison Square Garden, but spliced between the songs were ''fantasy sequences'' where each band member revealed his innermost soul.

Plant's episode, unfortunately, contained more corn than a bumper harvest. His vision of the self hiding behind the exterior of the flouncing cock-rock vocalist was of a medieval hero given to sailing, horse riding and rescuing blonde damsels in distress.

Getting to his maiden involved boarding a boat, equipping himself with a magic sword, chewing on a magic mushroom, releasing a falcon and scaling a castle wall, all done with no hint of a smile.

The castle chosen for the filming was the fifteenth-century Raglan Castle, built half-way between Monmouth and Abergavenny by Agincourt veteran Sir William ap Thomas, ''the blue knight of Gwent'', and later extended by his son, Sir William Herbert.

It is a wonderful ruin for romantics, especially on a dreary winter morning when the surrounding fields are damp and a cold wind blows through the empty holes of windows. There is an air of mournful mystery about the sandstone walls that drip with water and are flecked with moss.

For The Song Remains The Same, Plant was filmed cantering alongside the long western wall and then fencing with his enemy on the cobblestone floor of the Great Tower, once the safest part of the castle. The fight ends when Plant manages to hurl his opponent into the moat.

His next Welsh move was to buy a home in Penallt, a village in the Wye Valley close to Monmouth. When, in 1978, Led Zeppelin's career began to fluctuate, giving rise to rumours of a break-up, the band reconvened not far from Penallt at Clearwell Castle, an eighteenth-century neo-Gothic mansion in the Forest of Dean, to prepare for their last ''real'' album, In Through The Out Door.

Clearwell was then privately owned and its cavernous cellars hired out to bands for recording and rehearsing. Today it is a quiet country hotel where peacocks cluster on the windows of the banqueting hall and a log fire roars in the huge reception hall. There are oil paintings up the oak staircases, stuffed birds in glass cases along the upper hallway, and evening meals are served by candlelight in a panelled dining room. The cellars are used for medieval banquets and business functions.

I slept in a huge room with two half-tester beds where the bathroom was around the size of most entire city hotels. Indeed, the most tiring aspect of the stay was walking across to the other side of the room, usually to pour a drink from the decanter of sherry left for each guest.

The castle is reputed to be haunted. The maid who serviced my room spoke of the ghost with a ready familiarity. ''Her'' it was who would mess up rooms when they were under lock and key. Recently two guests from different rooms complained about someone singing lullabies to a child on the landing all night and playing a musical box. My room, apparently, was at the epicentre of the hauntings.

Led Zeppelin rose from Clearwell to make one last album before drummer John Bonham's death grounded them forever. Significantly, when Robert Plant returned to the studio it was to Wales that he came, cutting his first solo album at Rockfield Studios in the village of Rockfield, just outside Monmouth.

At the end of the first Led Zeppelin biography, written by Ritchie Yorke in 1976, Plant is quoted as saying he believed Wales would figure strongly in his destiny.

''Wales attracts me more and more,'' he said. ''I could sing and shear sheep at the same time. The Welsh have voices sweeter than angels. The beauty of their voices is just fantastic. If I had a voice like that, I wouldn't be talking to you now. I don't think there is anything finer than a Welsh choir.''

Edited August 16, 2011 by kenog

[kenog]

The Independent (London)

August 5, 1995, Saturday

The village that loves to rock; Every year 17,000 hippies descend on sleepy Cropredy for a rock festival. And the residents love it.

BYLINE: Matthew Brace

SECTION: ESCAPES; Page 9

LENGTH: 1144 words

Ask villagers near Stratford-upon-Avon and Glastonbury about their summer rock festivals, and you might be met with an icy glare and some foul language. But quiz those in the sleepy Oxfordshire village of Cropredy (population: 724) about theirs, however, and you will be offered a cup of tea and fond memories.

Those living downwind of the towering loudspeakers at the Phoenix and Glastonbury festivals have, over the years, protested vociferously. The council at Stratford, site of the Phoenix festival, has been flooded with complaints from residents furious at noise, an alleged rise in house break-ins and the frequency with which festival-goers use their gardens as public toilets.

In Pilton, Somerset, some still rage over Glastonbury as they have since its birth 25 years ago. They criticise Mendip council for ignoring a 1987 referendum when many villagers voted to close the festival down, and view the organisers' donations to local causes as simply a way of silencing the anger. Others have given up the fight and, too scared to leave their homes for fear of burglary, resign themselves to a long weekend of misery once a year.

For Cropredians, however, the prospect of 17,000 people descending next weekend for two days and nights of music, beer and frolics on their doorstep is a cause for celebration. What sprouted in 1976 from a back garden sing-along performed by the folk-rock band, Fairport Convention, to raise money for a new village hall, has grown into an international festival.

Bass guitarist Dave Pegg, who organises it with his wife Christine, remembers the first event in 1979 which was meant to be a valedictory for the band: "We thought that was it for Fairport and we would go our separate ways, so we arranged this farewell concert in Cropredy where we lived at the time. It was such a success that, in fact, it facilitated Fairport's rebirth and we've been going ever since."

Yet, while its expanding sister festivals were marred by disorder, Cropredy's peace remained unbroken. The village nestles in northern Oxfordshire and, besides being popular with boaters on the Oxford Canal, is famous for a Civil War battle in 1644. Its streets are quiet and its pace slow, but so popular among residents is the festival that, rather than fleeing their rural idyll, they stay to let their hair down. According to villagers, only one complaint has been received in its history.

Ron Marchington, a former district commissioner of Scouts and the festival's chief parking steward, believes that "98 per cent of the village are in favour of it, and those who aren't are the ones who forget it's on and get stuck in the traffic coming home on the Friday night".

When the Rev Peter Atkinson is not adding last-minute touches to his sermon for the special Festival Sunday service, he wanders across the green to the Brasenose pub for a pint. He says that, by not battening down the hatches, the village makes people feel welcome and diffuses tension.

This year's Glastonbury saw 250 arrests (three for firearms offences) and more than 200 drug seizures. At the Phoenix last month, 69 people were arrested for thefts, drug offences and knife-point robberies, although things were more peaceful than 1993 when a mini-riot ensued and a security guard was stabbed.

At Fairport's folk-rock bash, however, save the odd tete-a-tete over noisy love-making under canvas in the depths of the night, aggression is alien. "The only violent act I can remember is when some twit went and pulled up an old lady's rose bush," says Mr Marchington. "So we bought her three more and planted them in the same place."

There have been minor incidents such as the odd car break-in or drug arrest, but it is generallly so harmonious that police volunteer to cover it and have been seen jigging around their helmets at the foot of the stage.

The presence of narcotics is so small that the Thames Valley drugs squad gave up attending 10 years ago. Detective Constable Paul Norley believes there is no drug problem because most of the people are middle-aged. "I'm not saying that some drugs don't go on there, but it's not a recognised factor like at Glastonbury, where you've got people openly dealing and putting up signs saying 'Es for sale'," he says.

Cropredy's relaxed atmosphere is due partly to its size: this year's estimated 17,000 people is a fraction of the 150,000 thought to have been at Glastonbury. According to Christine Pegg, 80 per cent of visitors have been before and so appreciate its good reputation and strive to maintain it. She believes they like the homegrown qualities which retain the feel of an overgrown village fete.

Bearded bikers are directed to their tent pitches by smart Scouts co- ordinating traffic control. And the lack of an exclusive hospitality area for star performers means that if the acts fancy a pint they have to mix with their audience at the beer tents. This set-up provides Cropredy veterans with stories they can dine out on for years.

Mark Bennett, a 28-year-old senior business administrator from Kenilworth, Warwickshire, recalls his chance meeting with former Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant among the guy-ropes. "I was wandering around the stalls one afternoon when I met him walking an Irish wolfhound and a whippet," he says. "At first I didn't click who it was. I thought it was just some long-haired hippie. We stopped and had a good chat. Cropredy's the only place where you could do that."

In keeping with a family-friendly philosophy, the Peggs allot one field away from the hubbub for those with children. "I think most of the kids who come were probably conceived here," says Dave Pegg. But the Arcadian attributes do not stop there.

Groggy and weather-beaten, revellers wake on the two mornings of the festival to the scent of bacon and eggs being prepared by the Ladies Circle in the village hall. A cottage industry selling breakfasts to thousands of hungry hippies can be a profitable concern and is one way Cropredians benefit from the festival. The two pubs also do a roaring trade.

Perhaps Cropredy's greatest asset is that it is run by musicians rather than businessmen. Certainly, profits are made for Fairport Convention and money is given to village causes, but residents do not feel they are being thrown a few pennies while the organisers run off with the silver.

Maybe if it was a violent event, bringing havoc to a settled pocket of the English countryside, accusations would indeed fly. Instead, as Dave Pegg says, it is "just a bunch of old farts having a pint and a bit of a sing-song - in front of 17,000 people".

The festival takes place on 11 and 12 August. Tickets are available on the gate. annual folk-rock bash has only ever attracted one complaint from a resident Photograph: Nicholas Turpin

Edited August 16, 2011 by kenog