INSIDE THE SLEEVE POP In Through The Out Door Led Zeppelin Swan Song XSS 16002 Niester, Alan. The Globe and Mail [Toronto, Ont] 01 Dec 1979: F.5. It's a nice position to be in, right at the top of the charts with Christmas approaching. The coming Festival of Gifts should be good for another couple of million at least, and that will buy John Bonham a lot of drum sticks. One wonders how many of those sales are based on fan loyalty and how many are there because of what's in the grooves. In Through The Out Door may not stand up very well against the first four Led Zeppelin LPs, but it sure looks good in terms of their last two efforts, Presence and Physical Graffiti. One of the main problems is that Jimmy Page can't do it quite like he did in '67. The band has replaced Page's pyrotechnics with an easier sound. The stars of this show are John Paul Jones and Bonham, who lay down a relentless bottom over which Page and Robert Plant need do little but dither and slide. Such songs as In The Evening or Fool In The Rain wouldn't work nearly as well with a merely average rhythm section. It's hard to believe that Led Zeppelin would ever be making rock 'n' roll elevator music, but that's precisely what it is. It'll be the perfect beat to eat Christmas turkey to. - A. N.

Led Zeppelin comeback disappointing The Globe and Mail [Toronto, Ont] 16 Aug 1979: P.12. Led Zeppelin comeback disappointing Thursday, August 16, 1979 Knebworth, ENGLAND -- KNEBWORTH, England (Reuter) - The Led Zeppelin rock group made what was billed as a comeback at two open-air concerts here, but the general verdict was that they had sounded better before. It was the first time in four years that the public here heard the band's high-powered rock, and 100,000 of the faithful turned up in the stately surroundings of a county home at Knebworth, north of London. Zeppelin performed many of their classics, like a Whole Lotta Love, but reliance on the old, along with sketchy performances of some newer material, just reminded fans that music has come a long way since success was measured in volume as much as artistry. Said the Guardian's critic Mick Brown of the Zeppelin's Aug. 5 show: ''Even the most undiscerning fan must have been disappointed at the standard of Zeppelin's performance.

Phony rock drummer is no chum of CHUM The Globe and Mail [Toronto, Ont] 09 Feb 1978: P.3. Toronto ON -- A man who posed as the drummer for the rock group Led Zeppelin was discovered marching to the wrong beat. On Jan. 2, Metro Toronto Police say, a man claiming to be John Bonham drove a stolen car from Ottawa to Toronto where, in the course of about a month, he booked into Hotel Toronto, the Anndore Hotel, the Town Inn Hotel and the Hotel Plaza II and then left without paying. When the man checked into Hotel Toronto on Tues day, his use of the drummer's name resulted in VIP treatment and special room rates. Earlier, the man visited the studios of CHUM-FM, again claiming to be Mr. Bonham, the drummer. Two employees of the radio station, Bob Kennedy and Eugene Vitaris, went to Hotel Toronto, met the man and were invited into his room. He told them he was scouting Toronto for a recording studio where the Led Zeppelin could work when its U.S. tour ended in August. The man agreed to do a live interview at CHUM-FM at 11:30 yesterday morning. The interview was con ducted by Brian Masters, himself a drummer, who felt that the man's answers to his questions about drum ming were evasive. According to sources at Eastern Sound, a Toronto recording studio, the man was there yesterday and made another appointment for today. He had promised during the CHUM-FM interview to visit the El Mocambo nightclub last night to continue discussions about the possibilities of a live appearance. Police said Patrick Dupuis, 27, of no fixed address was charged yesterday with theft, impersonation and several counts of fraud.

This is a book review Gracyk, Theodore . Listening to Popular Music: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Led Zeppelin . Ann Arbor : U of Michigan P , 2007 . Reviewed by Gregory Erickson In Listening to Popular Music: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Led Zeppelin, Theodore Gracyk continues the philosophical exploration of aesthetics, value, and identity begun in his previous two books on popular music, Rhythm and Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock and I Wanna Be Me: Rock Music and the Politics of Identity. The subtitle of his new book is revealing of his purpose. Although it might suggest the tale of a middle-aged professor learning not to be ashamed of enjoying the popular culture of his youth, this narrative is actually only a very small portion of the book. Instead, the keywords of the title each takes on a much deeper meaning, unpacking what it means to learn, love, and worry in the context of the aesthetics of popular music. The central points of Gracyk's arguments are that aesthetic value is just as important in popular music as in “serious” music; that different musical styles require different listening skills to appreciate their aesthetic value; and that we do not need to treat popular music as “art” in order to consider its aesthetic value. Although his earlier works, in attempting to defend rock and popular music from closed-minded critics, claimed them as art, Listening to Popular Music stakes out a more nuanced position, denying popular music the status of “art,” while defending and defining its aesthetic value. Like his earlier books, Listening to Popular Music questions the traditional distinctions between “serious” and popular music, yet it insists on seeing them as different entities. Gracyk's main thrust is that popular music has an aesthetic dimension and that our engagement with popular music always participates in the perception of aesthetic value. He establishes his position as a corrective to cultural studies scholars who, while taking popular music seriously, have tended to slight aesthetics. The book is in three sections. Part One, while not denying that music is a social practice, argues that it should also be studied through aesthetical analysis. Part Two argues for the importance of popular culture in theories of aesthetic value; and Part Three, while not abandoning aesthetic discussion, turns to issues of communication and identity. Gracyk's challenge, as he acknowledges in the introduction, is to clarify what “aesthetic value” means. This is his project throughout the first third of the book and is where the book is the most difficult, not so much for the ideas or vocabulary (no German words), but for the method: The book follows a traditional philosophical form, painstakingly breaking down definitions and concepts, laying out numbered taxonomies and schemas, and progressing dialectically through questions and hypothetical answers. Working through all the steps of Gracyk's arguments takes patience, but the book offers rewards if read slowly and carefully. Although his methodology can at times feel laborious, or overly literal in its step-by-step process, readers who have been continually disappointed by the rapidly proliferating philosophy and popular culture publishing industry will be much more richly rewarded here. Listening to Popular Music is a work that truly engages with both popular culture and philosophy without short- changing either one. Equally rooted in the literature and language of cultural studies, popular music studies, and philosophy, Gracyk constructs balanced and informed arguments. His first step, to separate aesthetics from art, makes the claim that “calling popular music ‘art’ praises it for the wrong reason” (12), a sentiment familiar from the works of popular music scholars like Rob Walser, who have pointed to the fallacy of elevating rock for its resemblance to aspects of classical music. Gracyk's reservation about calling popular music “art” is that doing so misleadingly suggests that we should then apply the same criteria for aesthetic value. In making this criticism, Gracyk looks at the historical construction of the descriptive and evaluative terminology surrounding music and art. After examining Kant's and Schiller's theories of art and genius as they may or may not apply to the Beach Boys album Pet Sounds, Gracyk concludes that “if we want to praise popular music for providing a valuable aesthetic experience, we should set aside the issue of its art status and address its aesthetic values” (24). Part One finishes its task of defining aesthetic principles and aesthetic properties by rethinking Simon Frith's previous work on the value of popular music that claims common evaluative principles across all types of music. By beginning with Captain Beefheart's “Dachau Blues” and then discussing early blues, as well as Van Morrison and Bob Dylan, Gracyk makes a complex and detailed argument for the role of listening skills in the development of aesthetic values and principles. Part of Gracyk's argument for the aesthetic importance of popular music focuses on its relationship to what he calls “ordinary” activities—joke telling or taking a walk—that separate listening to popular music from the experience of a concert hall. While he convincingly locates aesthetic value apart from the autonomous experience traditionally associated with “art” music, Gracyk does not deny popular music's power to create such moments of transcendence, comparing at one point the experience of listening to Lou Reed's “Heroin” to listening to a Mozart piano sonata. His point though is that this kind of aesthetic transcendence is not the primary experience of popular music, and that there are more nontraditional and more important ways of thinking about aesthetics in popular music—of seeing it as a “particular experience within a broader framework” (194). Gracyk's book is in constant dialogue not only with major texts of popular music studies, but also with the work of musicologists associated with European art music. Despite his separation of popular music from Western art music, his interaction with conservative musicologists such as Eduard Hanslick (the prophet of absolute music from the nineteenth century) or Roger Scruton (musicology's answer to Allan Bloom), shows him to be both conservative and progressive, seeing certain music, interpretations, and listeners as inherently better than others, while at the same time rejecting many traditional theories of how we arrive at these evaluations. While this is a useful way of entering into contradictory tensions within popular music studies, Gracyk's engagement with the right-wing branch of musicology perhaps leads him to misrepresent certain trends of thought. For example, he seems to think that musicologists working in Western art music still insist on the concept of absolute music, when actually this is an ideal that has almost completely vanished from contemporary musicological discourse. Gracyk is nothing if not provocative, and many of his statements left me scribbling arguments in the margins. While many of my complaints are better suited to a seminar than a book review, there are a few I feel worth mentioning. In supporting a distinction between aesthetic and nonaesthetic listening, he nonetheless suggests the two modes “frequently and fruitfully interact” (47), a position that he sees as opposing many of the tenets and figures of cultural studies. Gracyk insists on the limitations of what he calls their “social relevance thesis,” which he maintains should be combined with an awareness of the aesthetic. Here, some of his assertions seem to both simplify the work of theorists he criticizes and dismiss recent developments in cultural studies that take a more serious look at aesthetics. His insistence, reiterated in almost every chapter, that cultural studies is not interested in aesthetic value is a less valid criticism than it was ten years ago when an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education was titled “Wearying of Cultural Studies, Some Scholars Rediscover Beauty” (4 Dec. 1998, A 15–16). So although Gracyk presents his book as offering an alternate path, it can also be seen as participating in the much discussed turn to aesthetics in contemporary cultural studies. I also question Gracyk's claim of an “obvious” difference between popular and serious music. How is it clear just where to separate “popular music” from other forms that Gracyk sees as part of the elite art world? Where do we put various sub-genres of jazz? Or the “symphonic” (if mostly panned) recordings of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer or Metallica? How about “classical” composers like Eric Ewazen or Christopher Rouse whose works have clearly been influenced by rock music? Although the first half of the book is foundational, nonphilosophers may prefer to read the later sections first. While some of Gracyk's assertions in the later chapters are perhaps less original, the tone is more accessible to readers without some philosophical training. Perhaps, at least on the initial reading, the most interesting and memorable sections of the book are the set pieces where Gracyk pauses his philosophical progression for a few pages to give a close reading of a piece of popular music to demonstrate a point. His musical examples are, as he admits, limited, but also wide-ranging enough to appeal to a variety of readers: The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Nirvana, Queen, Elvis Costello, Lou Reed, and, of course, Led Zeppelin. His use of Nirvana's “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” for example, presents the conflict between the “aching, sweet” melody and the “noise” of the metal/punk-influenced accompaniment as a demonstration of how Nirvana “refuses to ‘normalize’ its activity in conformity to the demand that tonality must govern music.” Sounding a bit like some of the socially minded theorists that he has criticized (Walser, Susan McClary, Richard Middleton), Gracyk concludes that this song is a “species of political organization” and can be seen as a “stand against the degree of repression that we often assume everyone must accept as the price of modern life” (173–75). When Gracyk finally arrives at Led Zeppelin near the end of the book, it is to examine how a lifetime of listening to music allowed him to hear the sophistication and humor in “D’ Yer Mak ‘Er,” and to finally learn how to love Led Zeppelin. This experience, for him, epitomizes the complex process of learning to experience and perceive aesthetic value: “One cannot grasp the meanings of this music if one is deaf to the voices of the past,” he concludes, finding aesthetic value and richness in Led Zeppelin's “cross-reference and allusion” and not in its “harmonic organization and complexity” (167). There is perhaps irony in Gracyk's usage of what is essentially the elite language of philosophy to claim a separation between elite and popular music. Chuck Klosterman, who labeled Gracyk's earlier book Rhythm and Noise“an incredibly well researched and painfully dull book” (29), probably will not enjoy this book either. On the other hand, most readers of Gracyk are perhaps not that fond of Klosterman's pop-culture memoir Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural Nörth Daköta. Yet ironically this split between elite art and popular art is what Gracyk is attempting to negotiate in his book. In appreciating the arguments of his book, readers traverse the gray areas between feeling the need to claim texts of popular culture as worthy of study, yet wanting to avoid robbing them of their experiential power or enforcing the domestication that can come with artistic acceptance. Readers of Gracyk, like listeners of Led Zeppelin, must develop the literacy to fully appreciate the accomplishment. The resistances that may arise within readers of Listening to Popular Music are the very issues that Gracyk is theorizing, and are the tensions that make the study of popular music endlessly fascinating.

He died in 2006.

CUE AND PLAY: Deborah Bonham tackles the questions Milton Keynes Citizen [Milton Keynes] 09 Apr 2013 Deborah Bonham has just issued her new album Spirit, which has gathered widespread critical acclaim. Take Me Down, the first single taken from the release, has spent four weeks in the top spot on the Reverbnation Rock chart. This Thursday evening, Deborah and her band return to The Stables to show off their style and her incredible voice which has led to tours and performances with artists including Paul Rodgers, Robert Plant, Van Halen, Foreigner and Humble Pie. But when she isn't making the music, whose sounds does she choose to listen to? Will there be any Led Zeppelin in there? After all, her brother was the late Zeppelin drummer John Bonham. Which new talent does she rate, and given the chance, who would she put into the bargain bin? Read on as Deborah tackles our Cue & Play... Tell us about the first record you bought/downloaded The first 7" record was The Kinks 'All Day and All of the Night.' The first download was an experience - I ended up downloading the same song by The Climax Blues Band seven times, ironically titled 'Couldn't Get It Right' An album you can't live without, and why Led Zep I, II and Physical Grafitti, Joni Mitchell Court and Spark, CSNY Deja Vu, Little Feat Sailing Shoes, Steely Dan Can't Buy a Thrill, Best of Otis Redding, I cut it down to these eight from 100s Your favourite cheesy disc... If it's a great song, it's a great song What about your favourite artist of all time? What's the attraction? Otis Redding - Sheer emotion and soul If we could grant you a wish to meet one musician or band, who would it be and why? What question would you ask them? Otis Redding because there is no-one like him. I'd ask if I could sing a duet with him! Name a song that never fails to pick you up Rubberband Man - The Spinners And one that chills you out Court and Spark, Joni Mitchell What was the first gig you attended Led Zeppelin at Birmingham Town Hall, 1970 Tell us about your favourite record shop or on-line store and what the appeal is My local record store Harbour Records, Emsworth. I love vinyl record shops and this one is just that - I love browsing through the immense amount of music You can step into the shoes of your musical idol for 24 hours. Who do you choose, and what would you do? Aretha Franklin - sing Say A Little Prayer Is there a new or undiscovered artist that you think we need to hear? Spill the beans. I have a guy called Steve Rodgers on tour with me at the moment as a special guest, and he is just that, very special - an amazing voice You can banish one artist to the bargain bin. Who do you choose? Oh dear, I don't know. Probably all those that writhe around in very short skirts showing as much flesh as they can. And that's just the boys! Does anyone listen to the music? You've got 10 songs to soundtrack your life. Give us the artist and the songs... Side One: 1 Ramble On - Led Zeppelin 2 Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac 3 Art for Arts Sake - 10CC 4 Take Me To The River - Al Green 5 Say A Little Prayer - Aretha Franklin Side Two: 1 Carry On - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young 2 Rock and Roll Doctor - Little Feat 3 I've Been Loving You - Otis Redding 4 Help Me - Joni Mitchell 5 Kashmir - Led Zeppelin

Bonham's sister drums-up her own singer songwriter career The Star [sheffield] 11 Apr 2013 By Rachael Clegg DEBORAH Bonham's brother never wanted her to get involved with the music business. Her brother was John Bonham - Led Zeppelin's drummer who died in 1980, when Deborah was just 18. "My brother saw a different side of the business. It wasn't something he weanted his little sister to be involved with so he would encourage me to do really well at school, he wanted me to be a lawyer or something like that." But while Deborah Bonham loved her brother dearly, she disregarded his advice and followed her dreams - to be a singer songwriter. "I did get involved with opera at first and he was okay with that but my music career didn't take off until after he died." This week the blues singer songwriter, pianist and guitarist comes to Barnsley as part of a UK tour of her latest album, Spirit. The record was recorded near Bonham's Chichester home and mixed in Nashville. "It needed an injection in the arm after we recorded it," she says. "There's a great music work ethic in Nashville and you don't get that as much in the UK." The album covers an array of subjects from landmines to death. "The name 'Spirit' is to do with a lot ofthings. It's about having the spirit of being able to verry on after you lose someone. "I lost my mum a week before we started recording so it's about that spirit of just getting on but also the spirit in people and the fact we will hopefully meet again one day." And as for John Bonham's approval of her career in music, she says. "I know he would love what we're doing and he'd have definitely been on stage with us." Deborah Bonham plays at the Birdwell Social Club, Barnsley, this Saturday, April 13.

A record shop owner mistook Jimmy for an old tramp!!! Dan keeps himself f in the groove: After closing his specialist record shop in Birmingham seven years ago, vinyl king Dan Reddington is finding a new market for rare records in Japan. GRAHAM YOUNG meets him at his Worcestershire warehouse. Young, Graham. Birmingham Mail [birmingham (UK)] 13 Apr 2013 WITH 50,000 singles and 25,000 albums stacked up in his warehouse, Dan Reddington has enough music for every emotion. But ask the Birmingham-born second hand record king for a favourite and it's a question he cannot answer. "It's hard to think of a favourite artist, LP or song, especially when I have nearly 25,000 tunes on my PC," laughs Dan. He has had his current warehouse in Redditch for two years and admits: "I'm a hoarder... I've even got old phone books." One of its two rooms features stacks of albums galore, the other box after box of singles. Most are cardboard boxes but others are increasingly-rare, dovetailed, wooden Schweppes' boxes with cutout handles and open tops. The mind boggles as to how long it might take Dan to re-catalogue their contents - but there is interest worldwide. For years he has been selling heavy rock records to Russia; now Japan is becoming a new market with the growth of vinyl record shops in Tokyo. Within days of our meeting, he's expecting a Japanese visitor keen to take plenty of his stock over to the Far East. "The Japanese are becoming big buyers, literally travelling all over the world for rare stuff," says Dan. "That's the way I'm trying to work my business now. More rare records, less purchases." In 2009, Frank Wilson's Northern Soul record Do I Love You fetched a world record price for a single of Pounds 25,742 after Kenny Burrell, from Fife, put it up for sale. One of only two known copies in the world, its value remains far ahead of Dan's best sale. "The most expensive record I sold was a blue vinyl version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, one of 200 given to EMI reps," he says. "It went for Pounds 3,500, but it also came with things like a scarf, a pen and a goblet and you had to have those. "I also sold a Marc Bolan jacket for Pounds 4,000. It was so small I couldn't get my arm into one of the sleeves." Dan's passion for records goes back more than half a century. From growing up in the Percy Road area of Sparkhill, his famous customers over the years ranged from the late DJ John Peel to rock gods like Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and Bev Bevan, the ELO drummer who once lived round the corner. Dan had already begun collecting records before he turned his love into a mail order business, then a series of shops and now a global internet service. "I used to conduct auctions by post and it used to take weeks and weeks," says Dan. "I was told I wouldn't be able to afford the Pounds 500 deposit on our first house when Beryl was pregnant with our first child, but I sold five records to Australia for Pounds 600." He then painted the ceiling black and put up red, felted wallpaper even over the door. "It was very psychedelic, and I loved it," he laughs. Dan worked for the Post Office for several years, helping to install telegraph poles using a special machine. "I remember a passerby in Four Ashes Road, Solihull, stopping one day and asking me: 'How many erections do you get a day?'." Dan's first shop was a "five foot square" affair in Warwick Road, Birmingham. He later moved close to Moor Street near to the Bullring, to Cannon Street and finally back to Digbeth before he decided to reduce costs by going online. "I've always kept my eye out for records," he says. "I was once driving past a second hand shop and had to turn back. "They had all of these Fats Domino records up for Pounds 1 each - which I sold for Pounds 25 each. "Now, vinyl is making a big comeback, with records being made in 180g virgin vinyl, not the recycled stuff. "To sell, secondhand records have always got to be in good condition, that's how you get the biggest money for them. "Today, there is no set price. The buyer now dictates that, because there are now so many people selling records on eBay. "If I was younger I would start a record shop again, but you can have so many problems with staff - there was a time when two of my assistants were both having babies at the same time." One of Dan's favourite moments was meeting Muhammad Ali in a Birmingham bookstore. "I told him that he was The Greatest... along with Sam Cooke. "He really liked that, as Sam was a big friend of his and he wouldn't let my hand go until he'd finished You Send Me, one of Sam's songs. "Sam had produced a record for Cassius Clay (Ali) called Stand By Me (the Ben E King song) which I knew that Cassius had recorded in 1964. "Another time, around 1968, I thought there was an old tramp on the doorstep of my old shop near to Moor Street. "I didn't want him having a pee there like so many did, but when I went out to get rid of him it was Jimmy Page, just before he took off with Led Zeppelin. "John Peel was really funny. He'd tell me jokes, like Bill Shankly being asked at the barbers: 'Do you want anything off the top..?' 'Aye... Everton'." The first record Dan bought with his own money was Sammy Davis Jnr's Because of You on a 78, which includes impersonations of actors on one side and of singers on the other. "The first LP I bought was Lonnie Donegan's 10" Showcase," he adds. "I'm a great fan of all types of music and being fortunate to be 72, I've seen them all except Elvis. "I guess the LP I never get tired of playing is Bullshot by Link Wray. "Every track is a cracker. Link was a guitarist and Tarantino uses his instrumentals a lot in his films. "One good question to ask people is what they are playing in the car at the moment. "I'm playing a track by Ronnie Dunn called Bleed Red, a country artist who was part of country duo Brooks and Dunn. "They have great lyrics all about life." Dan can also recommend music for when life comes to an end. "One track they can play at my funeral is Roll Me Away," he says. "It's by one of my favourite artists, Bob Seger. "He must be my top band alongside Buddy Holly, the first American superstar I saw. "For her funeral, my wife, Beryl, wants a haunting Irish track by Roma Downey called Irish Blessing (written by Phil Coulter). "Do you know you can now get your ashes pressed into a vinyl LP!" The couple do have a favourite artist of the moment. "He's called Josh Groban," says Dan. "We've seen him every time he's been in Birmingham. "In fact, he's got such a fabulous voice we'd go every night to see him." One of Dan's favourite nights was going to see Buddy Holly at Birmingham Town Hall in 1958, months before the singer was killed in a plane crash in Iowa on February 3, 1959. "Me and two mates, Johnny Whateley and Pete Bryan, were all keen record buyers and used to go to Pete's bungalow in Reddings Lane, Greet, to discuss each other's discs," he says. "Of course, Buddy Holly came into the scenario and we all became great fans so when he was booked to play at Birmingham Town Hall we had to go. "We didn't get our tickets till late and the only ones left were on the stage behind the performers so of course we had to have those tickets. "I remember the master of ceremonies/compere being Des O'Connor. "Buddy's set was a blur, but I can always remember the fantastic sound of his guitar. It filled the whole area with an incredible sound as a pioneer in the development of the Fender Stratocaster. "What an experience it was to actually be on the same stage as Buddy Holly and witnessing this great man perform, no mountains of speakers, just the sheer excitement of that voice and guitar sound."

They Shook Me. By: Page, Jimmy, Tate Etc., 17438853, Autumn2012, Issue 26 PRE-RAPHAELITES: VICTORIAN AVANT-GARDE AT TATE BRITAIN Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Gardeat Tate Britain II -- The guitarist and founder of Led Zeppelin is a fan and collector of the art of the Pre-Raphaelites. He talks to Tate Etc. about his lifelong passion I have had a passion for the Pre-Raphaelites since my early teens. I would have initially seen them as reproductions, but I remember a visit to Tate and encountering the actual paintings. They had a profound effect on me. It was quite an experience-the realism of their technique along with the idealism, and of course the romanticism. This was before I attended art college. Most people would assume that it was there that I was first exposed to their work, but actually the teaching and syllabus of that time was much more to do with modern art and using modern materials-acrylics in particular-so oil painting, particularly of earlier styles, was not championed. My study of Pre-Raphaelitism, if you need to call it that, was therefore entirely self-driven and a personal quest. As you know, this art was selling for mere hundreds of pounds at the time, but I was a student and didn't have that kind of money to buy it. However, as soon as I was in a position to do so, I indulged myself. As to which of the artists I mostadmired, of course I adored Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but is there any point or justification in singling out any of them? The art and life and death of Lizzie Siddal always moved me. I think it would be fair to say that I was pretty intoxicated with the whole movement. Later, I had the chance to buy the two tapestries which are on loan to the Tate exhibition. There were three in an auction at Sotheby's, Belgravia; I think the date was 1978.l fixed on the two I acquired, although all three were beautiful. What enthralled me was the majesty of their drawing and of the execution of the tapestries by those unbelievably skilled craftsmen. The attention to detail of the subject matter and even the background of verdure and flora is still quite astonishing to me. At the time I found it overwhelming. I only hope visitors to the exhibition will feel the same intensity of passion as I did when I first saw them. They were the absolute zenith of Burne-Jones's and William Morris's output. I believe Morris himself said the series of tapestries was his masterwork. Edward Coley Burne-Jones The Attainment: The Vision of the Holy Grail to Sir Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Perceval (1890-1894) Cotton, wool and silk 239x749cm Edward Coley Burne-Jones The Arming and Departure of the Knights of the Round Table and the Quest for the Holy Grail (1890-1894) Cotton, wool and silk 240 x347cm ~~~~~~~~ By Jimmy Page JIMMY PAGE talked to Paul Reeves.

It Might Get Loud. By: Davies, Sam, Sight & Sound, 00374806, March 2010, Vol. 20, Issue 3 A telling moment arrives in It Might Get Loud during a conversation with Jack White, guitarist and singer in the White Stripes. Technology, he lectures, is the enemy of art, truth and honesty. The Luddite dimness of this statement is such that you hope it crossed director Davis Guggenheim's mind to call White's bluff: to offer to switch off the fiendish innovation that is the film camera and perhaps the electric lights too on his way out. Later in the film, with no apparent irony, White explains how he has had his guitar specially modified to incorporate a microphone he can sing through. Guggenheim previously directed An Inconvenient Truth (2006), Al Gore's environmental polemic aimed at eradicating any remaining complacency about our ecological future. It Might Get Loud, by contrast, is less a documentary than a cosy celebration. Presenting three generations of electric guitarist -- Jimmy Page (of Led Zeppelin), the Edge (U2) and White -- discussing their relationship with the instrument, it generally looks to tread the well-worn path of rock nostalgia and mythology. There are compelling moments dotted through the film: Page swaying as he plays air guitar to his own crackly copy of Link Wray's seminal 'Rumble'; the Edge peeling away layers of electronic effects to reveal a riff in which he barely touches the strings at all. White's real-time construction of a monochord -- the wire-strung instrument which is perhaps the guitar's earliest recognisable ancestor -- is riveting. And Guggenheim goes out of his way to avoid an endless succession of talking heads, instead taking his interviewees to old schools, studios and other places from their past, including in the Edge's case a sweep of Irish coastline you half suspect he owns. But the problem is lack White, as typified by that strange snarl about the horrors of technology. Guggenheim wants to emphasize the timelessness, the constant re-inventions of the guitar and rock culture. White undercuts this thesis: as the youngest of the three he is meant to represent the guitar's future, or at least its present. Yet he is the most conservative, and aggressively so. Page and the Edge seem not only to have no fear of modernity but even, in their day, to have relished some of its possibilities. By contrast White cuts a curmudgeonly figure in vintage bowties and waistcoats, obsessing quixotically over an authenticity he has projected onto some prelapsarian (or rather pre-electric) past. Instead of affirming the ongoing vitality of rock culture and its guitar heroes, White only draws attention to its current defensiveness and inability to look beyond its own history. By its final reel It Might Get Loud, meant as a tribute to the guitar's enduring and endless possibilities, has acquired an unintended but unmistakable valedictory tone. Page and The Edge's returns to the haunts of their youth end up as ghostly visitations by figures from musical history.

IT MIGHT GET LOUD. By: Lowe, Justin, Film Journal International, 15269884, Sep2009, Vol. 112, Issue 9 Credits: Directed by Davis Guggenheim. Produced by Thomas Tull, Lesley Chilcott, Peter Afterman, Guggenheim. Executive producers: Bert Ellis, Michael Mailis. Directors of photography: Erich Roland, Guillermo Navarro. Edited by Greg Finton. Supervising sound editor: Skip Lievsay. A Thomas Tull production. Mortals will tremble as guitar gods assemble for this remarkable film. 09-197 For anyone who has dreamed of rock 'n' roll stardom, blissfully jammed away on "Guitar Hero" or rocked out at a concert, It Might Get Loud offers a thrilling personal tour of three exceptional electric guitarists' careers that's equally appearing to musicians and rock enthusiasts alike. Sony Pictures Classics heard this immensely entertaining music documentary, directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim calling the tune, at last year's Toronto Film Festival and smartly snapped it up. With Guggenheim at the helm and the participation of Led Zeppelins Jimmy Page, U2's The Edge and Jack White of The Raconteurs and The White Stripes, the audience for Loud could rival turnout for a U2 concert tour. Guggenheim centers the film on "The Summit," an unscripted Los Angeles soundstage jam session that brings the three generations of guitarists together for the first time, then branches off with personal profiles of each musician and their individual paths to developing their signature styles. Although he's the best-known among the trio, Page also is the most private, having endured decades of scrutiny as a member of The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin. So his openness to the project is all the more remarkable as he invites the filmmakers into his London home to listen to his record collection and film him strumming tiffs from "Ramble On" in his studio. A side trip to the country house where the legendary "Stairway to Heaven'-centered Led Zeppelin IV album was recorded prompts Page to pick up his mandolin for an impromptu version of "The Battle of Evermore." Guggenheim strategically minimizes any recapping of Led Zeppelins already well-documented history, focusing instead on Page's playfully engaging discussion of his largely self-taught trademark hard-rock guitar techniques, musical influences and career as a young studio musician before joining The Yardbirds. The Edge literally goes back to the Dublin high school where the U2 quartet formed as teenagers to highlight his musical journey, while a visit to his riverside studio reveals his unique, effects-laden guitar techniques and command of audio technology A trip to White's Tennessee home base reveals the origins of his minimalist, roots-oriented rock and blues style as he leads the filmmakers through his development as a respected musician and producer. These chapter-like interviews are skillfully interwoven with remarkable archival materials and cut together with generous live concert footage featuring U2, Led Zeppelin, The White Stripes and The Raconteurs. The film's highlight by far is "The Summit," when the three musicians gather to swap stories and guitar licks as Guggenheim's seven HD cameras capture stirring moments of creative spontaneity. While the abundance of musical background and performance clips greatly enriches the film, including more detail on the musicians' life stories and formative experiences would have appreciably informed their choice of musical styles. Conceived by producer and Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull, who recruited Guggenheim to direct, Loud exhibits a level of detailed narrative crafting similar to An Inconvenient Truth, though the film's free-flowing structure, held together by precise and revealing editing, allows this music doc to organically unveil an intimate portrait of artists at work. ~~~~~~~~ By Justin Lowe

PottedPlant, Nice to hear from you. I am glad you enjoyed these. I try to put up articles on this thread when I get some spare time.

These are the extracts from the Sunday Times Rich List 2013 RICH LIST 2013 Sunday Times [London (UK)] 21 Apr 2013 Jimmy Page Music. Page, 69, is the face of designer John Varvatos's clothes range and is remastering Led Zeppelin's catalogue. Windsor-based Page's two companies showed Pounds 20m net assets in 2011-12. (Pounds 75m, 962=) Robert Plant Music. Plant, 64, is touring in Australia but is unlikely to consider a Led Zeppelin reunion. Midlands-based Plant doesn't need the money. His companies had net assets of Pounds 25m in 2011-12. (Pounds 80m, 908=)

The art designer who made pigs fly to the dark side of the moon: OBITUARY STORM THORGERSON STORM THORGERSON. Irish Independent [Dublin] 27 Apr 2013: Storm Thorgerson, who has died aged 69, was responsible for some of the most striking album covers in the history of rock. Once described as a "modern day Dali, Magritte and Man Ray all wrapped into one", his hypnotic, outlandish, mostly photographic images became as much a part of the mystique of the bands with whom he worked as their music. He floated a giant inflatable pig over Battersea Power Station in London to produce the cover for Pink Floyd's Animals (1977); conjured up the dreamlike, but decidedly creepy image of blonde-haired, naked children climbing the Giant's Causeway for Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy (1973); and, more recently, created the image of four men playing cards in the desert for Muse's Black Holes and Revelations (2006). Thorgerson aimed to encapsulate in his art what bands were trying to say in their music: "Pictures of a band, like the Beatles, or Take That, what do they tell you? They tell you what they look like, but nothing about what's in their hearts, or in their music," he said. Thorgerson became best known for his association with Pink Floyd and, in particular, for the uncharacteristically simple cover he designed for the group's classic 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon, featuring the stark image of a prism refracting light against a black background. Thorgerson had known some of the band members since his Cambridgeshire schooldays and, after forming the art design group Hipgnosis with another Cambridge friend, Aubrey Powell, he went on to produce some 16 album covers for them (with the notable exceptions of The Wall and The Final Cut). Thorgerson insisted on doing almost all his photographic shoots for real, largely ignoring the advent of digital technology. For Pink Floyd's A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987) he recruited four tractors and 30 helpers to assemble 700 heavy iron hospital bedsteads on a Devon beach. It took six hours and when it rained they had to take the beds away again and repeat the whole process. Meanwhile, the giant inflatable pig on Animals escaped from its moorings, floated to 18,000 ft where it nearly gave the jet pilot who radioed in the sighting a heart attack and was later found terrorising livestock by a farmer in Kent. For the cover of the Floyd's Wish You Were Here (1975) he photographed two men -- one of whom is on fire -- shaking hands, recalling later that although the burning man was wearing an asbestos suit and an asbestos wig, "when we set him alight he was unfortunately facing the wrong way as regards to the wind." Despite bringing Thorgerson acclaim The Dark Side of the Moon cover never ranked among his favourite designs. The idea for the cover came when he saw an image of a prism in a bookshop window. "I remembered the prism from school and the refracted spectrum and thought maybe that would work. It was about light, which was featured in [Pink Floyd's] show; the triangle is a symbol of ambition which was in the lyrics -- except I made one big change. I made the background black and it makes all the difference." Thorgerson always much preferred the image of the Friesian cow on the cover of the Floyd's Atom Heart Mother (1970). "It's not the attitude of the cow herself, who seems to be saying: 'What do you want?' out of curiosity rather than aggression," he explained, "but the whole nonsensical 'What the f**k is an ordinary cow doing on the front of one of the world's most progressive psychedelic albums?' attitude and -- more blasphemy -- no title, no name of the band anywhere to be seen." Storm Thorgerson was born in Potters Bar, Middlesex, on February 28, 1944, and educated at Cambridge High School for Boys, where Roger Waters and Syd Barrett (later two of the founder members of Pink Floyd) were in the years above and below him respectively. After attending Leicester University, where he read English, Thorgerson studied for an MA in Film and TV at the Royal College of Art in London, hoping to be a director. He fell into designing sleeves by accident when Pink Floyd invited his flatmate, Aubrey Powell, a scenic designer at the BBC, to design a record cover for them. When Powell declined, Thorgerson volunteered. "I had no idea what I was doing," he recalled. After working on Pink Floyd's second album, A Saucerful of Secrets (1968), Thorgerson and Powell set up Hipgnosis, a graphic art group specialising in creative photography for album covers. As well as his work for Pink Floyd, Thorgerson designed covers for many other rock artists of the 1970s and 1980s including Genesis, Peter Gabriel and Led Zeppelin. His creativity was not dimmed by the arrival of the CD, and his design for P.U.L.S.E, the Pink Floyd live CD, featured a flashing light on its spine. Thorgerson was, by his own admission, a perfectionist with whom people found it difficult to work, once explaining that "if art does something to people, then I'm pretty unprincipled when it comes to putting a price on it. You give it, I'll spend it." There was probably no other designer who would have had the nerve to provide Led Zeppelin's In Through the Out Door (1979) with six alternative sleeve designs -- and then cover the whole package in a brown paper bag so that they could not be seen. Thorgerson published a number of books including The work of Hipgnosis (1978) and Eye of the Storm: The Album Graphics of Storm Thorgerson (1999). In 1999 he teamed up with Powell to publish 100 Best Album Covers. Mind Over Matter, a celebration of his work, was published in 2003. He is survived by his wife Barbie Antonis, by two step-children, and by a son from an earlier relationship. Pictures of a band on a sleeve don't tell you what's in their hearts, or in their music'

A new wave of Seasick Steve: As he prepares to release his fifth album, Seasick Steve tells ANDY WELCH he's more surprised than anyone that he's lasted so long Welch, Andy . Sunday Mercury [birmingham (UK)] 28 Apr 2013: IN A world where music's as much about the story accompanying it as how it sounds, Seasick Steve seemed too good to be true at first. When he started garnering attention around 2005, much was made of his former life, illegally riding freight trains across America, travelling from town to town, job to job, and his seeming inability to lay down roots. He was blessed with an almost supernatural musical ability, the skill and soul of a long-dead bluesman too. Everything about him was shrouded with mystique: the fact he'd played with Janis Joplin and Joni Mitchell, his years spent working in various studios as an engineer and session musician. Even his age appeared vague, while his various guitars never had the correct number of strings - one even earned the nickname The Three-String Trance Wonder. For the same reasons, there was also something of the gimmick about him. Even if his music was "authentic", a factor so important to many fans, it was likely the novelty wouldn't last. Perhaps even more interesting than his mysterious past is the fact he's managed to stick around long enough to release his fifth album, Hubcap Music. Speaking to the man - real name Steve Wold - today, he's as surprised as anyone that he's still here. "I didn't think I'd even release one record, let alone five!" he says. "I didn't even know I was making a record, we just recorded songs over a long time and eventually there were enough. When it did good, I thought I might be able to play for another year or so, or play in some bars every now and again. Then a year became two, and three, and things got bigger, and here we are." It's pleasing to report he's every bit the gentleman of the road, the hobo raconteur, one would expect. He's 71 or 72 - reports vary - but speaks in a way that seems even older, belonging to a long-passed era. "I don't get why it's me that got famous," he says. "There are people out there that do what I do, but better. This is not me trying to be humble, I'm really not, but the one thing I can take from it all is there must be a bit of a hunger for raw music all over the world. I still don't get why I was chosen though." His first album was recorded in Norway, where he's lived since 2001. Steve "married a Norwegian gal 31 years ago", and living there has been the nearest thing he's ever had to a settled life. "I'm not there all that much these days," he explains, "but it's where I pay my taxes. "I speak the language too. My wife talked Norwegian to the boys when they were growing up so I heard it every day. I'm just not the quickest of talkers." If he doesn't like spending too long in one place, he doesn't like spending too long recording an album either and won't do more than a couple of takes for each song. "We're not like those dudes in Nashville who get on a computer afterwards and neaten it all up, we just play," he says. "A lot of time people will have like 30 takes of each song. By the time we finished I think we had one full version of each song." His latest collection took just two weeks to commit to tape - actual tape, eschewing the ease and cost savings of recording to a hard drive - and was mixed in just four days. His normal practice of having no overdubs was broken this time around, but there were extenuating circumstances, as Jack White did the honours. "He plays on The Way I Do," says Steve, referring to one of the album's standouts. "He was back in Nashville as we were recording so we had to have him added afterwards. He came with his guitar, then made this solo up that was so crazy I can't even get my head around what he did. "Nothing like I could ever imagine, his brain is so strange. And he's serious, it's not like he came to play without preparation, he'd thought about it, like a genius crazy person." Steve, with his lasting love of old country music, bluegrass and delta blues, unsurprisingly has a deep admiration for White. "We have a lot in common, Jack and I, but he's, like, the same age as one of my sons." They met at Glastonbury in 2008, having only ever exchanged nods at festivals previously. Afterwards, Steve went to Jack's Nashville Third Man studios to record a single, although their working relationship has grown since then. White is releasing Steve's album in the US on Third Man Records, and last year, Steve took advantage of his friend's facilities to record a live performance at Third Man's makeshift venue direct to vinyl. "There's a lathe right behind the stage," he says in awe. "You play for 20 minutes and there's a clock on the wall counting down, so you have to stop, get another lacquer on the machine and start over. Flying by the seat of your pants, but it was a lot of fun." The former White Stripe isn't the only big name to appear on Hubcap Music. There's also Elizabeth Cook, perhaps not a household name in the UK but something of a celebrity in the country world. Then there's John Paul Jones, a long-time collaborator and friend, who plays on all but one of the album's tracks. "He knows so much, it's mind-boggling," Steve says of the Led Zeppelin multi-instrumentalist. "He tries to blend in. He's such a gentleman. A lot of people are great in bands, truly great bands like Led Zeppelin, but they seem lost when they're not in that band any more. "John, he's just good at everything. We really play our blues down in the mud, but he knows it all - blues, slide guitar, country music, and can join with whatever we're doing - ukulele, lap steel, banjo, organ, bass, gourd, he plays it all." Talking of making things better, this album marks one of the first times Wold has stepped away from his classic fuzzy blues template. Coast Is Clear, thanks to a rather wonderful Hammond organ part from Jones, comes over like an alternate version of Procul Harum's Whiter Shade Of Pale. "That's exactly what I was going for," he says. "I wrote it on the Trance Wonder, and I never make pretty songs on that thing. I was playing this new song and my wife heard it, she didn't really like it, so I threw it away. "But I couldn't get it out of my head, so John played this Hammond organ over it, and then we dolled it up some more with some horns, and made it sound real pretty."

No longer a hobo with a couple of hubcaps. Hubcap Music begins with the sound of engine-noise from one of your vehicles.Did you enjoy working with John Paul Jones?You were a hobo for many years. Without wanting to romanticise that, was it sometimes nice to The National [Abu Dhabi] 29 Apr 2013. Seasick Steve, aka the Oakland, California-born Steve Wold, didn ́t release his first album until he was 63. Before that, he spent many years travelling around the US as a hobo, during which time he hopped freight trains, slept rough and worked as a farm labourer and street musician.Now 72, he is about to release Hubcap Music, a sixth album of gnarly country-blues featuring guests including Jack White and Led Zeppelin ́s John Paul Jones. The record ́s title alludes to one of Wold ́s guitars, an instrument made from two car hubcaps and a garden hoe.That ́s right. It ́s my 1965 John Deere tractor. It ́s a big, six-cylinder diesel thing. I grew up farming and I ́d like to do it some more. It ́s an amazing feeling to plough. Making proper money playing music is pretty new for me. It ́s like a whirlwind or maybe a hamster wheel, but I don ́t want to jump off. I have no other way to earn a living and it ́s a little too late to do anything else [laughs].I ́m a cheap date but I just sat there with my mouth open. When John played mandolin on Over You, the fire was going and we were just sitting on the couch, drinking - you can hear my old clock ticking in the background.One time he told me all the songs he played on back in the 1960s when he was doing sessions. I was like: 'You played on [James Bond film theme] Goldfinger? You ́re too good, man! ́Yeah. And it ́s still the foundation of what I do now. If you don ́t play well, you don ́t deserve to get money to eat. I saw Son House and people like him when they were pretty old and haggard, but if they could turn that switch on, they would. I learnt that fast and I ́ve flicked that switch a zillion times.That ́s what people say. I ain ́t said it. The people who are into old blues stuff, that ́s what they do. Especially white people. They say: 'Oh, I got to play with such and such ́, but it ́s a strange world where they think that just because they ́ve played with one of those guys, that makes them something.

WHAT ELSE IS NEW: POP Smyth, David. Evening Standard [London (UK)] 02 May 2013 IT'S now more than six years since a surprise appearance on Jools Holland's Hootenanny gave "Seasick" Steve Wold a belated taste of fame. Once a hobo in the US, where he picked fruit and slept rough as a young man, at 71 he's still a bum there but has one platinum and three gold albums over here. You wouldn't know it from his scraggly beard and his guitar made from hubcaps but in the week he releases his sixth album, he has star power. Robert Plant was in the audience and Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones joined Steve on bass. The pair harmonised on a cute version of The Everly Brothers' Cathy's Clown, and Steve also unveiled two gospel singers for a mournful take on Amazing Grace, but he was at his best when stomping on his box and growling the likes of Self-Sufficient Man and Keep on Keepin' on. A horn section and organ was added for Coast is Clear, suggesting ambition beyond basic back porch blues, but he may be too long in the tooth to get all fancypants on us now. "This next song is about dirt and tractors," he said, and everything was as it should be.

Obituary: Andy Johns: Consummate sound engineer who worked with many rock greats Laing, Dave The Guardian [London (UK)] 14 May 2013 In pop music, record producers are generally credited for the success or failure of an album. But often the contribution of sound engineers is equally important, through their imaginative attention to technical details. Although he produced numerous rock recordings, Andy Johns, who has died aged 62 after suffering from a liver complaint, was a consummate engineer. Working on classic albums by the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, he was responsible for finessing the sound of Keith Richards's guitars and John Bonham's drums. Johns was born into a middle-class family in Epsom, Surrey, and attended the King's school, Gloucester, after his parents moved to the west of England. He learned to play the bass guitar and after leaving school chose to follow his older brother Glyn into the music industry. Glyn went on to become a renowned producer of recordings by the Eagles, the Who and Eric Clapton. Glyn found his brother a job at Olympic Studios in London, where many of the top musicians of the 1960s made their records. "In those days, you could go into one studio where Joe Cocker was working, and then you're working with Jimi Hendrix in Studio One or down the corridor, Eric Clapton is working," Andy recalled. He started as a lowly tape operator but swiftly became an assistant engineer and by the end of the decade he was supervising hit albums by such groups as Jethro Tull, Humble Pie and Free. In the early 1970s, Johns was involved at different times with both Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. While the guitarist Jimmy Page had general supervision of Led Zeppelin recordings, Johns was often on hand to provide creative solutions or improvements to the sound. The most renowned example was a drum sound achieved at the Headley Grange studio in Hampshire in 1971. One of Bonham's drum kits was set up in the hallway of the Grange. Johns carefully lowered a pair of microphones over the banister of the staircase above and captured the sound which formed the basis of the song When the Levee Breaks on the group's fourth album. It has become one of the most emulated drum sequences in rock music. Johns's stint with the Rolling Stones covered the albums Exile on Main Street, Goats Head Soup and It's Only Rock'n'Roll. Exile on Main Street was recorded at a mansion in the south of France using the group's mobile recording studio. Although Johns was the assistant to the album's producer, Jimmy Miller, he was often working alone with members of the Stones. "They could play really shabby," he said. "Then, over the course of five minutes, it would turn into magic. It was my job to capture those magic moments." In his autobiography, Richards laconically stated that when the band were recording It's Only Rock'n'Roll in Munich, Johns was fired for "hitting the hard stuff too hard". Over the next four decades Johns was one of the most sought-after and admired producers in rock music, with credits including Television's Marquee Moon (1977). In the late 1970s, he moved to Los Angeles, where he became the producer of choice for many of that city's heavy rock groups. Among those whose records he helped to craft were Cinderella, Van Halen, the guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani, LA Guns and Chickenfoot. The latter's eponymous 2009 album was a top 10 hit in the US. The group's bass player, Michael Anthony (formerly of Van Halen), said of Johns: "He really was like the fifth member of the band . . . He knew when we had a take. He would say, 'play it as many times as you want, but that is the one right there'." Johns's most recent productions had included albums by the Steve Miller Band and films of live shows by leading rock bands, for release on DVD. He was also involved with various reissue projects include a set of 1971 tracks by Clapton's former group Derek and the Dominos. Johns is survived by his wife, Anet; three sons, Jesse, Evan and Will (the last two became rock musicians); two grandchildren; and Glyn.

My amazing 60 years on stage by national treasure Noddy Holder The Garstang Courier [Garstang (UK)] 16 May 2013. It's a little known fact that the biggest Christmas single in the world, Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody, began life as a "hippy dippy" song about a rocking chair. Former frontman, Noddy Holder, who refers to his biggest hit as "The Christmas song," recalls: "The chorus and middle eight was the first song I ever wrote, way back in 1967. "It was called originally, Buy Me a Rocking Chair. It was the same melody but a different song, very psychedelic. I played it to the band and they didn't like it at all - so it got thrown in the bin! "Then about six years later, I think it was Jim's auntie said; 'Why don't you do a song that will come out every year, like a Christmas or a birthday song?' "Jim at first didn't want to do it. But he'd got a verse melody that he'd had hanging around for a while. And he was looking for a chorus to put with it and he remembered the chorus of this song I'd done all those years before. "So we met up - and put the two together. I went away and wrote all new lyrics to it as a Christmas song." Does he remember the original lyrics? "I do - but you'll have to come and watch the show if you want to find out!" The "show" in question is Noddy giving in to his old mate DJ Mark Radcliffe's urging that he should share his incredible fund of anecdotes - which Radcliffe has been hearing for years - with an audience. The result is An Evening With Noddy Holder In Conversation with Mark Radcliffe, which is at Preston's Charter Theatre on Saturday. Noddy says: "I was on Radio 2 with him for eight years and he knew loads of stories about me. So when we used to go to the pub, he'd be like, 'Ooh, I've not heard that one before!' "He'd say, 'You should be going out and telling the audiences these!' I said, 'Oh, I don't think anybody would be interested.' Anyway, he's been pestering me - and this year is my 50th year in show business professionally and my 60th year since I first got up on stage singing in working men's clubs so I thought if there was any time to do it, this would be it." He's enjoying answering fans questions and says: "I was expecting things like, 'What was it like on Top of the Pops?' - and you do get that. But people are interested in why I would give up a band like Slade and go off and do my own thing. I don't mind talking about that because it's probably stuff that's not on record. "Basically, I was on the road for 25 years with the same four guys and I was touring with other bands before - so I was actually on the road for 30 odd years. I was getting bored, quite frankly. It was album, tour, album, tour, year in, year out, and I didn't foresee myself carrying on with it for the rest of my life. "I was going through a divorce from my first marriage and my dad was dying so there was a lot of things building up on me - and I didn't want to be away from home, going round the world for the 30th time! So I had to make the conscious decision." He gave Slade three years notice and, though they rarely see each other, relations are good. Drummer Don and guitarist Dave Hill have carried on with "Slade Mark II" as Noddy calls them. But he's never seen a show. He audibly baulks at the thought and admits: "I purposely haven't gone. It would just feel weird for me to go and watch a band I was with for that long and see other people doing it. And they'd probably be very nervous if I turned up!" Slade grew from Dave and Don's former band, The In Betweens. Noddy joined after bumping into them on Wolverhampton High Street. He recalls: "They said, We want to form a brand new band doing different sorts of material, would you be interested? I said: "Yeah, I'll have a rehearsal and see how it goes." At the first rehearsal, in a pub over the road from Noddy's parents house, it was clear there was something special there. Noddy says: "I wouldn't say it was fantastic right from the off, we put a lot of work in. But you know there's a certain magic there and there's even a certain sound there that you seem to be creating for the first time. And I think it was in the style we played because we all came from very different backgrounds." Living at the pub was a young man whose parents had thrown him out. Named Robert Plant, Noddy used to roadie for him in the days before he fronted one of the world's biggest rock bands, Led Zeppelin. But he could have been beside Noddy in Slade. Noddy laughs: "There was a point - because we did have another singer as well as me in the band and when he left, we were going to ask Robert to join us. "I haven't seen him for a while but we used to bump into one another all the time, especially in America. The last time I saw Zeppelin play, it was at Earl's Court and he said: "I'm going to do a song now for my ex-roadie, Noddy Holder - and he did Kashmir for me because he knows I love that song." Slade got their big break when they met their manager Chas Ambler, of the Animals. But their greatest disaster happened just as they were creating Merry Christmas Everybody - when drummer Don was in a catastrophic car crash. Noddy recalls: "His dad called me at 4am and said, 'Don's been in a car crash.' I just thought he'd been in some little bump but he dropped the bombshell that he's only got 24 hours to live. "I raced up to the hospital with his brother and he was lying in this big intensive care tent with all pipes coming out of him, his head was shaved, he'd got a massive gash down his skull where he'd gone through the windscreen, his girlfriend had been killed .. and as far as we knew he wasn't going to last 24 hours. "We'd had five Number One records, we were sitting at the top of the charts with Squeeze Me, Pleeze Me, everything was going absolutely incredibly well. We were at our pinnacle. And here I was looking at Don in this oxygen tent. "He had no memory, no taste or smell. We didn't know if he was going to live or die, we didn't know whether the band would survive or crumble, it was a very traumatic time - and out of all this came Merry Christmas!"

I'm a big kid...I spend most of my life in record shop Cosyns, Simon. The Sun [London (UK)] 17 May 2013 BOBBY GILLESPIE is first to admit that much of his Primal Scream career has been played out in a fog of drugs. But today, there's only one true addiction in the floppyhaired frontman's life ... music. Making it. Performing it. Buying it. Listening to it. Not only has he made his first Primals album completely "clean" -- the effervescent, angry, magnificent More Light -- just try keeping him out of a good independent record shop. "I'm like a big kid. In fact, I spend most of my life in record shops," he confesses when we meet at his management's office just off Marylebone Road, London. (At 50, the pencil-thin Scot still looks like one of The Ramones.) As if to emphasise the point, he produces a plastic bag filled with vinyl favourites, including a mindblowing slice of searing, guitarfuelled Seventies punk. Not content with showing me the rare City Slang single by Sonic's Rendezvous Band, a Detroit supergroup fronted by Patti Smith's late husband Fred "Sonic" Smith, he also gives it a spin, shouting "How great is that?" above the five minutes of mayhem. Gillespie is an avid student of brilliant, boundary-pushing music: Early psychedelia, garage rock, glam rock, funk, punk, soul, country, you name it. This passion has helped forge More Light and its myriad sonic flourishes. There's the frenzied flute-playing on Culturecide, which he decides is more Gil Scott-Heron than Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, the spidery guitar patterns of Turn Each Other Inside Out, the way slinky bass takes centre stage on Tenement Kid and the serene acoustic guitar-led coda to Relativity. The blistering Hit Void sounds like one of those American punk classics given a contemporary, electro-coated sheen. And the gospel vibe of the finale, It's Alright, It's OK, deftly allies a euphoric sound to sad, resigned lyrics. "That song has a good duality which I love in music," explains Gillespie. "Country and soul are two of my favourite genres. They can be ecstatic and painful at the same time. Marvin Gaye was the king of that with I Heard It Through The Grapevine and even Sexual Healing." Fearless Being drug-free has also given Gillespie extra lyrical bite and clarity, another factor in making this the best Primal Scream album since 2000's dark-hued XTRMNTR. I find him open, charming and fully prepared to give a frank assessment of his new self. As he munches on a bacon sandwich, he says: "Getting clean has made me a better artist. When you remove all that stuff, your perception's better, your mind is sharper and your thoughts are clearer. "You just feel everything more intensely and, if you've got creative abilities, you can turn that into art. "If you're trying to express yourself, you need to be sensitive, to be in touch and to be able to feel everything -- no matter how painful that can be. You can make bigger decisions about what you're doing. You can become more fearless." He also gives this telling insight into the effect of his past muchpublicised habits: "If you're taking a lot of drink and drugs or whatever you want to f***ing call it, 'selfmedicating' or 'getting high', you're dulling your senses. "Some of us take it because we don't want to feel anything. We don't want to deal with life. We're effectively shutting ourselves down." But Gillespie decides that early triumphs like the stone-cold classic (or should that be stoned-cold classic?) Screamadelica actually benefited from the band's indulgences. "I'm not going to say it was all bad," he admits. "The stuff we did all those years ago helped as well. "When you still have youthful energy, the drugs help you stay up that little bit longer to finish a record or write that extra song. But after five or six years of it, you do shut down." Thankfully, More Light is the polar opposite of shutting down and finds Gillespie and co roaring out of the blocks with the album's big statement, the nine-minute 2013. The singer is sick of our bland X Factor-dominated cultural landscape and the desensitising of "Thatcher's children". Hence his chant of: "Equalised. Normalised. Sanitised. Lobotomised." He says: "I find it amazing that there are no voices of dissent anymore. Ultimately, rock'n'roll can't bring down governments or change the economic system. But it's important to rail against things you disagree with. "It seems that everything's really conservative and satisfied. I don't hear a lot of pain or anger. "Take Kurt Cobain. Artists like that don't come along that often. He was an outsider and he had outsider's pain ... like a wounded cat. Now, nobody seems to be standing on the outside." Gillespie, you sense, has cast himself as the new standard bearer for outsiders everywhere. He has thrown everything including the kitchen sink into the taut and tense 2013. "I honestly believe that people don't just pick up on the words in songs. They pick up on the atmosphere, the energy, the attitude, the feeling in a person's voice, the heart, the pain, the joy, the ecstasy. It's not just chords, melody, words. "Some songwriters sit down with an acoustic guitar and say, 'I just want people to hear my songs'. I think, 'F*** off!' It's more than that. It should be ritualistic, magical." The song 2013 does indeed feel ritualistic, furious yet triumphant, and the heady atmosphere is buoyed by the guitar heroics of Primals stalwart Andrew Innes and long-time associate Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine, as well as billowing saxophone. "I've known Shields since the Eighties. He's a great guitarist," says Gillespie. "He does this thing with the guitar that nobody else does. It doesn't even sound like a guitar. That's his genius. "He loved the track and loved its words. He's been very supportive." One absentee from the album is the bassist Mani, who left Primal Scream to reform The Stone Roses. Gillespie is gracious about the band's loss of such an irrepressible soul. "Of course we miss him because he's such a great character and a brilliant guy. He's also a great musician. He fills up every room he's in with his energy and humour but you've just got to move on. It's like a football team. If a great player signs to another club, then you just get another one. "We've used this guy called Jason Falkner who played on Beck's albums. He was just perfect for us." One other crucial aspect of More Light's success is the ambitious, imaginative production from Northern Irish producer and composer David Holmes, who Gillespie describes as "an inspirational guy and a real fighter." Both he and Innes were convinced he was the right man for the job. This brings us to the album's biggest star guest -- Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant, who previously contributed harmonica to the 2002 Primals album Evil Heat. Here, he lends suitably Zeppelinesque "Aah ha aahs" as part of an assured vocal performance on Elimination Blues. Gillespie enjoys the bragging rights that go with securing Plant's services. "We feel very 'one up'. We can say to people, 'Well, he's not singing on your album!'" He also credits Plant with giving the band a massive boost in the Nineties when they hit a crashing low after the incredible high of Screamadelica and its attendant huge success. "I was pretty depressed for various reasons," he recalls. "It was like the muse had departed and we were going nowhere. Everybody in the band was getting into more and more of a mess. "Screamadelica was '91 and we toured it until '92. By the end of '92, things got really bad. The party was over and we were faced with making another record. I think we had a great band but we hit a point where we didn't realise it. We'd become burned out and negative. "Anyway, me, (Martin) Duffy and Andrew were coming back from the pub to our studio in Primrose Hill and we were thinking, 'What's the f***ing point in this?' "Then we heard, 'All right, lads!' from across the road. We were like, 'F***ing hell, man, it's Robert Plant!' "Andrew always said after that, 'If Robert Plant thinks we're alright, then we are alright'." So, what is it like working with the great man? "It's a real honour," says Gillespie. "He's just a great guy. He's got a youthful enthusiasm, which is why he's still doing interesting stuff. "It blows me away that he's on our record singing Elimination Blues. I was sitting in the studio thinking, 'This is amazing'. It's a cool song ... like a blues in some ways but not like a blues in others." Plant's endorsement of the tenth Primal Scream album after their rollercoaster career stretching back to the mid-Eighties is just one of the reasons why Bobby Gillespie is smiling in 2013. "Things feel good. I think we've expressed ourselves and we're in a new era with this record. I know this sounds a bit Spinal Tap but we've got better as writers and artists. "To think that we're actually getting better at what we do gives us the encouragement to keep going. "I feel we've got a future and I might not have thought that six or seven years ago. Then I was thinking, 'How can we take this thing forward?'" It's great to report Bobby Gillespie has found a way to take Primal Scream forward in style. The fog has lifted and there is More Light in his and our lives.

THE 20million LED ZEPPELIN fans [...] [Eire Region] The Sun [London (UK)] 18 May 2013: THE 20million LED ZEPPELIN fans who applied for tickets to their reunion gig a few years ago will be annoyed they weren't in a tiny record shop in east London on Thursday. ROBERT PLANT played his smallest gig in decades for 200 fans at the Rough Trade East store. He joined folk singer girlfriend PATTY GRIFFIN at the launch of her album American Kid, got up on stage and sang along. He's not a bad name to call on for backing vocals.

This article mentions the backstage caterer at the O2. Viva Las Vegas, all hail rock 'n' roll!; Sin City rocks around the clock falseAykroyd, Lucas. The Ottawa Citizen [Ottawa, Ont] 18 May 2013 Remember when rock and roll meant packed arenas with huge stages, wild guitar solos, dry ice and Bic lighters held high? If you're nostalgic for yesterday's over-the-top rawk, head to a place where that vision lives on: Las Vegas. The Hard Rock Hotel, just east of the bustling Strip, is a perfect starting point for your Sin City party. After checking in, you can chill like a rock star, lounging by the outdoor Nirvana Pool or enjoying the Reliquary Spa's "drumsticks massage," which incorporates tapping with bamboo reeds - and actually feels much better than, say, getting thumped by Alex Van Halen. Next, explore the hotel's massive collection of rock memorabilia, lovingly assembled by veteran curator Warwick Stone. Right inside the front doors, you'll find Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen's monster kit and the flamboyant suit singer Joe Elliott wore on a 1992 Rolling Stone cover. Also, view vintage concert posters for The Who and Cream, a blown-up candid photograph of the Rolling Stones by Marc Seliger, or a white lab coat Nirvana's Kurt Cobain once wore on stage, and much more. Fabulous interpretive text and videos bring these arti-facts to life. If you missed Def Lep-pard's residency this spring at The Joint, the Hard Rock's on-site theatre, get your '80s air-punching fix with Motley Crue during their 12-show run (Sept. 18-Oct. 6). The 4,000-capacity Joint provides an arena-like feel, but with impeccable sound and no seats further than 155 feet from the stage. Check out cool interior design features, like giant-sized Zildjian cymbals on the bar ceiling and a guitar fretboard pattern spanning an entire wall. Another rockin' Vegas hotel is The Palms. Its 2007-launched Pearl Theater, which takes 2,500 spectators, also delivers great sightlines and concerts, featuring classic rockers like Billy Idol (May 25), Yes (July 12), and Depeche Mode (Oct. 6). Artists such as Elton John and Journey have recorded at the hotel's state-of-the-art Studio Y. "The cool thing is that Vegas is a true 24/7 city," said studio director Zoe Thrall. "It lives on the schedule that artists use to make records." If you want to cut some tunes yourself, the base rate is $1,500 daily. Splurging on your dreams is what Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp is all about. This innovative, Vegas-headquartered enterprise enables aspiring musicians to learn from and jam with stars like Alice Cooper, Bret Michaels and Roger Daltrey. You might see a nine-year-old virtuoso like guitarist Benjamin Bluestein shredding through Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train, or get hands-on drumming tips from ex-Dio skinsman Vinnie Appice. "People come in and have life-changing experiences," said camp counsellor Lita Ford, the ex-Runaways guitarist. "They conquer their fears, and go away feeling good about themselves. It's a school of rock and roll." Four-day camp packages start at around $6,000, while a Rock Star for a Day option, starting at $299, lets you record with a pro musician. Prefer to stay in the audience? Check out Raiding the Rock Vault, a new multimedia show at the Las Vegas Hotel. It kicks off with an enjoyably kitschy sci-fi storyline about discovering a "rock vault" in a South American jungle that's preserved the music for future generations. When rock stalwarts like Joe Lynn Turner (Deep Purple, Rainbow) and Paul Shor-tino (Quiet Riot) aren't belting out pre-1990 hits from Smoke on the Water to Summer of '69, actors are comically portraying the hippie movement or the rise of music videos. For Beatles fans, Cirque du Soleil's LOVE musical at The Mirage is a must-see. An incredible Back in the U.S.S.R. trampoline act and a surreal aerial ballet set to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds are among the highlights at the custom-built, circular theatre. Rock of Ages (at the Venetian), the hair-metal spoof that became a Tom Cruise movie, and Million Dollar Quartet (at Harrah's), a Tony Award-winning musical about a legendary 1956 Sun Records jam session, are also worthy evenings out. Really, in Las Vegas, you can put a rock 'n' roll twist on almost any activity. (And that doesn't even count smoking, drinking or gambling). Hungry? Try the Hard Rock Hotel's restaurants. You can nosh on soft pretzels with provolone fondue at Culinary Dropout, or split a 35day-aged, 35-ounce Tomahawk Chop with a friend at the swanky 35 Steaks + Martinis. At the Mandalay Bay resort, listen to live blues or country while eating a monumental Cobb salad at the House of Blues. Tuck into Jack and Coke BBQ Ribs and enjoy the sunshine and people-watching on the Strip-side patio at Sammy Hagar's Cabo Wabo Cantina. Designer appetizers and sushi await at Simon. If you meet rock 'n' roll chef Kerry Simon at this Palms eatery, ask him about kayaking with David Lee Roth in Miami or catering backstage food for Led Zeppelin's 2007 reunion show.

The songs remain almost the same; NACO gives the symphony treatment to Led Zeppelin classics Simpson, Peter. The Ottawa Citizen [Ottawa, Ont] 21 May 2013: Brent Havens wants to make one thing perfectly clear: "I don't know anyone who wants to hear a muzak version of Led Zeppelin. It's just not that kind of music." That's a relief. Personally, I was worried when the National Arts Centre announced last fall that its orchestra would be playing two nights of the music of Led Zeppelin. Having invested much of my teenage-hood in the back of crowded cars listening to Black Dog and Whole Lot-ta Love and What Is and Should Never Be, I was horrified by the thought that Zeppelin muzak would ever be. Havens had the same thought, albeit for more practical reasons, back in 1995 when he was asked to arrange some of the music of Led Zeppelin for a performance by the Virginia Symphony, in his home state. He had been working with orchestras around the world and com-posing music for movies and TV, and he was intrigued by the novel request for a symphonic treatment of the greatest heavy metal band (though what passed as metal in the 1960s and early '70s now seems like cups and cakes compared to the splenetic, frenetic metal of today). Havens said sure, let's do it, but no muzak. "And secondly, even if people did come to it they would probably be more of the classical folks, and they don't know who Led Zeppelin is," Havens says in a phone interview from Virginia Beach. "So my point was, who's your audience here? We want to bring in a different crowd, someone new." He said to the conductor and promoter who had approached him with the idea, "Look, let's put a band of studio musicians together, get a killer singer, and wrap that with a 50-to 75-piece orchestra." They announced the show and, quicker than you can say there's a bustle in your hedgerow, the 1,000 tickets to the concert sold out. "We went, 'This is a little more than we were expecting'." Almost 20 years later, Havens oversees Windborne Music, a stable of touring productions, each with the music of rock superstars - Pink Floyd, the Eagles, Queen, the Doors, the Who, Michael Jackson and, soon to be added, the Rolling Stones. Each "wraps" an orchestra around a rock band, for Zeppelin one led by singer Randy Jackson of the New Orleans band Zebra. I can't imagine a band other than Zeppelin with music more suited to a symphonic performance, but then, I think the delicate trill of guitar played by Jimmy Page at the 3: 40-minute mark of The Song Remains the Same is like a sublime moment of Beethoven. That's exactly the sort of fandom that Havens knew he had to accommodate. "Zep heads, they know every lick of the guitar. They've heard these tunes: You probably know every lick of every solo that Jimmy Page did, because you played it 50 million times when you were a kid." Closer to 40 million times, perhaps, but he knows he has to treat the Zeppelin canon with respect. The Song Remains the Same is on the set-list, as is the most obvious choice, the mighty, hypnotic Kashmir. "Certainly, we're not getting out of the building without doing that song." He doesn't want to reveal the entire setlist "because we do like to dig a little deeper into the catalogue." He will say that Going to California works well with the band and orchestra, as does The Rain Song, "because John Paul Jones did that synth string thing." Also expect I'm Gonna Crawl and Since I've Been Loving You. "You've got to hear that with the orchestra, it's mind-blowing," he says. I tell him a meandering anecdote about once buying a 1978 Camaro and putting in an Alpine stereo and then going for a drive and listening to Since I've Been Loving You. Perhaps a lot of people have such memories, if the 18-year run of Windborne's Zeppelin experience is any indication. "The music stands up," he says. "It's different than what's out there today. I don't think the pop music from today - the Britney Spears' stuff, the folks from American Idol, The Voice and all that - I'm not sure that's going to last for any length of time. "We're talking 40 years here. There was just something about this music, the richness of the music, the newness, the inventiveness, the harmonic structures that these guys used in a lot of this," he says. "The songs actually took you on a voyage and left you feeling, 'Wow, this is amazing stuff.' "

Heaven for Plant fans at Picnic: MUSIC [Eire Region] de BURCA, DEMELZA. The Daily Mirror [London (UK)] 22 May 2013: ICONIC Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant and pop sensation Ellie Goulding are to appear at this summer's Electric Picnic. Rock singer Plant, 64, will be backed by his new band the Sensational Space Shifters who have been enthralling fans on his recent tour of Australia with an eclectic set list of Zeppelin hits including Friends, Black Dog, Going To California and Ramble On. Other additions to the 10th anniversary line-up include Dublin quintet Little Green Cars, The Beat, garage rock band Black Rebel Motorcycle [bRMC], John Grant, Miles Kane and Terry Hooley, the founder of Belfast record label Good Vibrations which inspired the hit film of the same name. Also on the agenda at EP '13 in Stradbally, Co Laois, from August 31 to September 1 will be headline performances from Arctic Monkeys, Bjork, Fatboy Slim and Johnny Marr, as well David Byrne and St Vincent.