I should like to thank Webmaster Sam for answering the above query by private message. I am amazed no one else knew the answer.

I am in a bit of a hurry in the moment, so no time to check if this magazine has been mentioned on the forums before - when I was in the supermarket this morning, I noticed a Limited Edition copy of 'Guitarist' magazine featuring 100 guitarists (including Jimmy, of course, but also a good number of US axemen). It is priced at £9.99 and looks very impressive indeed. I have checked their website, but can't see any mention of it. http://www.musicradar.com/guitarist EDIT:- I have now checked the internet, it looks like a limited edition of this was released in 2009. Now, I don't know if there have been any updates since, all I can say is that my local Tesco supermarket seems to have taken delivery of a significant quantity of this magazine. Even if it hasn't been updated, it is a worthwhile buy for anyone who missed it the first time around.

Thanks very much for posting this, aen27.

Robert travelling recently either to, or from, Nashville.

Looking fantastic as always, Deborah J. Your account of the JBLZE gigs makes the wish the show would reach my city.

The illustration on a card sent by Jimmy in 1974. It depicts the 'Death Posture' by austin omar spare.

Here is a letter from the Caliph of the O.T.O. sent to Jimmy in 1977 requesting a meeting.

Does anyone know if Nazareth supported Zeppelin at any stage of their US tours?

NAZARETH © Dave Ling - June 2004 previously published in Classic Rock magazine These are excerpts from a 2004 interview with Pete Agnew and Dan McCafferty of Nazareth who were reminiscing about going down to London in the early days of their career – and who they met! http://www.daveling.co.uk/docnazareth.htm “…. McCafferty and Agnew were despatched to a pub in London’s Fleet Street, then the hub of music journalism, to drum up some much-needed publicity. Whilst awaiting the journalist that would interview them they struck up a conversation with two other longhaired herberts. “They asked us if we were in a band and when we said that we were had actually heard of Nazareth,” says Pete. “We asked them the same question, and were embarrassed to find that they were in Led Zeppelin. We were eating sausage and beans with none other than Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, but we’d never seen a picture of them.” Interrupts Dan: “We’d actually met Robert Plant before. We lent him £15 for petrol when he was in the Band Of Joy and they played the YMCA in Kirkcaldy. We’d been the house band and they turned up from nowhere and asked if they could play for half an hour. We said, ‘Aye, we’re about to have a break’. You know what, we never got that £15 back.” “ "...Nazareth were already playing most of the songs that appeared on their breakthrough album ‘Razamanaz’, and had considered approaching Pete Townshend of The Who or Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page to produce it."

Interview with George in Ultimate Classic Rock about his new LZ book http://ultimateclass...-zeppelin-four/ 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Led Zeppelin ‘IV’ by: Matthew Wilkening 2 weeks ago Led Zeppelin’s fourth album turns forty years old today (Nov. 8), and as part of our celebration we’re counting down 10 things you may not know about this legendary and much discussed album with the help of George Case, the author of ‘Led Zeppelin FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About the Greatest Hard Rock Band of All Time.’ Far from a typical biography, the book jumps in a dizzying but wonderful way across years and topics to explore the band’s work from every perspective possible. As Case explains, “I started off as a fan, but I wanted to write more than just the traditional fan biography. I wanted to dig a little more into the whole cultural background of what Zeppelin was doing when they were actually an active group.” This is partially done to debunk the sometimes erroneous legends that have surrounded the band over the years: “There seems to have been a mythology put onto them since they broke up, and the fan community has read so much into the music and the album covers and what the band was doing, and when you go back to the actual interviews of what they said they were doing it, they’re actually a lot more off-hand about it than people might suspect.” Which makes a lot of sense, given the band’s schedule at the time. “Those first four albums were made in less than two years, so obviously they were working at a really fast pace, they didn’t have time to think about everything they were doing and try to come up with a reasoning for why they made the songs, or what they put on the album covers. So I was trying to remind the readers about that, that a lot of this was more haphazard than it seems to be in retrospect.” It’s a fantastic read and we highly suggest you check it out. If you scroll down below, you might even win your own free copy. In the meantime, here’s 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Led Zeppelin ‘IV’: 1. They had a good reason for not including their name or faces on the cover. “The cover wasn’t meant to antagonize the record company,” Jimmy Page told reporter Brad Tolinksi in 2001. ‘It was designed as our response to the music critics who maintained that the success of our first three albums was driven by hype and not talent… So we stripped everything away, and let the music do the talking.” 2. The opening sounds of ‘Black Dog’ are a byproduct of studio technology. As Case explains, “Page did a lot of overdubbing, so when you’ve got three separate tracks of guitars to be played together, they have to get synched. It’s the sound of the tape rolling. He could have cut it out, it’s just them getting lined up from the separate takes and all.” Instead, the guitarist left them in, thinking it sounded like “the massing of the guitar armies.” 3. Robert Plant’s the only one moving at normal speed on ‘When the Levee Breaks.’ Much has been made of the Headley Grange stairwell that helped capture that massive ‘Levee’ drum sound: “People wonder how that sounds so planetary, but there was a natural echo there, and then they put more on it. They also slowed it down in the mix so it sounded really booming, had this huge reverb to it, it’s almost physical when you listen to it.” In fact, “The only sound on ‘When the Levee Breaks’ that’s recorded in natural time is Plant’s voice, everything else is slowed down just a little bit to make it really heavy.” 4. If you had to pick the least popular song on the album, it would probably be ‘Four Sticks.’ Although he’s quick to label it “a very tough call,” Case mentions in the book that the rhythmically tricky ‘Four Sticks’ is probably the least essential of all the songs on ‘IV.’ “I don’t think it’s bad at all, but I think of all the songs on the record it’s the least listenable.” Perhaps the band agrees: “Seven of the eight songs from that album are on their 1990 box set, and ‘Four Sticks’ was the one that didn’t make it. Compared to the other tracks on there, it just doesn’t stand out as much.” 5. The album was recorded in several different places. When discussing the recording of ‘IV,’ the reportedly haunted house known as Headley Grange comes up, but big parts of the record were recorded at places like Island Studios and Sunset Sound. “Headley Grange is the one that gets known, because it’s a spooky house and that’s really cool, that’s where ‘When the Levee Breaks’ was recorded, in that echoey stairwell, but they did use a lot of other studios too. Headley was not professional enough. They had Ronnie Lane’s mobile outside, but Page was saying they had to go into a real studio for what they were doing.” 6. The band realized they needed to start crediting their lyrical inspirations. Zeppelin has taken much grief from blues fans for heavily relying on lyrics from other artists in their earlier work, and it seems the degree of this “borrowing” is still being realized. “One thing I didn’t even mention in the book, that I heard just recently, I was listening to Count Basie, and he has a song called ‘Going to Chicago’ — “Sorry that I can’t take you,” so obviously Plant was getting into that at the end of ‘Levee.’ So all the lyrics were taken from Memphis Minnie, except for that little bit of Basie at the end. By that point, by ‘IV,’ I think they knew it was too obvious, that they couldn’t take someone else’s song and all the credit for it, so they snuck her name on it at the end.” 7. Contrary to rumors, there are no backwards messages on ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ “It sounds cool, it’s a great legend, but all that is just something that’s been thrown at it from long after the record was done. It wasn’t until the ’80s, after Zeppelin broke up, that these ideas started getting aired in public. It had to do with the religious backlash that happened in those days, people were reading satanic messages into ‘Dungeons and Dragons,’ this was just one more target for them. The band did use backwards sounds, for the aural effect, but they weren’t trying to put any messages on there.” 8. They weren’t the first to name a song ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ They were beaten to that title, if not by others before him, by none other than pop crooner Neil Sedaka, who included his own song by that exact same name on his 1960 album ‘Neil Sedaka Sings Little Devil and His Other Hits,’ taking it all the way to No. 9 on the charts. 9. There could have been more than eight songs on ‘IV.’ Zeppelin had a habit of holding onto material until they deemed it ready, for years sometimes. Many of the songs from 1975′s ‘Physical Graffiti’ were actually recorded as far back as the ‘III’ sessions. ‘Boogie with Stu’ from ‘Graffiti’ originally came from the ‘IV’ sessions, as did ‘Black Country Woman.’ 10. The symbols the band chose for themselves on the album art don’t mean as much as you might think. “They were put together pretty hastily, people have read so much into them over the years. When you get down to it, it sounds like John Paul Jones and John Bonham just said, ‘Oh, we’ll pick these, you know, sure, whatever,’ they weren’t that interested. Robert Plant picked the feather in the circle from some mystical account of some lost civilization that probably never existed. It was one of those hippie things that they thought was out there. Page’s “Zoso,” goes way back to the renaissance, really, but basically it’s a representation of Capricorn from a document dating back the 1500s. In those days, the way people drew astrological symbols was a lot more elaborate than just scales or fish, but it does derive from a symbol for Saturn, or for Capricorn. It’s nothing satanic or anything like that.”

Aen27, Thanks for your kind comments. The photograph with the tapestry looks to me like it was taken in the early 80's when Jimmy was suffering the effects of substance abuse - that would explain why he looks so gaunt.

Found these two photographs on Facebook on the 'Jimmy Page' page which is linked on www.JimmyPage.com. They are the copyright of a gentleman called Michael Malone. One is of Mr Malone and JImmy in front of the tapestry which JPP put up for auction. The other is a card which was signed and sent by Jimmy. I have copied Mr Malone's text giving the background to the card. Obviously, I don't know if these photos or text have been printed here before. "... Jimmy Page wrote this inside a card he sent to the then international supreme head of Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis, Caliph H.A.777 (Lt.Maj. Grady L. McMurtry, U.S. Army, ret.). With the one exception of Page speaking over the telephone with Helen Parsons Smith shortly after acquiring Crowley's Boleskine Manor, the O.T.O. never heard another word from Jimmy Page. (He asked Helen (widow of AEROJET CORP. Co-Founder Jack Parsons) if she knew of any of the manor's decorative details when Aleister resided there.For her attention, assistance, & time Page sent her autographed copies of all Led Zeppelin's releases at the time. Helen didn't like rock music & the gifts from Page went unplayed into an attic trunk.) This card is indisputible physical hard evidence linking rock music with magick. Grady let me borrow it for almost a year before wanting it back. It now sleeps, buried in the O.T.O.'s Caliph Archives Rock music & magick...it was & still is fun..a celebration, a holiday..but I've only one question for Mr. Page sending this to Grady... ...to what end?"

Her name is Ashley Hamm. She is a freelance photographer who now lives in Nashville. The photograph was taken in Knoxville. Her professional Facebook page gives a contact email address as ahammphotography@yahoo.com, so if you want to know when it was taken, and perhaps get the story as to how she met Jimmy etc, you could email her.

I read elsewhere that she was a photographer. If I can find my original source, I'll report back.

This is from today's Sun (UK) newspaper. Mick Jagger: No plans for 50th gigs By GARY O’SHEA Published: Today at 00:00 ROLLING Stone Mick Jagger has told fans hoping they will tour for next year's 50th anniversary: "Don't hold your breath." He was seen last week leaving a London meeting with bandmates Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood. But Jagger, 68, quelled rumours the Stones will perform for the first time since 2007 — possibly at the London Olympics. He said: "A band gets trapped. When a band starts as a blues band, it always remains sort of true to that." He is currently working with all-star group SuperHeavy — featuring Dave Stewart, Joss Stone, Damian Marley and film composer AR Rahman. Their debut album is out today. Jagger said: "If people like it, we could do a few other things."

Video of Three of Jimmy's Homes The guy who runs a company called Roadkill Productions put the following video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI8WIU7g0XI&feature=player_detailpage . He entitled it 'No Quarter Rehearsal', but effectively it is a video of his visits to three homes owned by Jimmy. He seems to have gained access to inside Plumpton Place, courtesy of the caretaker. I searched on this thread and the rest of the site to see if this has been included before, but could not find it. I'm sure many of the site's members will have seen it already. Sorry I don't know how to copy a YouTube video over here directly - I am not that technologically advanced!! This is the text accompanying the video: "1982 I was able to visit the three homes of Jimmy Page, although, before arriving in Scotland to see the Alister Crowley home (and I say it knowing it's not the actual Alister Crowley home), I wasn't able to ask Jimmy first, for his permission to go inside, so, I never got to see the inside. Jimmy was not there at the moated mansion, but his caretaker, Mr Whittle, provided the guided tour. By the way, I'm purposely being vague about the exact location of Jimmy's former homes near Windsor and the moated mansion because I don't want them to become like Bron Yr Aur is with fans showing up and disturbing the people who currently own the homes. The Alister Crowley location is too easy to find for me to be vague. The moated mansion was built in 1568. The date is in the brick-work above the front door. Also, according to Mr Whittle, the two swans that appear in TSRTS had a fight to the death a few weeks after the movie was filmed. And it is my belief that the motorcycle is Jimmy's, but Pat Bonham probably gave it to him... "

Winners 2011 GQ MOTY 2011 as it happened By GQ.COM 23:00 "It's not bad writing a book and getting an awards," says Keith Richards. "I'd like to remind everyone don't forget Help for Heroes." Well said sir. 22:55 Johnny Depp on Keith Richards: "He's lived his life on his own terms," he says, referring to Richards as "the maestro." 22:52 As for the GQ Writer Of The Year, it's only Keith Richards! 22:51 Johnny Depp! 22:50 For our final award, Writer Of The Year, is being presented by Tom Stoppard and... (drum roll please) 19:48 Asked Keith Richards "How does it feel to sell a million copies of your book?" His response: "Surprising - I wish I could sell that many records" 1935: Keith Richards has arrived. Asked when he last wore a tie, he quipped "In court, probably" and unsurprisingly picked Mick Jagger as his Man Of The Year.

There will be an exhibition of Rolling Stones' photographs, starting on 15 September 2011 at the Proud Gallery in London. The Decca Years: The Rolling Stones 1962-1971 The Decca Years: The Rolling Stones 1962-1971 15th September 23rd October 2011 This September, Proud Chelsea is pleased to be hosting an exhibition of portraits of the Rolling Stones between 1962 and 1971, when they were signed to Decca Records. Including the work of the greatest music photographers such as Gered Mankowitz, Dominique Tarlé and Michael Cooper, to name a few, this exhibition intimately documents the rise to fame of the most charismatic and controversial band of their day and comprises intimate portraits as well as live shots. Highlights include Philip Townsend's earliest known images of the group taken just prior to their signing with Decca records, Gered Mankowitz's renowned photographs capturing their first flush of commercial success in the US, Michael Cooper's highly personal shots taken in Tangiers and the California desert, Ethan Russell's historically important images from the infamous 1969 US tour - culminating in the Altamont debacle - where the Stones were incarnated as 'the Greatest Rock & Roll Band in the world' and finally, Dominique Tarlé's evocative and sensual photographs from Villa Nellecôte in the South of France where Exile on Main Street was recorded. Also included are salacious and amusing shots of Mick and Keith from The Sticky Fingers LP cover session by David Montgomery, Michael Joseph's Hogarthian portraits from the Beggars Banquet shoot in '68 and Jerry Schatzberg's transgressive images of The Stones in drag. Proud Galleries has worked closely with Raj Prem to curate and present this extraordinary exhibition. Prem says: 'I'm delighted to be presenting this historic photographic exhibition at Proud Galleries, comprising iconic images of the Rolling Stones photographed during their most creative and critically acclaimed years. This collection is a visual testament to the cultural ferment between art and music in the 1960's, capturing the Stones from their seminal period as chart topping attractions to their late 60's incarnation as leaders of the counter culture, worshipped as much for their bohemian lifestyle as for their music.'

Just what the world needs - yet another book on Aleister Crowley! This one is recently published. I am also giving details of another recent publication on the Pre-Raephaelites - Jimmy gets a brief mention on p.531 regarding the Burne-Jones Tapestry 'The Quest For The Holy Grail'. It is written by by Fiona MacCarthy, entitled 'The Last Pre-Raphaelite'. Aleister Crowley The Biography Spiritual Revolutionary, Romantic Explorer, Occult Master – and Spy Tobias Churton The extraordinary life of the notorious mystic Aleister Crowley, packed with previously unpublished information – the true adventures of a spiritual thinker, poet, explorer, mountaineer, philosopher, prophet and spy Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) was a visionary occultist, a member of the theosophical order of the Golden Dawn. Nicknamed ‘The Beast’, he was vehemently anti-Christian, and supported the use of drugs and sexual magic as a means to access deeper levels of consciousness. For 100 years his true achievements have been suppressed, his true character deformed and defaced in a campaign of vilification unparalleled in British history. Here is the world’s first complete, thoroughly researched biography of Aleister Crowley, demolishing the myths, establishing the facts and telling with verve and style the astonishing and exciting story of his life, including many ‘missing years’, intrigues, discoveries and adventures – all revealed and explained for the first time. Crowley’s grandson has provided exclusive access to crucial information about his family relationships, and there is a compelling account too of his work as a British spy during World Wars I and II. Hardback 496 pages 23.4 x 15.3 ISBN 9781780280127 RRP: £25 01 September 2011 This definitive biography of Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), the most notorious and controversial spiritual figure of the 20th century, brings together a life of world-shaking 'magick', sexual and psychological experimentation at the outer limits, world-record-beating mountaineering and startling prophetic power - as well as poetry, adventure, espionage, wisdom, excess, and intellectual brilliance. The book reveals the man behind the appalling reputation, demolishing a century of scandalmongering that persuaded the world that Crowley was a black magician, a traitor and a sexual wastrel, addicted to drugs and antisocial posing, rather than the mind-blowing truth that Crowley was a genius as significant as Jung, Freud or Einstein. Churton has enjoyed the full co-operation of the world's Crowley scholars to ensure the accuracy and plausibility of his riveting narrative. The author has also been in contact with Crowley's grandson, who has vouchsafed rare, previously untold accounts of family relationships. The result is an intimate portrait that has never before been shown, and one that has great emotional impact. The book contains the first ever complete investigation of Crowley's astonishing family background - including facts he concealed in his lifetime for fear of social prejudice. Tobias Churton also gives us a detailed account of Crowley's work as a British spy during World War I in Berlin during the early 1930s and during World War II. This information has not been available to any previous biographer. About the Author Tobias Churton is a world authority on Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Hermeticism and Gnosticism. Holding a Master's degree in Theology from Brasenose College, Oxford, he is an Honorary Fellow of Exeter University and Faculty Lecturer in Western Esotericism. An accomplished filmmaker and composer and the writer of the award-winning drama documentary series The Gnostics, for Channel 4, Dr Churton has also written a now standard biography on Elias Ashmole (1617-92). Please consult www.tobiaschurton.com for more information. The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination From the prize winning author of William Morris comes a new biography of Edward Burne-Jones, the greatest British artist of the second half of the nineteenth century. The angels on our Christmas cards, the stained glass in our churches, the great paintings in our galleries -- Edward Burne-Jones's work is all around us. The most admired British artist of his generation, he was a leading figure with Oscar Wilde in the aesthetic movement of the 1880s, inventing what became a widespread 'Burne-Jones look'. The bridge between Victorian and modern art, he influenced not just his immediate circle but artists such as Klimt and Picasso. In this gripping book Fiona MacCarthy explores and re-evaluates his art and life -- his battle against vicious public hostility, the romantic susceptibility to female beauty that would inspire his art and ruin his marriage, his ill health and depressive sensibility, the devastating rift with his great friend and collaborator William Morris as their views on art and politics diverged. With new research and fresh historical perspective, The Last Pre-Raphaelite tells the extraordinary, dramatic story of Burne-Jones as an artist, a key figure in Victorian society and a peculiarly captivating man.

Financial Times (London,England) May 28, 2003 Wednesday London Edition 1 Treasure from a shipwreck of rock: James Woodall charts the process that has gathered bootleg and official footage of Led Zeppelin into an astonishing DVD set: BYLINE: By JAMES WOODALL SECTION: ARTS; Pg. 17 LENGTH: 709 words When ex-Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page lamented "it's a real shame that . . . there isn't enough live footage of us," he wasn't being completely candid. Page, who was speaking to me in 1998, knew full well just how much footage there was. Some of it was in the possession of himself and Robert Plant, some was left over from the only official full-length film made of the band, The Song Remains the Same (1976), and much of it, more problematically, was in the hands of bootleggers. Now, however, with the release this week of more than five hours of footage on two DVDs, accompanying a three-CD set, How The West Was Won, of Zeppelin on stage in Los Angeles in June 1972, this footage is finally seeing the light of day. Page has been keen over the years for this material to be released. Step in music-video director Dick Carruthers, who has worked with Oasis, the Rolling Stones and The Who. Page asked Carruthers to assemble from official and bootleg material a definitive portrait of Led Zeppelin's 11 years together. One aim is plainly to prevent further proliferation of poor-quality bootleg. Another is to show the band in the flesh to the under-40s - there are plenty of Zep-heads who have never have seen them live since they broke up in 1980. "Before anything, we had to call an amnesty with bootleggers," says Carruthers. An intermediary (whom Carruthers won't name) worked on behalf of Page and his two colleagues to track down and obtain whatever film might be out there. Led Zeppelin were the most bootlegged outfit in history - their reticence with the media made the temptation illicitly to film their concerts irresistible. Small cine cameras using 8mm film were easy to smuggle into venues, although, crucially, the Super 8 format doesn't record sound. The music was often on separate audio tapes. "The job," says Carruthers, "was to assess the quality of audio tape, some of it obsolete, so old machines were hired to process it and digitalise it. Then, we had to work out what was on the film, and where and when, and match it to the music." The surviving members of the group - Page, Plant and bassist John Paul Jones - were closely involved not least of all to help identify what, on silent film, was being played. The result is compelling, with some sharp shocks. Is that a pert Germaine Greer sitting next to blond rock god Plant at a post-gig reception in Australia in 1972? In the same clip, Bonzo (drummer John Bonham) talks for the first and only time - and he comes across as remarkably softly spoken for a man of his fearsome reputation. Zeppelin built their reputation on their live act and no-one in rock has invented on the road like them - which is why this package is, in Carruthers' words, like discovering shipwrecked treasure. We see and hear them at their living, and sometimes livid, best; this is history in the making. On the CDs, it's fascinating to listen to them airing great songs nearly a year before they could be heard on an album, such as "Over the Hills and Far Away", "Dancing Days", "The Ocean", all from 1973's Houses of the Holy. No band today, in a rock climate valuing promotion and merchandising above improvisation and experiment, would dare attempt that. A visual high point comes from the penultimate stretch of film on DVD2, from gigs at Earls Court in 1975. Even with the doomy clouds of punk gathering, Zeppelin were at their zenith: airing the double-album Physical Graffiti and looking fabulous. A rare rendition of an old Dylan blues, "In My Time of Dying", one of the finest things they ever recorded, is astonishing. The following years were disastrous for the band. Plant was seriously injured in a car crash in 1976, taking them off the road for a year. His son died of a pulmonary virus the following year, aged six. Page struggled with addiction and Bonzo drank - following a binge, he choked in his sleep in 1980. Zeppelin could be no more. In a 1975 interview clip on the DVD set, Plant confirms that the band would never attempt solo projects while they were Led Zeppelin, that they couldn't play without each other. He was right. <A name=ORIGHIT_6>Led Zeppelin straddled the 1970s like a colossus, then fell silent. With the arrival of this project, we're able to travel back in time, and be thrilled.

Led Zeppelin: Jimmy Page Mark Williams, International Times, 9 May 1969 A VERY WELL respected record producer recently informed me that Led Zepplin were the ONLY band that we're going to elevate themselves to the ranks of the Nice, Jethro Tull, Ten Years After etc., out of the current British. What's more neither he nor his company have any financial interest in the band. So you can possibly realise how dull the scene is here and how much of a responsibility Jimmy Page has to all the really heavy guitar freaks. Page, however, has many years behind him as a worshipped guitarist and, as one can gather from the Led Zeppelin's first LP and their live performances, is well able to demonstrate his prowess as a fingerboard athlete and his originality as a musician. Page was off with the group to the States a couple of days after we met for China tea and splutterings from an inferior record player, high above London's romantic Soho, a fact which prompted me to ask just what he thought of the British music scene? JP: I don't think there really is one. M: But wouldn't you say that there's a greater interchange of ideas between musicians over here and a certain amount of 'spirit' that didn't exist, except in isolated cases, a few years ago? JP: Well yes, but that doesn't really constitute a 'Scene'. Over here in Britain there are some good musicians and a few record companies promoting things that ought to be heard but that's about all. In America the big difference is that most of the cities have a couple of FM Underground Stations and they keep everybody informed about what's happening nationally, which groups are coming to town, and they play the records that the groups they're talking about have made. So the kids are fully aware of everything that's going on. In Britain, after we'd formed the new group, nobody wanted to book us because we weren't called the Yardbirds. In some cases they did book us and when we got to the gig we'd find that we'd been billed as the Yardbirds! That situation just wouldn't occur in the States. Of course, once we'd been to the States and begun to make a name for ourselves, all the British promoters wanted to know. It's such a drag. At first I thought the group was going to crumble before it had started properly. M: So you feel that radio has a large part to play in pop? JP: It's very important, but over here the BBC have effectively killed the progress of 'underground' music. I know the policy down there, there's a reviewer who gives new releases one listen, just ONE listen and if it fits the Radio One concept of what a groovy record should be, it MIGHT get selected for plugging and they only plug six, I think it's six, records per week. It's amazing that they should be allowed to do that. It's only John Peel and that other guy, er, Pete Drummond, who can play any of the good stuff. The only producer who's really into it is Bernie Andrews... M: He's just been given the elbow from Peel's programme, I gather. JP: Oh what a bloody drag, he was such a great guy, really involved in what he was doing. Who's going to replace him, do you know? M: Well I think it's a guy called Peter Ritzemer, who produced a few Nightrides. JP: Oh well, Nightride was a show I liked. Not the sort of thing our group could be on though, but it had a lot of good things to say, presented a good variety of sounds. M: Mmmm, I wish they could've put that on every night... JP: Yes. Well I used to agree with you but then I realised that if you put it on every night you'd he falling into exactly the same trap as Radio One does with, say the Jimmy Young Show. I mean think about lorry drivers going across the country every night, they'd get pissed off listening to the same sort of stuff every night with no alternative station to switch to. There really needs to be an alternative. M: Well there is Radio Andorra. JP: What's that? M: Well there's a tiny postage stamp country in Europe with a bloody great transmitter, more powerful than Luxembourg and you can record shows in London which are sent out and broadcast from Andorra, to this country at £50 for quarter of an hour. JP: Well that's great, somebody really ought to take advantage of that before the big companies get hold of it and make it into another Radio Luxembourg scene. I really don't understand why the British just accept everything that's laid on them without trying to resist. M: Do you think that the record companies are starting to realise that due to the escalation of the album market and the increasing sales of progressive music, despite the media's reluctance to promote it, that progressive music may well be the pop music of the seventies? JP: Well they've got to. There is nothing else, Jimmy Young and the Love Affair can't go on churning out the same rubbish forever. I hope that kids will move over to progressive stuff as they get a little bit older, rather than turn to the sort of thing you hear on Family Favourites every week. You can't really tell, there's so many things involved. I do think that many of the important people in the business are becoming much hippier than they used to be, so maybe they'll try and effect some changes. M: The material on your first album covered a lot of styles, heavy electric sounds, blues, contemporary folk etc. Does this indicate that you are trying to widen the scope of your music? JP: Well all the things on the album are things that just seemed to be natural for the group to do. There's no reason to stick to one style of music nowadays... M: Except that it's often difficult to produce certain things onstage, whereas in a studio it's comparatively simple? JP: Not really. We do the same arrangements onstage as we did on the album. As a group we don't want to be put into a category because we are bound to develop individually and therefore the group will always be changing. That was the trouble with the Yardbirds, everyone expected to see Keith playing harmonica like Sonny Boy Williamson, so he had to do it, even though he wanted to get into different scenes. M: Was that one of the reasons why the Yardbirds split? JP: Well yes, I suppose so, but there were so many things involved, it's never that simple. We quit when we were enormous in America and forgotten over here. It was a very strange situation to live with. © Mark Williams, 1969

Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes: Live At The Greek (SPV) Mat Snow, Mojo, September 2000 Recorded live in October’99, a scorching blues-rock hit-packed double album like they used to make ‘em. THERE ARE some things that are fun by yourself but are even better with a few thousand close friends. Boogieing down to the sound of Led Zeppelin is just such a pleasure. The more of you there are, the bigger the blast. Which is all the excuse Jimmy Page needed to bring the LZ songbook to the multitudes once more. But after Robert Plant and the crew that came with him for the 1998 Page & Plant world tour dispersed in search of fresh challenges, Page required a new band to carry the weight. That band is The Black Crowes, and he has chosen wisely. Like the ‘60s Eel Pie Island generation of which Page remains (after Keith Richards) the second least likely to get a knighthood, this Atlanta-based outfit have a soul-blues schooling and that lucrative knack for alchemising the defiance of the downtrodden black underclass into the dandified swagger of the hormone-driven white libertine. (Can we agree that this particular paradox has been chased around the cultural studies farmyard long enough? Leave it to the copyright lawyers to sort out.) And, crucially, they sing and play as if their careers so far have been leading to this point. What we don’t hear, due to The Black Crowes’ record contract, are any of their own numbers which they and the blues-rock legend performed last year at Hollywood’s Greek Theater. What we do get are 13 Zep tunes, plus blues chestnuts by Willie Dixon ('Mellow Down Easy' and 'You Shook Me'), Elmore James ('Shake Your Money Maker'), B.B. King ('Woke Up This Morning') and Jimmy Rogers ('Sloppy Drunk'). Even more mouthwatering: Fleetwood Mac’s rattlesnake-shaking 'Oh Well' and The Yardbirds’ psych-rock 'Shape Of The Things', which Mr Page revisits just as excitingly as did his former Yardbirds spar Jeff Beck back when Rod Stewart fondled the mikestand. Nothing here is rethought or even rearranged from studio versions we know and love strutting to. Chris Robinson hollers mid-point between Rod The Mod gruffness and Percy Plant’s suppleness. Brother Rich and fellow guitarist Audley Freed crank out those interlocking dog-leg riffs, chugs and wails that a mere two-handed Page never could on-stage with Led Zep. Which means that 'Whole Lotta Love' blasts away with bells, whistles and maximum heaviosity. The crowd’s buzz does the rest. So, probably the most conservative rock’n’ roll record of the year so far, and probably also the most enjoyable. It’s said they’re doing it all over again. Make sure they do it all over you. © Mat Snow, 2000

The Independent (London) June 14, 2002, Friday WHOLE LOTTA LEGEND; LIVE ROBERT PLANT ASTORIA LONDON BYLINE: Steve Jelbert SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 20 LENGTH: 497 words Although the Government may feign concern about the inability of Britain's motley line-up of hoofers, greeters and singing waiters to sell any records in the US, at one time, British acts shifted insane quantities in the American heartland, and without compromising their native qualities. The biggest act of all were, of course, Led Zeppelin, so unconcerned about the commercial potential of their blend of electric blues, English folk and eastern influences that they didn't even bother to release singles. Twenty years after their demise, following the drummer John Bonham's death, they retain a fascination that unites generations. The image of them crossing the world in their jet, pausing only to headline the occasional stadium full of baying, stoned kids, lives on in movies such as Almost Famous, and was memorably spoofed in the video for Cornershop's terrific last single (which even slipped in some morris dancing). Which is why this distinctly un-stadium-like venue is rammed, with several hundred outside trying to negotiate entry, to see a genuine rock legend at a civilised distance. Robert Plant may no longer be the golden god who led Zeppelin (sorry). Though his flowing locks are intact, he looks like he's just stepped off a yacht. But his distinct voice is perfectly intact, and, to his credit, his solo career continues on its erratic but endearingly eclectic path. Backed by a band including a couple of members of Portishead's live line- up, notably the crack drummer Clive Deamer, Plant playfully leads them through an entertaining set of unlikely covers, the odd Zep classic and a handful of tunes from his solo career. Though Deamer may not possess the thump of Bonham (the kit is mixed too low throughout), exciting versions of "Four Sticks" and "Celebration Day" are ecstatically received, while the acoustic idyll of "Going To California" is strangely touching. (Of course, when Zep actually visited the state, they usually hung out with under-age groupies on Sunset...) Plant's most recent tours have seen him leading a pick-up band of old friends called Priory of Brion (yes, it is apparently a Monty Python reference), playing selections of his favourite old songs at unlikely venues (Kidderminster Tennis Club, anyone?). His new album Dreamland, his first solo effort in nearly a decade, sustains the theme, including a range of covers from Bob Dylan to Tim Buckley, Moby Grape to the Youngbloods. Tonight, he performs not one, but two tunes by Love's Arthur Lee, recently released from incarceration and currently touring Britain himself, an intriguing deconstruction of "Hey Joe", all loops and familiar moans, and his new single, an impressive version of Tim Rose's "Morning Dew". But best of all is the sincerity in the performance. These are songs that this fiftysomething millionaire obviously loves and he's not selling them, but sharing them. This was a refreshing display from a man with nothing to prove.

The Independent (London) July 21, 1995, Friday Page & Plant / Cornwall Coliseum, St Austell BYLINE: Nick Coleman SECTION: POP; Page 14 LENGTH: 481 words In some ways, the hideous entertainment multiplex modestly named the Cornwall Coliseum is an ideal <A name=ORIGHIT_1>Led Zeppelin venue. It squats grimly on a granite beach a matter of feet from the Atlantic ocean. It is featureless, implacable, massy yet compacted, as if dropped on Cornwall from a great height: corrugated concrete blocks set against black cliffs and a riffing sea. Perfect, you'd have thought, not only as a metaphor for Zeppelin's most inhospitable music but also as the setting for a memorable entrance: Robert and Jimmy, horned and cross-gartered, in the prow of a Viking longship driven hard up the beach like a sword into the maw of Gossips' niterie. If only. Sadly, the realisation of such a coup would ask unanswerable questions of the chaps' security operation. And besides, how keen are the chaps going to be to plug in their Gibsons while gartered in sopping thongs? In the event, we had to make do with the group appearing gingerly from behind a curtain of green and vermillion light to the sound of chugging Arab modes. It was bathos, but it was good bathos. The same went for the rest of the show. P&P's solution to the problem of being too young to die but old enough to worry about it is to take their heavy business lightly. They came with a full complement of Egyptian drummers, but not the orchestra scheduled for later shows, eschewing theformal solemnity of last year's do in favour of all-out Arabian crunch- rock. Indeed, they went off at the deep end with a somewhat perfunctory "Whole Lotta Love", during which Plant essayed the occasional bottom-clench and hair-toss before leaving it to his accomplice to make an unspeakable racket with his Theremin thing. This contraption has been around since the early days. It's constructed out of a black toolbox, Meccano, some gaffer tape and the gear-stick off an old tractor and it sounds like an earthquake. Page played it like a laid-back traffic policeman waving his arms at an intersection, looking chuffed to bits while the tarmac cracks and suppurates all about, belching black vapour and the smell of testosterone. "Since I've Been Loving You" was pretty torrid, too, as was "Four Sticks", which snicked the vibe up a gear from the pervading matey languor. "Kashmir" was the clincher, though, being long, hot and cinematic. Guitars swelled and bellied like sails, Arab drums lurched and swayed: Viking sea-dogs rode ships of the desert. Page grinned afterwards like a 12-year-old. There remained an element of restraint in Plant's demeanour, however, which may have been the product of a 47-year-old's natural angst at having to clench his bottom in front of strangers or may simply have been from the effort of making his voice soar more freely than at any time since his original separation from his pallid chum. It brought a lump to the throat rather than to the trousers.

The Independent (London) March 27, 1998, Friday Rock music: Still sexy after all these years; Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Shepherds Bush Empire BYLINE: James McNair SECTION: FEATURES; Page 18 LENGTH: 500 words Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Shepherds Bush Empire Rock music needs its occasions, and 30 years after the birth of Led Zeppelin, a surprise gig by the band's pivotal members still registered heavily on the music hack Richter scale. Tonight's guest list was literally 800 names long, and there were enough pop stars in the audience for a Tussaud's Rock Circus. With the pomp, bombast and frivolous excess of 1970s rock hanging in the air like patchouli, the faithful prepared to pay homage. The roar that greeted them as they came on-stage was immense, and there was also that pleasing sense of the surreal which occurs when one encounters icons of popular culture in the flesh. Plant looked the better preserved of the two, but then he has several years on Page, who's now pushing 55. They were joined by Michael Lee on drums, Plant's son-in-law, Charlie Jones, on bass, and Phil Andrews on keyboards, squeeze-box, and mandolin. Unfortunately Andrews was so quiet in the mix that he often appeared to be miming. Wisely, they began with a medley of oldies, rather than slavishly promoting their forthcoming album, Walking Into Clarksdale. We got "Nightflight" from Physical Graffiti, then "Bring It On Home" and "Heartbreaker" from Led Zeppelin II. The latter served as an only reminder of why Jimmy Page is still revered in rock guitar circles. His riffs are mammoth hooks; sexy, melodic phrases that lodge in both the crotch and the cranium. And even although he's no longer the lithe, twenty-something who (together with Hendrix) pioneered the phallocentric repertoire of rock guitar posturing, he still has a certain elegant swagger when he gets going. The acoustic interlude which featured "Going To California", "Tangerine" and the hugely infectious stomp of "Gallows Pole" seemed to induce a mass reverie of nostalgia. When Page teased his Les Paul with a violin bow, and when a roadie ran on with a fresh incense stick for Plant's monitor, it was a reminder of those heady days before This is Spinal Tap brilliantly deconstructed the whole heavy rock genre. Of the new material, only "Walking into Clarksdale" and the single "Most High" came close to Zeppelin of old, but then to be fair the agenda has changed, with Steve Albini's production on the new album attempting (and often succeeding) to contemporise the pair's sound. The audience cared not a jot about this, of course - they simply wanted "Stairway To Heaven". Despite Page teasingly closing "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" with "Stairway's" opening however, they knew in their heart of hearts that it wasn't going to happen. Instead, we got a truly incendiary "Whole Lotta Love" in which Page coaxed other-worldly squeals from an archaic theremin, and a strangely poignant "Thank You", the song which Plant wrote for his wife back in 1969. "Just silly old buggers singing songs about love," he grinned at the end. How could he have confused himself with Des O'Connor and Sacha Distel? Back to Top