I'm not sure if they'll take the world by storm but they've certainly been pretty successful so far for a band that has little more to their credit than lots of good reviews and an EP (that's no longer available, btw). They've been selling out their own headlining shows and are booked for several festivals this summer as well as a taping of Austin City Limits. I'm sure the use of "Hold On" in that Zales commercial hasn't hurt them either.

Welcome to the forum. I've posted about them here several times myself. Their first full length album, Boys and Girls, is due in April. I first heard of them via the Drive-By Truckers. Even though their official hometown is Athens, GA, most of the Truckers are actually from the Muscle Shoals region of Alabama. The Truckers took the Alabama Shakes out on the road last year as their opening act, as did the North Mississippi Allstars. However, it wasn't until the North Mississippi Allstars passed through Raleigh back in November of 2011 with the Shakes in tow that I finally got to see what the fuss was all about firsthand. While their debut EP is the only thing that's officially out there at present, it doesn't really hold a candle to just how kick ass the Shakes are in concert. There's also their take on "How Many More Times" that is well worth a listen.

Didn't Plant debut a new band last year called "Crown Vic"? Makes me wonder if this new band is just a one-off for Womad. I also remember him saying in an interview that he had been writing some new material with Buddy Miller. So, I'm curious to see if the Sensational Space Shifters are something he's going to stick with or if he'll go back to working with the folks from the Band of Joy.

48 Pictures That Perfectly Capture the 90s (from Buzzfeed)

I'm not much of a sports fan (when it comes to traditional sports anyway) but I've never been opposed to watching a sports oriented movie. Thing is, they tend to fall into the same cliched plot developments. I thought this one was headed in that direction at first, albeit with a much needed twist but before I knew it, I became emotionally invested in the movie and couldn't stop watching. The statistical angle, plus the lack of a "rah-rah" ending made Moneyball stand apart from most every other sports movie I've seen so I feel like all the hype behind it is definitely warranted.

Who needs Star Wars in 3D when you have this?

So, when someone sells a bootleg that wasn't intended for release and the bootlegger pockets the profits but not the band, that's not ripping them off? By the way, I'm not drinking any sort of Kool-Aid, industry or otherwise. I just think if someone is going to profit off an artists' work, it should be the artist themselves.

Or by liberating them from the bootleggers by uploading them to the internet for free.

The Kevn Kinney Band w/ Lynn Blakey and Ecki Heins at the Local 506 in Chapel Hill tonight. Kevn's band includes Drivin' n' Cryin' bassist Tim Nielsen, guitarist Audley Freed (Cry of Love, Black Crowes) and drummer Anton Fier (Golden Palominos, Bob Mould). I haven't seen Audley play since I saw Cry of Love perform at the Attic in Greenville, NC way back in the early 90s. Dag was the opening band that night.

Mike's first new album since At Large In the World was released way back in 1999. It's now for sale at MikeCross.com.

I don't think Page buying bootlegs for his own use is a sign of approval for fans to do the same. Then again, I don't recall ever reading his official take on the matter. What I do know is that profits from sales of bootlegs go to the bootleggers, not the artists they're ripping off. To answer the question, that's what's wrong with the sale of bootleg recordings.

Wasn't Peter Grant also well known for entering record stores and clearing them of all of the Zeppelin bootlegs they had for sale? I'm not sure what Page's official stance is on bootlegs but it's pretty obvious that the profit from the sale of bootlegs doesn't go back to the band. That's not just true of Zeppelin but of any band or artist who are heavily bootlegged.

http://youtu.be/nE_gIPevPG4

I'd rather the money go to the band, not bootleggers who's only purpose is to profit off of Led Zeppelin.

Quote lifted from the article below: Sugarland Responds To State Fair Collapse Lawsuit

I don't buy unofficial bootlegs. With the internet, there's really no need to because so much of it is available for free.

I wouldn't be so keen on buying downloads, I prefer the physical product but if this was even a remote possibility I believe Page would have already done it years ago. The Grateful Dead, Phish, Pearl Jam, the Allman Brothers Band and others have been doing this sort of thing for years.

ON THIS DATE (40 YEARS AGO) February 21, 1972 – Led Zeppelin: "Rock and Roll" b/w "Four Sticks" (Atlantic 45-2865) 45 single is released in the US. "Rock and Roll" is a song by English rock band Led Zeppelin, which was first released as the second track from the band's fourth album in 1971, with a guest appearance by The Rolling Stones pianist Ian Stewart. Befitting its title, the song is based on one of the most popular structures in rock and roll, the 12 bar blues progression (in A). "Rock and Roll" stands as one of the best-known songs in the band's catalogue. Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page has said that this song came to be written as a spontaneous jam session, whilst the band were trying (and failing) to finish the track "Four Sticks". Drummer John Bonham played the introduction to Little Richard's "Keep a Knockin'" and Page added a guitar riff. The tapes were rolling and fifteen minutes later the basis of the song was down. Said Page: “We were recording another number [Four Sticks]; we’d just finished a take and John Bonham did the drum intro and we just followed on. I started doing pretty much half of that riff you hear on Rock n Roll and it was just so exciting that we thought, "let’s just work on this". The riff and the sequence was really immediate to those 12-bar patterns that you had in those old rock songs like Little Richard, etc, and it was just so spur-of-the-moment the way that it just came together more or less out of nowhere.” Page also commented: “It actually ground to a halt after about 12 bars, but it was enough to know that there was enough of a number there to keep working on it. Robert [Plant] even came in singing on it straight away.” "Rock and Roll" is one of the few Led Zeppelin songs where all four members share the composer credit. The lyrics by singer Robert Plant reference a number of 1950s and 1960s early rock hits, including "The Stroll," "The Book of Love," and "Walking In the Moonlight."

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