No problem at all, happy to discuss drumming with anyone (quite often with people who aren't even listening).

I have Live at Last & it is indeed not the greatest performance from Ward, it was recorded at two gigs (Manchester & London) in March 1973.

Well first of all, I've not picked up a pair of sticks for nearly eight years & secondly there are far better drummers on here than me so it's just my opinion, I love the Ozzy Sabbath stuff, I've got every LP apart from Never Say Die but I have mixed feelings about Bill Ward... I find him to be wildly inconsistent, one minute he's playing the worst drum fill I've ever heard (in Iron Man) & the next he's playing a borderline genius drum bass drum thing on Snowblind. I don't think Sabbath would've been the same without him but at times it sounds to me (especially on Paranoid & Master of Reality) that he's turned up to the studio drunk, the production on those two albums doesn't help him to be honest & the better drum sounds on Vol.4 & Sabbath Bloody Sabbath give him more scope with his symphonic sort of approach to drumming. For those reasons, I would have him a rung or two below drummers like Bonham & Paice in the grand scheme of things although, don't get me wrong, when he was good, he was very good.

Just as an aside, I used to play drums in a Deep Purple tribute band for a bit & Ian Paice was an incredible drummer, things like Fireball & Burn are real workouts & his fills in Black Night still make me smile after all these years, just really amazing drum parts.

Although it's very patchy I reckon Who Do We Think We Are has some of their best songs on it (Rat Bat Blue, Super Trooper & Smooth Dancer) & the production on it is brilliant, really powerful. I'd probably rate the 70s DP albums as follows:- 1. Machine Head 2. Burn 3. In Rock 4. Fireball 5. Come Taste The Band 6. Who Do We Think We Are 7. Stormbringer

Ha ha, fair enough, mate.

Doing heroin is a bit different to doing coke plus I think that a rock singer would much prefer to stand up when singing in the studio, you can't really put your back into it when you're sitting down. Having said that, I love Plant's vocals on Presence.

The singer out of Maroon 5 needs a piano dropping on his head. And then catapulted into the sun.

Yeah, I'll give it a whirl again, sometimes it helps to have someone point out a couple of things I may have missed.

I have to say I disagree with a fair bit of that but probably best kept for a Beatles thread somewhere. I want to love ITTOD but it's too patchy for me, I bought the remastered CD with the bonus disc & I think I played them both once. Other than Fool in the Rain, which is genius, I can take or leave it, which is mental considering how much I love all their other LPs.

That's a mad choice, it's one of my favourite songs by any band.

Zeppelin are my favourite band but Abbey Road pisses all over ITTOD as a 'greatest last album' I have to say & that's without me really trying to think of any other examples.

I have to turn the telly off whenever I see him on it, his face makes steam come out of my ears. I was describing how I felt about him to someone once & came up with the phrase, 'The Musical Antichrist', which I think fits him perfectly.

Good, hopefully he loses access to oxygen next.

I would put good money on Robert Plant doing very little or nothing in relation to the 50th Anniversary of Led Zeppelin.

I don't know about you but if I was a young bloke in my early 20s, World at my feet, young girls throwing themselves at me, cocaine falling from the sky, I would be making the fucking most of it rather than getting tucked up in my bed with a cup of lemon tea & worrying about what somebody on the internet would think about it 40 odd years down the line. It's a shame he didn't look after his voice a little better but I don't think there's any need to be quite so sanctimonious about it.

A live 'best of' triple LP covering 1968 to 1980 would absolutely floor me, I wouldn't need anything else after that. Unfortunately I don't think anything like it will see the light of day at this stage. I reckon next year we'll get loads of magazine covers, a handful of books & maybe a programme or two on the telly if we're lucky.

37 years ago today the decision was made for them. Gone but not forgotten.

I hardly think Plant could accuse Rodgers of imitating him when Free were touring months before Zeppelin formed.

Yes, I can confirm that Mourinho generally plays a billionaire version of alehouse Football.

Yes, the 2-2 draw with Stoke was frightening stuff, I hear Real Madrid are thinking of pulling out of the Champions League after seeing that.

Such a poor team that Man Utd haven't beaten them in their last four attempts & managed to finish seven points behind them in May?

Can't see Spurs winning the league & Leicester are more likely to get relegated.

It's four games into the season, I would give it until December before we start looking at who is going to win the league, Man Utd started at a canter last season & finished 6th.

I'd love a dvd/blu ray of their California Jam performance, I'll maybe ask for the CD for Christmas (as it's out in December). Just as an aside, I'd always been told Technical Ecstasy was really poor but I picked up the CD a couple of weeks back & it's much better than I thought it would be, I think it's as good as Sabotage.