I'd also read that Robert thought the XYZ songs were too complicated. Apparently, Jimmy and the others worked on ideas for a few weeks and then asked Robert to sit in on a rehearsal, but he didn't like what he heard and that was that. If Jimmy does put out the XYZ recordings, won't it most likely be a limited release through his website, as he did with Death Wish II and Lucifer Rising?

Mark Lanegan at Sheffield Leadmill tomorrow night. Dust-bowl despair and devil-driven outsider blues, here I come!

When it was brought up in a recent interview, Jimmy said Walking Into Clarksdale was 'more a minimalist album' and moved straight onto another subject. I'm not quite sure what that says about Jimmy's view of the album. As for the way they recorded and mixed it, I understand the idea of a basic recording capturing a performance in a room - but I don't think Steve Albini's actually that good at it. I know this is Albini's way of working over many years and it's precisely why bands use him, but a lot of his recordings actually sound quite flat to me (eg. PJ Harvey's Rid Of Me, which had none of the vibrancy and dynamics of the Peel session versions of those same songs). Jimmy Page certainly understands how to capture the sound of a band playing in a room, so it always seemed a bit perverse to me to hire Steve Albini to do a worse job!

Nice one, Hecube!

Kalodner said that 'by not having Robert Plant with him, he (Jimmy) was just not that inspired'. Again, I'm just not getting the same things from CP that Kaldoner's getting! Apart from Northwinds, CP is actually the only thing I've got of Coverdale's since Deep Purple. Admittedly, that's down to Jimmy being on it. I saw Whitesnake in 1979 and 1980 and at the time I thought it was pretty good - but two weeks after the second gig, I heard Free for the first time and realised what Coverdale was channelling! That was the end of that. Far from being 'not that inspired', however, Jimmy quite clearly enjoyed himself in CP and appears to have genuinely liked Coverdale himself. Like Charles said, there was chemistry there and a further collaboration would've been interesting.

Here's a recent example: 'Blackmore's Night manager, and Ritchie's mother-in-law, Carole Stevens, shows up and is angry because an interview is going on after curfew. The Swedish reporter asks for a couple of autographs and all is fine as long as Ritchie signs publicity photos of Blackmore's Night. When the Deep Purple box set Listen Learn Read On is taken out, the manager runs away with the box set and the reporter is reminded of the story about the guy who got his copy of Machine Head ripped to pieces by the mother-in-law. The reporter sets off after Stevens and asks if he can get his box back. Stevens refuses and throws the box into the hands of the Swedish record company guy and says 'this is why Sweden will never get an interview again!' Cripes...

Excellent, was watching the dvd version that came with the expanded cd only last night.

The Tower House is a Grade I listed building. That means it's nationally significant and is afforded the highest level of protection by the Secretary of State. Williams' proposals might not affect the Tower House directly, but because of its listed status, he has to consider issues such as any potential visual impacts, how his plans may lead to changes to the setting and significance of the Tower House, etc. Because Jimmy's house is Grade I listed, Williams actually can't just do as he likes with his own property - his proposals have to consider (and seek to minimise) the possible effect on the Tower House. If Jimmy wants to force this further and take it to the Secretary of State, the Grade I listing means he can do that. Whether Jimmy wants to pay the fees for a top barrister and his team to fight his case for a couple of years is another matter!

Read a strange thing by that A&R bloke, John Kalodner, who claims that Jimmy's playing on the Coverdale Page lp 'was kind of half-hearted' and that Jimmy 'did not invest much time in it'! Ok, Kalodner was there and I wasn't, but that's not the impression I ever got - there's probably more guitars on CP than both Firm albums and Outrider combined! He also said that Jimmy approached him in Argentina in 1994 and told him that Robert not only 'didn't like' the collaboration between Jimmy and Coverdale, he was actually 'offended' by it! Kalodner says that Robert 'felt that David Coverdale was second rate' and blamed Kalodner for putting them together. Such was the extent of Robert's nark, that Kalodner 'had to write an apology letter to him'! Blimey...

They better pay him or he'll set his mother-in-law on em...

Perry Farrell, Wish Upon A Dog Star. (with Peter Hook on bass to make Eric jealous!).

Planning permission granted for Williams' chav folly? A great shame - but I'm not really surprised. I'm an archaeologist and have dealt with a lot of planning departments. Most of them seem to have a presumption in favour of development unless the proposals are for an absolutely irredeemable monstrosity. Sorry to see this scheme go through.

October 1977, some kid in our class at school lent me a tape of the 1971 BBC Paris Theatre broadcast. And that was that!

I love both Bonzo's drumming and drum sound. I don't think Ginger Baker's playing has ever even registered with me. Which is what this stuff should come down to: personal preference, not a question of 'better'. Ginger may very well be a 'better' drummer than Maureen Tucker, but his playing doesn't say anything to me, while I love Mo's primal two-drums-played-standing-up approach. That's what counts. As an aside, what always makes me laugh when Ginger comments on Bonzo, is that even now he thinks of Bonham as a young upstart! He was on about it again a few months back: 'John Bonham once said there's only two drummers, me and Ginger Baker - and I thought 'cheeky little b*stard!' It's the idea that anyone can think of Bonzo as just a 'cheeky little b*stard' that cracks me up!

Killing Joke in Nottingham in October. Maybe Manchester too.

Cheers for that, Steve. Totally bears out what you were saying in another thread, about Jimmy playing on emotion. Going for a first take done in a 102 degree fever, because it has the best feel? That's Jimmy, right there.

It was the first gig of the Sabbath tour, Charles, so it may even have been Van Halen's first UK gig!

Ricky Phillips said he was 'never supposed to be the bassplayer', but was hired just to 'woodshed all this material'. Which sounds like he was there to play bass while the songs were being knocked into shape, but wasn't intended to be part of the band. Ricky also said that when they were at Little Mountain they were 'only going for drum tracks', so maybe his bass parts were only ever intended to be guides?

Great to see Hughes and Coverdale together. Glenn once said that You Keep On Moving was the first song they co-wrote - and they wrote it in Coverdale's flat 'above a Wimpey bar' in Middlesbrough! Apparently, Blackmore didn't like it, so it had to wait for later. Some strange decisions by Blackmore, really - he didn't like When A Blind Man Cries either! PS. Glenn's just put up a photo on his Facebook page of Robert with himself and Tommy Bolin in February 1976. Presumably, this was around the time Bonzo famously invaded the stage at a Deep Purple gig to inform the audience that 'Tommy Bolin can't play for sh*t!' Me, I love Tommy's playing. Sorry, Bonzo!

I saw Van Halen supporting Sabbath in Sheffield in 1978. At one point, Edward Van Halen was alone on stage ripping up a storm with a guitar solo. At the height of the storm, he ran towards the centre of the stage, dropped onto his knees and went sliding towards the front of the stage, holding the guitar up in front of him. And that's when his lead came out and it all went deathly quiet! Credit to the bloke, he just laughed it off - but that's one that really would've been worthy of Nigel Tufnel...

Coverdale recently said 'there's no need for me to work with Pagey again'', unless it was as a guest on a solo album where Jimmy also used several other guest singers 'like a Santana thing'. Hmm. While I agree with Steve that there probably isn't the demand for a Coverdale Page reissue, Jimmy appears to have several rehearsal tapes that could feasibly be used as extras should it ever happen. Ricky Phillips said that the rehearsal versions 'of those songs, they're so live and huge and Zeppeliny and not as overproduced' as the final lp, but that the recordings of the rehearsals 'are safeguarded now'. I'd take that to mean that they're in Jimmy's vaults. As an aside, Ricky added that during the rehearsals there were several 'phone calls from John Entwhistle' and that 'they were trying to decide whether they were gonna put a supergroup together'! Imagine Townsend's reaction to that...!

As Jeff himself said: 'He looks just like...he sings just like... F*ckin' scary, huh?!' Jeff's guitar style is also very reminiscent of some of Jimmy's more psychedelic moments, so he could've added 'plays just like', too. I know they've had it thrown at them for years now, but there's a reason for that! If you've not heard the Tea Party, but you've wondered what a Morrison/Page collaboration might sound like, this is the place to go. Some great stuff.

Queued up for the Honeydrippers at Sheffield Limit Club in 1981 - didn't get in!

For me, I either have an emotional response to someone's music or I don't. Jimmy's playing says something to me. Steve Vai's doesn't. Vai's technical ability and musicianship is utterly irrelevant to me, cos what he's playing just leaves me cold. No big deal - that's just me. Other guy's have the same emotional response to what Vai plays as I do to Jimmy. Again, no big deal - that's them. It's not a contest . Is Jimmy sloppy? Who cares. Do you like it? There you go, then.

Yes, they made the right decision to split up. I remember reading the announcement on the day it was published in the music papers and it just felt 'right'. I suspected at the time that Bonzo's death would be the final straw for Robert, so I wasn't surprised. All these years later, it still feels like it was the right decision.