Flares
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Posts posted by Flares
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I follow a Bonham drum enthusiast on YouTube. He posted a link to this pic of Boham's kit in the Polar Studios, with the following:
"Most die-hard Led Zeppelin scholars have always concluded it shoes the Silver Sparkle Ludwig kit Bonham received in 1975 (and allegedly used on the album Presence), but leading Bonhamolgist Nigel Foreskin has determined it to be : THE STAINLESS STEEL BONHAM GIGGING KIT."
He also posted a link to a nice article on the closure of Polar studio with interesting stuff about Zep (I put the link to the full article at the bottom of the Zep content below):
We sit down in the control room and Lennart Östlund finally finds a working socket for a CD-player. Proudly I pull out the surprise out of my bag, Led Zeppelin's last album "In through the out door" in a brown paper cover. Lennart was here helping to record it in December 1978. He hasn't really listened to it since then.
-They were here for three weeks, they came on a Monday and left on a Friday. I remember that they weren't allowed to stayed at Grand (Hotel), because the drummer John Bonham had a bad reputation. But they were mellow. No one recognized them when we went out. The most important thing to them was that each week they'd have a cassette to bring home to their wives, as a proof that they had been working.
He sniffs at the fact that three songs are missing on the CD. Then once again John Bonham's powerful drums echo throughout the studio.
-He sat there, in the "stone room" in front of the cloud panel. With two sets of drums, Lennart Östlund remembers. But to get the right echo effect, we moved the speaker for the base drum out to the reception and put a microphone in front of it.
He shows me the wooden room, where the guitar player Jimmy Page stood, and the soft room, the extremely dry, where Robert Plant sang what we're listening to right now.
-Oh, he really sang false there, did you hear it? But it doesn't matter. These days you can correct things like that, but the music hasn't necessarily become any more fun because of that.
We listen to another track. The next song begins with a synthesizer sound which sounds familiar. ABBA? Lennart nods.
-Led Zeppelin liked ABBA. And that is really ABBA's synthesizer, the "Does your mother know"-synthesizer. I even think that Benny got the string sound from John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin's bass- and piano player).
I call Benny back to check with him.
-This is how it was, says Benny. I had the same synthesizer as Led Zeppelin, a so-called dream machine. It was there in the studio. So John Paul Jones just brought his own sounds with him and put them in. He has a fantastic string sound which he had made. "Oh", I said, "that sounds so good, can I have it?"
-Then later I received a package in the mail with four cassettes in it. That string sound appears in many ABBA songs. I still use it quite often.
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10 hours ago, mrledhed said:
Never liked that group. "Cadillac" is a great druggy sounding 1980s song, but that's about all I can tolerate.
I was listening to "Someone to Love" recently, and it sounds more like a Tony Franklin showpiece than anything. His fretless bass overpowered that track to the point of taking over. It sounds like it was attacking him and he was fighting with it LOL.
Page should have put more into that band but didn't. Those records appear to me to sound like incomplete projects that were meant to be more than that.
The problem was that after Zep - who were the gold standard of rock - everything else Page did in the genre was never going to live up to the past. That's why he should have gone sideways and done more soundtrack work or something avant garde. DW 2 showed he was adapt at eerie soundscapes and in my opinion is some of his best post-Zep material. Plant went sideways for most of the '80s and so did Jones. Initially, it was the only way to go. Even Plant said he like dw 2 soundtrack but wasnt keen on the AOR Firm. Cadillac was cool because it wasn't a conventional rock song.
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4 hours ago, Stryder1978 said:
Say what you will about your opinions on Coverdale. All I know is both Jimmy and Ritchie chose to use his talents...and I know who's opinion I value more!
I'm not saying he's not a good singer. Just that he's a bit of a twatt.
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1 hour ago, The Dark Lord said:
Nah. I dislike Coverdale because he is a gross Neanderthal, and not because Plant hates him. It's not the voice that matters; it's the message, and that is where Coverdale fails in spades, much of the time. As for Plant, I only tolerate Robert, so nothing he says sways me.....ever.
"Gross Neanderthal". lol. Plant was probably a bit like Coverdale in his early twenties until he realised how absurd the whole game was and matured. Guys like Coverdale are cartoon-like caricatures with no depth. He's a poster boy for a certain brand of shallow LA rock. For all their faults, Plant and Page are cultured and have soul, That's what separates them from rock's masses. I think Floyd are the same.
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that would make an official chronological live album (if there were multitracks ;-)).
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2 hours ago, Mithril46 said:
I agree with Steve but(not Albini) and particularly Flares. Jones and Lee were fine live however starkly not up to
Page and Plant in the studio. The production and mix , although it's good to experiment, IMO just don't fit P/P.
Imagine Richards and Jagger with some mainstays of Zep studio production--- long tailed reverb, sometimes cavernous,
heavy delay, much ambient miking on the drums--- forget it. Not a bad album, some very good tracks, some interesting
departures as mentioned. The departures to me though don't sound all that successful. "Heart" yes, but some sound
like sketches, not complete.
Yip, just so frustrating that the one time P&P go to record new material and the approach is flawed. Massive missed opportunity.
Has any rehearsal material surfaced from the WIC recording sessions? I've never heard any bootlegs from that, or indeed, from No Quarter 94.
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3 hours ago, bluecongo said:
I wonder how T Bone Burnett would be as a producer for Page and Plant.
Albini just blew this project in a major way.
I find Albini extremely annoying in the clip above. He exudes a kind of pompous nerd-chic. Plant hired him, so they got what they deserved. I actually went on youtube and listened to a few tracks from WIC for the first time in ages. With the passing of time, and reduced expectation, it's actually not bad. Just not that memorable or rousing. A lot of it sounds like demos that could have been worked on more to produce a better result. But I know that Plant was going on for a live in the studio type thing.
For me, the album validates Zep's decision to split after Bonham died and illustrates how integral all four band members were to the sound. You're only getting 50 % of the magic that was Zeppelin on WIC, and it shows.
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Thanks for posting that, Zepscoda. Hats off to Coverdale for not being bitter about Page jumping ship and forgoing a tour to reunite with Plant. After investing so much time in something, it would have been easy for Coverdale to be bitter about the whole experience. But he's always complimentary about Page in interviews and never has a dig. Well, not in public, anyway...
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Guys, you are completely over-analyzing this. Plant thought Coverdale was a twatt. Full stop. We all meet people in life we think are plonkers. Coverdale is not Plant's cup of tea.
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9 hours ago, SteveAJones said:
Of course.
David had just perfected the very same image Robert was seeking to attain for himself, and this had a hell of a lot to do with it!
Do you know why Robert sacked his band in October 1985? In his own words: "...their menopausal rumblings...."
Mid-life crisis, vanity and ego.
I agree that Plant had a mid-life crisis. He did an MTV special in 1993 with his FON's band - rehearsals and loose interviews - and it was cringe worthy. Plant mincing around trying to impress his young band and acting half his age. It was while he was supporting Kravitz and his commercial popularity had nosedived. Within months Plant was back with Page again. Anyway, my point is that his disdain towards Coverdale was not really connected to his mid-life crisis, it was more that he detested that sort of glib AOR rock and the shallow lookalikes and Zep mimics. Remember, Plant was an archetype; Coverdale was a stereotype.
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4 hours ago, SteveAJones said:
Midlife crisis.
More like Coverdale being a shallow poodle rocker.
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6 hours ago, SteveAJones said:
That would be the pot calling the kettle black!
Robert had a problem with David arguably becoming the biggest star in rock circa 1990 with a mega-successful album and tour, and then collaborating with Jimmy Page.
I doubt many people would call Plant pretentious. He is one of the most down to earth rock legends out there. So I don't get the pot calling the kettle bit.
Plant's loathing for Coverdale, poodle rock and all the Zep imitators started way before the Page-Coverdale collaboration (just check out his interviews from the late 80s).
I agree there was a bit of jealousy in there from Plant's side, but he always thought Coverdale was a tosser and talked like some faux-Shakespearean twat from way back.
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On 2/5/2016 at 0:15 PM, The Dark Lord said:
Yes, that was interesting, indeed. Thanks for posting. And, if I had a dollar for every time that Coverdale said, "In essence", and "In no way shape or form", I'd be able to skip work tomorrow. His pomposity is unequalled.
Agreed. You can see why Plant thinks he's a pretentious tosser.
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Unfortunately Page's best post-Zep playing was saddled with cheesy lyrics, overblown production and a cardboard cut-out frontman.
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People have argued that he got his mojo back on the outrider tour and p/p 98 tour, but for me after '73 he never fully regained his fluency, timing and confidence. The big question is not why he lost it in the first place - clearly heroin and alcohol - but why he never got back to his best after kicking smack. i don't buy the lack of practice argument. its a bit of mystery.
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Page and Clapton, 1983. Never heard of this before. Legit?
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I reckon the Firm was his best live playing post-Zep. Everyone says the Outrider '88 and PP '98 tours were awesome, but they were essentially looking backwards, not forward. The Firm was last time he was plowing ahead, trying new things. He wasn't just churning out rock 'n' roll for the 800th time.
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I think this is a good call. Paul has a beautiful, big old fashioned voice, but I don't think there was much chemistry between him and Page. I think Cadillac was the nearest they came to Page's vision for the band.
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Jason and I edited through several hours of his 8mm home movies, selecting clips for use on the JBLZE tour.
The wedding jam was recorded but wasn't relevant for this purpose, since rare footage of his father was the main objective for the video screen.
Thanks for clarifying, Sam.
Another holy grail that one day might surface.
Maybe it could be bundled as an extra in a new 50th anniversary live DVD
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Dave Lewis could probably knock this one on the head.
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Even back then a lot of people videoed their own wedding. It's plausible that Jason got someone to tape the performance. Someone should ask him. Knowing Zeppelin, it was probably a great performance because there was no pressure and it wasn't taped!
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Maybe one day Empress Valley will add some EQ to it and charge £250 for the Bonham's Nuptials deluxe box set.
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Has any video or audio footage every surfaced of the jam with Plant, Page and Jones at Jason Bonham's wedding. The only thing I have ever seen is one photo still from Dave Lewis Celebration book. I think they played Custard Pie and a couple of other things. I've never seen or heard it anywhere and wondered if it was the only post-Zep "reunion" never to be documented. I remember watching an interview with Plant where he joked that Jason was wasted and had to be carried to bed before the speeches and Plant had to carry his wife over the threshold. But I don't know if it's just Plant having a laugh.
Bonham's Polar kit and article
in Photos
Posted
nice. weird studio. very IKEA.