Once in a while my uncle would get a wild hair up his backside and we would go to Sportsmans for the harness racing. I never could figure out why we went because my uncle always complained they were fixed. Personally I like the quarter-horse races, 1/4 mi track and pure speed. A good quarter will smoke the best Thoroughbred in the 1/4mi. Claiming races are fun just to hang out and mingle with the owners and trainers all day.

My love of the sport came in my childhood in Chicago. My uncle would take me and my brother to the track (Arlington) every tuesday & thursday afternoons while on summer break. When we got to the track he would tell us to get lost and meet him at the #1 ticket counter at 4pm. Man we had a blast, sneaking into the sportsmans club, hanging out in the balcony, cruising the stables and talking with the jockeys and trainers. Those were good times. I strangely enough (growing up in Chicago) I grew up around horses through my older cousins who owned two Arabians. Always loved horses and still ride. I agree however the sport needs serious changes to move forward with all that has been happening. In this day of animal rights its only a matter of time before either the sport is updated and made safer for the horse, or, banned outright.

Cold and rainy, in other words...perfect.

Can't forget the Go Go Dancers

Damn Gibson, and I thought I was cynical. Then again, once bitten, twice shy.

This is complete bullshit, Maximum Security, nor the rider did anything wrong. The crime here is that the Derby causes these issues to happen and then cries foul? The Derby is the most crowded field in the sport having 20 horses run vs. 14 in every other race ever. These tracks were designed for no greater than 14 horses and no, the Derby's track is not wider, its standard width. They can barely get all the gates on the damn field and they wonder why a horse gets crowded or kicked. Looks like then lousy stewards had one too many Juleps before the race. Lousy seer-sucker suit wearing bums!!! BALDERDASH!!!

I guess that depends on what one considers honest. A soup to nuts account of things, hell no, but they could talk about Page's broken finger, Plant's shot voice from the flu and yet still playing some damn fine shows, ya know, a real the show must go on type vibe. They could then go into 77' with the record breaking Pontiac show and LA run triumphs with the band leaving the gig and fade out. Or at least take it to 73' and either the Tampa or Kezar shows to end the flicker.

Never understood the uproar over Jimmy's SS cap he wore for that one show. Its not like he was goose-stepping across the stage while pulling a Nazi salute in the middle of Sick Again or something. Jimmy was just being a Charlotte Rampling fanboy just as Bonzo had wore the Droog outfit on most of the US 75' tour. Also, Jimmy did not wear the SS hat for the whole show, only about 35 - 40 minutes then he ditched it for the white fedora and if memory serves (probably not), he switched to the white satin suit after Moby Dick.

Kaitlyn Coverdale???

I am a massive Nina Simone fan, same with Aretha and Maria Callas however all three were serious assholes who treated those around them like the shittiest hired hobo's. Brought new meaning to the word Diva.

Ya know, I kinda agree with you on this one. To ignore the times and the mindset of that era, then superimpose the values of today is unfair. When we are in the now we can only understand from that viewpoint, we are not seers or wizards, just people of our time. When I was in HS in the mid-80's I said some messed up stuff that would look quite bad today. I did not necessarily believe any of the stupid crap I was saying, nor did I know any better but since everyone else was doing it, well, heard mentality. Nobody in the 70's looked at massive bell bottoms and leisure suits and thought WTF, this shit is SHIT! Nope, it was groovy baby. Or big hair and shoulder pads in the 80's, grunge in the 90's etc. Be content in your thoughts though Steve, for this wee child will be quite shocked 40 years from now when that new generation is crawling up his ass about this generation. Karma is one bad mama jama.

Yep, you are correct Steve, she is wearing stripped pants and I really never noticed the gloves for some reason. Hmmm, I wonder what could have distracted me so while watching that scene????

Went there years ago, in 1987 when I was in the USMC and looked totally different then. In 87' Jim's grave was a complete mess, graffiti everywhere as well as trash. Some of these jackasses who call themselves "fans" are typically only ghouls basking in the former glory of another's achievements. Any true fan would not desecrate a grave like these animals did.

Ginger Baker x 5; Jack Bruce x5. Two profoundly excellent musicians who were complete assholes. Of course John Phillips gets the lifetime achievement award for downright nastiness & perversion.

A favorite movie of both Jimmy & Cole was The Night Porter with Charlotte Rampling. This movie, and Charlotte's attire, was the inspiration for Jimmy's clothes at the April 10th 1977 show. There is a scene in the movie where Charlotte is wearing the exact same getup minus the t-shirt. Personally I thought Charlotte wore it better, then again I am partial to the female form. Of course Robert LOVED the whole Carry On series of low budget movies and thought Kenneth Williams, Jimmy Dale, & Harry Corbet brilliant.

A little too much though as he acted like a Droog for much of the 75' tour. If there was one guy who needed to switch from booze to weed it was Bonzo.

Still trying to figure out their tactics, or rather lack thereof. Cavalry should have been placed on the flanks in the woods along with archers. Catapults should have fired more than one or two crappy volleys. Trenchworks in multiple layers, choke-points, etc. Just basic battle tactics 101 would have been nice. Also, what the hell happened to all the Dragon-Fire? They used that shit to torch an entire fleet of Stannis, then used to to blow up a crap ton of religious jackasses. If there was ever a perfect use for the stuff it would have been at this battle. I am still trying to figure out how the hell Arya made it through dozens of zombies unscathed, flew through the air, and then shanked the Night King. Arya is now officially renamed Foxy Shaft Superfly Brown. She's one bad motherfu.... shut yo mouth! Just talkin bout Foxy.

Meh, what a letdown and dark as hell. Now that I think of it, it could have been Citizen Cane level shit going on and I would never know it from that horrible darkness. Muddiest film I have ever seen.

Didn't he (Barry) slip it to Flo Henderson a few times while they were filming the series? I heard that somewhere as well as David Cassidy was getting down with Shirley Jones, some of the old in-out, in-out between takes. The former I have no problem with, the latter is creepy as hell if true as David Cassidy was Shirley Jones step-son (Jones was married to Jack Cassidy). edit: Then again, if I had a step-mom that looked like Shirley Jones circa 1972, this little kangaroo would be up in her pouch like a perverted madman. Damn Hollywood!

Not quite sure what you are getting at with your first few sentences. Are singers just supposed to sing, guitar players only play and write guitar arrangements? Just because Rogers wrote some guitar parts does not mean Jimmy was asleep behind the wheel. I too saw the Firm, in Phoenix March 12th 1985 and they put on one hell of a show. Jimmy was playing very well and I remember it was about the year before that rumours of Jimmy's playing ability were starting to go around, mostly due to the boot for Aug 11th 1979 gig. This plus his showing at some of the ARMS shows had many people, including me, worried. When the band played and Jimmy was soloing very well and playing with both passion and precision, everyone knew Jimmy was back! I looked at my friend Bob and said what Jimmy was doing with the b-Bender was groundbreaking, no one had been doing that with the b-Bender TMK and his playing was simply beautiful.

Good old Paul, reigning Jimmy in. I thought it odd when it was announced Paul & Jimmy in a band together due to Paul's nature. Paul was a serious diva back in the 70's and could be a real dick and a control freak. Figured Jimmy would not have been down with that but it lasted almost three years so what do I know.

Yes, just rumor, noting more. Though I would have loved to see Paul Rogers Karate-kick Jimmy on stage as that would have been worth the price of admission. Downright hilarious.

No, but ambient noise, volume, and distortion sure can and likely did. As pointed out before, no one was walking out or boo'ing the band at the shitty shows. What I have pointed out in the past still stands, the majority of the 77' shows were in fact good shows and I would argue 1/3 were excellent shows. There were only maybe a handful of truly bad shows so 77' does get a bad rap as we have all (or most) of the disasters on good quality boots whereas a good portion of the really good shows from 77' suffer from either no boot or poor quality boots (April 10th & 30th are good examples of this). One of my pet peeves, justified or not, is how much Zep, forty years after the fact, are under such a demanding microscope whereas you rarely hear anyone mention the shitty shows from bands or musicians such as GnR to Clapton to Van Halen to Aerosmith. Crap man, EVH is considered one of the best yet he has played plenty of shows which make Page in 77' at Tempe sound like Steve Vai. I saw VH in Phoenix in 84' and EVH was so wasted Mikey Anthony cut EVH's feed to the PA system. As sloppy as Page was at some of the 77' shows, no one ever felt the need to do that. I am not making excuses, hell if I were at one of the bad shows I would have been pissed as hell but some perspective is necessary. Zeppelin from 68' - 75' were unstoppable and untouchable live, even with Robert's F'ed up voice in 75'. Seven good years is a damn fine run for the 70's by any metric and I would still take the 77' LA run to any other live act in 77' no exception.

Sorry, I did not word my post well. What I meant to say was all three were arrested and charged, then held for a whopping 3 hours when Weiss arranged their release. The fact is money and connections are the only thing which matters. Anything short of an actual death would have resulted in this same outcome for the boys. All of that aside, Cole is the only living member involved in the altercation TMK (I believe Graham's men involved are either passed as well or older than dirt) who may have the full story. I say may because Cole was an addict as well so his memory is likely "fuzzy." Anything involved with Graham in 77' would have probably had similar results as Graham, as pointed out, was a real hard ass and his crew was also known to be very prone to intimidation and violence. Mix that in with a coked out road crew themselves known to be rowdy, a know killer and gangster who was considered crazy by Ronnie Cray himself, and a very depressed and unhappy manager and that is a bad outcome. I would have to say though that Bindon was the tipping point as Bindon was known to goad people into doing dangerous shit all the time.