Jump to content

Who remembers when they first got into Zep?

rustyintegrale

By rustyintegrale
in Led Zeppelin Master Forum

Recommended Posts

rustyintegrale

rustyintegrale

Posted
Posted

Hi Guys,

I'm a newb on this forum but a long-term Zep fan. Scouring this forum I just wondered what the demographic was like.

So how and when did you get into Zep? This is my story...

At the back end of 1969 I was a 14 year old schoolboy living in England. I hated school with a vengeance and I guess it was around the start of my rebellious period and also when i was getting into music in a big way.

My parents weren't well off and we had no record player in the house as I was growing up. But my grandfather had left me an old reel-to-reel tape machine and I'd also rescued an old valve radio I found in the coal bunker. Those two bits of kit were to determine a large part of my life as I used to record chunks of pirate radio on tape and then splice bits together.

Around the same time a few guys at school used to get fed up being locked out of school during lunch breaks - especially in cold, wet and rainy weather! So we hatched a plan to start a music society so we could bring in records and hijack a classroom with a record player for an hour or so once or twice a week. My big problem was I had no records because I had no means to play 'em!

Anyway I sat in on a few sessions and really enjoyed hearing more of the stuff from artists I'd heard on Radio North Sea International and other pirates. Amongst these was Fleetwood Mac and I'd developed a love for 'Oh Well' which I believe had come out about that time. From that I began searching out other guitar-based tracks that I liked.

Fast forward to Christmas 1969 and I was at an age when my relatives had no idea what to buy me for Christmas. I was too old for toys but too young to really be into clothes - not that I'd wear anything bought by uncles and aunts! So I'd get tokens for shops like Boots or Timothy Whites. They never sold anything I wanted so I'd get my Mum to use them and give me the cash. Then I'd wait for the shops to reopen - unlike now nothing opened on the day after Christmas so I had to wait what seemed like forever to go out and buy something with the cash.

Anyway this year was different. I'd nagged my parents about wanting to buy records and they bought me a second-hand record player with one of those add-on amps and speaker boxes so it would play stereo. Then in amongst the Boots tokens etc I discovered I'd been given record tokens too! Imagine my impatience wanting to hotfoot it into town and a record store!

That year I had enough for two albums - the first two albums I ever bought. I'd already decided to buy 'Then Play On' by Fleetwood Mac, but had no idea what else to get. Then I stumbled on the cover for Led Zeppelin 2 as I was fingering through the album covers all in their plastic covers sitting in the racks. First I loved the name. Then I loved the cover with the zeppelin and the band members all dressed in military uniform. I'd never heard any Zeppelin but the song titles engaged me. 'What Is and What Should Never Be', 'Heartbreaker', 'Ramble On' - all these titles made such promise.

I handed over my tokens and rushed home with my two albums. 'Then Play On' went on first and I soon got bored. It was nothing like 'Oh Well' and I was a bit disappointed. So I put on Led Zeppelin and ogled the Atlantic record label spinning round as I dropped the stylus on the record's edge.

Wow! WOW!!! I couldn't believe my ears as it opened with 'Whole Lotta Love'. I kept turning it louder and louder, then played it again and again. I'd never heard anything like it! I played the rest of the album and was so excited by my discovery. I played it all again and again. Then I recorded it and pumped up the record levels to get more distortion in the guitar parts. Man, this was the best thing I'd ever heard!

When school started again in January I went in with that album under my arm. In music club we hammered it out - their stereo was better than mine! In the coming months that album went to every party, every friends house and bored every girlfriend rigid. I was besotted with it. I knew all the lyrics, had read every word on the album sleeve and record label and swore I would save the money for Led Zeppelin 1.

From that moment on I have been a huge fan. I did lull a bit for a brief flirtation with Yes but I still play Led Zep 2 and it remains as fresh as it sounded then.

Now I have just bought the whole limited edition 2008 Japanese SHM-CD collection - a few hundred quid but I think I qualify as a fan! I'm now waiting for the opportunity to blast it out on my hi-fi.

Never mind the wife is away all weekend... :-)

Cheers,

Rich

Link to comment
Share on other sites
kmilesmero

kmilesmero

Posted
Posted

For me it was '78, in California, listening to Dazed in the dark at a friend's. He had some special stereo system that made everything sound so awesome. From there I started thinking perhaps every driving guitar riff I've heard throughout my life might be this Page character...and, upon buying all thier albums I found most were!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Rock Action

Rock Action

Posted
Posted

September 1970, when Immigrant Song was a huge hit on the airwaves.

Bought the album immediately....then IV when it came out....then Houses. Then I worked backwards and got I and II. From there on out, whenever there was a new release I was at the record store the day it came out. Just like on Monday. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
ledded1

ledded1

Posted
Posted

Mine was spring 1969, 12 years old and a song came on the radio that shook me. Only 2 and a half minutes but it was a sound I had been waiting to hear which changed my developing musical life.

Communication Breakdown changed me that day.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
ally

ally

Posted
Posted

Mine was spring 1969, 12 years old and a song came on the radio that shook me. Only 2 and a half minutes but it was a sound I had been waiting to hear which changed my developing musical life.

Communication Breakdown changed me that day.

Same age, same year, The only difference was the song. For me it was Good Times Bad Times. Told ya I was catching up to you :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
bcarter690

bcarter690

Posted
Posted

Summer of 75...my older brother had LZ II on 8 track. I went out and bough PG as soon as I could scrape together some money. Soon went to college where I noticed a few vinyl boots for sale at a record fair. Heard BBC 71 on the radio when I first began to drive........been a collector ever since.

This all culminated with an invitation to the reunion at the O2 in London in 2007. Any Zep fan's dream come true.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
barney2EH

barney2EH

Posted
Posted

I'm just turned 54 years old. In England In the late sixties I grew up on the commercial pop of groups like The Beatles, The Hollies, Tremeloes, Manfred Mann and such like. This shaped the musical taste of my early teens towards a more commercial sound. There wasn't very much rock played on the radio back then, and still isn't to a large degree unless you listen to specialist stations like Planet rock.

In the early70's I remember thumbing through album covers in record shops, looking at the Zep 1 and 2 sleeves and thinking how "heavy" it all looked. I guess my taste at that age just wasn't developed enough to appreciate the goodness within. But by 1974 when I was 16, I had been bitten by the rock bug big style. I was heavily into rock groups like Deep Purple, Bad Company and Pink Floyd, but somehow Zeppelin had bypassed my conciousness. I guess this was down to a lack of exposure of Zeppelin in the English media at this time, and also my growing taste for the pure Heavy Metal of bands like Judas Priest. I was young and dumb, what else can I say in my defense. I remember borrowing a copy of Physical Graffitti in 1975 from my mate next door and thinking that it sounded a bit pedestrian and just plain "old fashioned".

Of course the English Punk and new wave explosions followed in 1976 and the "dinosaur" bands like Zeppelin were sidelined even further by the English music press. By the time this phase had burned itself out, Zep were gone. The 80's brought soft rock and the LA glam rock scene. When you look back with the benefit of hindsight and "maturity" you can realise how insubstantial all that shit was. I'll excuse some Def Leppard and Van Halen from that statement.

In the early 90's I gave away all my Vinyl discs to a hospital charity and replaced only a few of the albums on CD that I was giving a regular play to. I guess I just basically fell out of love with rock music due to a busy life just getting in the way. The closest thing to rock music that the UK produced during that time was Oasis. The time when England dominated the world rock scene was long gone. Dance musc was now King.

The new millenium brought downloadable media and a desire on my part to recapture my youth through the music of the 70's. On a whim, I bought Physical Graffitti off iTunes and instantly realised what I'd been missing for the last 30 years. Of course every other Zep album soon followed. It was like discovering a huge hoard of burried treasure. A seam of the purest Gold. I guess it was just fate that I was meant to re-discover Zeppelin later in life.

Now of couse, never a day goes by without me listening to Zep music of some sort. When "her indoors" is watching soap operas downstairs. I'm upstairs "air guitaring" to a packed MSG audience. Just a sad old git I suppose. Long live Zep, long live Rock and Roll.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
joe (Liverpool)

joe (Liverpool)

Posted
Posted

Hi Guys,

I'm a newb on this forum but a long-term Zep fan. Scouring this forum I just wondered what the demographic was like.

So how and when did you get into Zep? This is my story...

At the back end of 1969 I was a 14 year old schoolboy living in England. I hated school with a vengeance and I guess it was around the start of my rebellious period and also when i was getting into music in a big way.

My parents weren't well off and we had no record player in the house as I was growing up. But my grandfather had left me an old reel-to-reel tape machine and I'd also rescued an old valve radio I found in the coal bunker. Those two bits of kit were to determine a large part of my life as I used to record chunks of pirate radio on tape and then splice bits together.

Around the same time a few guys at school used to get fed up being locked out of school during lunch breaks - especially in cold, wet and rainy weather! So we hatched a plan to start a music society so we could bring in records and hijack a classroom with a record player for an hour or so once or twice a week. My big problem was I had no records because I had no means to play 'em!

Anyway I sat in on a few sessions and really enjoyed hearing more of the stuff from artists I'd heard on Radio North Sea International and other pirates. Amongst these was Fleetwood Mac and I'd developed a love for 'Oh Well' which I believe had come out about that time. From that I began searching out other guitar-based tracks that I liked.

Fast forward to Christmas 1969 and I was at an age when my relatives had no idea what to buy me for Christmas. I was too old for toys but too young to really be into clothes - not that I'd wear anything bought by uncles and aunts! So I'd get tokens for shops like Boots or Timothy Whites. They never sold anything I wanted so I'd get my Mum to use them and give me the cash. Then I'd wait for the shops to reopen - unlike now nothing opened on the day after Christmas so I had to wait what seemed like forever to go out and buy something with the cash.

Anyway this year was different. I'd nagged my parents about wanting to buy records and they bought me a second-hand record player with one of those add-on amps and speaker boxes so it would play stereo. Then in amongst the Boots tokens etc I discovered I'd been given record tokens too! Imagine my impatience wanting to hotfoot it into town and a record store!

That year I had enough for two albums - the first two albums I ever bought. I'd already decided to buy 'Then Play On' by Fleetwood Mac, but had no idea what else to get. Then I stumbled on the cover for Led Zeppelin 2 as I was fingering through the album covers all in their plastic covers sitting in the racks. First I loved the name. Then I loved the cover with the zeppelin and the band members all dressed in military uniform. I'd never heard any Zeppelin but the song titles engaged me. 'What Is and What Should Never Be', 'Heartbreaker', 'Ramble On' - all these titles made such promise.

I handed over my tokens and rushed home with my two albums. 'Then Play On' went on first and I soon got bored. It was nothing like 'Oh Well' and I was a bit disappointed. So I put on Led Zeppelin and ogled the Atlantic record label spinning round as I dropped the stylus on the record's edge.

Wow! WOW!!! I couldn't believe my ears as it opened with 'Whole Lotta Love'. I kept turning it louder and louder, then played it again and again. I'd never heard anything like it! I played the rest of the album and was so excited by my discovery. I played it all again and again. Then I recorded it and pumped up the record levels to get more distortion in the guitar parts. Man, this was the best thing I'd ever heard!

When school started again in January I went in with that album under my arm. In music club we hammered it out - their stereo was better than mine! In the coming months that album went to every party, every friends house and bored every girlfriend rigid. I was besotted with it. I knew all the lyrics, had read every word on the album sleeve and record label and swore I would save the money for Led Zeppelin 1.

From that moment on I have been a huge fan. I did lull a bit for a brief flirtation with Yes but I still play Led Zep 2 and it remains as fresh as it sounded then.

Now I have just bought the whole limited edition 2008 Japanese SHM-CD collection - a few hundred quid but I think I qualify as a fan! I'm now waiting for the opportunity to blast it out on my hi-fi.

Never mind the wife is away all weekend... :-)

Cheers,

Rich

Great story Rich, I too got into Zep in 1969. LZ2 was the only album I ever wore out by taking it everywhere with me. Then some bastard borrowed it and I never saw it again. Had to make do with buying it again, but I was gutted because the label wasn't the original pink/plum one.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
joe (Liverpool)

joe (Liverpool)

Posted
Posted

I take it from your posts that you are a new member. Here is my greeting to you....Fuck off!!!! If you don't like Led Zeppelin why the fuck did you join this website? You say Houses Of The Holy is bad,wholly bad, you could possibly be the only one on this website that thinks that. Well done moron, now go onto a website of a group that you like.If there are any, I know try The Tweenies, my daughter used to love their DVD when she was 5.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Knebby

Knebby

Posted
Posted

Hi Guys,

I'm a newb on this forum but a long-term Zep fan. Scouring this forum I just wondered what the demographic was like.

So how and when did you get into Zep? This is my story...

Great post Rich - really felt your story. Welcome!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rustyintegrale

rustyintegrale

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I take it from your posts that you are a new member. Here is my greeting to you....Fuck off!!!! If you don't like Led Zeppelin why the fuck did you join this website? You say Houses Of The Holy is bad,wholly bad, you could possibly be the only one on this website that thinks that. Well done moron, now go onto a website of a group that you like.If there are any, I know try The Tweenies, my daughter used to love their DVD when she was 5.

Hey, if you read my initial post you'll have read that I had a period where I moved away from Zep and got into Yes. This happens to coincide with the release of Houses of the Holy so I'll be honest - this was my first play.

As you will know there is very little that grabs you wholeheartedly from first listen (Led Zep 2 being a notable exception in my case) so it may grow on me.

There's no need to be so aggressive. I understand your fervour and I get that your a fan. But so am I. I am renewing my listening pleasure with Led Zep and discovering the albums I missed first time round. Houses of the Holy is definitely not my favourite however I will give it time.

Thanks,

Rich

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rustyintegrale

rustyintegrale

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Agree with Joe (Liverpool).

I can't imagine wasting my time posting on a forum of a band i kind of liked.

Album or two.

Well it isn't true. I do like them a lot. From 1-4 I played them to death, but after there are some gaps. However I've given Houses of the Holy another couple of goes and the tracks rate from 2-5 stars in my iTunes collection now. You can't expect to like every single song from a band surely?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

LEDZEPPELIN.com

Site Navigation

  • LedZeppelin.com Home
  • News
  • Discography
  • Merchandise
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy

    • Led Zeppelin Timeline

  • Concert Timeline / Database
  • Events
  • Photos
  • Video
    • ×
    ×
    • Create New...