Alreet LZ Official Forum!

[DahveyJones]

Hey Up!

 

Forgot to drop in and say hallow after I joined here. I've occasioned by the forum from time to time when a search brought me in so I thought I might as well join.

 

A kid staying with my step-father over a summer, helping out at his garage in the mornings but in the afternoons, I was by myself in a rural, fairly remote little town and absolutely devoid of any thing to do. Three television stations came in on the black and white set via a set of rabbit ears, whose programming consisted of half day-time serial dramas and half white noise. Long before the internet or even cable television.

 

He did have a small FM radio; however, and I spent many an hour turning the dial trying to find anything that could get my mind off the squalid existence I found myself in for the summer. The odd classical music station, a top 40, but mostly the whiny, cry-in-your-beer country music that I came to despise. Anything that makes one feel worse after listening to it AIN'T GOOD; I don't care what anyone says.

 

So I sat there one dreary afternoon, refrains of Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty adding to the feeling of drab malaise, absentmindedly twisting the dial of the little transistor radio, watching the pack of feral dogs my step-father kept around the place finish off some unfortunate animal that had wandered into the area when I heard the first staccato lines of Whole Lotta Love coming from the tiny speaker. The guitar intro to that song has this way of notifying you that something momentous is about to arrive - and it does! The climax arriving on the cusp of Plant's Nordic calls with the fortuitous tape bleed-through that had the effect of eerie responses - and then those drums to unleash the final onslaught. My lord, this warn't a song, it was a summons to martial engagement - and quite possibly of ancient origin. Fight the hordes indeed.

 

I'd never had music affect me like that before. I didn't so much hear it as I felt it. It had the same sense of the epic as a Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" or "Scotland the Brave" but was earthy, primeval and

witchy.

 

whats that man moving 'cross the stage

it looks a lot like the one used by Jimmy Page

its like a relic from a different age

 

Paul had that one right, didn't he? lol

 

It would be another month or more before I could return to "civilization" where such things as phonographic records could be attained. Until then, all I could do on those solitary afternoons after working at the garage would be to do what any 11 year old boy in in similar straits would do - keep me ear plastered to that radio. Like boys did years before during the early days of space exploration; listening intently for the mysterious beeps emitted by a Soviet satellite on a short-wave receiver.

 

Hearing a Zeppelin track at that time, in that place, seemed as rare and special as hearing signals from Sputnik had been. Most radio stations in the area that billed themselves as 'album oriented rock' seemed to be locked into certain playlists from certain artists - playlists that for the most part didn't include a band called Led Zeppelin. The same ones that years later, wouldn't play The Damned, The Clash. But it just fueled the fire. Embedded a powerful musical presence with an aura of the mysterious. There was no playback, no download, no streaming channels - if you missed it, it was gone and who knew when it would come around again.

 

Anyroads, lol. Pleased to meet you and thanks for the opportunity to reminiscence.